The barrage indeed lifted as they drew within a few hundred metres of the road. The lead elements, Wittman’s panzer included, had spread out across a thousand-metre front, allowing excellent freedom of manoeuvre for all and – as an unintentional bonus – also providing plenty of space between vehicles into which the desperate British MPs were able to channel the hordes of screaming civilians, mostly with great success.
Having considered themselves a good distance behind the official front lines, none of the Allied soldiers present were armed with anything heavier than a rifle or submachine gun, and none were stupid enough to think themselves capable of taking on a panzer division in full flight. A few threw down their weapons and raised their hands in surrender, and were surprised as the enemy units ignored them completely as they drove on. The majority simply continued about their job herding the refugees into groups of relative safety to allow the enemy tanks free passage.
The first wave of panzers passed straight through the line without any appreciable loss of speed, crossing the Hurgada-Al Ismailia Road at several dozen widely-spaced points. Despite the MPs and tank drivers’ best efforts, some casualties were inevitable as panic spread quickly through the ranks of helpless Egyptians and British expatriates alike, but they were minimal for all that and there were remarkably few deaths, all of which were the result of accidental ‘overruns’.
Amazingly, not a single shot was fired as the lead ranks passed through, and Wittman urged them on, leaving the onerous task of disarming and taking control of those left behind to units following in his own rear. The perimeter of RAF Station Kibrit lay just eight kilometres further to the north-east and they could all now sense that victory might well be at hand.
Kriegsmarine Destroyer ZG3 Hermes
Mediterranean Sea, 40km north of the Sinai Peninsula
Kapitän zur See Rolf Johannesson stepped out onto the flying bridge and stared up at the sky, allowing himself a thin smile over the fact that he could in fact actually see the sky for the first time since early that morning. The entire eastern horizon was a lustrous, dazzling blue so bright it threatened to hurt the eyes if one stared into it for too long. As he turned his gaze back to the west – still a fathomless brown cloud of swirling sands that was now thankfully receding – Johannesson thought he’d never seem a sky so beautiful in all his life.
ZG3 Hermes had originally been built for the Royal Hellenic Navy by the master Scottish shipbuilders of Yarrow & Company. Named Vasilefs Georgios in honour of King George I, she was badly damaged during the 1941 German invasion of Greece and the Balkans. Although she was able to limp back to dry dock at the Salamis Naval Yard, the base was later overrun so completely by the speed of the German advance that there was no chance to repair the ship and she was instead scuttled to prevent her falling into enemy hands.
In spite of Greek efforts to the contrary, the Nazis were able to raise and repair the vessel and she was taken into Kriegsmarine service as ZG3 Hermes in March of 1942. A very modern ship of 1,400 tons displacement and a main armament of four 5-inch guns in single turrets, she’d been fitted with the latest in German radar technology and was currently performing radar piquet duties off the Sinai Peninsula, keeping watch against the threat of Allied aerial attack from Syria and Palestine (although a recent, Nazi-supported uprising in Syria had to all intents and purposes neutralised the effectiveness of British forces in that country).
Air attacks from Palestine hadn’t come for some time and today had been no different, the most interesting events for ZG3 being the wild winds of the sandstorm itself – something the captain and crew could easily have done without considering the deleterious effect it’d had on the sea state in that area. He was forced to remind himself of that fact at that moment, clutching desperately at the railing as the ship smashed through a heavy wave and rolled dramatically.
“I do believe this bloody storm is finally over, Rutger!” He called out to his XO through the open bulkhead leading to the main bridge as the ship righted itself once more. “Better let Cairo know – I’m sure they’ll be happy to hear the news…!”
35,000 feet above the Sinai Peninsula
130km east of RAF Station Kibrit
Still circling high over the mountainous Northern Sinai, several minutes passed before Harvey Weems realised that the sandstorm below had indeed subsided. He then took another five minutes to execute another complete 360-degree orbit with one wing of the Super Galaxy banked sharply downward as he used a small pair of binoculars to stare intently at the undulating ranges and peaks below, confirming that fact. Another minute and he was on the radio to Max Thorne, reporting the situation.
“That’s great, Harvey,” Thorne grinned as he walked briskly along the hardened earth of the road leading back toward the main gates, the radio mike held to his lips. “That’s just about the best bloody news I’ve heard so far this morning.” He glanced up at the surrounding sky without missing a step, taking in the local environment. “It’s still for-shit over Kibrit, but I’ll be damned if it doesn’t look better right now than it was five minutes ago.”
“Visibility’s still good above five thousand, so I’m gonna do a fly-by and see what things look like down low,” Weems replied after a moment’s thought. “It’ll take maybe ten minutes to bring us back over the base anyway – by that stage I’m hoping it’ll be clear enough to bring her down in one piece.”
“Fingers crossed, buddy… fingers crossed… Phoenix-Leader over and out…”
The current base command post was a small, reinforced-concrete bunker just off the northern side of the track roughly five hundred metres back from the main gates. Most of the structure had been dug into the surrounding earth, with just its roof and a metre or so of its upper section exposed – barely enough to provide space for several narrow view ports and firing slits along all four sides.
From there the distant sounds of protest and desperation were faint but clear as more displaced civilians continued to arrive at the gates, placing ever greater pressure on the skeleton force of British troops tasked with keeping in secure. Thorne shook his head slowly as he trudged on, real pain in his expression over the unpleasant fact that nothing they could possibly do could help the bulk of the growing mass of refugees beyond the tank traps and barbed wire.
He’d heard a battery of 25-pounders off to the north a few moments earlier, firing from somewhere within the perimeter, and instinctively understood that Wehrmacht forces must have reached the Hurgada-Al Ismailia Road. He knew that any hope of survival for those civilian refugees still on the road was minimal at best and he muttered a very out-of-character prayer of sorts for them: there was always the possibility that the commander in charge of the advance might elect to show some compassion toward the unarmed masses heading south. Thorne was well aware how unlikely that truly was wherever the Nazis were involved and a dark expression flickering across his features as he strode on.
A pair of tank pits had been dug on either side of the road a few dozen metres further on, and as he reached the steps down to the bunker’s underground entrance, Thorne could clearly see the turret of a Sherman Firefly sticking out above the line of the northern pit. The brace of antennae mounted to the turret rear marked it as a commander’s tank, and he recognised the unit markings as those belonging to Major Neville Knowles, CO of 3RTR.
Looking across to the opposite side of the track, he grinned as he caught sight of XFV001 Jake’s angular, slab-sided turret above the matching pit on the southern side – a huge, excavated hole in the ground had been enlarged to accommodate the huge tank by bulldozers of the Royal Engineers just moments before. He could also see Davids standing atop the turret, supervising work on a few final touches to its construction, and the young officer also looked up that moment, recognized Thorne instantly and raised a hand by way of greeting. With a returned wave and a rakish grin, he made his way down the concrete steps and announced his arrival by hammering a fist against the thick steel door.
The door was quickly pulled open a
nd locked securely behind him as he slipped inside and was presented with the sight of a single cramped, dimly-lit space that was barely large enough to accommodate perhaps a dozen HQ staff officers and NCOs and four crews manning Vickers machine guns positioned to fire through the firing slits forward and on either flank. Squadron Leader Hacking was already there as he entered, as were Eileen Donelson and Evan Lloyd.
“Formidable still has no effective contact with Suez,” Hacking advised the moment Thorne was inside, having just received the latest radio report himself. “They do have a message through from Australian High Command however: orders are to evacuate both prototype tanks immediately by air…”
“Didn’t think it’d be long before the buggers worked out where the Galaxy had gotten to,” Thorne observed drily, doing his best to ignore the fact that the situation just became far more complex as a result of that news. “We’ll deal with that when we have to… the whole bloody thing’s academic if we can’t get that big bastard down safely in the first place.” He shrugged, accepting that he’d at least been given an effective segue onto the subject he intended to discuss with them all anyway.
“Harvey reckons the storm’s lifting over the Sinai,” he continued quickly, dismissing the news from Australia for the time being as he drew subdued but nevertheless obvious reactions of relief from all three. “He’s gonna do a fly past to check conditions here and have a go at setting her down if it looks clear enough… we’ve got about ten minutes. Hacking… I want you to make sure ever pilot and air crew is waiting in their aircraft with the engines turning – I need them in the air the moment the skies clear. Fighters first: we need top-cover more than we need offensive strikes at the moment.” As Hacking nodded and immediately turned to pass the orders to another junior officer, Thorne directed his attention to Eileen, adding: “Whaddya got for me, kid?”
“Best count we can put together gives us about three hundred combat personnel, including the crews of the tanks and armoured vehicles that came in with us.” She took a breath and then continued as Thorne grimaced at the unpleasant news of such low numbers. “We can also add to that maybe thirty pilots and enough crews to man perhaps a dozen bombers; assuming of course that they can find enough serviceable aircraft to put that many into the air. Non-combat personnel, support staff and civilians on base amount to perhaps another four hundred…”
“Jesus Christ…” Thorne muttered unhappily under his breath “…what a fuckin’ nightmare…”
“Most of the combat troops will elect to stay…” Eileen ventured carefully, an idea developing in the back of her mind as to what Thorne was thinking.
“I’m willing to bet all of ‘em will volunteer,” Lloyd offered with certainty, working along the same lines “and some of the Pogos probably will too, come to that, if someone’s willing to stick a gun in their hands…” He cocked his head to one side and gave a faint shrug. “Have to at least offer ‘em the chance to leave though…”
“The Galaxy’s plenty big enough, even if the figure of four hundred’s accurate,” Eileen observed softly, quickly making the calculation in her head, “but that’s close to thirty tonnes of weight right there if we assume seventy-to-eighty kilos per person…”
She left the rest of that sentence unsaid. Both Thorne and Lloyd were both aware of the approximate payload capacity of the C-5M – approximately 130-140 tonnes at best – and there was no possible way for the aircraft to take off loaded with four hundred passengers and both tanks. Both she and Evan watched Thorne intently, waiting on his response as he stared off into space momentarily, eyes unfocussed as he sunk into deep thought, while Hacking’s eyes moved between all three, recognising that the conversation was of vital importance.
“How many civilians do you think we have stuck outside the gates right now…?” Thorne asked finally, the unexpected question catching all of them by surprise.
“It’d only be an estimate at the moment but I’d hazard a guess at maybe five or six hundred…” she paused, then added: “…Although that number’s probably already out of date…”
Another long pause as Thorne continued to stare into unfocussed nothingness, his expression hardening infinitesimally around the eyes and mouth in a manner that went unnoticed by all present save for Donelson.
“Fuck the tanks…” he muttered softly, the words intended for his own thoughts and almost too low for other to hear. None of them could have any idea of the intense internal conversation that had just played out within his own mind. He glanced around suddenly, his eyes returning to focus as a vaguely embarrassed expression flickered across his face, almost as if he’d been caught in the middle of some mildly humiliating act.
“Fuck the bloody tanks!” He declared to all and sundry this time, as if a decisive tone might lend legitimacy to his decision to completely ignore his direct orders. “Tell the guys on the gate to start letting those poor buggers in – we’re gonna save as many of ‘em as we can!”
“And those orders from Melbourne…?” Eileen enquired with a faint smile, playing agent provocateur for a moment despite being in complete agreement with the decision.
“Fuck them too!” He shot back with one of his characteristic, lop-sided grins. “Those pricks never liked me anyway. We can make more bloody tanks, and I’d rather lose two of them than abandon a couple of thousand innocent bloody civvies to face the bloody Krauts.”
“Just how big is this aircraft of yours, sir?” Hacking ventured, wondering what kind of plane might conceivably carry a thousand people at a time.
“We’ll not be able to save everyone, squadron leader, but I reckon we might get close to fifteen hundred aboard if we empty her out and refuel after take-off... Anyone got a problem with that…?” He cast a sharp gaze across each officer in turn, eyebrow raised as if daring them to speak up in opposition even though he knew full well what to expect from his team.
“Sounds like a plan to me,” Lloyd ventured with a grin of his own as Eileen simply nodded in agreement.
“What about you, Hacking, Old Son...?” Thorne turned his attention directly upon the young squadron leader, who gathered every ounce of self-control he possessed as he just barely stopped himself from flinching visibly. “One in, all in…?”
“M-me, sir…?” Hacking stammered momentarily before mentally finding his feet once more. “Well sir, I’ve never had much to do with the ‘Gyppos’…” he instantly caught the imperceptible change in Thorne’s body language at his use of the derogatory term and recovered with admirable speed “…but… I’ve generally found people are pretty much just people wherever you go, sir, and I think it’d be awfully unfair for one to leave anyone behind if one were in a position to do something about it.”
Thorne stared long and hard at the young man, sizing him up as he worked on a judgement call as to whether the answer had contained any greater level of racism than what one might have ‘fairly’ expected from any white male during the 1940s.
“Fair enough…” he observed eventually, nodding faintly before turning without another word and moving toward the bunker’s forward observation slits. “Get hold of the RAF Command in Iraq – I sure as hell don’t fancy carting the poor buggers all the way to Ceylon crammed in the back of that bloody plane and I want to find somewhere we can drop them off: Habbaniya, preferably – that’s the biggest airfield in that country right now and the best chance the Galaxy has of getting off the ground again afterward.
“Nice save, mate…” Evan whispered softly in Hacking’s ear, grinning broadly and patting the nerve-wracked squadron leader on the shoulder as he passed. He took up a position to Thorne’s right as the other man – unnoticed by anyone else – suppressed a fleeting smirk of his own upon having clearly heard Lloyd’s soft words.
“…Smartarse…” he added in a similarly soft voice as they stood together, both staring out through the vision slit at the distant gates and the crowd beyond. The only response he received was a single, momentary raise of the eyebrows above an otherwise
fathomless expression.
“You really think we can pull this off?” Evan continued in that same soft tone, although it carried a little more seriousness now.
“Fucked if I know,” Thorne whispered back with a mental shrug. “Gonna give it a red-hot fuckin’ go though.”
“We’ll all be fucked if you don’t pull this off.”
“We’ll all probably be fucked anyway,” Thorne countered with a wry smile. “‘Just following orders’ didn’t cut it for the Nazis at Nuremberg, remember: I wouldn’t count on it cutting much slack as an excuse when we get back, either.”
“You’re just full of good news, aren’t ya…!” The lieutenant growled back sourly, only half joking now.
“People are always saying I’m ‘full of it’…” came the mockingly ‘innocent’ reply.
“Smartarse…!” Lloyd snorted again, barely containing a laugh in spite of himself.
“Contact front… contact front…!” The alert call came from Hacking’s communications officer as the man rose from his position at a small desk in one corner of the bunker, dragging the headset from his ears. “Forward scouts east of the Hurgada-Al Ismaileya Road report large enemy force advancing across a broad front toward Kibrit. At current speed they’ll be within visual range of the perimeter in ten minutes or less.
Almost on cue, they all heard the crump of artillery firing once more from the north, this time joined shortly after by several mortar emplacements closer in toward the gates. The standard-issue British 3-inch mortar had a maximum range of just 2,500 metres, and that fact left all of them with the sobering realisation that this meant the enemy’s advanced units were now very close.
“Well there goes the fuckin’ neighbourhood,” Thorne snarled, all good humour gone in that moment. “Hacking… get the gates open and start bringing everyone inside! We need ‘em waiting at the southern end of the runways ASAP – as many as you can… and tell the unit commanders on the perimeter that those Squareheaded bastards must not come within direct line-of-sight of the runways – even one machine gun round into the wrong place on that aircraft would be enough to bugger us all up completely!”
Winds of Change (Empires Lost Book 2) Page 85