by Shaun Clarke
As the LRDG drivers eased their feet off the accelerators, slowing down when they reached the bottom of the hill and heading once more across the flat, sunscorched plain, Marty fired a final, defiant burst at the disappearing CR.42s, then raised his right fist in the air and whooped triumphantly.
Almost immediately, another Chevrolet emerged from the boiling sand and Marty saw the flushed face of Sergeant ‘Bulldog’ Bellamy glaring grimly at him.
‘What the hell are you celebrating?’ Bellamy bawled as his truck kept abreast of Red’s. ‘We were pursued, you stupid prat! We’re not supposed to be bloody pursued. We’re supposed to pursue! So stop looking so bloody pleased with yourself and act like a real soldier.’
‘Yes, Sarge!’ Marty shouted back. ‘Absolutely, Sarge!’
Bellamy shook his head from side to side, as if in despair, then angrily smacked his hand against his steering wheel and put his foot down again. As his Chevrolet raced away, into the swirling sand, Marty saw, through the murk, another face staring at him, this one grinning in good-humoured mockery. It was Captain Kearney.
For the next few days the LRDG vehicles roamed far and wide across the Western Desert, often crossing their own tracks to ensure that the Axis forces could not easily follow them. Once they were off the high plateau and down on the desert floor, Captain Kearney’s strategy was to send the Chevrolets off in many different directions, looking for the enemy, with orders to report back at a certain time to the selected rendezvous, or RV, when each patrol leader would report on what he had seen.
When previously unknown Axis MSRs were located, the whole patrol would drive there and take up a suitable position from which they could observe the passing traffic. When details of the traffic on the MSR had been ascertained by a single day’s observation and the general direction of the MSR calculated by the survey section, Sergeant Bellamy would enter the details in his notebook and Captain Kearney would then relay them to MEHQ Cairo. From there, the intelligence gathered would be relayed to the British airfield at Geneina where reconnaissance planes would be sent out to track the whole MSR from beginning to end, take aerial photographs of the enemy positions located along it, and arrange for fighter planes and bombers to attack it.
Hiding in their shallow scrapes in the desert floor, or under their camouflaged trucks, the LRDG troopers were often gratified to hear the distant explosions and see great fans of fire illuminating the horizon where night raids against the enemy positions located by them were taking place.
Sometimes the enemy MSRs were viewed from far away through binoculars, with the Chevrolets carefully camouflaged to look like small dunes or large rocks and the men lying belly down on the ground, gradually being covered by the ever-shifting sands. At other times, however, Captain Kearney would make them take lyingup positions (LUPs) behind sand dunes that sloped right down to the edge of the road along which the Axis traffic was passing. When this was the case, Marty was simultaneously shocked and thrilled at just how close to the enemy he was – so close he could clearly see the features of the passing Italian or German soldiers– and would study the passing troop trucks, tanks and halftracks with wide-eyed, unblinking fascination, hardly daring to breathe.
The Germans, he was forced to admit, looked like real fighting soldiers – bristling with polished weapons, Zeiss binoculars around their necks and gleaming Beretta pistols or Lugers in their holsters – but the Italians, who did not look like fighters at all, tended to carry their belongings in cardboard boxes and had bottles of Chianti tied to their belts, rather than holsters. With their ill-fitting uniforms and unshaven chins, they looked like peasants who had stepped into this war by accident and did not wish to be here.
Seeing the enemy this close filled Marty with immense frustration – the circumstances seemed so good for an ambush – and eventually, unable to restrain himself, he raised the subject with Captain Kearney.
‘Impatient little devil, aren’t you?’ Kearney responded.
‘Yes, sir, I suppose so. But it seems such a waste to be so close to them and not be able to take advantage of it. A right bloody waste, sir.’
To Marty’s horror, Kearney, grinning wickedly, turned to the grimfaced Bulldog Bellamy. ‘Did you hear that, Sarge? Young Private Butler here seems to think it’s a waste not to attack those Axis forces when we have them under our very noses.’
‘Oh, does he now?’ Bulldog glared at Marty as if wanting to bite his head off. ‘Then perhaps we should send the impatient private out into the desert alone with orders to bring back a few scalps. Perhaps he’s seen too many American films about cowboys and Indians and doesn’t know what the real world’s all about. Maybe thinks he’s John Wayne.’
‘You may be right, Sarge.’
When Bellamy had stomped off, throwing another fierce glance at Marty, Kearney said, ‘He’ll ride your back now.’
‘Yes, sir, he will. So why did you say that?’
‘Because I’ve read your report, Private Butler, and I’ve been keeping my eye on you. You’re a damned fine soldier, a natural, but you lack patience and commonsense. When you learn both – which you will if Sergeant Bellamy rides your back – you’ve turn into a truly exceptional soldier.’
‘So why don’t we attack the enemy when they’re so close?’ Marty persisted.
‘Because we couldn’t do so without having our own casualties. Where those casualties are wounded, rather than dead, we’d have to take them with us, which would make our work virtually impossible. As the results of our work do more damage to the enemy than anything we could possibly do alone, we stay under cover and do what we can without endangering ourselves. In other words, we’ll only engage the enemy when it’s reasonably safe to do so – or when it’s absolutely unavoidable. Any more questions, Private Butler?’
‘No, sir,’ Marty said.
Kearney led the patrol farther into the desert, heading straight for the setting sun. As they travelled on across the vast plains, into deepening darkness, featureless desert all around them, a line of mountains in the distance, they passed a caravan of Senussi Bedouin: bearded sheiks, women in colourful robes, donkeys and heavily burdened camels, all silhouetted by the bloodred, darkening sky.
Though he had seen similar before, Marty could never quite accept that the Bedouin were real, that they could remain so unchanged while a war was raging about them with all technology. The Nevertheless, the fact that Captain Kearney was leading the convoy at an exceptionally slow pace, frequently stopping altogether to get out of his truck and examine the ground for landmines, was a grim reminder that the war was still engaged and, though presently off stage, was an ever present danger.
Also likely to make the men forget that a war was still raging were the gazelle that often appeared, seemingly out of nowhere, racing across the desert plain with graceful, almost effeminate, leaps and bounds. Though sublimely beautiful, the gazelle were, particularly in daytime, often shot, cooked and eaten by the LRDG troopers; but as this was night-time, when gunshots could give away the presence of the convoy to the enemy, these particular gazelle escaped unharmed.
When night fell completely, plunging the desert into moonlit darkness, while letting the sky fill up with magnificent tapestries of lush stars, progress became even slower because the danger of old and new minefields remained. Also, Captain Kearney had to stop their advance ever more frequently in order to navigate by fixing the convoy’s position with star bearings and checking them against his astro-navigation tables with the aid of a torch. Last but not least, the usual hourly check of the vehicles and weapons had to be maintained, even given the extreme difficulty of doing so in darkness, aided only by moonlight or torches held downwards to prevent them being seen by enemy patrols or aircraft.
Their daily routine was broken only twice. In the first instance, Kearney received a communication from MEHQ Cairo, ordering him to use the patrol to transfer the might Bedouin of modern military seemed oblivious. important material from one British position to another, w
hich could be done only by passing through enemy lines. In the second instance, they were ordered to pick up a British intelligence agent from a Bedouin camp just outside Agedabia, where he had been transported by friendly Egyptians after masquerading as an Arab and living under the very noses of the German forces holding Benghazi.
As the second week ran into a third, Marty felt himself sinking into his environment and becoming more instinctive in everything he did. In fact, for the first time since enlisting, he felt like a proper soldier – a ‘natural’, as Captain Kearney had put it – and this realization was, he felt, being silently confirmed by the new respect shown to him by Bulldog Bellamy.
‘That’s respect worth having,’ Red told him. ‘Sergeant Bellamy’s a bloody tough bastard, but he’s the best there is. If he respects you, you’ve earned it.’
‘What about Captain Kearney?’ Marty asked. ‘Where does he come from?’
‘From Number Eight Commando. Believe it or not, he used to be an Irish rugby international and semiprofessional boxer. He’s normally good-humoured, as you’ve probably noticed, but he’s got a bloody awful temper that’s always getting him into hot water. In fact, he came to the LRDG from a cell at the MP barracks in Bab el Hadid in Cairo, where he was waiting for courtmartial proceedings for taking a punch at his CO. But he’s an exceptional soldier, already mentioned in despatches for his bravery in action, so instead of a court-martial he was given the option of service with the LRDG. Just like you, mate.’
Indeed, having also been incarcerated, even if only briefly, in the cells of Bab el Hadid, Marty felt that he had something in common with Captain Kearney and could not help admiring him. In fact, taking the two men together – Kearney and Bulldog Bellamy– Marty felt that he was in the company of two men who could take as much as they gave. In short, no matter how hard they pushed him, they were men he respected.
While enemy aircraft had frequently flown overhead and many enemy patrols had been seen, the luck of the LRDG held for nearly four weeks, with no direct confrontations other than that single air attack during the second day of the patrol. During the fourth week, however, when the Chevrolets were out in the open desert, driving away from yet another road watch in the vicinity of Agheila, a couple of German Ju-87 Stukas barrelled down out of the clear sky to bomb and strafe the convoy.
Before the LRDG drivers had time to disperse, bombs exploded in the middle of the single-file convoy, between two Chevrolets. The powerful blast caught the front of the second truck, setting fire to its petrol tank and picking it up off the desert floor to hurl it onto its side in geysering sand and billowing clouds of dust. Though some of the LRDG drivers had broken away from the main convoy and were racing off across the desert, those nearest to the explosions braked to a halt, with some of the men spilling out to help those trapped in the blazing truck and the others opening up on the diving Stukas with their anti-tank rifles and machine guns.
Firing his own machine gun while Red and Tone raced across to the blazing Chevrolet, where the men trapped inside could be heard screaming horribly, Marty was conscious only of the snout of the Stuka that appeared to be diving straight at him with its guns stitching twin lines of spitting sand. These raced up to the Chevrolet as if about to cut straight through it, but then, miraculously, ran spitting around both sides of it and passed on as the Stuka ascended again.
With the barrel of his Browning almost vertical, Marty kept firing until the Stuka was out of sight, then he lowered the barrel and fired steadily at the next one. He was still firing when two more bombs exploded nearby, this time very close, sending him spinning off the Chevrolet in a roaring wave of sand. He felt the brutal impact of his body hitting the ground, choked in the dense, descending sand, then dropped down through a funnel of darkness, into streaming stars.
Lesley! he cried out in his mind, convinced that he was about to die and welling up with love for her. Lesley, I…
Regaining consciousness a few minutes later, choking and coughing, he instinctively clawed his way out of the impacted sand that could have buried him alive. Crawling back out to the dazzling light of the desert sun, he saw some of the others, including Red and Tone, dragging the scorched, blackened bodies of three of the LRDG men out of the still-burning wreckage of their vehicle. Clambering to his feet, he staggered over to the others and saw instantly that all three of the horribly burnt men were dead and that one of the charred corpses was minus the lower half of his left leg. The truck in front had also caught part of the blast and was nose-deep in the sand with its reinforced rear bumper hanging off and some of its kit scattered in the sand around it.
Captain Kearney was still sitting upright in the front seat, but he wasn’t moving much and blood was pouring from his nose and ears, as well as from the many small wounds caused by imbedded shrapnel. Bulldog Bellamy was easing the wounded officer into a more comfortable position in the seat, prior to the long drive back to base.
Feeling impelled to help, Marty stepped forward and then felt his legs giving way beneath him. Again, he dropped down through that funnel of darkness, into streaming stars. This time, when he entered that realm of stars, he travelled on to oblivion.
Chapter Five
They were called the ‘Originals’. The first men to gather together at the ramshackle, ill-equipped camp in the furnace of Kabrit, overlooking the Great Bitter Lake in the Suez Canal zone, had been searched out across the length and breadth of Cairo as soldiers of particular ability and initiative. One of them was Marty, who could scarcely believe that he was here and not actually dead. In fact, only three weeks ago, he had regained consciousness in the holding bay of an RAF Hudson transport, relieved to learn that he was still alive, suffering only from mild concussion and bad bruising. When the transporter had touched down in Cairo, he was taken by ambulance to the 63rd General Hospital, Helmieh, where he spent a couple of weeks recuperating. Receiving a visit from Tone Williams, he learned that Captain Kearney had also survived the explosion and was recovering in the Scottish Hospital, Cairo.
During his recuperation, Marty slept a lot and had intensely erotic dreams in which Lesley made love to him with an abandon she had not displayed during their single honeymoon night in the Savoy Hotel. Nevertheless, the dreams succeeded in resurrecting her almost forgotten image and made him fill up with longing for her. Lying in his bed with little else to do, he thought frequently of the inhibitions she had displayed in bed, blamed it on nervousness caused by her conservative upbringing, and vowed to treat her with care and consideration when next he returned home on leave. He would be a tender lover and understanding husband. He would gradually awaken her to womanhood and enrich both their lives.
By the end of the first week, however, when the headaches and body pains were fading away, he felt fit enough to flirt with the nurses, sit out on the verandah to read, and even secretly drink whisky purchased from some energetic black-marketeering patients. By the end of the second week his low boredom threshold was making him so restless that he talked the British Army doctor into discharging him earlier than planned.
Back in Cairo, at the start of two weeks’ convalescence leave, he soon realized that his constant thinking about Lesley had merely increased his sexual hunger. Unable to fight the urge, but determined not to contract VD, he booked himself into a room in Tiger Lil’s and hired an eighteen-year-old Egyptian whore, Fatima, for the whole two weeks, on the understanding that she would not fraternize with any other customers during her time with him. He was still there, exploring the city by day and bedding Fatima by night, when he received a written note from Captain Kearney, inviting him to join a new, secret regiment that was being formed by Captain David Stirling, formerly of No. 8 Commando.
Visiting Kearney in the Scottish Hospital, where he was still recovering from a badly wounded left leg and temporary deafness, Marty learned that Captain Stirling and another officer of No. 8 Commando, Lieutenant ‘Jock’ Lewes, had come up with the idea of attacking enemy rear areas with small units instead
of hundreds of men. With the support of General Ritchie, the Deputy Chief of General Staff, they were raising a new raiding unit of no more than two hundred men, split into fourman teams, to be inserted by plane behind enemy lines, a long way from their intended destination, to attack several Axis airfields on the same night. Exfiltration would be by a ‘taxi service’ supplied by the LRDG.
The men selected for this highly dangerous task would be trained personally by Captain Stirling, Captain Kearney and Lieutenant Lewes. Though Stirling and Kearney held the same rank, the former would be in command of the unit with the latter as his second-incommand. The parent body for the unit was to be a nonexistent Special Air Service Brigade, known as L Detachment. Their base would be at Kabrit, in the Suez Canal zone.
‘So are you in or out?’ Kearney asked Marty. ‘I’m in,’ Marty told him.
Now, mere days after that meeting, Marty was
standing in the furnace of Kabrit with Captain Kearney, Sergeant Bellamy, Corporal Red Lester, Private Tone Williams and a whole bunch of other volunteers. The others he did not know, though all of them had already dispensed with the badges and uniforms of their former regiments and instead were wearing clothing appropriate to the desert: khaki shirt and shorts, British Army boots with rolled-down socks, and a soft peaked cap instead of a helmet. Each man also had a FairbairnSykes fighting knife and Browning 9mm High Power handgun strapped to his waist.
The camp itself consisted of no more than three moth-eaten tents for the men, a command tent with a wooden card table and stool, and one badly battered three-ton truck.
‘This is it?’ Marty enquired disbelievingly of Red Lester as they stood near the back end of the single truck, sweating in the scorching heat, coughing sand from their lungs, and frantically swotting away clouds of buzzing flies, mosquitoes and midges.