The Sand Panthers

by Leo Kessler

  ‘Oh shut up!’ von Dodenburg yelled. He grabbed the mike. ‘Commander to all vehicles,’ he roared above the ever increasing howl, trying to ignore the sand particles striking his face like angry hailstones, ‘Proceed to the high ground at two o’clock and stop motors! I repeat – high ground at two o’clock and stop motors. Over and out!’ He dropped the mike and ducked behind the cover of the turret as the sandstorm struck the column at 150 kilometres an hour. Next to him Schulze howled with pain as the flying sand particles cut into his broad face like a myriad, red-hot stilettos.

  The rest of the column vanished in the whirling storm of sand. Breathing became difficult. Von Dodenburg felt as if he were being garrotted. The hellish fog of sand snatched the air from his lungs. Next to him Schulze and the ‘Prof’ were choking for breath like asthmatics.

  Pulling down his sand-goggles, von Dodenburg glanced over the turret. If the rest of his force was there somewhere, he could not see them. They had vanished into the flying wall of sand. For all he knew they were all alone in this crazy anarchic world. Full of apprehension he ducked his head behind cover again.

  Somehow Matz managed to drive on, while the wind shrieked furiously across the desert, as if some God on high had ordained that these puny mortals, who had had the temerity to venture into this burning world, should be wiped from the face of the earth.

  Over the intercom von Dodenhurg heard Matz curse. The Mark IV lurched to a stop. Had Matz managed to reach the ridge at two o’clock? Or had something broken down? At that moment, von Dodenburg neither knew nor cared. Nothing mattered, save the task of surviving the elemental fury of the storm.

  Then as suddenly as it had started, the storm declined. The terrifying howl gave way to a lower keening, which soon disappeared altogether, leaving behind an echoing silence.

  Like blind men the soldiers in the turret stretched out their hands to feel their bodies. Von Dodenburg rubbed his sand-goggles clean. Next to him Schulze and the ‘Prof’ were clearing away the thick layer of sand which covered their bodies. He stood up, sand pouring from his body and stared over the turret.

  The desert was transformed. The ridge he had directed his vehicles to had inexplicably vanished. So had the rest of the column. They were alone.

  ‘Christ Almighty!’ he cursed and pressed his throat mike urgently. ‘Matz, get the thing started up again. We’ve got to find the rest of the column – at once,’ he ordered.

  ‘Sorry, sir,’ Matz’s voice came over the intercom. ‘I think we’ve shot a track. I’m getting no traction.’

  ‘Scheisse! All right, Matz, I’ll have a look.’

  Swiftly von Dodenburg dropped over the side into the sand which had buried the lower track. He grubbed away the sand the whole length of the track, trying to find the source of trouble. Then he found it. Something had caught a connecting pin and had twisted it out of all recognition. One of the pin’s jagged ends had been carried over the sprocket wheel until it had become embedded in the sand-shield on that side of the tank? Now there was a mass of tangled metal stuck there.

  Matz joined von Dodenburg. ‘What a shitty mess!’

  ‘What a shitty mess, indeed!’ von Dodenburg agreed.

  For a few minutes the two of them stood there surveying the wreckage in silence until Matz said: ‘It can be fixed, sir. But it’ll take a bit of time. And I’ll need that big Hamburg ox up there to give me a hand.’

  ‘All right,’ von Dodenburg made a quick decision. ‘Prof you give these two rogues here a bit of cover. I’m going to see if I can find the others. They can’t have got far,’ he added hopefully. He pulled down a water bottle and slung it over his shoulder next to his machine pistol. ‘If I don’t find them in the next fifteen minutes, I’ll come back and give you a hand. We’ll try to raise the rest of the Company by radio, though God knows how I’ll be able to give them a fix on us when I don’t know where the hell we are.’ With that he started on his search.

  * * *

  He could barely hear the clang of Schulze’s sledge hammer on the jammed metal and the tank itself was hidden behind a ridge. He glanced at his watch. He had already been walking ten minutes. But there was still no sign of the rest of the column. Von Dodenburg frowned with irritation. Had they gone blundering on, blinded by the storm, and thinking that the command tank was still in the lead?

  ‘Damn the two of them,’ he cursed the 18-year-old second-lieutenants. ‘They should have tumbled to the fact that we’re missing by –’ The angry words died on his lips.

  On the far horizon, a line of dark figures had suddenly appeared. He breathed a sigh of relief and pulling his binoculars out of their case, focused them hurriedly.

  He saw immediately that they were not his men. The strangers, strung out in a long line, were dressed in the flowing robes of the desert Arab and they were riding on camels. He adjusted the glasses more finely and tried to pick out the details of the first rider. Suddenly he gasped and lowered the glasses hurriedly. An instant later he was running heavily through the soft sand the way he had come. The leading rider’s face was covered by a blue veil!

  FIVE

  Von Dodenburg tensed over the radio. ‘Here Sunray…here Sunray,’ he called desperately…. ‘Do you read me, over?’ He flicked the mike switch and waited anxiously, while the other three stared up at him in taut anticipation.

  There was no answering crackle.

  Angrily he thrust the mike back on its hook. ‘The damned fools must be on radio silence – or something equally idiotic,’ he snapped.

  ‘What now?’ the ‘Prof asked.

  Von Dodenburg straightened up and stared out of the turret. The horizon was still empty. ‘All right,’ he decided, ‘we’ll continue working.’ He unslung his machine pistol and slapped it in the ‘Prof’s’ unwilling hands. ‘I’m going to help Schulze and Matz. You stand guard.’

  ‘But I’ve never fired one of these,’ Reichart protested. ‘I don’t know how it works.’

  ‘Well, now is obviously a good time to find out,’ von Dodenburg cried, seizing the pin and holding it against the jammed part, while Schulze grunted and brought down the sledgehammer.

  One blow sufficed. The track-pin parted and landed with a tinkle of metal on the pebbles, while the sound of the sledge echoed and re-echoed across the desert. Von Dodenburg dropped the other pin. Close at hand he heard the crackle of camel-thorn, or so he thought. He straightened up; the horizon was still empty. All the same, every nerve of his body tensed for the shock of discovery and rattle of rifle-fire which would follow. Surely the Arabs must have heard! He tried to dismiss the Blue Veils from his mind and snapped: ‘All right, Schulze, grab one of the crowbars! Matz, Schulze and I will lift up the sandshield, you grab the track. When I say “heave” – heave!’

  Matz nodded. He took hold of the severed piece of track and prepared to pull, while von Dodenburg and Schulze thrust the crowbars underneath the sand-shield. The Major spat on his palms and commanded: ‘One, two, three – heave!’

  There was a rending, metallic sound which von Dodenburg thought must have been heard for kilometres, but still Matz was unable to pull the trapped section free.

  ‘Christ on a crutch!’ Schulze roared in sudden anger at Matz. ‘What are you – a shitty pygmy or something? Too much wanking, Matzi, that’s your trouble. Sapping your strength you are!’

  Von Dodenburg glanced at the horizon. It was still empty, thank God! ‘Come on,’ he gasped, ‘let’s save our breath and get on with it!’

  Twice more they tried to free the section of trapped track and twice they failed. By now von Dodenburg’s nerves were jangling. His imagination was prey to every terror. Shapes which he had marked out of the corner of his eyes as bushes or patches of camel-thorn suddenly moved or disappeared. New shapes appeared momentarily where there had been none before.

  ‘Come on,’ he croaked, wiping away the beads of sweat which threatened to blind him, ‘let’s have another go at the sodding thing!’

  Angrily the three o
f them took up their positions once more. ‘Now HEAVE!’ von Dodenburg cried.

  There was the searing sound of metal freeing itself and then Matz was lying on his back in the sand, with a length of track draped across his skinny body. Slowly the rest of the track slithered over the runners and flopped to the ground like a suddenly severed limb.

  Schulze dropped his crowbar and glared at Matz, pinned down by the weight of the track. ‘Well, don’t just lie there, you cripple, like a pissy-assed spare prick in a convent. Getup!’

  ‘I can’t,’ Matz said through gritted teeth. ‘I’ve got this shitty thing on my chest, you stupid bastard!’

  ‘Quick,’ von Dodenburg ordered. ‘There’s no time to be lost!’ Together the two men pulled the length of damaged track off Matz’s chest and then ran to the spares’ bin. Schulze grunted, and exerting all his tremendous strength, hauled out a replacement section of track. He dropped it to the ground. Swiftly the men went to work to fit the new section.

  While von Dodenburg sweated and strained to loosen the idler wheel adjustment, Matz and Schulze linked the new part to the old track and started to thread it across the runners once more. The noise the three of them made was tremendous. But von Dodenburg knew it could not be helped. The Blue Veils would discover them soon and even behind the 80mm armour they would not be safe from them. It was an old adage in Assault Regiment Wotan that an immobilized tank was nothing better than a coffin, once it was surrounded by determined infantry. A carefully placed hand grenade would ensure that the biggest tank was soon dead. Thus he laboured with the others, sweating and cursing, expecting Reichert’s shout of warning at any moment.

  It came in a frightened quaver. ‘Major…Major von Dodenburg, look!’ The ‘Prof’ pointed a skinny finger, which trembled visibly, to the horizon.

  On the horizon, silhouetted against the setting sun like some classical frieze, twenty or more of the riders were strung out in a long line gazing down at them in silence.

  ‘What shall I do?’ the ‘Prof’ asked fearfully. ‘They’re the Blue Veils all right.’

  ‘Don’t worry, Prof. Those rifles have – at the most – a range of a hundred metres. And they’re more than two hundred away. If they get closer, give them a quick burst.’ While the three of them continued in their desperate attempts to link the two sections of track, a group of the Blue Veils dismounted from the camels. Under the command of an Arab they began to unpack a shining cylindrical object from the back of one of the kneeling pack-camels.

  Just as the three SS men managed to pull the two sections of track together and Schulze started to hammer home the link-pin, von Dodenburg glanced at the Blue Veils. His heart sank. The Arabs were setting up a mortar on the heights, and if they did not get under way quickly, they would be sitting ducks in the hollow at that range. He had underestimated the Blue Veils.

  ‘Mortar!’ he gasped.

  ‘I’ll get the pincers,’ Matz cried. ‘You fit the cotter-pin, Schulze.’

  ‘No time,’ the sweating giant cried through gritted teeth. He inserted the pin which held the track-link in place and taking a deep breath, he turned it with his powerful fingers, feeling metal dig deep into his flesh as he did so. ‘That’ll do,’ he yelled and kicked the track with his big boot. It held. ‘Come on, get the lead out of your ass, Matzi! Into that driving compartment!’ Matz saw the danger at once. He scrambled for the driving seat, while von Dodenburg and Schulze clambered onto the turret.

  The light mortar opened up with a cough and a frightening howl. Crouched in the turret, the SS men could see the black blob of the mortar bomb wobbling downwards through the darkening sky. It exploded with a thick crump. Sand shot skywards, some twenty metres away and showered the tank with pebbles and small boulders. They ducked instinctively.

  On the ridge, the Blue Veils under the direction of the little Arab made an adjustment and re-loaded. Down below in the green-glowing driving compartment, Matz completed all his frantic starting checks. Just as the second mortar bomb began to howl towards them, he pressed the starter-button. Nothing happened!

  SIX

  Schulze swept the ridge with the machine-gun, but the Blue Veils had anticipated that. They had dragged their camels hurriedly behind the cover of the height and after a moment’s pause had begun firing once more from beyond it; and from the way the first bomb came winging down only a dozen metres away, von Dodenburg realized with a sinking feeling that the man who was directing the firing knew his mortars.

  Below Matz wrestled with the engines. Frantically he pressed the starter time and time again. But it would not start. Desperately von Dodenburg clenched his fists in anxiety and willed the shitty monster to fire. Soon he knew the little Arab would get lucky and land a bomb right on the turret, or on top of the engines. Even if they survived the explosion, which was unlikely, then they would be easy meat for Blue Veil infiltrators. Matz had to start the engines!

  Cursing furiously, Matz fought to start up. And then he had it. There was a long, low groan like some eerie unearthly dirge. Von Dodenburg glanced to the rear, just as another mortar bomb landed so close that the blast ripped the shovel clipped to the turret away. A stream of black smoke was pouring from the twin exhausts. Matz was doing it. He pressed his throat mike urgently. ‘It’s working, Matz,’ he cried. ‘Come on…come on!’

  The noise grew in intensity. The Mark IV shivered violently. Its every plate rattled, as if it might fall apart at any moment. An ashen-faced ‘Prof’ hung on grimly, his lips moving rapidly in prayer. A sharp series of backfires. A burst of bright white smoke. Next moment the twin engines roared into full life. Frantically Matz gunned the engines, and slammed home the gear.

  Just as the bomb intended to land right on the trapped tank’s turret came hurtling down out of the dark sky with a stomach-churning howl, the big tank lurched forward. With his engines still not reliable enough for him to brake and turn, Matz made his own decision and rolled straight ahead, right into the Blue Veils’ positions.

  Too late to brake, too late to slow down, the 25-ton monster shot over the ridge. In panic the Arabs around the mortar scattered. A boy fell screaming under the tracks and Matz caught a quick glimpse of rouged cheeks and painted eyebrows, before he was dragged under, churned to a bloody pulp of flesh and bone by the great tracks. However, he had no time for the Blue Veils. His whole energy was concentrated on keeping the tank from overturning on the almost sheer descent which had suddenly loomed up before his horrified gaze.

  The left-hand track hit a hidden boulder with a bone-shuddering impact. Instinctively Matz braked the track. In a blinding flurry of sand, the tank swerved to the left. Somehow Matz managed to keep control with hands that were dripping with sweat, as it began to slither sidewards down the slope. One false move now and they would be over. Behind them the Arabs lying in the sand were taking wild angry shots.

  Gingerly Matz started to brake the right track. The Mark IV wobbled violently. Sand showered up from the tracks. They were only a matter of metres from the bottom of the descent now. Matz exerted more pressure on the right track. It screamed as it churned up sand. Matz tensed for the bone-breaking crash that must come. A huge wake of flying sand was following their progress down the slope in a hellish howl of protesting metal. Then the track caught. Revolving frantically, showering up stones and rocks, the other track caught hold. They started to swing around. Matz pressed his foot down hard on the gas pedal, and chanced more pressure on the right track. The Mark IV did not let him down. Now it swung right round and in a flash they were hurtling down the steep incline, with Matz holding on the controls, his stomach seemingly floating somewhere high above his sweat-drenched head.

  Just before the tank ran full-tilt into the depression, Matz braked, let go, and braked again. The trick worked. They hit the bottom at less than ten kilometres an hour. At any other speed, it would have shattered there. Just before the tank came to rest, Matz tapped the accelerator. The twin engines responded at once.

  They throbbed swee
tly and swiftly built up power. The tracks bit into the soft sand of the ascent on the other side. They held! Matz breathed a sigh of relief. Slowly but surely, the battered Panzerkampfwagen IV started to climb while behind them the sound of the Blue Veils’ firing grew fainter and fainter. They had escaped!

  Thirty minutes later they bumped into the stalled Italian truck, its back filled with the Italian soldiers Schulze had kidnapped from the quay. They were drunk and unhappy, eating sticky chocolate sandwiches and drinking the Chianti they had stolen from the German Supply Depot. They were lost too and frightened, very frightened.

  For a moment von Dodenburg was bewildered. While Matz and Schulze grabbed what was left of the Chianti, he leaned weakly against the side of the truck, drained of energy. However, the crackle of the radio in the truck’s cabin soon shook him out of his reverie.

  By some stroke of good fortune, the Italians’ radio was on the column’s net!

  Thrusting the anxious Italians out of the way, von Dodenburg grabbed the mike and bellowed into it. ‘Hello, here Sunray…here Sunray. Are you reading me? ...’

  One hour later they had rejoined the column.

  SEVEN

  Angrily Slaughter scooped out the two yolks of the precious fried eggs with his fingers, Arab-fashion, and swallowed them. By the light of the flickering camel-dung fire, Yassa looked at him silently and thoughtfully, smoking his cigarette in the Mohammedan manner so that his lips did not come in contact with the tobacco, as the Prophet had prescribed. He was an incredibly wrinkled old man beneath his blue veil, his eyebrows plucked in what he thought was a seductive curve and great smears of kohl below the tired yellow eyes. Yet if the Blue Veil Chiefs face and manner were pathetic attempts at female coquettism, there was nothing weak or unmasculine about his determination. Stretching one painted hand to the warmth of the fire, he said: ‘We shall ride all day and all night. We might not catch them the night of the morrow, nor the night of the day after that.’