The Sand Panthers

by Leo Kessler

  * * *

  But there was to be no combat for Sergeant Doerr’s panzer grenadiers that dawn. Five minutes before zero hour, von Dodenburg, crouching in the undergrowth with Schulze and the ‘Prof’, was startled by a sudden burst of machine-gun fire followed by a series of screams. He rose to his feet at once and blew his whistle shrilly. ‘Come in,’ he called and charged forward at the head of the other section of panzer grenadiers.

  Their sudden rush came to a halt among the tents. Tommies, most of them naked or clad only in their underpants were lying slaughtered as they slept. While the SS men stood there shocked and bewildered, a group of grinning Egyptian soldiers butchered a grievously wounded Tommy, plunging their long bayonets time and time again into his naked back with wolfish pleasure. The tented camp was a bloody hell of murdered men, scuffed sand, gleaming empty cartridge cases, the groans of the dying drowned by the excited cries of the Egyptians who were already looting the possessions of the men whom they had just murdered. It was too much, even for hard-bitten Sergeant Doerr. He kicked the Egyptians plunging their bayonets into the body of the British soldier and shouted, ‘Stop it, you bunch of treacherous bastards!’

  Von Dodenburg pulled him away just as the Egyptians’ commanding officer appeared from behind the radio tent.

  ‘Major Mustafa, at your service!’ he announced and raised his flabby hand to his jauntily tilted red fez, flashing von Dodenburg a gold-toothed smile. ‘We have done our job well – no?’

  Von Dodenburg looked at the Major’s pale face adorned with an immense pair of dyed black moustaches in a ludicrous imitation of a British Army officer, and took an instant dislike to the man. All the same he saluted and said: ‘You have done an excellent job, Major. Let me introduce myself. Von Dodenburg, Major, SS Battalion Wotan.’

  ‘Charmed,’ Major Mustafa said and extended his hand.

  Von Dodenburg took it. The hand was flabby, damp and disgusting. He swore to himself that he would not touch another person until he had washed his own hand. ‘Did you get the radio station, Major?’ he asked urgently.

  Again the Major flashed that brilliant smile and indicated the young Tommy lying naked in the sand, a bayonet protruding from between his shoulder blades and what looked like a carving knife skewered right through his left leg and deep into the sand. ‘Yes, the pig didn’t want to die.’

  ‘The radio operator?’

  ‘Exactly,’ the Major smirked. ‘We of the Royal Egyptian Army are matched only by your own Army in efficiency.’ His smile vanished and he looked around the handful of panzer grenadiers grouped among the tents. ‘But is this all that his Excellency Marshal Rommel has sent us to rouse the Delta?’ he asked in sudden alarm.

  Von Dodenburg shook his head and fought back his disgust; he had seen the sudden look of abject fear in the Egyptian’s black eyes. ‘No, I have a full company of tanks out there in the desert, waiting for my signal… Mark IVs,’ he added.

  ‘Mark IVs!’ the Major breathed, his fear vanishing immediately. ‘Excellent, the most powerful tank in the desert. Now we shall show those pigs of Englishmen.’

  He spat viciously into the sand.

  ‘How?’ von Dodenburg protested. ‘I don’t even know who my contact is for the next stage of this operation.’

  The Major smiled. ‘Be patient, my dear Major. We patriots have to be careful – very careful. The English have their spies everywhere in Egypt. As soon as my chaps have cleared away the mess in the radio tent, I shall personally raise our contact in Alexandria. No doubt, she will be here within twenty-four hours to give you full instructions.’

  ‘She!’ von Dodenburg exclaimed.

  ‘Yes,’ the Egyptian answered with a fat smile of pleasure. ‘Madame is the bravest of the brave. Not even Nassar and Sadat surpass her in courage and hatred of the English.’ He touched his swagger stick to his fez jauntily. ‘Now you must excuse me, Major, I must see that this rubbish’ – he kicked the young radio operator’s dead body – ‘is cleared away.’ He left von Dodenburg staring at his fat back in disbelief.

  Madame! Now he knew why Field-Marshal Rommel had laughed when he had told him about his contact. Von Dodenburg shook his head, like a man trying to wake from a heavy sleep. What had he let himself in for with this comic opera mob – what indeed…?

  SECTION FOUR:

  A BATTLE IS PROPOSED

  ‘Now this is the form. There must be no more failures. The men have experienced too many of them – they will tolerate no more.’

  General Montgomery to his Staff, El Alamein

  ONE

  ‘You will please extinguish your cigarettes – and you will have exactly thirty seconds to cough. Thereafter there will be no more noise,’ the undersized, birdlike Commander announced, having, as always, a little difficulty with the pronunciation of his ‘r’s.

  Dutifully the staff officers assembled outside his caravan stubbed out their cigarettes and cleared their throats. While the new commander of the Eighth Army spoke, they knew it would be fatal to cough. As they knew from the reports coming in from the U.K. about him, he had already pitched a full divisional commander out of a briefing for doing exactly that.

  General Montgomery beamed at them intently. ‘Good,’ he said and tapped the big map pinned on the blackboard next to him. ‘Now, chaps, this is the form. The Battle of Alam Halfa last month delayed my own offensive. But if we’d have lost it, we would have lost Egypt to the Hun. Besides it was a boost for the Eighth Army and has given Tommy Atkins new confidence in the Command, which was sadly lacking in the past.’ He stared around at their faces, which were bronzed unlike his own, which was still white from an English winter. Some of the staff officers lowered their eyes, as if they were embarrassed by their commanders’ past failures.

  Montgomery raised his voice. ‘Well, chaps, Alam Halfa is history. We are concerned with the future, eh? How are we going to knock Jerry for a six – and for good. That’s the problem?’ He tapped the map. ‘The basic problem that confronts us is a difficult one. We face Rommel between the sea and the Qattara Depression on a front of forty-five miles. Intelligence tells me that Rommel is strengthening his defensive positions to a depth previously unknown in the desert. In addition there is no open or easy flank for us to go through or turn. In essence, gentlemen, it is going to be a slogging match.’

  He let the information sink in before continuing ‘I’m sure that Rommel is expecting us. It is impossible to conceal the fact that we are going to launch an attack. The best we can do is to achieve tactical surprise. Our deception experts are working on it

  The staff officers looked knowingly at one another. What effective deception could Montgomery’s ‘experts’ carry out in the completely open desert? All the same the cocky General seemed supremely confident and that was new in 8th Army commanders.

  If the new Commander saw their looks, he did not let himself be affected by them; he continued his exposé in the same self-assured manner as before. ‘Now, we’ll need a full moon to launch this one. The chaps will need to see their way through the Jerry minefields. Can’t have a waning moon. Why you may ask? Because I envisage a real dog-fight for about a week before we can break out and we’ll need all the light we can get at night. So, gentlemen, you can guess when we’re going to attack.’ He looked challengingly around his listeners’ faces like a keen schoolmaster, expecting the best from his brighter pupils. ‘Yes, Horrocks?’ he demanded of the long-faced, silver-haired commander of his XIII Corps.

  ‘About the end of October?’ General Horrocks ventured.

  Montgomery beamed. ‘Exactly! According to the Met people, twenty-third of October to be completely precise, with full moon on the twenty-fourth. When do we attack then, chaps? I shall tell you. On the night of the twenty-third, just to keep Rommel on the hop.

  Montgomery waited till the excited buzz of chatter had died away before he spoke again. ‘Now this is the form,’ he said and this time the thin smile on his lips had vanished and there was iron in his voice. �
��There must be no more failures. The men have experienced too many of them – they will tolerate no more. The people back home want victory, too. They have suffered nothing but defeats these last three black years. And, gentlemen, I want victory! Because my reputation depends upon it.’ Montgomery said the words without a trace of embarrassment and his audience was amazed. Didn’t he know that Rommel had beaten British commander after commander, smashed attack after attack, destroyed plan after plan? The Desert Fox always had some sort of trick up his sleeve. Would he not be able to turn the tables on this cocky little commander in the Tank Corps beret, who stood before them so bravely this burningly hot morning?

  Montgomery seemed to be able to read their thoughts. He chuckled, a strange sound from a man who had so slight a sense of humour. ‘You think you’ve heard it all before – from the generals who preceded me, gentlemen, don’t you? Perhaps you have. But those gentlemen were not Bernard Montgomery. This time Rommel will not fool me.’ He turned as if he were about to go into his caravan again. Then he seemed to change his mind. Facing them once more, he said: ‘Let me tell you one last thing – in confidence – gentlemen. For the first two days or so of the battle I will not be fighting General Rommel. I shall be fighting his deputy, General Stumme. Rommel is on sick leave in Germany. Naturally he will hurry back once the battle starts, but by that time poor General Stumme will have lost it and I shall be the victor.’ He touched his hand to his beret very casually, pleased with the impact of this news. ‘Good morning. Thank you, gentlemen, that is all.’

  ‘Christ Almighty,’ a flabbergasted staff officer whispered to General Horrocks, after Montgomery had disappeared inside, ‘who the devil does he think he is – God!’

  ‘No,’ General Horrocks replied urbanely, ‘Jesus Christ would be my guess…’

  TWO

  If General Montgomery was confident that he was to be the victor of the impending battle, the few British and the many Egyptians of Delta’s second largest city, Alexandria, were definitely not. Their money was on a German breakthrough.

  A ragged Slaughter, accompanied by the wide-eyed boy could see that Alex was in a flap. There were middle-class Egyptians and British Army staff wallahs packing up and leaving the endangered city everywhere, jeered at by the ragged Egyptian poor who lined the streets. Once a portly British colonel, with the red tabs of the staff on his jacket, accompanied by his young blonde mistress, pulled up in front of them, halted by a barefoot policeman on point-duty. The skinny onlookers jeered and spat at the car. Pointing at the city’s scavengers, the brown kites sailing lazily above them in the still air, they cried: ‘They’re waiting for you, fat Englishman, when the Germans come!

  Richer Egyptians were flooding westwards in a slow moving mass of traffic, which grew even denser as the day wore on. Their cars were crammed with suitcases and shapeless bundles, and almost invariably topped by a canopy of striped mattresses tied on with scraps of rope as protection against aerial attacks. Over all the sweating, slow-moving column there hung an atmosphere of latent terror.

  The boy looked at the Egyptians in wonder. Slaughter nudged him and said with contempt, ‘There are two species of men in the Delta, boy. The great mass of the fellaheen, miserable human scavengers – and those men you see in the motor cars: the masters. They smell of perfume and corruption – and fear!’ He spat in the dust. The two of them came in sight of the great barracks. In the whorehouses ringing the place the half-naked whores hung out of the windows jeering at the glum-faced soldiers and singing mockingly:

  ‘Me no likee English sold-ier

  Ger-man soldier come ashore

  Ger-man soldier plenty mon-ey

  Me no jigajag for you no more.’

  This time Slaughter did not attempt to steal into Mustafa Barracks. He had no time. Instead he showed his pass and was allowed through immediately, followed by the boy. They passed a pile of secret documents being burnt on the parade ground under the supervision of grim-faced Redcaps. Obviously Mustafa Barracks was preparing for the worst.

  * * *

  Five minutes in the echoing anteroom opposite Brigadier Young’s office told Slaughter that the base wallahs had little confidence in the new Commander’s ability to win the impending battle. Immaculate staff officers hurried to and fro with anxious drawn faces, speaking in grave whispers, and from behind one of the closed office doors, he could hear a petulant upper-class voice saying: ‘But it is as clear as the nose on your face, old chap. The wogs are ready to rise up at any moment. There’ll be blood in the streets before this week is out. Believe you me.’

  Finally Brigadier Young was ready to receive him. Slaughter strode into the big airless room. Young looked much older than when he had last seen him. There were dark blue circles under his eyes and there was a nervous tic in his left cheek which he seemed unable to control.

  ‘Good to see you again, Slaughter,’ he said without conviction, his voice slightly unsteady, ‘and your news?’

  ‘The Jerries have broken through the Great Sano Sea. My boys and I failed to stop them at the Ascent. For all I know they are now heading for the coast.’

  Brigadier Young looked at the ragged little Intelligence man aghast. ‘Oh, my God,’ he groaned. ‘How many, in heaven’s name?’

  ‘Perhaps a couple of hundred of them, at the most, sir. But I counted at least a dozen Mark IVs.’

  ‘Christ! Not even the new Sherman can stand up to that monster.’ Young stopped and thought for a moment. ‘But I say, Slaughter,’ he said, a little more cheerfully, ‘a company or two of Jerry infantry, even if they are supported by tanks, can’t do that much, can they?’

  ‘I’m afraid they can!’ Slaughter said severely. There were too many officers in the Delta like Brigadier Young, who invariably misread the situation in Egypt. One day, if they weren’t careful, they’d lose not only Egypt but the whole of the Middle East because of it.

  ‘As far as the Gippos are concerned, the Germans are simply cannon-fodder. They are expendable. But let them appear in Cairo or here in Alex and be shot to pieces by our chaps, and they’ll be the symbol the plotters need to rouse the students and fellaheen. Thereafter the Germans can disappear from the scene.’ He pressed home his point brutally. ‘Let that armour appear in the centre of Cairo – and it’s my guess that is where they are heading – for one single hour, and we’ll have a revolution on our hands. The Eighth will be stabbed in the back and, within a week, Rommel will be on the Nile.’

  Brigadier Young gave a groan and let his greying bead sink into his hands in a gesture of utter defeat. ‘What can we do? My God, what can we do?’ he gasped. Suddenly his body was racked by a sob.

  Slaughter looked at the Brigadier’s heaving shoulders with contempt. He and his boys had more guts than all these big tough he-men, who broke down like women once real trouble started.

  ‘What can we do?’ he echoed, iron in his voice. ‘This is what you can do. You can give me the forty odd SAS men you still have here at Mustafa.’

  Brigadier Young raised his head slowly. ‘But what good are a couple of score men, even if they are from the Special Air Service?’ he asked in a voice thick with emotion.

  Slaughter leaned forward across the big desk and told him in an urgent flow of words. When he was finished, he looked eagerly at the Brigadier. ‘Well, sir, what do you think?’

  ‘But my God, Slaughter,’ Young protested. ‘I’m a British officer, you’re a British officer. We can’t condone – murder!’

  Slaughter’s eyes blazed. ‘Listen, Young,’ he snarled, dropping all pretence of military courtesy. ‘If we lose the British Empire, it will be because of people like you. Our forefathers – the men who gained the Empire for us – were ruthless, brutal, unscrupulous thieves and murderers, whose sole morality was – what is good for England is good. This time if the Germans break though the Delta, they will undoubtedly capture the Suez Canal. When that goes there’ll be nothing to stop them until they reach India and you know what desperate straits we are in
there due to Jap pressure. Failure this time could well mean the end of the British Empire.’

  ‘The end of the British Empire!’ Young breathed.

  ‘Yes.’ Slaughter pressed home his point, forcing a smile although he had never felt less like smiling in all his life. ‘Look at it this way, sir. One day we’ll order another Scotch in some London pub and paint up this bitch of a war in such wondrous colours that she’ll look like a latterday saint. The real, nasty bitch will be forgotten. But first we’ve got to win it! Then what we have to do this month no-one will want to remember.’ Slaughter’s fake smile vanished. ‘Do I get those SAS men, sir?’

  Brigadier Young gave in. With a hand that shook, he picked up his bell. ‘You get them, Slaughter…. But for God’s sake, never let me see your face in this office again…’

  THREE

  The SAS man’s big ammo boot crashed against the door. The wood around the lock splintered and gave and they moved in. Two of them, with Slaughter bringing up the rear, crashed into the hail, slithering on the tiled floor. From upstairs there were cries of alarm. A woman shouted something in Arabic. When there was no answer she repeated her demand in atrocious French.

  Slaughter nodded. The two big SAS men raced up the marble steps. From above there came the sound of cries, blows, and curses. ‘Is this him, sir?’ the SAS Corporal demanded, thrusting their prisoner to the edge of the decorative iron-work.

  Slaughter stared up at the trembling face of the man in the striped lounging pyjamas, which the richer Egyptians liked to wear in the afternoon. ‘That’s him,’ he snapped. The Egyptian politician seemed suddenly to realize what they were going to do. ‘No, no, please,’ he cried in English. ‘I have wife, I have children. No…no…’ His pleas ended in a howl of pain as the other SAS man rammed the butt of his sten onto his fat brown fingers, clinging desperately to the rail. The next moment the two of them seized him and tossed him down into the hall below. He screamed and hit the marble floor like a sack of wet cement. His spine snapped audibly and his head twisted at an impossible angle. Slaughter knelt down swiftly, while the two SAS men clattered down the stairs. ‘Dead,’ he announced.