by John Harris
‘You’d be surprised how often one of them tells me I’m beautiful,’ she pointed out. ‘If I were, I might be flattered. But I’m not.’
‘You look all right to me,’ Hockold said with a brisk enthusiasm that was overstressed enough to tell her that he wasn’t in the habit of paying compliments to women.
‘You’ve been in the desert a long time,’ she smiled. ‘It’s what you’d call a good Scots face. Scotswomen have a tendency to look better as they grow older.’
‘At least that’s something for Scots husbands to look forward to.’ Hockold’s comment was brusque. ‘Often in England it’s the other way round. Leads to quite a lot of ill-will after about twenty years.’
He sipped at his drink, staring into it as though he were searching for something else to say. He still looked grim and ill at ease, and she guessed that some of his awkwardness had come from being lanky and ungainly in his youth.
‘Are you engaged or married or anything?’ he asked.
‘I’m a widow.’
‘Oh!’ He looked uncomfortable and she saw to her surprise that he was actually blushing. ‘Rude of me to ask.’
It was a long time since she’d seen a mature man blush in front of her and it oddly endeared him to her. ‘It’s a normal enough question,’ she said quickly, encouragingly. ‘I don’t mind.’
He tried to make up for his gaffe. ‘Was your husband army?’
‘Yes,’
‘Dunkirk?’
‘No. Bomb. He was with Bomb Disposal. One of them killed him.’
‘I’m sorry.’
She shrugged. ‘It’s history now. We didn’t know each other long and we were only married two months. What about you?’
‘Much the same as usual.’ Hockold gestured with his glass. ‘Regular cavalry. Got a little tired of swanning up and down in the blue in a tin box on wheels so I did a bit of long range stuff for a change and finally found myself attached to Loftus’s lot. They left me behind in June to see what I could find out.’
‘When did you come out here?’
It was the question everybody asked sooner or later and he smiled because he’d arrived in the Middle East even before Dunkirk, one of Wavell’s small and rather amateur force which had deluded Graziani into believing it was twice as strong as it was and in 1940 had even smashed him back beyond Benghazi.
‘I was one of the first,’ he said slowly, and she knew he wasn’t shooting a line. ‘But they’ve decided now that I’ve had enough, and there’s talk of bringing me back after this next little business.’
‘Do you want to come back?’
He sat for a moment thinking of the wastes of shaly soil and trying to exist on a meagre quarter of a gallon of water a day.
‘Yes,’ he said in the clipped way he had of speaking to her, so different from the way he spoke to Murray. ‘Been spitting sand out for three years now almost without a break. Should be pleasant to be able to take a bath regularly.’
‘At least you’re honest.’
He shrugged. ‘No. Just frightened. Can’t go on for ever. Been nicked twice. Nothing much, but it’s a sign. We all catch it in the end if we go on too long. This time Loftus insists.’ He smiled again. ‘If I survive.’
She didn’t know what to say, sensing an honesty that had become unexpected in Cairo where everyone still contrived to live as if it were peacetime, dining and drinking and apparently not connected at all with the war in the desert.
‘Is it going to be difficult?’ she asked.
‘Well, it’s not going to be easy and I have a suspicion it’s already become bigger than I originally intended.’ Hockold paused and finished his drink. ‘Suppose we ought really to be getting back now,’ he said. ‘Time’s up.’ He hesitated, then went on in a breathless, stumbling rush. ‘Any chance of buying you another drink sometime?’
She looked up at him. His skin seemed to be burned to the eyebrows so that it looked beaten and raw, and his eyes were tired. He was a severe individual, meditative and brooding, a pensive, lonely, quiet man, but she suspected that he was also uncompromising, unflinching and honourable.
She deliberately put on her best smile to encourage him. ‘I’d like that,’ she said.
When they got back to Murray’s office, he was on the telephone. He waved at Hockold and went on talking.
‘No,’ he was saying loudly. ‘The bloody man can’t take compassionate leave! Every other poor bugger’s having to work his guts out and a few of ‘em are going to end up dead, so why should he get away with it?’ He slammed the telephone down and closed the file in front of him; as he smiled at Hockold his whole face changed. ‘Take a pew,’ he said. ‘I’ve laid on a meeting with the navy and the RAF. We’ll go straight along. I’ve also got a few facts for you. None of ‘em very encouraging, I’m afraid.’
‘Better tell me the worst, sir.’
‘Right. Bad news first: there’ll be no warships. That’s a dead cert. According to a staff appreciation made only a week ago there’s nothing anywhere until Monty’s battle’s over. The navy’s had a rough time in the last two years and everything they’ve still got at this end of the Med’s earmarked for the advance. That means there’ll be no naval support fire. One other thing: Freddie de Guingand says Monty can contribute nothing either. He says he needs everybody he’s got and I expect he does because he’s determined that when he punches his hole in Rommel’s line he’ll have enough men for the follow-through.’ He glanced at Hockold’s taut face and his cheerful smile appeared again. ‘But don’t worry, my boy. We’ll find your men even if we have to turn out storekeepers, clerks, cooks, elderly staff officers like me, and the man who fought the monkey in the dustbin.’
Murray’s meeting took place at RAF Bir Farouk. It was the usual flat expanse of nothing alongside the road, with a few tents, huts and screens where aeroplanes were serviced. The station commander had laid on a large empty marquee with a table and chairs and maps of the desert and the coast.
Murray took his place with Hockold. ‘Who’s coming for the RAF?’ he demanded.
An RAF officer by the maps looked up. ‘Air Vice-Marshal de Berry, sir.’
‘And the naval adviser?’
The airman coughed. ‘Rear-Admiral Bryant, sir.’
Murray pulled a face. ‘Damn,’ he said as he spread his papers. ‘Those two detest each other and they can foul anything up if they’re in the mood.’
The two men - the airman tall, slim and elegant and wearing a string of decorations dating from the days when he’d been a fighter ace over the Western Front, and the admiral, short, square, stocky, every inch of him a saltwater sailor -- began to eye each other warily the minute they arrived. Hockold pushed forward the plan he’d made of Qaba and began to outline his idea, aware of a deep distrust from the other side of the table at once. He described Qaba with its long mole and beaches and the positions of the petrol depot, the ships and the warehouses full of spare parts.
‘How did you arrive at these distances?’ Bryant demanded sharply.
‘I walked them.’
‘Under the eyes of the Germans?’ Bryant sounded as though he didn’t believe it.
‘I worked for seven days with a labouring gang shovelling concrete. I walked along the mole fourteen times - seven there, seven back. I measured it every time.’
‘How many paces?’
De Berry leaned forward. He had a fly-whisk hanging from his wrist and was smoking a cigarette in a long amber holder. ‘Couldn’t we assume that Colonel Hockold knows what he’s talking about?’ he said.
Bryant turned to stare at de Berry but when he drew on his pipe and said nothing, Murray touched Hockold’s arm. ‘Go on,’ he urged quickly.
Hockold drew a deep breath. ‘We want a ship which can place my troops on the outside of the mole - ‘
Bryant was immediately hostile. ‘That’s a matter for the navy, I think,’ he growled. ‘Why not go in alongside this single ship here -- Giuseppe Bianchi -- and blow her up with a time fus
e. She’ll probably take the others with her. You could then make for the depot, blow that up en route, and finally head out into the desert.’
‘Without vehicles, petrol or water?’ de Berry asked.
‘They’ll have to expect casualties.’
Hockold drew a deep breath. ‘There’s just one snag with that plan, sir,’ he said, and Bryant’s head jerked round. ‘The Germans have dragged the hull of an old lighter across the entrance. There may even be two now. It’s blocked. And the prisoners of war have to be released first or they’ll go up with the ships. Two thousand of them. Do we have to accept that many casualties?’
Bryant was silent and Hockold went on. ‘There’s only one way to do it: We have to put a ship against the outside of the mole and go across it.’
Bryant frowned. ‘It’s not possible. It’s shallow water.’
‘There’s one place - here -’ Hockold pointed at the chart ‘- where the water’s about nine feet deep. I gather the Germans dredged it and, until the harbour was cleared, moored a lighter there and unloaded across her.’
Bryant frowned. ‘Why can’t we go in close and shell the ships through the harbour entrance?’
‘Because there’s a big sand-bank with a wrecked freighter in the way. There are also three Italian 47s - here, here and here -which could effectively stop anything smaller than a destroyer. The only way it can be done is by getting aboard the ships and placing charges.’
Bryant frowned. ‘What’s the opposition?’
Hockold pushed forward a sheet of paper containing numbers and names of units. ‘There are also the 47s. They’ve been well sited and, in addition to firing to seaward, every one of them could be worked round at a pinch to fire towards the Roman arch. And it’s round the Roman arch that we have to have a strongpoint, or no one will get into the town to destroy anything.’
Murray took up the story, feeling that Hockold was battling against too much rank. ‘We’re proposing that a lighter or something goes alongside the mole at the point Colonel Hockold suggests and that the following vessels lay alongside her.’
‘What following vessels?’ Bryant tossed a file across. ‘Take a look at that, and tell me where they’re coming from.’
Murray didn’t bother to pick up the file and Bryant went on coldly. ‘When the army make demands of the navy they should make sure of getting a soldier who knows something about the sea.’
‘Or an admiral who knows something about the land,’ de Berry murmured.
Murray leaned his head on his hand, saying nothing, and Hockold stared in amazement as the two men glared at each other.
‘Support fire’s out of the question,’ Bryant growled, staring aggressively round the table as if challenging them to dispute his words. ‘Force K lost a cruiser and a destroyer and two cruisers damaged. Valiant and Queen Elizabeth were damaged by Italian charioteers. Jackal, Kipling and Lively went in May and Sikh in that damn’ silly raid on Tobruk. We’ve also given up everything we can spare for the other end of Africa, yet we still have to keep the men and supplies flowing without interruption through the Red Sea and make sure the Levantine convoys come through with fuel. On top of all that, Montgomery still insists on full back-up and a feint raid near Fuka as the barrage starts. Every damn’ thing we’ve got’s earmarked and you can’t produce ships like rabbits out of a hat.’
Nobody said anything and he seemed to feel he had overdone his indignation. ‘Anyway,’ he went on gruffly, ‘why another raid, for God’s sake? Didn’t the one on Tobruk prove this sort of thing can’t be done?’ He glared at de Berry. ‘How about the RAF? Can’t they help?’
De Berry sucked at his cigarette for a moment. ‘African air space doesn’t belong to the Germans,’ he pointed out. ‘But, for the same reasons the navy gives, we can’t offer much.’
‘An air raid’s out of the question,’ Hockold said, aware of a sinking feeling of despair. ‘Because of the prisoner of war compound.’
Bryant sucked at his pipe for a moment. ‘Does this raid have to go in?’ he asked bluntly.
‘It does,’ Murray said.
Bryant stared at his files. De Berry’s offer of help seemed to stir him. ‘We have one or two launches,’ he said.
‘Launches aren’t very big,’ de Berry observed.
‘Are you talking as an airman or a sailor?’
‘I’m talking as a man who was a lieutenant in the Rifles and, before he transferred to the RFC in 1916, went over the top more times than he likes to remember. The RAF knows the job of both the army and the navy because that’s where most of us served before we became airmen.’
Bryant glared, and Hockold listened with a sad feeling that they were getting nowhere. When the meeting broke up all he had was a promise to see what could be done.
‘For God’s sake, sir,’ he said to Murray when they climbed into the car, ‘who are we fighting - the Germans or each other?’
Murray smiled. ‘Military plans demanding navy support always did give rise to a lot of tooth-sucking,’ he said. ‘And so far, the RAF’s always considered one bit of air like any other bit of air, and supporting a landing no different from dropping a few bombs.’
‘Combined Operations isn’t a black art, sir.’
Murray smiled again. ‘No. But there’s also a saying that Combined Ops HQ’s the only lunatic asylum in the world run by its own inmates. Leave it to me. I’m sure it won’t end here. They’re both intelligent men, despite what you might think. They’ll come up with something. They’ve got to. Everything’s got to go into winning this damn battle of Montgomery’s and they know it.’
The problem of men and equipment which was worrying Colonel Hockold was also beginning to worry his opposite number, Colonel Hochstatter, in Qaba. He was occupied with unloading Andolfo when Stumme’s signal arrived and, calling a conference of all the officers concerned with the port, he put to them what he’d been instructed to do.
‘Strengthen the defences?’ Major Nietzsche looked up with a frown from the lists he held. ‘What with? Where do we get the men?’ He stared at Hochstatter and, watching the cautious way he lowered himself into his chair because of his wounds, remembered his own stiff leg and Hrabak’s half-blind eye. With the Reich suddenly in trouble in Russia and now awaiting the biggest attack yet in Africa, there were no able-bodied men to spare for the lines of communication. ‘It’s all very well telling us to set the defences in order,’ he continued. ‘Every damned soldier who appears in this town gets snatched up and sent to the front.’
Hochstatter sighed. ‘Get in touch with Major Zohler, Tarnow,’ he suggested. ‘Tell him we need help.’
The signals officer nodded but he didn’t expect much success. Major Zohler, the Panzerarmee representative, who lived at the airfield at Ibrahimiya, was a man who’d twice been wounded in the desert and for six months had served on Rommel’s staff before being hit yet again by a bomb splinter in the gallop from Gazala after the British. He was by no means the man to allow a worn-out old cripple like Hochstatter to push him around.
He looked up, prepared to argue, but in his vague otherworldly way Hochstatter seemed to have slipped away from them. He was looking through the window at a group of sailors with a launch trying to tow a second lighter into place beyond the hulk that had been anchored across the harbour entrance.
‘The boom?’ he asked. ‘How is it coming along?’
‘We need chain cable,’ von Steen said. ‘And for chain cable we need power - and welders - and time. We have to buoy them to take the weight and then get tractors on the landward side to haul them across. I’ll need some of Wutka’s men.’
‘Not likely,’ Wutka said. ‘I need every one of them myself.’
‘What about guns?’ Nietzsche, the military commander, demanded. ‘We can’t hold off a seaborne attack with rifles.’
‘We have three 47s as general purpose guns,’ Major Schoeler, the garrison gunnery officer, said. ‘It’s not much.’
‘What about tanks?’ This time it
was Captain Schlabrendorff, of 2 Brigade Flakartillerie, who commanded the antiaircraft defences outside the town. ‘Damaged ones. We can dig them in to cover the harbour. Surely Zohler has one or two without engines which can be towed into position.’
Hochstatter turned to Tarnow. ‘Ask headquarters for more guns,’ he said. ‘And gunners. Any gunners.’
‘And pioneers,’ Hrabak put in. ‘We still have to get these ships unloaded.’
‘A few engineers wouldn’t come amiss either,’ Wutka added. ‘We still haven’t filled in that last gap in the mole. It’s still only a wooden bridge.’
‘It must be hurried.’ Hochstatter said.
‘We are hurrying,’ Wutka said. ‘But we haven’t the men. They were all taken away to build gun positions and strongpoints for this damned attack that’s coming in the desert. And if Schoeler’s thinking of building fresh gun positions here and digging tanks in, there’ll be still less.’
Hochstatter stared at his hands spread on the desk in front of him. His face was impassive and for a moment there was silence. Then through the open window they heard some nostalgic Rhinelander playing ‘Warum Ist Es Am Rhein So Schon?’ and Wutka, who came from Remagen, felt old and lonely and sick of the war. Had he only known it, it was making Hochstatter think of Dusseldorf and the wife and daughters he hadn’t heard from in months.
The older man took a deep breath that seemed almost painful. ‘I think we shall have to re-examine our resources,’ he said slowly. ‘I’d like suggestions as soon as possible. Shall we say tomorrow?’
4
Troops not worked into the plan for the major battle then pending were to be used.
Murray seemed more enthusiastic about things when he appeared just before lunch the following day.
‘Your men.’ He gestured at Hockold with a cigarette. ‘General Pierson tells me that No. 1 IBD at Akkaba close to the canal has a lot of chaps who haven’t been worked into Monty’s plan. They belong to every unit known to God except the Boy Scouts and the Salvation Army and they’ve all put their names down for Combined Operations. There are four hundred and sixty-seven of them. Will they do?’