Deaths on the Nile

by Scott Palter

  The Italian gun truck battery commander had tried to take under his command the SS infantry left him by this German general, Rommel. They clearly understood his schoolboy German. They refused to be commanded by an Italian. They said no most unpleasantly. Instead of properly deploying in support of guns, they clustered around their trucks, smoking cigarettes and chatting amongst themselves. Master race? That was a laugh. Cowards, and poorly-disciplined ones at that.

  The limited moonlight was getting obscured once again. Mostly it was cloud cover, but enough of the problem was dust clouds from the vehicles that had gone past. Yet he was hearing noise. Vehicle noise, approaching slowly from the west. Sounded like heavy vehicles, which meant those damned British tanks. He shouted out “Action Front!” in both Italian and German. His gunners responded well. The German scum mostly got back in their trucks and drove away. Ten trotted up to him, led by an Oberschützen. The boy’s cheeks lacked any hint of a beard, but he seemed 1.8 meters tall with the muscles of a heavy laborer. He was carrying a Czech ZB-53 machine-gun as if it weighed nothing. His mates had ammo boxes and mines. The young man came to attention, gave a good fascist salute, and called out, “Where do you want us, sir?” in passable Italian. At the Italian major’s surprised look, he answered the implied question. “Tyrolian. My mother’s an Italian from Bolzano.” The major returned the salute, and posted the Germans at the center of the position. The boy was clearly in the wrong military service. He obviously had inherited his good features from his mother’s bloodlines.

  2315 hours local; 2215 hours CET

  10 September 1940

  Southwest perimeter, 3 crosses position

  Clara Fischer was doing a third round of instruction on why getting dust and sand out of machine-guns is necessary, not military busywork, when she began to hear vehicle noises out in the gloom. Tanks? Armored cars? Trucks? Clara was sure she didn’t know. She sent runners for Peiper, Klaus, and Gunter with the news, and started pulling her guys back. Their machine-guns wouldn’t be of much good against what was coming. Time to find someone with cannons.

  2330 hours local; 2230 hours CET

  10 September 1940

  Italian gun truck position

  The Italian major shook his head trying to clear it. Fighting these British was something like hunting elephants, which he had done on campaign in Ethiopia. The damned British heavy tanks were large like elephants, hard to cleanly kill like elephants, and even slower than the damned beasts. Four were burning. Two more were disabled in other ways. One of his guns was a crumpled, burning mass of wreckage. The other three were all being worked with short crews from wounds and deaths. Still, dozens more of these prehistoric metal monsters were lumbering out of the dark at him.

  It was past time to leave. His trucks were fast enough to outrun these Britishers. It was also impossible to flee. Six of the Germans were down. They had been shot up attacking the tanks with mines and grenades. These SS were fearless. They had shoved mines under tracks, heaved themselves onto tank decks to try to pry open hatches to fire inside and drop grenades. The last four wounded ones were helping to man his guns.

  How as an Italian, a fascist, an officer, could he show cowardice in front of these men? Logic said he should. Honor wasn’t allowing him to. He more than half-realized he was signing his death warrant. “Action Front!” He would die a proper death of a patriot. Besides, the targets were so slow they were almost impossible to miss. At 300 meters they would materialize out of the darkness. They showed no tactics, no unit cohesion. They just advanced. Iron beasts manned by faceless goblins.

  2340 hours local; 2240 hours CET

  10 September 1940

  Peiper’s position in Three Crosses camp, southwest quadrant, 100 meters northeast of where Clara heard the noises

  Hauptsturmführer Jochen Peiper had not yet mentally recovered from watching a ‘German’ officer’s woman leading a machine-gun detachment while singing the “Internationale” at the top of her lungs. Did he report this to Berlin? Take direct action himself? This lunatic Red woman was supposedly here on the Reichsführer-SS’s personal orders. She was personal friends with the brigade commander, Strauss. Was this SA and NL officer a Communist as well? This Leutnant Johann Schmidt was the personal representative of SS Headquarters. Report this to him? Report what, exactly? That the woman was a Communist? Surely the Gestapo already knew this. What action or inaction avoided the death cells? This time there might be no reprieve.

  And now the witch was back with an absurd story of a major British attack shaping up from the southwest. The British were east of them. Surely? Maybe? She was badgering him for where to set up her machine-guns. She’d scribbled a note on a piece of paper and sent one of her boys off with it. As he started to trot, she screamed at him to run faster or she’d shoot his legs out from under him and send someone else. The lad had sped away as if he had been transformed into winged Mercury. Who was this demoness?

  Peiper sent one of his motorcyclists out to see if there was anything to this story of British hordes. In the meantime, he tried to improvise a battle position against a possibly imaginary attacking British brigade.

  2345 hours local; 2245 hours CET

  10 September 1940

  Italian gun position on lower plateau east of 1st Libyan Division position, and west of Rommel’s main forces

  Erwin Rommel was back from his romp against the British rear areas. He’d been alerted by the fleeing SS men. He planned to gift these cowardly clowns on Hausser at the earliest opportunity. Let the SS deal with their own training and disciplinary problems. If they called these sad excuses for soldiers elite guards, the entire service was hopeless.

  Rommel’s driver and adjutant had ‘interpreted’ the general’s orders. The general had ordered a fast return to the Italian gun position. Instead he was sensibly driven about two hundred meters to the right rear of that cauldron of fire. As the Mercedes touring car coasted to a halt, the junior officer handed the general his binoculars to observe. Generals are supposed to observe and command, not engage at close quarters like an expendable Leutnant .

  What Rommel saw amazed him. Multiple dozens of British tanks burning or wrecked. Three of those Italian gun trucks reduced to scrap iron. Stray SS men dead on the battlefield. From their location, they had died attacking these huge vehicles with hand weapons. Perhaps the whole service was not lacking in military virtue after all.

  The last gun, was continuing to fire with a mixed Italo-German crew. Two British tanks were slowly moving forward at them. The cab of the truck was shot off, but the gun continued to fire. Rommel watched transfixed.

  ……….

  The major could barely focus his bloodshot eyes. It was down to himself and the damned Tyrolian. He would die fighting beside the hereditary Austrian enemy, sending shells into the hereditary British ally. Italy had fought beside Britain, back to the Crimea almost a century ago. Three shells left. The two of them put one into a British tank at under 100 meters. The shell blew the turret off. That left one last Matilda, boring in straight for them firing its machine-gun. Why not use the cannon? Perhaps the Brit was low on ammo just as he was. “Action Front!”

  He and the Austrian put the next-to-last shell into the British tank at 50 meters. It blew in the front. The machine-gun stopped, but the engine growled as it shifted to a lower gear. Whoever was still driving the beast, aimed to crush him. The major looked over at the Austrian, but he was dead. This was it. Last man, last shell. Didn’t matter. He was bleeding out too fast to do anything more. He loaded the shell himself, and fired one last time as he faded away to join his Austrian comrade. In Hell? In Valhalla? He’d know soon enough. He’d done his duty.

  ……….

  Erwin Rommel watched in amazement as the last shell slammed home. This time the turret blew off the Matilda. The chassis slid forward ever so slowly on inertia the final 10 meters to slam into the remains of the truck body, knocking it over. The dead gun crew members went flying. The gun’s barrel was t
angled in the wreckage of the English vehicle.

  Histories spoke of fights to the death, of the Spartans at the Hot Gates, of the French Foreign Legion at Camerone. This action on a nameless speck of rocky plateau in Egypt deserved to be included among them. Rommel got three juniors collecting soldiers’ identifications. When this action was over, he had requests for decorations to write. He idly wondered if an entire unit could be awarded the Blue Max? Definitely one for the legends.

  2350 hours local; 2250 hours CET

  10 September 1940

  British central brigade position

  Major General Noel Beresford-Peirse regarded his near-death experience as one of the prices of command. He’d been under fire as a junior officer in the Great War. He was a professional solider. It was part of the everyday life in his trade.

  It was the ineptitude of his current juniors that enraged him. After reading the signals traffic from his northern brigade, he had relieved its commander. The dismissed fool had allowed the tanks and infantry to become separated. He now had major enemy forces in his front and rear. The new orders to the former senior battalion commander, were to get his troops back on trucks and break out southwest. After getting free, he was to move east to the current position of center brigade, the place divisional command now was.

  He berated the brigadier present with him, for marking time and sending a battalion off on a wild goose chase. Said-battalion was now getting attacked by a mixed German force of tanks, infantry, and artillery. Disengage and return here at once.

  The ‘discussions’ with corps HQ were ‘frosty’. Beresford wanted his artillery. He wanted the cruiser tanks he had been promised. Corps wanted a clearer picture of the situation. Beresford seemed unable to make the staff twits at Bagush comprehend that night raids such as this are messy and confusing. In the heated back and forth, neither commander had time to wonder where the southern brigade was.

  2400 hours local; 2300 hours CET

  10 September 1940

  Peiper’s position, Three Crosses camp

  The HJ motorcyclist was back. The boy was 15. His knowledge of war was skirmishes these past few weeks. He’d seen a lot of British out there in the darkness. Armored cars, men in trucks, men on foot. He had not seen tanks or cannons. Yes, he was sure. Peiper was aware that sure and right were not the same thing. He radioed this to headquarters and sent two messengers. He used HJ motorcyclists. He wanted his veteran SA men, and was sad to think it, but didn’t trust his SS refugees.

  The insane bitch’s boyfriend had arrived with ‘friends’. He had some fancy-looking shotgun. His associates from the motor pool had a mix of MG-34’s and captured British Bren guns. He also had truckloads of ammunition and grenades. The new arrivals looked like the crew of a pirate ship. They were eclectically dressed in pieces of uniform, workmen’s clothing, and whatever else struck their fancy. They also set up with weapons as if they knew how to use them.

  The last addition was the cook. She had left earlier and was now back. She had a truck filled with urns of hot coffee, and hot buns with nuts. His guys never had to leave their positions. She had two kids of her own, and some armed Arab boy, as runners. His guys took this efficient organization as a sign that everything was going according to plan. Just as she and her kids were finishing up, Major Isaak arrived leading the seven five battery and the two-centimeter AAA guns. Peiper did a double-take at the latter. There were no planes to shoot at night. Then he realized that the same shells could hurt armored cars and kill men. He trotted over to confer with his superior. Peiper felt happy that someone else was now in charge.

  0015 hours local; 2315 CET

  11 September / 10 September

  Hausser’s headquarters vehicle, stuck in a traffic jam well to the rear

  Division commander Paul Hausser had not been surprised at the senseless order from von Manstein. Rommel had made a mess, and now Hausser’s oversized SS division would of course bail the Army out. Hausser had arranged his order of march with just such a contingency in mind. He started with Hauptsturmführer Fritz Klingenberg. The officer had distinguished himself in the Western Campaign. Reichsführer Heydrich had given Hausser authority to make promotions to NL rank. So Klingenberg was made a Titularrang (“provisional”) Oberst of the NL. This gave him rank on the division’s company and battalion commanders. Hausser and the new Oberst had chosen for this battlegroup a reconnaissance battalion; a company each of Panzer II’s and Czech T-38-T’s; two companies of motorized infantry; an anti-tank battalion; a battery each of 10.5 cm and eight eight mm guns; and a pioneer company. This was designated the division ‘fast group’.

  Von Manstein’s request triggered the release of this unit. It was to pull out of the stopped line of vehicles and make for a probably-besieged brigade camp. Hausser had an approximate compass heading and distance. He and Klingenberg trusted neither, but felt that a force this size could shoot or maneuver itself out of whatever it bumped into.

  ……….

  Titularrang-Oberst Klingenberg regarded his temporary rank as a joke among gentlemen. What mattered, was being given an independent command with loose enough orders for him to assert that absolutely anything was within the scope of his instructions. He looked forward to beating the British like a drum.

  0020 hours local; 2320 hours CET

  11 September/10 September 1940

  Peiper’s position, Three Crosses camp

  Major Isaak Schwabe of the NL was in his mind back to the Great War when he was Isaac Cohen and a Honved officer. Being a gunnery officer for the Kaiser und König often meant being a rally point when the front dissolved in front of you. He was commanding better equipment than he had in those four years of brain-dead slaughter. The terrain was easier to cope with. Dealing with the prospect of being overrun by vastly superior enemy forces … that felt normal.

  Peiper had a few good SA NCO’s who had been through the mill. After Isaak gave them their orders, they turned his general battle concept into specific machine-gun emplacements. They were making a 200 degree arc of overlapping fire lanes for the various machine-guns and Bren guns. The force was short of line infantry as supports, but Isaak had faced similar situations scores of times. This was easier. More than enough automatic weapons, plentiful ammunition, and gunners who weren’t looking over their shoulders waiting to see when the next panic to the rear was starting so they wouldn’t get left behind. SA, HJ, NL, repair guys, even the crazy Communist schoolteacher Gunter had imported for Joey. These were people prepared to fight and die. The SA and HJ were drowning out her red songs with the “Horst-Wessel-Lied”. None of those men or boys would run away while a woman kept fighting.

  He pulled the machine-guns and gunners off the motorcycle sidecars to beef up the line. He sent the trucks and motorcycles to the rear with Mary and her food truck. All the vehicles would do here was attract lead and otherwise get in the way. Isaak didn’t plan on retreating. This makeshift unit would fall apart if asked to move. He’d seen it happen in Poland and Galicia. You stood your ground and let the tide flow around you. Live or die, it was the smart bet.

  That left his two gun batteries, Peiper and his armored cars and SS men. Peiper had seemed as eager as a lost puppy dog to find someone else to take responsibility. Isaak knew of the man mostly third-hand. His detachment patrolled with Klaus, and Greta kept her uncle up to date. Klaus thought Peiper an experienced junior officer from an elite service. Klaus was clueless, but tended to get broad strokes right. So he gifted Peiper with the SS refugee infantry. They were his service. Hopefully they would find courage in being commanded by one of their own. Forty-six SS riflemen, five more with Czech versions of a Bren gun. Five of the French ‘light tanks’. Isaak laughed to himself. They were machine-gun-armed even if moved on tracks. Mobile machine-gun emplacements.

  His orders to Peiper were simple. Ignore the armored cars or any tanks if they appeared. Those were for the guns to handle. His job was counterattack reserve. Fifty-one men and five vehicles, so assign ten me
n to each as infantry supports. If the British breached the perimeter anyplace, he counterattacks. If the British came around the rear, the open one-hundred-and-sixty degrees, he was to stop them. Do not split his force up. Move as a unit. Hit hard, and then, when the job was done, pull back to reserve with the survivors.

  ……….

  Peiper had been terrified. Now he was mentally on firm ground. The Major had given him clear orders, not bottomless problems. He took a few seconds to address the SS men. Told them he was LAH himself, had served with them in France. Dropped some officers’ names. Then he reviewed the orders with them. Appealed to their racial pride. Couldn’t they fight better than a gypsy crew of Jews and castoffs? Were they not the elite of the German nation? He got their blood up. They had been proud of their unit, of their bloodlines, of their National Socialist zeal. This was an SS officer, a former adjutant of the original Reichsführer. It would be an honor to serve beside him, to – if needs must – die beside him. They responded to the end of his speech by shouting, “Heil Göring!” in unison.

  Peiper posted two vehicle and squad groups watching the rear, with the other three bunched tightly beside him. He was betting all their lives that it would be action front, not action rear. Peiper didn’t fear death in battle, the way he was afraid of the death cells. He was an Aryan warrior, and this would be a worthy death!

  0025 hours local; 2325 hours CET

  11 September / 10 September 1940

  Center of the Three Crosses position, roughly 400 meters east north east of Peiper

  National hero Major Klaus was leading a column of a dozen Kübelwagen towards where he thought Peiper might be. The British were supposed to be attacking. So said both radio and messengers. No one had given him orders, but heroes don’t need orders. Of course, somehow Oberst Gunter hadn’t seen things that way on Malta when Klaus had gone off on his own to attack the British airfield at Hal Far. The post-action reports had sort of said he might have taken that airfield if allowed to continue. ‘Sort of’, because no two reports agreed on much of anything.