Deaths on the Nile

by Scott Palter

  Sommer restrained himself. He’d been baited about his mother’s race, and therefore his, far too often to be seen rising to the challenge. He just reached into the pile of papers on the desk in front of him and handed a copy of his ‘reference letter’ to this blockheaded country oaf. He let the man read it, watched the color drain from his face, and just asked in a polite, almost bored tone, “So shall I cut you travel orders to Prinz-Albrecht-Straße, or are you prepared to listen?”

  Lothar took three deep, shuddering breaths and got control of himself. “Sorry, sir. I’ll listen.”

  “Major Kike-lover, as you so sweetly labeled him, actually gave you a decent set of references. He said you did an excellent job training and motivating your men. They took good care of their vehicles and kit. They fought well. He found fault with you on two levels. The first was insubordination. He states that he doesn’t see you having the same problems with an all-German unit. Peiper seconds him on this. Me, I’m not so sure after your behavior here, but we’ll pass on that for the moment. He also had this made up for you.” Sommer passed across a sheet of paper with a grid layout. It had charts of armor penetration for various German, French, and Italian fighting vehicles at various ranges. Again he let Lothar skim it. “Steiner said he will give you the benefit of the doubt, on not understanding that your pathetic cannon was essentially useless against the British cruiser tanks you tried to fight. Said with your personal physical strength, you’d have done better assaulting the road wheels with a sledgehammer. I’m not as sure as he is that you are not just an idiot with a large rock to hold his ears apart. But your two current supervisors, Schwabe and Bats, testify to your intelligence as regards machines and metal. So does how well you kept your vehicles running. You taught field maintenance to your unit quite well. Better than most that I have served with. As a nation, we have way too few Germans who are knowledgeable about driving or fixing vehicles of any sort. Now, are you willing to be adult enough to memorize this chart as regards armored cars? If you want that transfer, I’m going to quiz you myself before I carry the file over.”

  Lothar promised that by breakfast tomorrow he could recite the key lines to Herr Oberstleutnant’s satisfaction. He wanted to be back to serving with his own. There was one thing the staff officer said, that he didn’t like. That he couldn’t promise armored cars. Lothar would go into the divisional replacement battalion, and be assigned wherever there was a need. Might be infantry or guns instead of vehicles. Lothar would take being in the field bakery if it got him out of here, but he’d grown to love those vehicles.

  1300 hours local; 1200 hours CET

  23 September 1940

  German field hospital, Benghazi

  The pain was so intense that Mohnke kept going in and out of consciousness. That was an improvement on how bad he had been doing a week earlier. He still couldn’t quite grasp why he was still alive. He’d spent his last battle trying to commit an honorable suicide, to atone for pissing away his battalion in its first engagement. And had failed at even that.

  Now he was fighting to stay awake despite the agonizing pain and stifling heat. He had visitors. Peiper and that silly boy Johann Schmidt. They were babbling incomprehensible drivel about a Knight’s Cross. “I got decorated for letting my battalion get massacred?”

  Mohnke expected Peiper to answer, but instead it was the barely-German Schmidt, the one that command called “Smith”, from some Länder named Oregon. “Berlin managed to blame that on General Dietrich for not equipping you properly. The General blamed his staff, who are blaming each other and the Waffen SS Main Staff. My two bosses are chuckling over it. Expanding LAH from a regiment to a small division, plus expanding Reich from a division into whatever this new organization is. has them all in chaos. Not enough men, not enough equipment, OKH fighting them over any allotment of either. The official line is, you performed brilliantly but had been asked to make bricks without straw. Your rebuilt battalion will have a proper anti-tank company, probably French 75’s as Oberstleutnant Schwabe used them effectively in that role. Also an oversize weapons company and a company of motorcycle infantry. By the time you are ready for field service, it should be here. Probably mostly class III or IV Volksdeutsche, but as long as they can speak enough German for basic commands, who cares?”

  “You are a Leutnant by courtesy. How the fuck can you possibly know all this?”

  “My boss has rank, and my messages go directly to Oberführer Schellenberg at Prinz-Albrecht-Straße. The SS gossip comes from my boss. He calls it ‘keeping me current’. The new unit is via a set of teletype messages from HQ signed by the Reichsführer. Neither you nor your unit will be ready for the Battle for Egypt. So instead you will march through a bunch of Bible towns in Palestine.”

  “You are also getting the Knight’s Cross.” This was Peiper. As senior, he felt he had the right to convey the good tidings to a fellow LAH veteran. “Steiner and I put you up for it. Berlin approved. Brigadier Strauss will pin it on you when you return to duty. Which may be sooner than you think. All the Jews who got dumped on the unit’s camp in Bari left us with surplus medical personnel. He’s sending two specialists to review your case. We told him you would recover better adjacent to your headquarters where your second-in-command can give you daily briefings, even if only for a few minutes, till your strength comes back.”

  Was he hallucinating? Mohnke had had vivid nightmares from the morphine. He hoped this was real. It was beyond his wildest dreams of salvaging his career and honor. He would have to thank Major Steiner. The boy had done Mohnke better than he had any right to pray for, much less expect.

  2200 hours British Double Summer Time and CET

  23 September 1940

  War Cabinet Room, King Charles Street, Westminster, London

  It had been a bloody long session. Prime Minister Ernie Bevin was beginning to see some of the troubles Churchill, and before him Chamberlain, had faced. Getting anything done with either the full Cabinet or the smaller War Cabinet, was akin to pulling teeth minus the anesthetic. The Names maneuvered for advantage as if it were peacetime. They all saw themselves as selfless patriots. Bevin saw them as scheming prima donnas.

  Cairo messaged that they had retaken the otherwise worthless salient. It took several hours of back and forth traffic to establish that, as this had happened in daytime, they hadn’t exactly forced the enemy to do much of anything. For reasons of their own the Nazis had pulled out. Was this a response to the prior attacks? Dill proudly asserted yes, and the Names chose to back him.

  Both then wanted to ‘suggest’ more attacks to make a salient of Britain’s own. An 8th Army that was outnumbered and outgunned was to slug its way to victory by the valor of the Poor Bloody Infantry? On its face, this was so stupid as to beggar belief. Bevin wanted an end to stupid attacks, and to give Dill the sack. The fight took up most of the day. In the end Dill was out, with Lord Gort back in as Chief of the Imperial General Staff. Dill was to go to Shanghai to do bugger-all running the to-be-assembled China Force. He was going as a theater commander, despite his ‘theater’ having under a division between Hong Kong, Shanghai, and the lesser Treaty Ports.

  He’d also managed to rid himself of one of the Names. He was able to force Lord Halifax to accept the role of floor leader in Lords, and a meaningless lesser cabinet office. Eden had tried to reclaim the Foreign Office, but the other Names had ganged up against him. The new Foreign Secretary, Rab Butler, at least was a peace advocate.

  Both the War Cabinet and the larger full Cabinet were full of people who now saw this new ‘victory’ in Egypt, as a reason to try to avoid the harsh but essentially fair German terms. Even good old Clem went wobbly on this. The same Names that had resisted any reinforcement to Egypt, now were demanding to reinforce success. Dill, covering for his yet-to-arrive successor, admitted that a brigade of armor could be found between 1st and 2nd Armored Divisions. The support services from 7th Armored were still there. So it was one brigade as soon as the RN was finished at Daka
r, with a second ten days later. These would be plugged into 7th Armored’s structure, with one of the independent motorized brigades as a Support Group.

  RN was extremely evasive about the first day’s actions at Dakar. Bevin knew this tune. It meant things had gone poorly and the senior people were trying to find a scapegoat. Tomorrow Winston arrived in India. God only knew what mischief he’d bring.

  1200 hours local; 0730 hours CET

  24 September 1940

  Viceroy’s Residence, Rajpath, New Delhi, India

  The endless ceremonial was over. Winston Churchill was now Viceroy, and Claude Auchinleck was now commander-in-chief of the Indian Army. The two were not by nature simpatico, but days of being cooped up in the same airplane while taking the roundabout route via central Africa to India, had led to a certain mutual understanding. Auchinleck did not exactly agree with what Churchill proposed to do, but, pending receipt of contrary orders from London, he would obey, which was what the general felt was the constitutionally proper response to the civil authority.

  The fake Bodhisattva that was Gandhi, and his scheming henchman Nehru, had brought out mobs of protesters when the plane had landed at Bombay; and then the same all along the rail route to New Delhi. The police had kept these mobs in hand, but there were deaths, fires, riot. The Congress big men were in prison but obviously still communicating with the outside world. The Quit India campaign was a declaration to him, that even from a cell they ruled. Churchill had a program to prove they did not. His first move was this evening where he would host Mr. Jinnah and his chief associates from the All-India Muslim League. Congress’s mistake was to presume that Britain had to give independence to India as a whole. They had conquered it piecemeal. They could withdraw from it the same way, if needs must.

  1200 hours local; 1100 hours CET

  24 September 1940

  Joey’s Repair Section, lunchtime serving tables area, Brigade Strauss, rear of Italian lines at Alamein

  The girls who brought lunch had brought back visitors. The Major’s woman Greta and the cook Mary, had driven over and asked if they could chat with Clara over lunch. Clara was wise enough to take the request for the command it was. Her girls had cleared a section of an eating table, and waited in silence in case Mama Clara had orders.

  It took five minutes of the usual social pleasantries to arrive at the point. Mary had children who could benefit from education when not on duty as cook’s helpers. What might induce Frau Bats to consider allowing her early-teen ‘daughter’, who did the daily lessons with the ‘littles’, to permit the three Collins youngsters to sit in? Perhaps occasionally Abdul as well.

  Clara Fischer was not a person who shocked easily. ‘Frau Bats’ shocked her. She knew what she was with Joey and knew it was major steps up from street whore, but ‘Frau’? Greta saw the confusion in the older German woman’s face. “Do you prefer another form of address? I know my German is still less than perfect. We both are mistresses to officers. Field wives, as it were. Is Frau the wrong term?”

  “My officer hasn’t married me. No white dress and a church with the organ playing … ”

  “I thought Communists were atheists. Mary here was a soldier’s concubine. She took his name. I’ve accepted that whatever I think of myself as, others see me as Frau Steiner.”

  Frau? “Isn’t this all temporary?”

  “Our lives are temporary. We could be blown to pieces by a bomb from the sky. Berlin could tire of whatever game it is playing with this unit and have the SS Division liquidate us all. The SS does such things. They murdered my parents and siblings over a postcard I sent.” Greta paused to choke back a tear. “My own damned fault. That was months ago and I was so naive.” She gave a shrug and a sigh. “High price that others had to pay for it, but it seems life is like that. It has neither justice nor mercy. We can all die or be discarded. But if we aren’t, our war ends at the oil fields. My uncles and cousins and your Joey will be repairing those so the black gold can flow to Germany. Mary will cook. We all presumed you would teach school. Haven’t a clue as to what I’m good for. Something will turn up.”

  Something will turn up? Clara looked at this 18-year-old who was somehow a power to be reckoned with in the world Wanda had dropped her into. This child was trying to cope with this new world while Clara was just sitting in shock, living in the momentum of day-to-day. If Clara was doomed to spend the rest of her life with these people, best to make friends. So she started that dance of social connection.

  ……….

  Greta struggled to keep the smile off her face. This older, better-educated German woman intimidated her. It was so hard to live up to her role as Mrs. Klaus. He was settling into the role of hero officer quite well, if Gunter and her uncle were to be believed. It was her job to be the ‘wife’ he deserved.

  ……….

  It had gone well, Mary thought to herself. With her corporal, she never had had to deal with officers’ ladies. Those were a separate species, accorded deference but mostly avoided. The female gods that strutted were the companions of sergeants-major. For Mary, social alliances with these two were a terrifying step up, but she had forced herself to have the courage to try.

  1700 hours local; 1600 hours CET

  24 September 1940

  8th Army Field HQ to the rear of Alamein lines

  New Chief of the Imperial General Staff, same old brown stuff. One could hope that given time, the new CIGS, Lord Gort, would replace the staff idiots he inherited from General Dill. Given the widespread belief in the upper ranks of the officer corps that Gort had the brains of a grapefruit, Cunningham was not sure this would improve the situation.

  “Suggestions” from the staff of the CIGS kept undermining the generally sensible orders from the War Cabinet. The War Cabinet ordered an end to attacks. The staff Johnnies ever so helpfully ‘suggested’ that the ‘fighting edge be kept up by raids and heavy patrol actions.’ And were demanding daily reports of these activities. Complaints were met with bland responses that these were just ‘suggestions’. Cunningham and his boss Wavell knew the Army game of ‘suggestions’. The next step would be replacing brigade and division commanders who failed to heed these ‘suggestions’ with others ‘more keen’. War Cabinet would notice an Army or Theater commander being replaced. Lesser commanders and key staff officers, could over time all be relieved without the political masters quite taking notice.

  The brigades full of new ‘recruits’ from Egypt, its expats and refugees, were useless for this. These men could dig and build, but were not able to do anything more in combat than defend the trenches and bombproofs they had labored on. The Indian Army battalions were superb professionals. They were also horridly understrength. What field soldiers India had to spare, were being siphoned off to Basra to deal with the unfolding Iraq mess. The entire theater was unraveling. The Australian government would have kittens at its men being wasted this way.

  His British were easily good enough. Their field officers had all played this game, as lieutenants and captains in France and Flanders back in the last war. The problem was that raiding ate men. There were no new drafts of British coming anytime soon. That was why there were brigades full of barely trained laborers. No, he’d need his British for when the enemy Big Push came.

  That left the Yids. Winston’s stupidity in mobilizing them was obvious. The Palestinian Arabs were back to sniping and raiding. Iraq was aiding them and drifting into outright rebellion. There were rumbles even here in Egypt. But the Yids would fight. Hated the Nazis with cause. Wingate had trained a bunch of them in just this sort of patrolling ‘little war’. These two brigades included men from his ‘Special Night Squads’. Given some British cadres, these gentlemen could be a raiding battalion under Wingate’s personal command. A start on creating one had begun already. The Zionist Agency could supply the recruits to replace these men in the two line brigades, to supply fresh drafts to replace losses. There would be an obvious quid pro quo. He would send a staff man he trusted to
O’Connor. In turn, O’Connor would tell the Zionists that as long as these volunteers were forthcoming, the garrison command was prepared to quietly suspend the immigration limits. No vast convoys of ships and publicity but, if handled with discretion … No need to tell London. No paper trail. Perfectly deniable. Need to wisely use available resources etc.

  1830 hours Eastern Daylight Time, 24 September 1940

  0030 hours CET, 25 September, 1940

  The White House, 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington DC

  The big toothy smile never left his face. Franklin Delano Roosevelt prided himself on his charisma and affability. He was sure that if he set his mind to it, he could charm the scales off a snake. Plus he’d always been an advocate for the Navy, back to his days as Assistant Secretary of the Navy under Wilson. He’d gotten them the Two Ocean Navy Bill this summer. More money, planes, ships, men than they had ever dreamed of. Certainly more than they had even asked for.

  Yet the Chief of Naval Operations, Admiral Stark, and his bureau chiefs had stood before him like wooden cigar store Indians. Every time he mentioned destroyers to the China Station, they had fought him. Destroyers were for the battle fleet. Escort operations and show the flag were wastes of time. A battlefleet to fight who? Where? The Japanese were breaking up their main force, with active assistance from the USN and RN. A destroyer squadron headed by a light cruiser off to aid the British, and more than half the rest stood down. The one battle was against these ‘pirate submarines’ off the Chinese coast.