Deaths on the Nile

by Scott Palter

  Von Manstein let his Bursche serve them both some of the abysmal Ersatz coffee, which apparently was all his headquarters had. Ernst had gotten spoiled on the captured British stocks his unit’s mess had. “These attempts to evade your posting. I’ve let you amuse yourself so you could discover the futility of it. You are mine till I choose to give you up. OKH has no pull here. Neither does the War Ministry. OKW is headed by my deputy, General Busse. This is an OKW theater of operations. You are completely in my power.”

  Ernst had been schooled since his boyhood in suppressing his emotions. His face stayed blank. There were tells, to someone who knew him well. Cousin von Manstein didn’t. “As you command, Herr General Corps Commander.”

  Von Manstein nodded at the mandated, expected answer. “It’s not so bad.” He passed a folder across to the young man. He gave him a minute to skim it. “Yes. Promotion to Hauptmann. Iron Cross First Class. Letter of commendation.” The general gave the entire situation another minute to sink in. “You were in a combat unit. You were the only professional officer there. The unit performed well. Of course, we would arrange for much of the credit to go to you. Our class is the arms-bearers. Now, tell me about this Strauss as a Brigadier?”

  The Leutnant was still working hard at keeping the shock and pride out of his voice. “He’s better than you’d expect. He’s clearly over his head above the Company level, but he knows that. He relies a great deal on Oberstleutnants Gorlov and Schwabe. Both have Battalion command experience. Gorlov has Brigade command experience as well. Oberstleutnant Sommer, the new Ia, seems to be settling in well. He has the staff training to keep the headquarters functional. The Brigade staff is a bunch of civilians, but they have mercantile experience running organizations.” Ernst paused for breath, waited to see if the General wanted to interrupt. He didn’t. “You’d expect Strauss to be a Rommel-type of Storm Trooper. Yet unlike General Rommel, Strauss pays attention to logistics and administration. I think the key is his service with the Iron Division as an intelligence officer. He makes sure he knows the ground he’s fighting on, where friendly and enemy units are. So yes, he was up front leading advance raiding forces. But his headquarter knew where he was and what was expected of them. His actions fed the overall mission. It was not just a personal quest for glory. If you think of Strauss and the three Oberstleutnant’s as a team, it’s functional.”

  Von Manstein sat there quietly, sipping the vile beverage and taking it all in. Made polite small talk about mutual acquaintances and relatives for five minutes, then sent the new Hauptmann on his way. This Strauss might prove to be of use.

  1200 hours local; 1100 hours CET

  8 October 1940

  Brigade area, rear of Italian XXI Corps lines, northern end of Alamein positions

  Mail call was a haphazard event. Most of the unit’s mail came by pouch outside the normal military mails. The senior person in each new draft from Bari brought the sack of letters and parcels. This avoided the censor’s office. Given the deceptions on Aryan status and general unusual nature of much of Brigade Strauss, that was probably all for the best.

  Greta saw Klaus open an official-looking envelope and sadly shake his head. Anything about her man was part of her duties. Motioning her girls to hang back, she trotted over to him. Cloud cover took some of the edge off the stifling heat. Plus she was getting acclimated by now. “Klaus. Something bad from home?”

  Her voice brought his focus back to here and now. “Just something silly. I signed up for the NL a few weeks short of school graduation. Seems that my Handelsschule got word of their graduate being a bit famous. The letter says they waived the last few weeks of the course and have awarded me my graduate certificate. I suppose it will help when I go looking for a job after demobilization.” He laughed a bit. “We all should live that long! And the war has to eventually end. But for the war, I’d have spent the summer making the rounds trying to secure a job.” He laughed again. He was visualizing putting “Battalion Commander” on his application. His kind usually were company clerks.

  “Handelsschule?”

  “It’s a trade school, in this case for clericals. My folks were from the wear-a-tie-to-work class. Barely lower middle class. Both proud of it, and, at the same time, terrified of falling off that shelf back to the blue-collar world of their parents. Their great hope for me was a government job. Failing that, some big corporation like Krupp.” Klaus ruefully shook his head again. The military were as big an institution as some government ministry, and bigger than Krupp. Yet somehow he didn’t expect them to see it that way. His enlistment in the NL had been a tremendous disappointment to them. The few letters from ‘home’ had made that abundantly clear. Then they stopped answering, so he stopped writing. If an Iron Cross First Class and a promotion to Major didn’t please them, nothing he did would.

  Greta hesitated. She shouldn’t be pushing him, but she was 18 and curious. “Oil fields need clerks and administrators. Will you be staying on at Kirkuk with us?”

  “Do you want me to?”

  She grabbed him behind his head and proceeded to say yes with her lips and tongue, ignoring the wolf-whistles and catcalls from the passers-by. When Klaus eventually came up for air, he had a big smile on his face. She was ready for another round, but he stammered something about needing to check in with Oberstleutnant Sommer. She blew him a big kiss and shook her hips a little at him. He loped off with a huge smile on his face. She motioned for Naiomi and the girls. When they joined her, the girlpack set off to find Uncle Isaac. This was important. Greta knew she needed to report in.

  1230 hours local; 1130 hours CET

  8 October 1940

  Brigade HQ in rear of Italian XXI Corps

  Klaus had briskly run to this meeting, trying to make up for lost time. He hated being late, the more so as he’d learned that the military version of ‘on time’ was fifteen minutes early. He started to stammer out an excuse, but Gunter waved him to silence. Gunter, Ivan Gorlov, Sommer, Peiper, and Di Salo were all there. There was one empty chair. Klaus could do that sort of fast math, and sat in the obvious place. Mary’s foster son Abdul served him his coffee and withdrew back into the corner, squatting down on his heels to await any further needs of the clan lords, as he thought of them.

  The Brigadier didn’t seem angry at Klaus’s late arrival. Then again, Gunter normally tended to a very even disposition. He never had to worry about physical dominance in any situation. That gave him the ability to be the alpha in the room, without any need for the usual macho stunts. “Klaus, Jochen, John, this meeting is to bring you three up to speed. We are reorganizing the unit. Kampfgruppe One will be Ivan’s. Your three battalions. The fast troops. Kampfgruppe Two will be Isaak with the guns, and enough infantry as fusiliers for support. Kampfgruppe Three will be Gregor and Joey with the repair contingent and the administrative tail. The three of you have all worked together on these patrols you’ve been doing. We’ll want to run some full exercises, so you get used to working together mounted. Ivan’s had brigade command experience. Granted it was Russia a generation ago, but still … ” Gunter let the sentence hang. He was looking around to see if any of the three being brought in had questions. All looked determined, not lost or upset.

  After the pause had hung there long enough to be a de facto answer, Sommer took over. “I’ll be detailing von Kleist-Konitz to you with an advance staff section. He desperately wants combat. Your group will be under the hammer enough even for an eager beaver like him. Of course, this all begs the question of what higher command wants us to do besides sit here, while the battle gets fought at the south end of the line.”

  Sommer looked over at his Brigade commander expectantly. There were obviously things he hadn’t been told, either in Berlin or since his arrival. Schmidt/Smith was relaying messages that were commander’s-eyes-only. Gunter gave him a level look. “Yes, I know things you don’t. But parts of it are obvious. We have been made guardians of the financial warchest for rebuilding Alexandria. We are also bein
g gifted with the naval experts who will supervise that. Neither makes sense unless we are also being tasked to that city. Now whether we are expected to seize it, or just follow behind as garrison … let’s just say we are a bit small to storm a city that big … if it needs storming. Per Abwehr, the British don’t have a combat garrison there. A lot of administrative and service troops, a good bit of police of various kinds, and some AAA guns. None of which matter without infantry. City fighting takes infantry. That sort of action is groundpounder hell. Now, presume that our foes don’t detach some infantry to fall back there when the main line collapses. A fast group might just grab it before anything can be done. That’s the best I can do for now.”

  The Ia did not look pacified, but he also didn’t press the issue. Neither did Di Salo, although his face said he thought he was being given a snow job. He just asked, “Is that what you want the flame tanks for? I’ve been asking around. It’s a good excuse to get you a dozen. We have them in theater, but no one sees any use for them. Can I swap a few rebuilt British trucks to get them?”

  Gunter nodded yes, and the meeting wound down from there. He asked Klaus and Ivan to stay behind and sent everyone else on their way. “Get used to this. We will all be dancing around what we are doing in Alexandria. We have to fence the damned birds without our colleagues being any the wiser.” Gunter thought Abdul’s German wasn’t good enough to follow what he said. He didn’t want to run the risk of arousing suspicion of the others by sending the Arab out.

  Di Salo had figured out that there was private business among the old Malta hands. Until it interfered with his Battalion, he simply didn’t care. Peiper failed to twig. He was floating on air over having his status as a Battalion commander confirmed, even if his force at the moment was too weak to be a proper Battalion. Sommer knew there were layers he was excluded from. For now he was content to bide his time. He was still settling into his role in the unit. This was far too great a professional opportunity to ruin by being overly aggressive at this point. There was time enough later to get within the commander’s inner circle as befitted the Ia.

  Abdul waited till he was dismissed. His German was still quite basic. But his ears were young, and like many illiterates he had a memory trained to remember large chunks of spoken words. He would ask his new mother Mary what ‘damned birds’ were.

  1900 hours local; 1800 hours CET

  8 October 1940

  Repairs bays, Brigade Strauss, rear of Italian XXI Corps lines

  Normally Joey and Paul took light snacks instead of a big sit-down dinner. Their work schedule maximized daylight work hours. So it was a big breakfast before dawn, a good sized midday meal, a very light dinner; and a bit of finger food with a good stiff drink when they knocked off work, to aid in sleep and digestion. Plenty of coffee and snack packs throughout the day whenever there was a break. The work they did required both massive physical effort and deep thought. Today they had been converting three dysfunctional Matilda tanks into two workable ones. Obvious holes in the armor would just get welded patches which wouldn’t really hold up to a proper AT round. However, they would run smoothly until knocked out. There was enough main gun ammo for at least one engagement, and essentially-unlimited machine-gun rounds. The British had thoughtfully used a copy of a Czech weapon based on the standard German rifle cartridge.

  An hour ago Paul’s brother Peter had pulled him away for something. Now Clara was telling Joey that he should assign tasks for the rest of the night, then come with her. They needed to change for a party. A party? In the Western Desert?

  “Yes, dear. Major Steiner just got his school diploma in the mail. They waived his missing time because of his fine war record. Something about his example being an inspiration for everyone still in school there. Local HJ chapter’s been renamed after him as well. The little Nazis are being indoctrinated to be worthy of the example of Klaus Steiner, Aryan superman.” Her brittle laugh showed what she thought of THAT.

  “So who is throwing a party?”

  “His woman. Her Betar girls. His cook. Greta’s family. Peiper will be there. Some Betar commissar named Begin. Di Salo and his whore. These are people whose good opinion will matter. The kids have a set of your civvies all cleaned and pressed for you. A fresh outfit for me. We do a quick spongebath to get the sweat off. You shave. I’ll do a quick braiding for my hair. This is not some formal thing. But we will have a drink, toast him, and mingle.”

  “Huh?” Joey was not tracking Why did this social bovine feces matter to a guy like him? He was in with the big boss Gunter. Wasn’t that enough?

  Clara could read her man’s mind. Then again, away from mechanical things, it was a fairly shallow river. “Yes, the Brigadier will be the big boss. He knows nothing of running an oil field. Greta’s family knows oil fields. You want part of that work. People give work to their friends. I’ll see to Greta. You just share a drink with the men and smile a bit.”

  Joey started to flare. He hated being bossed this way. She gave him a good hard kiss and a quite intimate stroke on his ass. He smiled in spite of himself. If she saw to these things, he didn’t have to. He could talk welds and shock absorbers and stuff that mattered. So this was what marriage was like? His old man may have been right, damn him. It was high time to be thinking about a wife, only this Wanda had already found one for him. He’d have to ask her if she was willing to have kids herself. If he was going to become a captain of industry in Kirkuk, he’d want a few sons, to get a good one, worthy to inherit. He was laughing while he shaved. Maybe growing up wasn’t so bad after all?

  0200 hours CET

  9 October, 1940

  Café Wanda, Bari, Italy

  The train had been the usual wartime chaos. More time spent on sidings or waiting in stations, than actual travel. The mother-in-law / daughter-in-law pair of Helena Witt and Kerstin Witt arrived at Bari exhausted, bewildered, and more than a bit terrified. Their menfolk had been conscripted by the heads of the SS for something strange in the African war. Their house was skillfully packed for storage by strangers. Ultimately for shipment to a new home somewhere at some time. Or perhaps this was all a polite cover for confiscation of their possessions? They themselves were shipped south with a Gestapo woman for a minder.

  The cantonment area was vast and seemingly without coherent design. Yet their driver seemed to navigate the maze without incident. As the European air war was over, the camp was not under blackout. However, it lacked proper street lights, paved roads, or any form of visible traffic control. Vehicles were few, but drove on whichever side of the road suited the driver’s whim. This had resulted in a few near-collisions. Now they had arrived at a well-lit two-story building. It appeared to be some sort of tavern, but the sounds of music and raucous partying suggested that perhaps it was a cabaret.

  Once inside the two Frauen changed their judgment. It was obvious that this was a brothel. There were too many partially-clad young women for it to be anything else. So this was to be their fate? At their ages? How sad. A burly Major in SA uniform signed papers with the Gestapo lady, acknowledging the receipt of two Berlin women. He took the policewoman up to the bar to give her a drink on the house, calling out over his shoulder, “Oriana, take these two back to the office. Aunt Wanda and Frau Rachel are waiting for them.”

  The girlchild leading them seemed too young to be a working whore. She also wasn’t dressed for it. After a few twists and turns through the building, which seemed to have been constructed in stages with no central plan, the ladies entered a brightly lit office. A robust young woman sat behind a big desk. She had a well-worn face and the arms of a manual laborer. There was a large safe behind her and file cabinets. A more mature lady was in an armchair. This one was clad in simple attire more suitable for a provincial bourgeois household, than a military cathouse.

  The well-muscled young lady stood up, stuck her hand out to shake, and announced, “I’m Wanda. Glad you arrived safely. This is Frau Cohen. She will be getting you settled in.”

&n
bsp; “Cohen?” Kerstin Witt was doing the talking for her mortified mother-in-law.

  “I go by Schwabe as well. Everyone here knows who the Jews are. Berlin simply seems to prefer we don’t advertise it. That may change when we reach Palestine, but for now … ”

  “Palestine? You are Zionists?”

  “No, dear. Refugees from Romania and Hungary. The locals there want no Jews, and are somewhat more violent about it than the Germans are.”

  More violent? The two Witts did not know what to make of this. “I presume, Frau Cohen Schwabe, that you are the madam. I’m not quite sure what’s expected of us at our ages. I mean, we are scarcely blushing virgins, but … ”

  Wanda started to chuckle. It turned to raucous laughter as she had to struggle not to fall out of her chair. “Expected of you? Good Lord. What did they tell you you were being sent to?”

  “A camp where we would be staying for some length of time.”

  Frau Rachel shook her head. “Ladies. A MILITARY camp. Not a prison camp. The building you are in houses the main unit offices, but it’s a business we run, not the core of our existence. Mostly we are just families quartered here while our men are off at war. Your husband and sons are in Africa, with my husband and two of my three sons.”

  Each Witt woman gave a sigh of relief. “Then what is expected of us?”

  Rachel explained, “For tonight, my daughters are arranging a temporary room for you. The parlor of our small house. We are building you two a simple dwelling, but need a few more days to complete it. Herr Witt has arranged for you two to draw a monthly stipend from his pay. This will take a week to set up, but I can advance you funds in the meantime. Take tomorrow to catch up on your sleep and begin to get accustomed to your new life. Day after, I’ll meet you at the mess hall for breakfast, then take you around to get acquainted with the other ladies of note. Beyond that, if you have skills or hobbies please let us know. Some ladies teach. We have crafts workshops, card games, and lecture series held by the many here with educational credentials. You are on an enforced Italian vacation. The weather will be a mite warm by Berlin standards, but the food is decent in the cafeteria. With money, more variety can be had from the local markets. We send groups to shop a few times a week. Are either of you observant?”