How I Won the War

Title Page
Dedication
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Epilogue
Copyright

The following is a list of titles from which the extracts used as chapter headings in this book were taken. The author gives his grateful thanks to the respective authors and publishers who gave their permission for these quotes to be used.

The experiences described in pages
25
,
166
and
182
have already been reported in
JOHN
O’
LON
DON
’S,
PUNCH
and
COURIER
respectively.

A
S THE LANDING CRAFT
pitched into the breakers, a taste of verdigris queased into my throat. Blanco puffed up from the gas mask on my chest and desiccated my mouth. That steel helmet was murdering my skull. I felt distinctly unwell, but it would never do to let the chaps see it. A commander must never show weakness in front of his troops.

I swallowed cavernously and gave Sergeant Transom a heartening slap on the shoulder.

“Well, Sergeant, here we go then,” I said. “Getting our chance at last of a good crack at the Boche, eh?”

He lowered his binoculars, surveyed me gloomily for some seconds, and spat silently into the sea. Grand chap in a tight corner, Transom, but not overarticulate.

With four hundred yards to go we ran into the low morning
mist which skeined along the Algerian coast. The ramp came down to half-mast and I judged it time to read the Order of the Day. It was a noble, rousing message the general had penned, just the thing to give the chaps that final lift up the beach. I took the card from my map case and moved forward to the slope of the ramp.

“Men of the Fourth Musketeers,” I declaimed, “we go forth together on this historic day, the eighth of November, 1942, to embark on a Great Adventure. We invade Algeria to do our bit in defence of the Old Country, the Empire and the Democratic Way of Life. Let us go into the ring for this first round with the Light of Battle in our eyes and the Strength of Righteousness in our hearts. If we all pull together with true British pluck and team spirit, we shall, with the support of the Almighty God of Battles, win His just victory over the Forces of Evil…. Good luck to you all, good hunting and tally-ho! to kick the Hun for six out of Africa!”

“And up the Spurs!” shouted Private Drogue.

“I would also add just a few personal words of my own …”

Before I could do so there was a grinding crunch below the waterline, the nose of the craft slid skywards, the ramp shot away from under my feet and pitched me backwards into the Mediterranean. I bumped rock and old iron six feet down and came to the surface with the tide carrying me already ten yards away from my command. The mist swirled down, but I could still make out the rearing shape of the boat and hear the engines roaring madly.

As I drifted farther away my feet touched sand and I was able to stand against the race. I blew my whistle and put my right hand on top of my head in the approved signal laid down in the
Infantry
Training
Manual.

“Rally!” I shouted. “Rally! Number Twelve Platoon, the Fourth Musketeers, rally on me!”

Three times I gave this order, but nobody came to look for his commander. At first I could not understand. I
undoubtedly
had the affection of my men. Man-management had ever been my abiding interest. I had advised each of them at length about his marital affairs, arranged compulsory saving of a sensible part of their pay and never taken my meal on
exercises
until they had eaten. Sometimes they ate the lot and
there was none left for me. Sergeant Transom, though
admittedly
lacking in imagination, was a most loyal N.C.O., and we had been together for a long time.

As the craft went astern and out of sight I realized that my abandonment was a naval decision. Underwater obstructions had been encountered and another approach must be found. My chaps would have come for me if they could. But the Navy was in command. A good chap, too, that sub-lieutenant. When I took him through the details of my Beach Landing Programme he had shown, for an untrained naval officer, a surprisingly intelligent appreciation of Army problems, and I had told him so.

The sound of the engines died away and I was alone and unsupported, neck-deep in the warm lopping sea.

“Now, steady, Ernest,” I said to myself. “Steady up and remember Clausewitz.”

It has ever been my custom in any military dilemma to make a quick appreciation of the situation based on
Clausewitz’s
Principles
of
War.
The commandment appropriate to my present circumstances was clearly “Maintenance of the Objective.” Not only would this action get me on to dry land, but it might also bring me back to my platoon.

Urged on by the tide, I strode through the shallows and found myself in a tiny cove framed by low red cliffs. Somewhere over the top and a mile inland lay our first bound, the village of Cleptha. My beach seemed deserted, and I only hoped that if Sergeant Transom met opposition he would remember my battle plan. It was an adaptation of the
Montgomery
left-hook technique and needed a mathematical mind to apply it at platoon level.

The mist lifted and the sun came through as I crawled over the sand and up onto the rise of the dunes. I was steaming like a frosty scrum when I reached the rocks below the crest…. There was a sudden clatter of stones above me and a man came running out onto the ridge.

He looked like an Arab, dressed in brown folk weave with an antimacassar around his head. But you could never be too careful. Damned crafty, the Hun. So I dived for cover and landed in a bed of thistles.

“Halt!” I commanded. “Who goes there?”

The lanyard of my revolver tangled in my entrenching tool and I couldn’t get my weapon out. Fortunately, my adversary stopped ten feet away. I caught the full smell of him down wind and knew he couldn’t be a German.

“O.K., Johnnie,” he piped. “Hurrafor King George.”

I had my pistol unravelled now and kept him covered as I came into the open.

“You speak English?”

“O.K., Johnnie. Hurrafor King George.”

He turned back the way he had come and beckoned me to follow him.

“That way?” I asked. “Cleptha?”

“Cleptha. O.K., Johnnie. Hurrafor King George.” He nodded triumphantly and pointed to himself, “Momali … Momali.”

If the landing is unopposed, said our orders, make immediate contact with the civil authorities. This was my chance. My landing was unopposed. Here was a guide. If I contacted the local headman the place would be my personal, bloodless victory. The major would be delighted.

“Take me to your sheikh,” I commanded. He jumped twice in the air in delight and went flap-footing down the track. Once away from the sea, the wind blew hot and dry and the worst of the wet was out of me when, after twenty minutes’ trot, we came to the mud-brick and corrugated-iron outskirts of Cleptha. White houses sprang up as we hit the high street, a pavement, then shops, cafés, the market-place and the mosque. Arabs stood up and clapped us through as though we were finishing the marathon. One ran alongside and grabbed my arm. Momali kicked him
à
la
savate
and sent him spinning into a barrow of dried octopi. We reached a two-story house with green shutters and flags of all nations decorating the balcony. Momali shepherded me between potted palms and into a tiled hall dripping with bead
curtains
.

A fat, swart woman with two Union Jacks topping her Madame Butterfly chignon came whooping through the
beadwork
. In a torrent of molten French and a smother of eau-de-Cologne, she folded me in her vast bosom and kissed
me violently on either cheek, leaving gouts of lipstick to mark her passage. She bore me down into a raffia armchair and pushed a hassock under my feet.

“Momali,” I asked. “This lady. She wife of the sheikh?”

“O.K., Johnnie. Hurrafor King George.” He nodded
vigorous
agreement and flapped off back into the street.

My hostess rang a cowbell and a boy brought in coffee and a bottle of Rule Britannia A1 Scotch Whisky. There was giggling above me and a dozen young women of various shades and sizes looked down from the gallery at the top of the stairs. I was getting the hang of things now. Butterfly was the sheikh’s No. 1 Wife and the others were the junior members of his harem. It was customary, no doubt, for the No. 1 Wife to offer hospitality before a guest met her master. She poured me a glass, half coffee, half Rule
Britannia
. Like Montgomery, I do not normally take alcohol but this was clearly in the line of political duty. I drank and the first gulp dried out my vest.

No. 1 screamed at the other wives and they came down the stairs and paraded like mannequins before my chair. I smiled politely and drank a little fire-cocoa to each in turn. All part of the welcoming ceremony, I thought, until I realized that Butterfly, in basic French and all too obvious sign language, was inviting me to choose one for my carnal pleasure.

I had heard tell of the magnitude of Arab hospitality, but this was old-world courtesy run mad. How could you possibly negotiate politically with a man ten minutes after you’d been up to all sorts with one of his wives? Besides, I’ve never been a chap for that sort of thing. I was not, thank God, brought up promiscuous.

A wet-lipped wife in a strained kimono sat down on my knee and I swallowed the rest of my coffee for safety. Her hands wandered everywhere and left me in no doubt as to her eagerness to sacrifice herself in the name of hospitality. It was a good thing I’d kept my equipment on.

“Non,
madame”
I said.
“Merci
beaucoup,
mais
non.”

She took this disclaimer for shyness and I was struggling with her in defence of British military honour when there
came a wild shouting from the street and Momali, followed by Sergeant Transom and Twelve Platoon, rushed in.

No. 1 Wife burst her stays in a torrent of delight, all the other wives ran upstairs and the platoon went after them.

“Well,” said Sergeant Transom, “but you soon got on the old job, didn’t you?”

“I am here to negotiate with the sheikh,” I said. “Momali led me to his house. We must see that he is rewarded.”

“He’s been rewarded. Best day’s commission ever earned by any Algerian brothel-runner.”

Butterfly took a wash leather bag from her cleavage and counted a pile of coins into Momali’s wriggling palm. A small bush fire ran up the back of my neck.

“You mean, Sergeant… that this is nothing but a … but a disorderly house?”

I had not been in such a place before. All that sort of thing is kept under cover in Kettering.

“Don’t come the old acid with me, sir. You’re a dark horse all right. All them lectures about leave the Wog tarts alone and here you are not landed five minutes and straight after a bit of Algerian under.”

“Now, Sergeant Transom, I want to make it quite clear to you that …”

“It’s all clear enough to me, sir, and it’ll be clearer still to the major if he comes in here and sees you with that lipstick all over your gob. We’d better be pushing on for the main road. Out through the back door, too.”

He clattered up the stairs and along the corridor, marking his progress by the slap of female buttocks and the answering squeals of foreign anguish.

“Outside on parade, all of you!”

Ten minutes later, Twelve Platoon was back in action, moving in battle formation out of Cleptha and up a sunken track towards the coast road.

“Roll on, bleeding death,” said Private Spool. “We was just on the job lovely when he has to have everybody out.”

“In, out, on guard,” said Private Drogue. “All I had time for. All right for him, mind you, crafty perisher. Swims ashore, nips up smartish and gets in a couple of long, slow grinds before we ever get there.”

The Capture of Cleptha–November 1942

There was a tinge of admiration in his voice so I decided not to reprove him. More serious matters took my
attention
.

“Sergeant Transom,” I said. “We’re not observing proper anti-gas precautions. The leading man has no litmus paper on his bayonet.”

He looked down at the thick, white dust puffing over our boots.

“Nor he hasn’t, sir,” he said in surprise. “And this is a dead likely place to meet mustard gas, and all. I’ll see to it right away.”

He moved forward and spiked a sheet of paper on Private Drogue’s bayonet.