Take or Destroy! (17 page)

Everywhere you looked the desert was crammed with humanity. Convoy after convoy rumbling past with whining tyres, sand-coloured and drab. Lumbering armour, making a tremendous din with their engines and tracks, their guns jerking and lifting, their antennae whipping as they lurched over the jolts. And battery upon battery of guns, light and heavy, rolling past on portees or towed by lorries; all served by men in the areas behind, who pulled out piles of shining shells from beneath their draping of camouflage netting.

That night Hockold held his last conferences with Babington and the RAF. Then, back at Gott el Scouab, he called the officers together and went over the whole thing once more.

‘Warehouse party,’ he warned. ‘Avoid the alleys. There are dozens leading into Wogtown and all you’ll do is get lost. And if anybody’s in doubt who’s opposite, shout for the password. It’s “War Weapons Week, Weymouth”. The Italians don’t have a W in their alphabet and Germans pronounce it as a V, so neither of them should be able to imitate it.’

The last day was tense. As the sun rose a few men appeared and shaved; - then, as the morning advanced, the tent walls were rolled up and the interiors cleared of the rubbish turned out of pockets the night before. Kits were stacked and the piles marked. There was a spate of letter-writing, and a few torn sheets of paper and discarded photographs fluttered about. Automatically they arranged bedding but there was no inspection. A few chores were performed and after breakfast they lay in the shade of the tents, reading, smoking, sipping water from the chattees and gazing towards the west where the rumble of battle continued.

‘I wouldn’t mind a swim,’ Sugarwhite said.

‘You’ll p’r’aps get all the swibbig you wadt toborrow night,’ Waterhouse bawled.

The day was a Sunday and, to everybody’s disgust, Bunch came down on the tents like an avenging angel to drive them out to a church parade.

‘ ‘Oo wadts to go to church?’ Waterhouse yelled. ‘Kneelig down there grousig to some bloke you cand’t see.’

But Bunch, as usual, was way ahead of them when it came to tactics. ‘God’ll like you better for it,’ he announced. ‘And where you’re going it might be a good idea to ‘ave ‘Im on your side.’

At midday, Murdoch got them round him for his last pep talk. ‘No bunching,’ he urged. ‘No rushing. Just keep y’r heads and don’t do anything blindly. Don’t shoot unless you have to. It’ll only draw attention to where you are.’

They were only small points but it was good to hear them, and made them realize that Murdoch had thought of everything and left nothing to chance.

He glanced at his notebook, not because he didn’t know what followed, but to give them time to absorb the things he’d already told them. Then he went on again in his quiet, steady, unemotional voice, as if he were announcing plans to take a troop of Boy Scouts on a camping holiday. ‘If you have to send a message, use a proper form, no’ a scruffy bit of paper. And just make sure you’re no’ in need of a pee when you land. We cannae have everybody stopping for that just when he’s needed.’

Hockold stood behind him, listening, envious that somehow in his own murderous way Murdoch had done what he himself could never do, and had captured the imagination of the men around him. With his own limitations of personality, and with time short so that the preparations and the demands he had had to make had kept him away from contact with them, it had always been Murdoch’s personality which had impressed them most. Perhaps, he thought calmly, it was as well; and right that his own share in Cut-Price was to be no more than taking the brunt of the German counter-attacks so that the other parties were free to do their jobs. Only the night before he had experienced another of the unnerving blank spots when he could see nothing but the sprawled body among the wreckage, clawing at its wounded head.

Beyond the camp there was still the grind and rattle of tanks moving, and the low sustained roar of lorry engines as they headed westwards. There was little information on the general situation, but someone brought the news that the Germans were resisting strongly and that the Greeks had caught a nasty packet in a feint down by Hemeimet.

‘Wops, see.’ Taffy, of course, knew the reason why. ‘They cannot fight.’

‘Modem war being what it is, however,’ Bradshaw pointed out cheerfully, ‘those who aren’t naturally heroic are sometimes obliged to become so, while those who are likely to thrill to the sound of the charge are all too often left guarding the bogs. You can’t always pick your spot.’

A little later the word was that the Free French had caught a packet too. Nobody knew how such news got around the desert but it always did and no one doubted that it was true.

Sugarwhite looked anxious. ‘I hope this one doesn’t end up like all the others,’ he said,

‘It wod’t,’ Waterhouse reassured him. ‘Not this time.’

‘Suppose we win it, boy?’ Taffy was doing a big planning job for the future. ‘What will you do with the peace? What will be the first thing you will do when it is all over and we can all go home.’

Waterhouse looked at him with contempt. ‘You know the adswer to that as well as I do: Go upstairs with the girl friend. And then take me pack off.’

Somebody noticed that Sidi-Bot-Om, old Mo-for-Mohammed, was reading an Everyman edition of the Koran.

‘What’s that, Sarge?’ Belcher asked.

‘It’s a bit like Kipling, son,’ Sidebottom said gravely. ‘Only more holy.’

Even Bunch found himself suddenly popular with nervous youngsters who hoped that from his vast store of knowledge he could produce something reassuring. ‘J’ever see a cavalry charge?’ he said. ‘I did. Last there was. On the Somme. Ten minutes later they was all lying dead.’

‘The men, Sarge?’

Bunch’s dim honest face stirred. ‘Oh, yes,’ he said. ‘They was killed too.’

They brewed tea, making it in cans in the old desert way, independent of Cook-Corporal Rogers. A few names came in of men of their old units who were said to have been wounded or killed. Once more, nobody knew where they came from but nobody doubted. As the sun began to sink they saw a Boston in the distance hit by anti-aircraft fire and explode, to fall in a thousand fragments away from the rest of the formation as it forged steadily on. A few lorries came back, some of them damaged, some of them containing damaged equipment for repair, some of them damaged men. The sight made them realize that the noise and smoke ahead were not mere histrionics, but the sound and fury of battle.

The day dragged. The lorries continued to pass them going east, and it suddenly occurred to Fidge that he ought to get aboard one, because then he could be in the back areas before anyone missed him.

The sun grew hotter. They tried not to talk about the battle. Belcher got a game of crown and anchor going and everyone seemed willing to lose everything he possessed, as though hoarding money were a temptation to Fate. Sugarwhite tried to finish his letter to the girl next door. Baragwanath Eva cleaned his rifle for the thousandth time, his face placid as though he were looking forward to what lay ahead. Jones the Great Warrior, trying to hide the unease that was filling his mind to bursting point, told them yet again how he was going to win the war. Bradshaw read.

Then, just when they were all beginning to think about preparing themselves for the evening move, a staff car came tearing into the camp, bursting like a bullet out of the streams of traffic grinding past. A moment later, Sotheby was seen running to Hockold’s tent.

A few curious men managed to see the officers arguing inside the headquarters hut. Then the staff officer came out, and as his car swung out of camp, Hockold called for the old Humber brake he used. He climbed into it and drove away, his face angry, heading after the staff car.

Almost immediately the news flashed round the camp like wildfire.

It was off!

Operation Cut-Price had been cancelled!

With the operations west of EI AIamein changing direction, a new date was set so as to support Operation Supercharge.

There was considerable activity round Montgomery’s tactical headquarters when Hockold arrived. Up ahead he could see the horizon clouded with smoke and dust and the moon yellowed by the millions of gritty particles hanging in the air.

A young major met him. ‘We’re keeping the gnats out of the flan,’ he said, ‘though we’re behind schedule here and there. Thirteenth Corps seems to be held up in the south, but the Old Man’s as cool as cucumber. Went to bed at his usual time last night and slept like a baby, I’m told.’

De Guingand was busy but far from flustered. ‘Hello, Hockold,’ he said. ‘Sorry we had to hold you. You’d better come along and see the general.’

Montgomery was sitting on a stool, examining a map fastened to the side of a lorry. He seemed quite unmoved by the thump of ack-ack guns, and the occasional vicious whistle and crump of a nearby bomb. ‘Ah, Hockold,’ he said. ‘Sorry about your show. We’re just making a few adjustments, that’s all.’

‘Then we’re still going, sir?’

Montgomery rose. ‘Are you ready?’

‘We can go any time, sir.’

‘Excellent. Excellent. Then you shall.’ Montgomery gestured at the map. ‘Everything’s going very well. Excellent progress. The situation round the Miteirya Ridge’s a bit congested but we’re breaking clear, 10th Armoured’s two thousand yards west of the minefield area and in touch with 1st Armoured, and the New Zealanders and 8th Armoured are through too. All very encouraging. Most encouraging. But the enemy’s waking up now.’ He jabbed a finger at the map. ‘There’s some heavy fighting just here and it’s becoming a little expensive, so we’re going to switch directions. I’m going to use wet hen tactics and get the German reserves rushing backwards and forwards trying to find out where we are. They’ll start hitting back properly tomorrow. I’d like you to put your men in some time after that. Don’t change your arrangements. You’ll be warned when to go.’

‘Very good, sir. What do I tell my people?’

Montgomery, who had turned away, stopped, paused, then looked round. ‘You don’t,’ he said. ‘As far as they’re concerned, it’s
off.’

‘Off?’ Fidge whined. ‘For Chroist’s sake! After Oi slogged oop and down that bloody desert till Oi bloody near dropped?’

It had taken some doing to screw themselves to the pitch of battle readiness, and in their highly charged emotional state the let-down left them bewildered and slightly sick. Morale drooped at once, and to show their disapproval someone wrote ‘Balls to Montgomery’ on the walls of the latrines alongside ‘Joe for King’, the bawdy verses, and ‘A merry Christmas to all our readers’.

With the sky the colour of dirty pewter, Gott el Scouab was in a sullen mood and there was a great deal of angry muttering. There were a few, however, who sent up a silent prayer of gratitude and relief. Some, uncertain all along of their courage, managed a thankful quip as though they didn’t care -- ‘Those Jerries don’t know how lucky they are!’ Others like Fidge made no bones about their attitude. ‘Oi’m no ‘ero,’ he said. ‘Oi just do what Oi’m towld. That’s moi mottow.’

And one or two, their hearts still thumping in their chests and thankful above everything for their deliverance, were unwise enough to raise their voices in feigned fury,

‘I am fed up, I am,’ Taffy Jones announced loudly. ‘I think I will transfer to the Tank Corps, look you, and have done.’

‘Gerroff, you’d die of fright,’ Waterhouse said.

‘No, man! You can go for the Jerries in the Tank Corps. Like the charge of the Light Brigade. I’d have liked to have been in that.’ The heady relief that had swept over Taffy was making him over-ebullient. ‘Or else, perhaps, I will change to the sappers. Lifting mines. Or to the air force and become a rear gunner.’

Waterhouse glared, but nobody made any further comment because they were all used to Taffy shooting off his mouth. But then, unexpectedly, Baragwanath Eva spoke, his dark face twisted with contempt.

‘You’m a bloody liar,’ he said slowly and deliberately.

Taffy turned, startled, and for a long moment the tent was absolutely silent. Bradshaw glanced at Sugarwhite and laid down his book, placing it carefully on the blanket alongside him.

Eva gestured. ‘You’m the biggest bloody liar I ever yurr,’ he said, spacing his words to add point. ‘You’m always talking like that but there’s a yeller streak a mile wide runnin’ straight through the middle of ‘ee.’

Taffy had stopped dead, shocked, then, because he knew - as they all knew - that Eva was right, he returned to the fray explosively and without much thought.

‘And you,’ he said in his high indignant voice, ‘you are a bloody dirty, scruffy, thieving gipsy, look you!’

Sitting with their mouths agape at the sudden hot hatred that was in the tent, they were all taken by surprise as Eva dived for his bayonet. All except Bradshaw, who leapt after him so that the two of them sprawled on the ground, fighting for possession of the weapon, while Taffy, his jaw dropped, his face suddenly white, stood petrified, his back against the tent pole.

‘Lemme go!’ Eva grated.

‘No, you bloody fool!’ Holding him to the ground with his superior weight, Bradshaw flung an order over his shoulder. ‘For Christ’s sake,’ he said. ‘Wake up and get that bloody gas-bag outside!’

The words brought them to life. Gardner, Willow and Auchmuty dragged Taffy into the sunshine while Sugarwhite and Waterhouse went to Bradshaw’s help and wrenched away the bayonet.

There was a long silence. They’d all been aware of the dislike that existed between Eva and Taffy Jones. It had been building up from the first day they’d been brought together, like two explosive ingredients in close contact with each other, but the violence had still been unexpected. It left them all shocked and Sugarwhite suddenly realized why it was that they all listened to Bradshaw, why Murdoch thought he should be an officer.

He was climbing to his feet now, allowing the Cornishman to sit up. He thrust the bayonet which Sugarwhite handed to him back into the scabbard, and Eva pushed the hair from his eyes and lit a cigarette without saying anything.