Take or Destroy! (29 page)

He became aware of Berringer watching him, and then that all the eyes in the other blackened features round him were on his face. He was horrified by the responsibility that had been thrown on him and his adam’s apple jerked as he swallowed with difficulty. Conscious of his nervousness and lack of skill as a soldier, he bent to check the magazine on his Sten but managed instead to wrench it free. Blushing under his blacking, he sighed and shoved it back into place. He looked like a hesitant sixth-former.

‘Actually, Sergeant,’ he said, ‘I think it’s tut-time we were off.’

As he straightened up, he was astonished to see three lorries and a motor-cycle escort come round the shoulder of the hill, heading down the dusty road from the POW compound. The pioneers Hochstatter had demanded appeared so unexpectedly, the sound of their engines drowned by the clatter of firing, that they were almost past before Sotheby’s party fully realized they were even coming. The first lorry roared on down the slope, but as the second one came alongside Sotheby woke up to the situation with a start and pulled the trigger of his Sten gun. Nothing happened and he realized he had the safety catch on. As he freed it, the third lorry drew level and he emptied the whole magazine into the driver’s cabin. As he did so, his men woke up, too, and Sotheby had the satisfaction of seeing the lorry swerve and roll off the road, turning over and over down the slope before bursting into flames, while one of the following motor-cyclists, either dead or in a catalepsy of fright, shot over the low cliffs, still sitting bolt upright, still grasping the handlebars, and dropped with a splash into the sea alongside the startled crew of HSL 117.

Surprised and pleased with the results of his work, Sotheby turned a grinning face towards Berringer. It appeared he could do things after all if he tried, and he waved his arm and started up the slope towards the POW camp.

Alongside him were Keely and the terrified Fidge. A product of the Gorbals, fighting was nothing new to Keely; war was only a difference of conditions and weapons. He loathed everything about the army because it imposed rules on him, but now that he was away from camp he was enjoying himself and itching to do something about killing Germans. Fidge was frankly horrified at what he’d let himself in for. When this lot was over, he kept telling himself, he’d muster out of commando training as fast as he’d mustered in.

As they scrambled over the top of the slope on to the flat ground beyond, they saw the compound in front of them.

Sotheby had expected it to be full of huts, but there were only two or three by the entrance where Veledetti and his staff worked. All the compound itself contained was a large number of ragged men, now lying flat on their faces for safety.

With one half of his men keeping down the fire of the few Germans and knocking chips off the huts where the Italians were crouching, Sotheby ran forward. Alongside him were Keely and Fidge. There were five Italians standing by the gate and Keely flattened the lot with one burst. But then an explosion of sustained firing came from a parked lorry in the shadows beyond and, just as he dived for the ground, Sotheby saw Keely stagger. It occurred to him that the POW compound wasn’t going to be quite as easy as they’d expected because he’d noticed peaked Afrika Korps caps near the lorry and realized that the men who wore them were the last of the group they’d ambushed on the hill, who for some reason or other had been delayed.

Keely was still on his feet, with Fidge close behind him for shelter, and as he pulled the trigger again, the firing from the lorry died away. When Sotheby looked up, Keely was lying on his face and Fidge was standing terror-stricken, wondering what to do next. It seemed to be Fidge who’d done the damage.

The firing from the lorry had stopped only momentarily. Its crew had dived for safety and, flinging themselves flat, they opened up again so that Sotheby had to scramble up and leap forward to knock the petrified Fidge flying.

‘Wu-well done,’ he said as he sprawled on top of him.

They could hear yelling now from the compound as heads lifted and British cheering started. But Veledetti had finally decided to make a stand in the guard-house, and as he and his men began to fire across the compound the prisoners’ heads went down again and the cheering stopped abruptly as the bullets flew, twanging on the wire and whining off into the darkness.

Sotheby lifted his head. Fidge was moaning. A bullet had nicked his ear and he was bleeding like a stuck pig. Without thinking, Sotheby half-dragged, half-carried him out of the firing, and almost hurled him into Berringer’s arms.

‘You all right?’ he asked.

‘Oi think Oi’m doying!’

As Berringer pushed Fidge away, Sotheby waved his arm. ‘Get those bub-bastards with the lorry, Sergeant,’ he said. ‘The rest of you, come with me.’

Diving across the road to the shelter of the bank beyond, he climbed up to the huts. There were a few Italians among them but they were shot down as soon as they appeared. Then Sotheby tossed a grenade through the window of the guardhouse and the shooting stopped abruptly. A moment later two Germans burst out of the hut, firing from the hip.

Sotheby yelped and fell flat on his back, but someone killed one of the Germans with a single shot and, as the other began to run across the compound, a sailor stood up among the sprawled prisoners with a stone as big as a football in his hand. He was a huge man and he flung the stone with all his strength. It struck the German at the back of the head just where his peaked cap finished, and felled him as if he’d been pole-axed.

In the sudden silence, Sotheby sat up. Inside the guard-house there were a few moans of
‘Mamma’
and
‘Aiuto!’
as Sotheby got to his feet, blood staining his sleeve and dripping off his fingertips.

‘Lor’,’he said.

‘Where’d it get you, mate?’ the sailor asked through the wire.

‘Fore-arm.’ Sotheby pulled up his sleeve and stared at the wound, surprised to see how slight it was. ‘Don’t think it’s much.’

The firing by the lorry seemed to have stopped and they could see Berringer moving back to them at a crouch. The men with the wire-cutters ran up, and as the gate was torn to pieces they were surrounded by shouting, excited men. A few of them ran into the guard-house and, picking up dropped weapons, pushed out the surviving Italians, their hands in the air. An infantryman in tattered shorts kicked Veledetti just for spite and Sotheby turned on him.

‘Stop that!’ he said.

‘The bastard’s an Italian.’

‘I said sus-sus-sus-stop it!’

A few more of the prisoners had picked up weapons and crowded round Sotheby.

‘What happens next, sir?’

‘You gug-gug-gug - ‘ Sotheby’s jaw worked wildly and he began to blink rapidly ‘ - you go down into the tut-tut-tut - ‘ His excitement at his success was so intense he found he couldn’t speak, and he turned in disgust to Berringer. ‘Tut-tell ‘em, Sergeant,’ he managed.

Berringer explained. There was a yell of delight and the horde of men streamed off. Sotheby watched them go.

‘Where’s the signaller?’ he asked.

‘Here, sir.’

‘Warn
Umberto
that the pup-prisoners are on their way.’

As he spoke, there was an ear-splitting crack and another icy-white flash from the cliff above, and they flung themselves to the ground. The explosion seemed to suck the breath from their bodies and, even as they whiffed the cordite fumes, they saw the shell explode near the Roman arch.

Sotheby lifted his head, frowning. ‘I think we ought to dud-do something about that bastard, Sergeant,’ he said.

Strongpoints were set up and warehouses full of Luftwaffe, panzer and transport spares were set on fire.

To Major Nietzsche, surveying what he could of the battle from the windows of a house near the Bab al Gawla, it was obvious that the struggle for Qaba had now reached a critical phase. The din was still tremendous but the British, established in the buildings round the Roman arch, weren’t moving forward and they weren’t showing their heads. From the naval barracks opposite the German headquarters, von Steen’s sailors were keeping up a heavy fire towards them, and Nietzsche was just wondering what else he could do to dislodge them when the pioneers arrived from the POW camp.

Instead of the hundred he had expected, there were only fifty because two of the lorries seemed to have gone astray somewhere; but they were all toughened soldiers and he began to spread them out among the houses and shops of the business quarter. As he worked he heard a fresh outbreak of firing from the direction of the POW compound and he swung round to Wutka who had appeared alongside him. ‘Better take a dozen men and see what’s happening,’ he said. ‘We can’t raise Veledetti.
Macht’s gut. Hals und Beinbruch!’

Wutka signed to the men around him and moved off at a run between the houses, while Nietzsche turned his attention again to the British. He had sent snipers to occupy strategic positions and they were already diving down alleys and pounding up stairs, to kick doors open and stamp past startled civilian occupants to occupy bedrooms and windows.

The fire coming from the area of the Roman arch and from what sounded like a captured Spandau set up in one of the buildings at the end of the harbour was heavy, and it was hard to do much in return. The 75 on the cliff above the POW compound was firing but it was still unsighted and its shells were only hitting the fringe of the British positions, so it was necessary to get the 47 near the Mantazeh Palace to bring its fire to bear. There was also a telephone line in Hochstatter’s office to the 47 at the end of the mole, which could be swung round with a bit of initiative for a clear shot at the buildings round the arch. So far, for lack of orders, it seemed to have done remarkably little.

A motor-cycle was standing near one of the lorries that had brought the pioneers down from the POW compound. It belonged to one of the outriders who had accompanied them and Wutka decided he’d better use it to go and get the gun into action.

Reaching Hochstatter’s headquarters wasn’t too difficult but the Boujaffar was a wreck now and as he dived into its shelter he saw the body of the elderly commodore who had brought in the convoy lying with one of the Italian captains under a pile of chairs and tables. Somewhere in the darkness he could hear a voice moaning, ‘I wish to die for the Fuhrer. I wish to die for the Fuhrer.’

Hochstatter’s office was a shambles and Hochstatter had joined von Steen in an attempt to set up a new headquarters in the naval barracks across the road, but the telephone still worked and Wutka grabbed it and rang the crew of the 47 across the harbour.

‘Get that damned gun firing!’ he screamed. ‘The Tommies are in the houses round the Roman arch!’

He slammed the instrument down and ran outside again to head for the 47 by the palace before going on to find Veledetti. As he crouched in the doorway of the wrecked hotel, he glanced upwards. Aeroplanes were still heading over the town towards the airfield, but they were coming in penny numbers that puzzled him as he stared at the sky, trying to pick them out. The flare of flames and the flash of guns seemed to have drawn the brightness out of the stars so that instead of hanging like great shining lanterns in the African sky they seemed dim and small and insignificant in a way that troubled Wutka.

Near him the wounded soldier in the wreckage had changed his tune -
‘Mutter! Hilfe! Wo hist du, Georg? Wann kommt der Arzt?’ -
and he moved into the shadows looking for him. He turned out to be little more than a boy, and his uniform was saturated with blood. Near him lay the bodies of his comrades. As Wutka stooped over him, the boy’s cry changed. ‘My name is Otto Knaben. I live at Mariatheresienstrasse Drei. My name is Otto Knaben -’

As he saw Wutka, his moans stopped.
‘Walnn kommt der Arzt?’
he asked feebly.

‘Bald,’
Wutka said. ‘Soon.’

‘Immer bald;
the boy moaned. ‘They always tell me that.’

Wutka turned away, knowing he could do nothing. ‘Christ damn the war,’ he said bitterly, and glanced up at the stars again, as though they were the only stable things in the world.

It was at that moment that Sugarwhite, after lying stunned for a good ten minutes following his collision with the camel, picked himself up. His mouth seemed to be caked with salt, he had twisted his ankle and had a cut on his nose, while the two smallest fingers of his left hand appeared to have been damaged. He still felt dizzy and his chest was bruised where he’d fallen on his Sten. Why he hadn’t blown a hole in himself he couldn’t understand, because his legs and arms felt as though the camel had danced a fandango on him. It still sprawled a few yards away, like a heap of old coconut matting, all long legs and neck, snorting its life blood out through its nostrils in a red froth into the dark dust that jumped and quivered in the fire from the naval barracks and the business quarter towards the Roman arch.

Staring at the leaping dust, it seemed to Sugarwhite that it would be a good idea to find somewhere safer, but as he scrambled to his feet, his body rolled to the vacuum of a passing shot. The crack that followed was as if the shell had exploded right alongside him, and he heard the whine of flying fragments of steel and the clatter of them falling to earth with the scraps of stone they’d gouged out of the nearby buildings. Swathes of smoke were drifting past, choking him, as if he were in hell, and he could hear the harsh chatter of machine-guns.

As he got a grip on himself his fear dried in his throat. ‘Steady, the Buffs,’ he said aloud and he began to sort himself out slowly, still dazed but surprised to find he wasn’t afraid. Anger was growing in him. So far he hadn’t shot anybody, hadn’t committed mayhem of any kind and, bruised as he was, he was very anxious to do someone some harm.

Looking round, he saw that Hockold had edged forward with a group of men under Amos and Rabbitt into the buildings on the water’s edge directly opposite the Shariah Jedid. But the German gun by the Mantazeh Palace suddenly opened up on them and Sugarwhite, still trying to get his breath, saw heads go down like a lot of coconuts in a coconut shy. The shell struck the base of the Roman arch and stones were gouged out of it. Almost immediately another shell struck it and, as more stones crumbled from almost the same spot, it occurred to Sugarwhite that the arch was beginning to look a little top-heavy and that it wouldn’t take much more to bring it down.