The Sand Panthers (15 page)

Von Dodenburg ducked and felt the Mark IV rock like a ship at sea struck by a tremendous wind. Metal pattered heavily against the turret and the force of the explosion dragged the very air out of his lungs. The men had vanished, as had the thick smoke. He gasped with horror. Ahead of him, concealed a moment ago by the murk, there were the deadly British six-pounder anti-tank guns waiting for fresh victims after the slaughter of Seitz’s troop. They had walked into a trap.

Schulze and Matz, wherever they might be at that moment, had failed in their mission after all!

Already the Tommy gunners had spotted him. White tracer started to stich the air as the bren-gunners ranged in. In a moment the first armour-piercing shell would come winging his way and at that range the tanks would not have a chance.

‘Driver – reverse!’ von Dodenburg shouted in a sudden paroxysm of fear. He pushed the ‘Prof’ to one side and flung himself behind the 75mm. It was loaded with solid shot, instead of high explosive which would have been more effective against the Tommy gunners. But he had not the time to re-load. He must put the Tommies off their aim by getting in the first shot.

He jerked back the firing lever just as the flustered young driver stalled the engines. The solid shot whizzed through the air and missing the nearest anti tank gun position, blasted a great hole in the masonry of the barracks.

‘Great balls of crap!’ von Dodenburg yelled in fear and frustration, ‘sort those fucking gears out, man! Quick!’

His words were cut short by a fearsome bang. Von Dodenburg gasped as he was drenched with cold water. For a moment he was physically and mentally paralysed. Where had the water come from? A shell must have hit the water jerricans at the back of the tank. The terrible realization almost made his sick with fear. The Tommies had infiltrated men behind him and the rest of the column. He was cut off.

Just as the driver started the engine again, and the Mark IV trembled with life, von Dodenburg pressed the trigger of the machine-gun. Tommy gunners were bowled over in a mess of flailing arms in the nearest gun-pit, sprawling over the sandbags suddenly like broken puppets. But their mates in the next gunpit were still alive and kicking. Von Dodenburg could see them ramming home the deadly shell into the breech of their six-pounder.

Again he pressed the trigger. It chattered frenetically. Like angry red hornets the slugs stitched a glowing pattern through the dust in front of the gunpit. He had missed. The Tommy gunners did not. Like a bat out of hell, the AP shell hissed through the air. It lammed into the turret with an awesome crack. The ‘Prof’ screamed. Von Dodenburg swung round. Reichert was grovelling on the floor, twisting with pain a dark red stain spreading rapidly across the back of his khaki shirt. ‘I have been hit,’ he said, pulling himself together, in spite of the tears of pain streaming down his face. ‘Not…not too seriously, I trust.’

Von Dodenburg ducked again, as the tank was struck once more. It shuddered violently as if it might overturn. Von Dodenburg jerked furiously at the intercom leads so that the driver was almost strangled, and screamed: ‘
REVERSE…FOR GOD’S SAKE – REVERSE!
’

The driver thrust home reverse. For a split second the world stood still. Across the blazing square the Tommy gunners were reloading furiously. Then the engines revved and the Mark IV, its metal sides gleaming silver with shell scores, heaved backwards.

Engines revving full out, they swung round the corner into the burning column, right into the path of the two SAS troopers waiting with the PIAT. At that range, the two troopers crouched over their anti-tank weapon could not miss. Their bomb whammed right into the engine cowling. The driver’s head flew off like an abandoned football, and von Dodenburg’s tank came to an abrupt halt. An instant later there was a whoosh of exploding fuel and it began to burn.

‘Hellfire,’ Matz cursed, as the basement rocked and trembled with the thud of the gunfire, ‘Somebody’s taking a packet.’

‘And you can guess who it is, can’t you?’ Schulze replied gloomily, as he surveyed the heating system, which seemed to have enough cocks, taps, levers and dials for the control room of a U-boat.

‘But what can we do about it, Schulzi?’ Matz asked, slumping down wearily on a pile of carbon. ‘We’ll be lucky if we get out of this in one piece ourselves.’

‘You are right there,’ Schulze agreed. What could they do to help Wotan, hidden as they were in the middle of an enemy city, hundreds of kilometres away from their own lines? Even if they could get to the CO who was probably fighting for his life in the middle of the square outside the Barracks, what help could they give him? By now the Tommy anti-tank guns must have destroyed all the Company’s vehicles. And they did not stand a chance in hell of getting away through the desert the way they had come, on foot and without water. Frustrated and angry, he slammed his foot against the boiler-room controls. There was an asthmatic gurgling, as if liquid had suddenly shot through the convoluted mass of pipes.

‘Not only looks like a sub’s controls,’ Matz commented idly, ‘but sounds like one too.’

‘That’s it’ Schulze roared, slapping his hand on his knee.

‘That’s what?’

‘Listen, cloth-ears, isn’t Alexandria a port?’

‘Yes, I suppose so. But –’

‘But nothing,’ Schulze interrupted him. ‘Listen, this is what I want you to do. Haul your skinny little ass out of here and contact the CO. Now you tell him to break off the action the best he can and make for the port.’

‘And then?’

‘And then,’ Schulze announced, drawing himself up to his full height, ‘the CO must ask for Skipper Schulze. I wasn’t born on the waterfront for nothing. I’m going to get us a boat!’

*  *  *

Outside the port’s boom, a British merchantman lay at anchor, lights blazing, while half-naked Egyptian stevedores unloaded its cargo into lighters. Schulze crouching in the shadows, his ears full of the fight going on behind him still, breathed a sigh of relief. That meant the boom was open. There would be nothing to stop them getting out of the harbour, save half the Tommy Mediterranean Fleet, lying at anchor within Alexandria’s harbour!

Schulze surveyed the port. It was very crowded. He assumed that the merchantmen were there to unload supplies to support the Allied Army in the desert. But they did not interest him. He was looking for something small and fast, very fast – and he must find it soon. Behind him in the city, the snap and crackle of the battle was beginning to swell to a terrifying crescendo. He did not have much time.

He strained his eyes. In the darkness he could make out the outlines of several navy vessels, looming up faintly through the gloom, with smaller craft flitting about among them. Now and again signal lights winked on and off between the vessels.

Then in a sudden flash of light from a suddenly opened hatch he spotted what he sought: a long, rakish-looking boat, armed with a single light gun. It had been a long time since he had last seen a boat like that back in his native Hamburg when a whole flotilla of them had come sweeping proudly down the Elbe to escort a seasick Führer out to inspect the battleship
Deutschland
. But he recognized it immediately. It was a motor torpedo boat: the fastest craft in any Navy. It would have to be the one.

*  *  *

Von Dodenburg crouched with the bleeding ‘Prof’ behind the smouldering halftrack, dead panzer grenadiers sprawled everywhere in the dust. An instant before the SAS PIAT men had blown up the last of the tanks. Now the handful of bleeding survivors forced into the narrow side-street had nothing to defend themselves with save their own personal weapons – and the British fire was getting heavier by the minute. Soon they would drag up their powerful Vickers machine-guns and slaughter the SS men.

Another shell hit the front wheel of the halftrack. The tyre went up in flames. Next to it, two boxes of ammunition strapped to the side burst into flame too.

‘Oh, dear God,’ the ‘Prof’ moaned, holding his wound, ‘can we not do anything, Major?’

Von Dodenburg shook his head, his face set in a look of despair. ‘Afraid not, Prof. They’ve got us –’

‘Sir.’

A familiar voice broke in.

He swung round. It was Matz, his face blackened with smoke, a thin trickle of blood curling its way down his temple.

‘Matz where in the name of hell –’ von Dodenburg began, but Matz interrupted him urgently. ‘No time to explain, sir. Schulze told me to tell you that you’ve got to get to the harbour immediately.’

It would be a hell of a job to try to disengage his force with the Tommies so close. Besides both ends of the street were blocked. ‘It’s going to be a bitch to get out of this, Matz,’ he expressed his fears openly. ‘They’ve got us by the short and curlies now, I’m afraid.’

‘Never say die, sir,’ Matz answered cheerfully, wiping away the blood, before thrusting his hand inside his torn shirt to bring out what looked like a mess of putty. ‘This’ll do the job, sir.’

‘Plastic explosive,’ von Dodenburg whispered while the NCO busied himself tearing off a chunk and fashioning it into a small ball.

‘Where did you get it?’

‘A Tommy who suffered a sudden heart attack,’ Matz grinned maliciously, ‘at the end of my knife.’ He clamped the ball of explosive to the wail behind them and held up the time pencil. ‘How long shall we give it, sir?’

Von Dodenburg’s eyes lit up. Matz was adopting the old House-to-house fighting technique to their own situation; he would blast a way through one wall and another until they were clear of the trap they found themselves in. ‘Give it two minutes, you cunning little shit.’

Ignoring the slugs that started to smack into the wall around him, von Dodenburg rose to his feet and shouted urgently. ‘Listen everybody. As soon as you hear my whistle, break off the action and rally to me!’ Von Dodenburg gave a shrill blast on his whistle. Firing as they came, the tankers and the panzer grenadiers broke from their cover and began to fall back on the wrecked halftrack. Here and there a man was hit and crumpled to the ground. But their manoeuvre had caught their attackers by surprise and it took them a couple of moments to react. By then the first of the Wotan men were already stumbling through the gap in the wall. Wotan – or what was left of it – was on its way.

Naked save for his boots, Schulze slipped into the lukewarm water, machine pistol slung round his neck. Before him the motor torpedo boat seemed as big as a battleship now, but he had to take it!

Hardly making a sound, he swam slowly round the bow to the rope ladder, which led to the dinghy. As he swam he could hear above the rattle of fire-fight in the town the soft throb of the torpedo boat’s engines. The sound pleased him. The boat was preparing to go to sea. With the beam still open, they might just make it yet.

One by one he mounted the rungs, alert for the slightest sound out of the ordinary. But although he could hear voices and movement on the deck above him, everything remained normal. Cautiously he raised his head above deck level. The rating on sentry duty was facing the quay, with his back turned to the sea. To his right, there was a faint chink of light coming from behind the blackout curtain of the bridge. He hoped the occupant would be the man he was looking for.

Gingerly he heaved himself over the side and started to cross the dark expanse of deck. He had almost reached the bridge when a gruff voice rapped: ‘Here, what’s this – you the ruddy fairy queen or something?’

Schulze spun round. A big sailor stood there, hands on hips, looking at the naked man in bewilderment.

‘Well, cocker,’ the sailor demanded. ‘Lost your ruddy tongue? What ship are you from, chum? And why you run –’

Schulze dived forward. His heavy shoulder caught the sailor in the chest and his words ended in a surprised gasp as the air was knocked out of him. But to Schulze’s surprise, the man did not go down. Instead he recovered and jabbed the outstretched fingers of his right hand into Schulze’s face, trying to blind him. Schulze dodged them at the last moment. He grabbed hold of the man, burying his own face in the sailor’s chest so that he could not try the blinding trick again and sought the Tommy’s brawny neck.

The sailor grunted and brought up his knee. Schulze blocked it with his own knee and winced with pain. The sailor, he told himself grimly, must have learned his dirty tricks in the same waterfront dives as him. Thrusting up his powerful arms, he tried to break Schulze’s hold. It was a wrong move. Schulze let go suddenly. The sailor stumbled. Next instant Schulze’s tremendous hands wrapped themselves around his neck. Feet astride, eyes bulging with effort, veins standing out on his forehead, Schulze exerted all his strength. The sailor thrashed and gasped, wriggling frantically to break that murderous hold. To no avail. The sailor’s struggles grew weaker and weaker, then suddenly his body went limp and he hung there lifeless, held upright only by Schulze’s grip. Schulze held on to him for a few moments longer before lowering the dead sailor gently to the deck. ‘Poor brave bastard,’ he whispered and then after taking a deep breath, he continued towards the bridge.

*  *  *

The British armoured car skidded to a crazy stop. Three men jumped out and set up the bren gun in a flash. Von Dodenburg ducked. A line of slugs slapped along the wall above his head, spurting yellow flame and sprays of plaster every time they struck. ‘Back,’ he yelled and retreated the way he had come.

Directly behind them two British snipers were firing out of an upstairs window. Von Dodenburg could see the muzzles of their rifles projecting through the window. ‘Come on,’ he commanded, knowing they would have to brave the snipers’ fire now. Pressed tight against the wall, the escapers edged from doorway to doorway. Slugs bounced off the bricks. Here and there a man yelled with pain as he was struck. Matz was wounded again. He cried out in rage and pain and overcome by a sudden madness, he dashed out into the middle of the Street and raising his Schmeisser, completely ignoring the bullets slapping the cobbles all around him, he fired an angry burst upwards.

The glass shattered like a spider’s web. There was a shrill scream and one man came sailing out of the window to smash onto the cartridge-littered cobbles, while the other staggered back, his face red with gore. They ran on.