How I Won the War (9 page)

“Keep
die
Hände
out of your burnous.
Oder
ich
shoot to kill.”

He was the first German I had ever met in personal combat, face to face. It always goes against the grain for a Britisher to shoot even a Boche in cold blood and it becomes doubly difficult when he’s got himself done up like a damned chocolate-coloured cocoon. But total war is a brutal affair … it was his life or mine. I shoved my trusty Smith and Wesson farther forward lest it kick back at me and steeled myself to shoot him down like a dog…. There was a flutter of white behind him and two Arabs came creeping out of a cave in the bluff…. From their postures they were clearly bent on attacking the German from behind…. Doubtless, I reasoned, gallant, pro-British Arabs ever-faithful to the Raj…. I only had to keep his attention my way and I would have him without bloodshed … a dead prisoner can only be identified, a live one can be interrogated.

“
I
ch
gebe
sie
ein
last chance,” I said.
“Kamerad!
Oder
du
bist
ein
dead man.”

His field boots scrabbled on the rocks as he turned to run back round the bluff … but the Arabs leapt on him from either side and laid him senseless with a swat from a leather cosh.

“Well done, O faithful Bedouin,” I cried and was just going forward to shake their hands when I smelt two more of them close behind me … as I turned my head in welcome, someone hit it with a sandbag … the scree leapt up to meet me and I went down among silent fireworks into final darkness.

When I awoke I was lying on my back and deep red light was streaming in through a Gothic window. For a moment, in my white draperies, I wondered if I had gone to Heaven. But then, as I raised my head, dull pain spread from the new bump at the back and I saw that I was looking out through the mouth of a cave to the sun going down behind the hills. I tried to get up but I was tied hand and foot. The weight of my belt and revolver was gone from my waist.

The German lay at the back of the cave, hog-tied as I was and still unconscious. There were no Arab brigands in the cave nor, as far as I could see, any outside. In spite of my headache I made a quick appreciation of my military
situation
…. All was not lost. If I could get loose before the
German awoke or the Arabs returned, there was still a chance of ultimate victory. I might not have had sight of Djebel Aboudir, but I would have a ready-bound prisoner to take in for interrogation.

First I had to get my hands free. I looked carefully around for any of the traditional devices. It was an exceptionally bare cave and the Lone Ranger would have been hard up for a bond-loosener. There were no fire embers to char with, no broken bottles to chafe against, no faithful dog with
intelligent
teeth, and every rock I rubbed my rope on crumbled always as I grated. I twisted and writhed in the dust but my knots had been tied with Arabian cunning and I could make no slack anywhere. I blew myself up and let myself down as I had read in a book about Houdini but succeeded only in raising a raw patch under my neck halter.

After twenty minutes private wrestling my burnous was soaked in sweat and, if anything, my bonds felt tighter. I was getting nowhere inside the cave and decided to look for a knot-pick outside. I rolled myself over and over to the entrance and the phosphorus bomb came out of my pocket as a spear-headed rock ground chips off my hips. I was all set to cast myself vertically over the lip and down into the
wadi
when I caught in the failing light a glimpse of white robe flickering among the rocks…. It was the Arabs coming back…. There were four of them and it looked as though the Goodbody story was coming to a close…. I resolved to sell myself dearly and managed to work my feet round the bomb. I was engaged in trying to lever myself in the manner of a mangonel when the enemy came stalking up to the bluff and into my full view…. There was something peculiar about them…. They were a very strangely assorted quartet of Wogs … their leader stiff as a ramrod in his flapping gown, the second the size of the French second row and bursting his burnous at the seams, the third with yellow hair bushing out of his hood and the fourth wearing horn-rimmed glasses…. My faithful N.C.O.’s had come
en
masse
to find their lost commander!

“It’ll be in one of these caves for sure,” said the voice of Corporal Dooley.

“Or maybe buried under one of them piles of rocks,” said Corporal Hink.

“More likely in some sort of grave,” said Corporal Globe.

They thought I was dead and buried. And they even risked their lives to find my body. While careful, of course, to avoid undue familiarity I had throughout my Army career tried to be as democratic to my N.C.O.’s as my superior rank would permit, but I had not realized till then what depths of loyalty my efforts had tapped.

“I’m all right, chaps,” I cried. “I’m over here in a cave.”

“Oh! Good Gawd, no!” said Corporal Globe. “Not him!”

The poor chap thought he was hearing a ghost. I had many a good joke with him about it afterwards.

“I’m alive and kicking,” I said. “But tied up. Rally on me! Quickly!”

They scrambled up into the cave and Sergeant Transom cut me loose.

“Thanks a lot, chaps,” I said. “I’m deeply touched by your devotion…. But no time for talk, I’m afraid. We’ve got to get moving. The Arabs or a Boche patrol might be here at any moment.”

“Who’s that tied up over there?” asked the sergeant.

“That’s my prisoner. He’s a Boche masquerading as a Wog, just like I was. But I penetrated his disguise and he’d have been back in our lines already if those Arab brigands hadn’t jumped me. But we’ll take him up now. We’ll have to carry him because he’s still flat out.”

“Right. Get him up, you three,” said Sergeant Transom.

“But, Sarge,” said Corporal Dooley. “What about the stuff? Ain’t we going to …”

“Now we found the governor? Use your loaf, Dooley, and get
that Jerry up on your shoulders.”

Darkness came down as I led my non-commissioned cortège back through the
wadis
towards our lines. The
corporals
, two at the head and one at the heels, bore my captive up the broken slope of Djebel Tokurna, cursing their
awkward
burden in unison as they stumbled and stubbed their way among the uncertain rocks.

“How did you find out what happened to me?” I asked Sergeant Transom.

“There was a Wog kid saw them cop you. He came up and told us. We asked around and found there used to be a Wog cemetery for some peculiar sect down there. They were buried in the caves with all their worldly wealth in the coffins. The locals reckon a leading gang of grave robbers have buried a big cache of jewellery somewhere in the
wadis.
”

“And the Arabs that attacked me thought I was after it.”

“That’s about it. But they were scared of cutting your throat when they found you were a British officer.”

The stretcher party veered towards platoon headquarters as we came safely over the hill and down the reverse slope.

“Keep going, chaps,” I said. “Straight back to
Company headquarters. This may just be the identification they’re
waiting
for back in Algiers. He may even be a high-ranking intelligence officer.”

“His bloody brains weigh heavy if he is,” said Corporal Hink. “I’m sweating cobblestones under this flannel nightshirt.”

But they toiled manfully on over the extra three hundred yards back to the farmhouse.

“Good God Almighty!” exclaimed Major Arkdust as we lay down our burden in the scullery. “What the hell are you playing at? Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves?”

I saluted as smartly as my garments would allow.

“Goodbody reporting, sir, having returned from patrol under indigenous disguise. I have brought back this German prisoner whom I captured when he was attempting to
reconnoitre
our positions dressed as an Arab.”

“Did you, by George! How did you spot him?”

“By his field boots, sir, protruding into view from under his burnous.”

“Let’s have a look at the beggar.” He hitched up the gown and there were the telltale jackboots. “You’ve certainly got him trussed up. And laid out as well. Get him untied and we’ll see if we can bring him round…. In the meantime, Sergeant Major, get on the blower and tell the I.O.”

We unbound the German, cut away his wrappings and pulled off his boots for safety.

“He’s dressed like a Wog all through,” said the major, “and even his feet are brown.”

“Damned thorough, the Boche, sir,” I said. “A bit of a scrub with paraffin and we’ll soon have the stain off.”

Major Arkdust touched the crinkly, dark hair and pulled back an eyelid. Then he turned over the German’s hands to reveal the pink-padded palm. He took a long, slow breath.

“You’ll not be changing his colour with paraffin. Nor anything short of skinning. What you’ve got here, Goodbody, is not a German dressed as a Wog. It’s a Wog dressed, as far as his feet are concerned, as a German. A plain, ordinary Wog who’s won a pair of field boots from a dead Boche.”

I had not, since being knocked out, seen my captive in a good light. My company commander was indubitably right. I saluted smartly. One can always, at least, be polite.

“A thousand apologies, sir. I have not previously had opportunity to examine the prisoner in detail owing to having been assaulted by grave robbers and …”

“By whom?”

“By Arab grave robbers, sir, who thought I was after their cache and prevented me …”

He waved his hand across my face for silence.

“My dear Goodbody, I just haven’t got the time. I’m fighting the Germans. I’ll leave the Arabs to you. That chap looks to me as if he’s got concussion. So just be a good fellow and take him down to the M.O. And for God’s sake get out of those blasted bed sheets.”

I looked at my Bedouin corporals.

“It’s only about five hundred yards,” I said. “And most of it down hill.”

Groaning like galley slaves, they picked up their patient and raised him limply to their shoulders.

“Gawd Strewth!” said Corporal Dooley as they
maneuvered
out through the scullery door. “Half the night up and down the Rocky Mountains, dressed up like the Sheikh of Araby, playing stretcher-bearer to a bloody Wog. If I’d have known about those grave robbers earlier, I’d have sent them down a free pardon and my own personal cutthroat.”

T
HE TROOPS MUST BE
drawn up in a hollow square, the instruction commanded, and a small platform erected in the centre so that no soldier is within twenty yards of it.

It was one morning at the end of April 1943, that the Fourth Musketeers were thus drawn up on parade in a clearing of a cork forest near Beja. There was a flummery of top brass and then He strode along the hand-swept path and up on to the podium. He was a thin, ferret-faced little man, utterly lacking any of the beef, bull neck, and Poona-boom obligatory in the British High Command. His voice was rasping, high pitched, and dispassionate.

“I’ve come here today to have a talk with you. Break ranks and gather round me.”

For a moment, we hesitated, our reflexes unwilling to obey an order so alien to all our training.

“Right,” muttered the R.S.M. “Break ranks. Get on with it.”

The formal lines swayed, bulged, and then burst as the parade of soldiers became a crowd of people and we swayed
forward around the platform. With the breaking of the rigid pattern of drill formation all the tension flowed out of the occasion. That mental block which debars from the brain of a soldier comprehension of a brass hat’s exhortation, was broken. At such military High Mass the minds of the
congregation
normally numb as their bodies stiffen to attention. The general speaks, but the soldier never gets the message.

“I’ve just come here today,” He said, “to have a chat with you. We’re going to have a bit of a party soon. Good party it’s going to be, too. Really going to hit them for six this time. Right out of Africa, that’s where Rommel’s going this time. And I’ve come here to tell you how we’re going to do it. But before I do that I want to say two things to you. First, that you have done a fine job here in this difficult country of Tunisia. And second, that I’ve heard what a fine show the Musketeers have put up. Very fine show, indeed. Absolutely first-class job. But then the Musketeers always do a first-class job, don’t they?”

Chests began to swell a little all round.

“Now I want to tell you just how we’re going to set about our last battle in Africa. We won’t be having it for a few days yet because I’m not ready…. Never want to fight a battle till you’re ready. That’s the way to lose battles. And we’re not here to lose, are we? We’re here to win. That’s our job. To win. And that’s what I told the Prime Minister when he was here the other week. Very great man, of course, but a bit impatient, you know. It’s high time, he said to me, that you had another battle. I can’t have a battle yet, I said to him, I’m not ready. Why not? he said. Haven’t got enough guns, tanks, or aeroplanes yet, I said. Never put my chaps into battle, sir, unless we’ve got at least twice as much stuff as the enemy. Never put my chaps into battle unless we’re sure to win. And if we’re going to be sure of winning this next party I want five hundred guns, three hundred tanks and two hundred aeroplanes. And I’m not going to attack till I’ve got ’em.”

His dry, matter-of-fact tones dealt with the hazards of war as simple arithmetic, listing its deadly requirements as
undramatically
as the weekend groceries.

“Well,” He went on, sighing at such illogical behaviour,
“the Prime Minister got a little cross with me. Told me in no uncertain terms, you know, he still wanted me to attack right away. And I had to be firm with him … quite firm … very sorry, sir, I said, but we can’t have a battle until you give us those tanks and guns and aeroplanes. I’m afraid he was a bit difficult about it for a while … very tough chap, you know, when he’s made up his mind … but in the end he came round to my point of view. And now he’s sent us the stuff I wanted. We’ve got our five hundred guns, three hundred tanks and two hundred aeroplanes and we can have our party.”

“Chuck in a couple of crates of Guinness,” said Corporal Dooley, “and I’ll be coming with you myself.”

“And now I’ll tell you my plan. It’s a very simple one. Always pays to be simple. Get too complicated and you disperse your effort. And that’s the way to lose battles. But we’re going to win … that’s what we’re going to do … win…. So we shall attack at one point with everything we’ve got. Pick out, say, about three hundred yards of the enemy’s line. Not too big, you know. Don’t want to waste anything. And just before dawn we’ll get those two hundred aeroplanes to come over all together and bomb the daylights out of that strip. Then we’ll fire all those five hundred guns at once on the same place. As soon as they’ve finished we’ll attack with two infantry divisions supported by two armoured divisions, punch straight through to Tunis and hit the Boche for six clean out of Africa…. That’s what we’re going to do. We’re going to attack with overwhelming superiority and we’re going to win. There’s no doubt about that … no doubt whatever…. Once we break through and get him off balance we’ve just got to keep at him … keep at him like a terrier after a rat …”

And He talked on, simply, prosaically, about the
mechanics
of the coming battle for another five minutes, reiterating His confidence of victory, wished everybody luck, demanded the support of Almighty God, left cartons of cigarettes for distribution and disappeared back down the forest path in His jeep.

“Blimey!” said Corporal Hink. “It’s going to be a
cakewalk
. We can’t lose.”

“Poor old Jerry,” said Private Clapper. “Two hundred bombers and five hundred guns. I’m glad I ain’t up there.”

“Little feller, wasn’t he?” said Corporal Globe. “Looked more like a debt collector’s clerk than a general. But he’s got the right idea, ain’t he? Three hundred tanks is a bit more like it. All we ever seen round here yet is Churchills getting knocked off by eighty-eights in little penny packets.”

“Publicity,” said Private Drogue. “That’s all it is, mate. Selling war like other blokes sell soap. The old bull, that’s what we just been getting. All in aid of getting everybody off across no-man’s-land at the happy, laughing double.”

“If you got to go,” said Corporal Dooley, “you might as well go cheerful. All the brass hats ever came round us before spent their time bellyaching about you got your gas-cape rolled the wrong way, your blanco’s the wrong colour, or there’s a man in the front rank got a stud short on his left boot. But that bloke, now, he may not have been
twopennorth
of scrag-end to look at, but he sounds as though he’s on the same side as us.”

“Don’t kid yourself,” said Private Spool. “That’s just the same old madam. Bash on, chaps. Rah-rah-rah. Gawd’s on our side, you can’t lose and my middle name’s Napoleon.”

I left the parade ground with fire smouldering in my belly, confident of victory in the coming battle; not only because His address had inspired me, but also because His analysis of the situation, armament estimates, and general plan of
campaign
, agreed entirely with my own. Which was, perhaps, just as well, for a fortnight later the five hundred guns broke loose and the Musketeers came through the promised gap behind the tanks and went hightailing it for Tunis. C
Company
was in battalion reserve fifteen miles from Tunis when Major Arkdust sent for me.

“We’ve got a job,” he said. “The tanks up to our north are running out of steam. They’re having to harbour up for tonight and need infantry protection. C Company comes under command of 17th Dragoons and is to work with their Z Squadron. They are still trying to push on and, with the Boche holding in some places and pulling out in others, the situation is very fluid and the available information is
confused
. We have, however, the locations of each troop at
midday, that’s almost an hour ago now, and the axes on which they are advancing. Platoons will be allocated to locate and protect each tank troop as follows …”

Twelve Platoon’s orders were to link up with Eight Troop of the Dragoons last heard of swinging west along a
third-class
road to Jaiba. We moved off in four scout trucks at two o’clock and drove across the newly sown battlefield. German traffic signs were still up, brewed-up tanks, Tigers, Churchills, Shermans, smouldered here and there in a last drift of smoke, the shell scars on shattered buildings were livid and unweathered, and the bodies about them not yet wearing their grey pall of dust. The going was fairly good on the main road where the sappers had been at work, but the craters and demolitions were still thick and virgin when we turned up the side road to Jaiba. The detours of the tanks were not always easy enough for our trucks and we had to stop and dig our way round some obstacles. Our progress was slow and the route tortuous. Map reading was difficult and there were many more sidetracks and junctions than we had on our map.

“Jerry must have had a supply depot or something round here,” said Sergeant Transom. “There’s new tracks running all ways and you can’t pick out the old road at all. No wonder those tank boys couldn’t give us a reference. The map’s useless. We’ll have to work off the compass.”

“We don’t need to,” I said. “Jaiba is not our objective. It’s the tanks we’ve got to locate.”

“And how do we do that?”

“Follow their tracks.” I pointed to the striped imprint which the tank tracks, mud-laden by the last detour, had left on the road. “We can forget the map and follow the footmarks. They pick up new mud at every loop.”

My idea worked magnificently and we made far better time unhindered by map reading. We rolled steadily on for half an hour, the spoor winding clearly before us, freshened nicely at each piece of cross-country.

Our first setback came as we crossed a flat, rocky area where deviations were unnecessary and the caterpillars dried out, leaving no obvious impression. At a meeting of five ways we lost the scent completely. I debussed the platoon, spread
them out shoulder to shoulder, eyes to the ground, and led them in controlled scrutiny like a row of hunchback grouse beaters.

“Pity we ain’t got my brother Geronimo here,” said
Private
Drogue.

“Why?” asked Private Spool.

“Because he’s a Red Indian. Just the boy for finding armour-plated footprints. Give him half-a-bar and he’d bring his Comanche bloodhounds and smell out those petrol-footed dragoons.”

This mass drive met no success whatever. It was not till I quartered the area personally that I finally detected the tank trail again on a sand-filled crack a hundred yards down the extreme right fork.

“I dunno,” said Sergeant Transom, looking at the sun, “but I’d have thought they’d have been running more round towards the north.”

Round the next bend, however, we came off the rock and dropped into a river valley where the verges were soft and muddy and the Shermans had left their imprints deep and clear. Bogged down, one wheel axle deep off the edge
of the macadam, stood a German light armoured car.

“They were going back in a hurry,” I said. “It wouldn’t have taken much to get that out.”

“Unless the motor’s gone phut,” said Sergeant Transom. He climbed inside and poked around the controls. The engine whirred over, coughed once or twice and started like a bird.

“Let’s take it with us,” he said. “Never know when it might come in handy.”

We dug the wheel out, shoved down a sand channel and got it back on the road. I put it in the middle of the column, under command of Corporal Dooley, so that the Dragoons would not see it first and mistake us for Jerries. The going along the river valley was first-class and there were no more demolitions. We made fine speed in the wake of the tanks and began coming out of the wild country and into the outskirts of a village.

“This might be Jaiba,” I said.

“Wherever it is,” said Sergeant Transom. “They’re not over-pleased to see us.”

Farms and houses were springing up on the roadside, all happily undamaged, but none of the people in the gardens or standing at the windows gave us so much as a welcoming wave. Suddenly the black track marks swung wide across the road and turned into the gate of a farmyard.

“Here they are,” I said. “We’re up with the Dragoons.”

Halting the trucks against the high, stone wall I got down and walked up the garden path between the tank ruts. I knocked on the farmhouse door. It opened.

“Good afternoon …” I said.

A German soldier looked at me.

“Was
wurden
Sie
…
Mein
Gott!”
he shouted.
“England
er!”

He slammed the door in my face and I heard the bolt go home.

“Jesus Christ!” gasped Sergeant Transom. “Jerries!” He pointed at the ruts. “Those are Tiger tracks you’ve been following!”

I do not recall my feet touching ground as we flew down the path and back into the truck.

“Get
rolling,” yelled Sergeant Transom. “And Dooley! Ditch that arc across the gate.”

He lobbed three smoke bombs over the wall as Corporal Dooley ran the German armoured car across the entrance, and transferred to my truck. Machine gun fire came through the smoke and spat chips off the top of the wall as our column roared off down the hill, engines screaming flat out in second till we made the cover of the next bend. It was a sharp hairpin, and as we braked hard to get round it a civilian with a shotgun leapt on to my running board.

“Maquis!” he shouted. “Maquis … keep going. I show you safe place.”

We raced out of the hairpin and the road skirted round a bluff. Suddenly, down below, we saw masses of houses,
monumental
buildings, and the blue of the sea.

“Where’s this?” I yelled to our hitchhiker. “Jaiba?”