El Alamein by Jack Murray (most popular novels of all time txt) 📕

Manfred smiled at the very normality of it. The gunners didn’t seem to have any more luxurious food than the tank crews. It looked like they were drinking Erbswurst, a soup made from pellets crushed into boiling water, and Graubrot, a grey rye bread that tasted as awful as it looked.

Just then Manfred caught sight of a tall, skinny figure and his heart leapt.

‘Oh my God. Mathias,’ said Manfred and laughed out loud. The others in his crew looked at him irritably.

‘Seen your boyfriend?’

Manfred handed the field glasses back to Basler and shook his head.

‘A friend from training has just been blasting the Tommies to hell. I haven’t seen him since early last year.’

Basler rolled his eyes and told him to get the others to clear up. Manfred leapt to it, feeling more energised than he could remember in the last few months. He couldn’t wait to tell Gerhardt.

-

‘Are you going to finish that?’

The soldier removed his hat to reveal a striking head of red hair. He wiped his forehead and held up a lump of the rye bread. He grimaced and handed it to the other soldier.

‘I can’t believe you like this rubbish,’ said the red-haired soldier.

Mathias Schuster stood up to his full six feet five and ran a hand down his exceptionally thin body. A grin lit up his face.

‘How do you think I maintain such a physique?’

The other gunners laughed, and some bread was thrown in his direction which, much to his own surprise as much as his comrades, Mathias caught and popped into his mouth.

Mathias put his hand to his forehead to shield his eyes from the midday sun. It was hot, not like summer, but still enough to burn. His skin, so white and delicate once, had hardened, like his body, to the rigours of the alien landscape that was now their home.

He sat down again and used the bread to wipe up any remaining soup. He was no less hungry, though. He woke up hungry and went to bed hungry. Back home he’d never thought much about food. Now it filled his waking thoughts. If he got back home, he would dedicate himself to the cause of becoming obese. With such warm thoughts he heard the stir behind him of tank engines.

He wondered if Manfred, Gerhardt and Lothar were out there now. It seemed like a lifetime ago since they were in training. Over a year of his short life had been spent in this horrible place. He’d been in action right from the moment he stepped onto the port side in Tripoli the previous May.

Once again, he offered up a silent prayer of thanks to the heavens that he’d been considered too tall for service in a Panzer tank. They’d put him in the artillery. The luckiest break of his life. Well, almost. As he lay back against the big anti-tank gun, he heard a voice shouting out orders. He jumped up just in time to come eye to eye with Lieutenant Kessler.

The two men viewed each other with mutual dislike. Everywhere he went. Every time. It didn’t matter where, the bullies would follow him. He was tall, skinny and smart. Different. They sensed weakness. Like a bee to pollen they came. Once it had been physical. Now it was verbal. Oddly, he no longer cared. Kessler could say what he wanted. Mathias would smile and salute. After so long in North Africa with these men, he knew where he stood. His comrades liked him. More importantly, they valued him. He took instruction well. He was tireless when digging trenches. And he was smart.

‘Schuster,’ barked Kessler. ‘Lying down again?’

In fact, the whole gun crew had been resting but this was immaterial to Kessler.

‘Yes, sir,’ responded Mathias, eyes straight ahead. He avoided smiling but it was a close run thing. Best not to poke the beehive.

Kessler glared at Mathias then, with nothing else to say, stalked forward to the next gun placement.

‘He loves you,’ said Sainz, a corporal and the crew’s leader. ‘Try not to get him too angry for God’s sake. I’ll bet you we’re the last to pull out.’

An hour later, Sainz’s prediction proved accurate. Kessler returned and told them they would stay behind with one tank squadron. The other guns would be moved to a new position a kilometre away to the south west.

‘Might be better for us,’ pointed out Mathias to Sainz.

The burly corporal from Leipzig shook his head and looked at Mathias, not without fondness.

‘Kessler has it in for you and that means for us also. Trust me. If they’re wrong and the Tommies attack again then we’re exposed.’

‘Let’s hope they try and outflank us,’ replied Mathias optimistically.

‘Hope? My feeling is we’re depending on their very predictability.

19

Bir Timer MR 380439, Libya: 5th June 1942

 

Arthur slapped his cards down on the makeshift table and cackled loudly.

‘Read ‘em and weep, girls, read ‘em and weep.’

This brought a predictable series of groans from the group around the table. Arthur pulled the matchsticks over towards him and pointed out that everyone around the table owed him the equivalent of thousands. Danny led the rest of the table in pointing out that his chances of ever seeing it, irrespective of what Herr Rommel had in store for him, were as likely as finding a virgin in a brothel.

‘Only if it’s you, son,’ pointed out Arthur which produced a prolonged burst of laughing, none louder than Danny’s. The winning hand was a pair of aces and eights. Unspoken around the table was a similar thought. This was the ‘dead man’s’ hand, named as such because it was reputed to have been what Wild Bill Hickock was holding when he was shot in the back by “Broken Nose” Jack McCall. The game was effectively over as the Londoner had all but cleaned out the other players.

‘I’ll prepare a chit for you boys on what you owe me,’ said Arthur.

‘Hurry up Arthur, I need something to clean my arse with now,’ said Corporal Alf Lumley, the