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

gunner in Arthur’s tank. The group broke up and walked back in the darkness. The moon was blocked out by heavy cloud giving a chill to the air.

Danny walked with Arthur back to his new tank. They looked at the M3 Stuart tank. For the past year it had been a stalwart of Allied armour. Yet, with the arrival of the larger and more powerful Grant, it somehow looked like a sardine tin with tracks. It had been tested in battle against the Panzers and been proven inferior. Having seen the devastation caused by the Grant, Arthur was less than impressed about returning to battle in this tank. Even in the dark, lit only by the campfires, it was plain that this particular tank had seen better days.

Arthur spotted Danny gazing at the dents and bullet grazes. Nothing was said. Arthur shrugged and they parted. Danny returned to the makeshift tent that had been erected against their tank. Archie Andrews looked up from his book.

‘Did you win?’

‘No,’ replied Danny with a rueful smile.

‘I don’t know why you bother. You always lose.’

Danny glanced over the shoulder of Andrews at the book. He was reading Don Quixote.

‘Is that Spanish?’

‘You’re quick,’ replied Andrews although not unkindly.

‘Did you learn it at university?’

‘No, I was there for a few years,’ said Andrews, setting the book down on his lap.

‘The Civil War?’ asked Danny in surprise.

‘Yes. Arrived a few months after it started. I went with some chums from Cambridge. It seemed the thing to do.’

Danny sat down beside Andrews. He was no one’s idea of a soldier. The receding hairline, the spectacles and the rather skinny, unathletic body. Yet he’d probably gained more combat experience than anyone in their regiment.

‘I’d have thought you’d have had your fill of fighting after that. You might have been able to avoid it at your advanced age,’ laughed Danny. Andrews grinned.

‘Cheeky bugger. Yes, despite my elderly years, thirty really is quite ancient, it never occurred to me not to join up.’

Andrews was silent for a moment. Danny watched him collect his thoughts, perhaps even his composure. There was no doubt that an old scar had become inflamed in the last few moments. He began to speak once more, but his voice tightened with hated became barely a whisper.

‘I was in Guernica, Danny,’ continued Andrews. He paused again. Danny felt his chest tighten. Whether it was guilt or empathy he didn’t know.

‘If you’d seen what they did. The bombing by those bastards.’ He spat the last word out with feeling. He stopped to regain some control then added, tears glinting in his eyes, ‘So many children dead. I never thought humans could be capable of such evil.’

‘I’m sorry for bringing it up again, Archie,’ replied Danny, honestly.

Andrews smiled and patted him on the back.

‘Don’t worry. I was just going to say, though, if you’d been there, you’d have realised that to do nothing now would have been, in its own way, a greater crime. To sit back and allow these people to win? No. I couldn’t live with myself.’

Danny nodded. His experience of the war and of the Germans had been different. The desert conflict had, in his experience and from listening to others, respected the rules of war. Danny recognized that, despite Andrews’ professorial manner, there was a hard glint in his eyes. He doubted the corporal would ever show much mercy where German soldiers were concerned. However, neither of them, given their roles in the tank, would be called upon to make those instantaneous life and death decisions. As gunners, their targets were often half a mile away or further. The lack of proximity to the results of their fire protected them against self-reproach.

-

The shadow boxing continued throughout the next few days. The main threat came from long range shelling by the enemy’s eighty-eight-millimetre guns. This required the tanks to sidestep continually. It was a siege of sorts. Both sides were poised to strike but not yet prepared to commit. In between this dodging and weaving around artillery shells, there were occasional scuffles with stray tanks from both sides. It was wearying to the body and the spirit.

Then the sky turned from blue to blood red and then, ultimately to black. The guns from both sides sang their shrill melody. But one thing was increasingly clear to Danny and the men. They were losing.

First it was the death of the Lieutenant-Colonel Uniacke of the 5th Royal Tank Regiment. He’d been sharing the load of protecting the series of boxes on the Gazala Line with them. Then, a day later, the commander of the 3 RTR, ‘Pip’ Roberts, was wounded and narrowly escaped death when his tank was destroyed by a HE shell.

Bir Hacheim fell despite the heroic resistance of the Free French. Then the combined 1st and 6th Royal Tank Regiments given such fearful beating by the Germans, it forced their withdrawal on the 12th of June.

Things came to a head for Danny and the regiment on the 13th of June. The day started at 0530 with a sandstorm that initially paralysed both sides. The storms blew intermittently during the day limiting movement from the regiment. Early reports suggested that the artillery was making an impact on the German tanks. But then news came through that tank support was needed to avoid the Rigel Ridge being overrun. Danny and the squadron set off, reaching the ridge soon after five in the afternoon.

Their instruction simple to express, difficult to achieve; delay the enemy armour. Danny wished that the man who’d given this order could see what he was looking at through his telescope. Spread out across half of the horizon was a dark, malevolent wave. A tidal surge that Danny knew was unstoppable. He could scarcely believe that so many enemy tanks could still be operational after all this time. Their own tanks were falling apart. Over the last fortnight they’d been on the receiving end of a battering.

‘Do they ever stop?’ wondered Andrews as he gazed at the