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

The supply train arrived just before eleven. By then the tank was punch drunk with fear. Had the Allied shooting been directed towards them then they would have ripped to shreds. But they weren’t the target. A dozen ink-black ribbons of smoke rising into the cerulean blue sky told of the devastating effect of the RAF bombing on the fuel and ammunition supply columns. Manfred gazed at the smoke in rapt fascination. He wasn’t alone. The tank was silent. Then it woke from this terrible thrall and began to function as a unit.

Manfred and Kleff were to load the ammunition while Kiel and Jentz took care of the fuel. They exited the tank just as the Allied artillery fire began to target them. Explosions began sending jets of sand skywards. Their ear drums were bursting at the noise. The eye-watering stench of burning was suffocating. Panic-stricken supply drivers screamed at them to hurry up and load what they could. Everyone was shouting. It was bedlam.

Manfred ducked as he hauled the new shells towards the tank. He ducked as the whhfft of a shell split the sky nearby. It would have been funny had it not been so terrifying; as if in ducking he could, in some way, avoid the random obliteration promised by artillery fire. After a few minutes the supply drivers had had enough.

Manfred screamed at them in frustration. Yet he couldn’t blame them. What sane person would want to be in the middle of this pandemonium. He certainly didn’t. He saw Basler emerge from the tank, eyes ablaze.

‘Where are they going?’

Manfred shook his head and replied sourly, ‘Same place we should be, sir. Safety.’

Basler glared at Manfred then spun around and snarled, ‘Back to the tank.’

Flashes erupted all around the tanks but miraculously none were hit. Manfred settled into his seat and waited for the instruction to move. He didn’t have to wait long. Kummel’s voice on the radio announced the attack they’d been expecting.

‘Fifty or sixty tanks heading this way. Move forward and engage.’

Forward?

Manfred exchanged looks with Jentz, then the veteran grinned and shook his head. It was an insane way to spend a morning. A life, even. Jentz returned his focus to the job in hand. The tank lurched forward sending Manfred off balance. He reddened in embarrassment, but no one had noticed.

-

Evening fell.

Manfred looked at the empty eyes of the crew and knew that there would not be another day like today. The attack was as good as finished. There was nothing left to give. He watched Basler return to their bivouac from his conference with Kummel and the other battalion leader, whoever it was now. Zugner? No, he’d been wounded the day before. The 2nd Battalion didn’t have much luck with their commanders. This thought brought a stab of pain with it as he thought about Gerhardt. Had he been captured? No news had come through yet.

Basler hit the ground like Schmeling in the second Louis fight. He remembered how his father had turned the radio off after the first knockdown. He recognised a lost cause.

‘Just the five tanks. We think around thirty of theirs destroyed,’ announced Basler, wearily. It didn’t seem a cause for celebration at that moment.

‘Five destroyed or five out of action?’ asked Manfred.

‘Destroyed.’

Manfred and the others nodded. They’d survived another day, but a few hadn’t. Manfred wondered about Fischer but then caught a glimpse of the Bavarian at the far end of the hedgehog position they’d adopted. Out in the darkness they could hear motor vehicles buzzing around. It felt oppressive; different somehow compared to when they were in near Tripoli. There it felt as if they were the home team. Now, they were very much the away side. The crowd, the referee, everything was against them.

Planes overhead now. Did they ever stop? The drone was followed by the inevitable parachute flares that lit up the night and then the thunder of bombs. It felt so one-sided that Manfred was amazed that Rommel could not see what was plain to the soldiers whose life was being sacrificed so cheaply.

They could not win.

The Allied defences were too strong. The air superiority overwhelming. Surely someone with common sense would say ‘enough’. They were all too exhausted to feel any triumph at the damage they’d inflicted on the Allies. It didn’t matter. More tanks would come. It was a never-ending conveyor belt that the Allies had access to. Meanwhile they could only patch up their damaged tanks and, in some cases, those of the enemy. Good luck to the poor buggers that had to drive in those death traps, thought Manfred. Give them to the Italians.

The enemy motor vehicles sounded louder now. They were haunting the leaguer like malign spirits. The distant thunder persisted but this was not the sort that brought rain. Only hellfire.

‘Are they ours?’ asked Kiel, edgily. His eyes were fixed at a point somewhere in the night. Manfred would have asked the same question a minute or two earlier but hadn’t trusted himself to sound anything other than what he was, skirting at the edge of panic. The sound of the vehicles had attracted the interest of a number of the Panzer crews. A few were on their feet and walking towards spaces where they could see better. This seemed a damn fool thing to do, thought Manfred, and he remained seated. Basler was more interested in eating but the sound of the engines was definitely louder.

He looked up; irritation burned on his face. It had been a nightmarish day without all this. Manfred watched the head of the battalion’s fourth company pick up a machine gun and walk out of the leaguer followed by a few other similarly armed crew members. They obviously felt something was afoot.

The others in Manfred’s tank fell silent and stared warily out into the darkness. Manfred’s heart was beating fast again. Would the Allies dare launch a night raid on a Panzer leaguer? Without tanks it would be suicidal. But