The Sand Panthers (9 page)

For a moment the Blue Veils held back from attacking. However, elsewhere the snap and crackle of small arms fire indicated that they were still coining forward. Von Dodenburg wiped the sweat from his brow, slammed a new magazine into his Schmeisser and dropped it inside to Matz. ‘How are you fixed for mags?’ he asked Schulze ‘Just one left sir,’ Schulze replied. ‘I got carried away a minute ago. Wasted too many slugs, I’m afraid.’ Von Dodenburg nodded his comprehension and took out his pistol. He had a full magazine in it – nine bullets in all. It was ironic. Here they were in one of the world’s most powerful tanks, armed with a 75mm gun and two 7.92mm machine-guns, packed with ammunition, which they were unable to use because the Blue Veils had already crept too close; they simply couldn’t depress the guns that low.

‘I wonder where that one-eyed arsehole, Doerr has got to?’ Schulze asked, slapping the machine pistol’s magazine to check that it was fixed correctly.

The thick crump of a grenade shattered against the side of the trapped tank cut brutally into Schulze’s words. ‘Stand by’, von Dodenburg yelled. ‘Here they come again!’

The turret armour sang and whined with the slap of slugs ricocheting off it. An Arab loomed up at the back of the turret. The ‘Prof’ fired and missed. The butt of the Arab’s rifle slammed into the elderly academic’s face. He crashed back against the armour, his false teeth hanging out of his shattered, bloody mouth.

Schulze spun round. There was no room to use his Schmeisser. He dropped it on the floor and thrusting out his right hand, fingers extended stiffly, poked two of them through the man’s veil and into his nostrils. ‘Try that one on for size you bloody queer!’ he grunted and heaved upwards. The Arab screamed shrilly. Hot blood spurted out of his nostrils and soaked his veil red. Schulze had no pity. He did not relax his terrible grip. Instead he ripped upwards even more, with the Arab wriggling frantically on his fingers like a hooked fish, blood streaming everywhere.

‘Look out, Major!’ the ‘Prof’ quavered through bloody, toothless lips.

Von Dodenburg spun round. Two Arabs had appeared above the edge of the turret behind him. He fired instinctively. The right one threw up his arms with a scream of sheer agony and disappeared. The other lunged at the Major with a curved knife. He pressed the trigger of his pistol but nothing happened. He had run out of ammunition! The Arab’s dark eyes above the veil sparkled with cruel triumph. His knife whizzed through the air. Just in time von Dodenburg parried it with his pistol. Steel locked against steel. Desperately von Dodenburg pulled back his pistol. Before the Arab could lunge again, he thrashed the pistol across his face. The man’s nosebone snapped like a twig underfoot in a dry summer. Great gobs of thick red blood spattered the front of von Dodenburg’s shirt. The Arab disappeared over the side of the turret, screaming.

The next moment another appeared, just as Schulze let go of the man he was holding. He dived for his machine pistol. On the turret-edge, the Arab levelled his rifle at the bending man’s broad back, a look of triumphant anticipation in his night-black eyes. His finger crooked round the trigger. At that range he couldn’t miss.

Just as he fired, a furious burst of 9mm slugs ripped his back away, and hands fluttering frenetically, he fell down to the sand. Von Dodenburg slumped to the bloody, cartridge-case littered metal deck in exhausted relief. There was no mistaking that sound. It was the high-pitched, hysterical hiss of a German machine pistol. Sergeant Doerr had found his way through the rock ridges after all. They were saved!

*  *  *

‘
No!
’ the boy warned, as Slaughter raised his Tommy gun to tackle the panzer grenadiers who had appeared on the scene so dramatically and who were now pouring down the slope, firing from the hip at the completely surprised Blue Veils. ‘Don’t fire!’

Before Slaughter could react, the boy had knocked the Tommy gun from his hands and throwing away his own precious rifle, had raised his hands in a token of surrender.

The nearest panzer grenadier, a fresh-faced youth, eyes wild under his peaked cap, raised his Schmeisser as if to mow the surrendering Blue Veil down. Then he thought better of it. ‘All right, keep those paws in the air,’ he cried in German, ‘and walk up to the halftracks – slowly.’

The Blue Veil did not understand German, but the iron butt of the Schmeisser slamming into his skinny ribs told him all he wanted to know. Hands raised high in the air and accompanied by Slaughter, who had understood the German, he walked up the slope towards the waiting halftracks, their engines still ticking over. ‘Can you drive?’ the boy asked out of the corner of his mouth, ‘one of those?’

Slaughter stepped over the body of the old Chief, his face now looking as if someone had thrown a handful of strawberry jam into it. ‘Yes,’ he whispered back. ‘But what are you going to do?’

Before the boy had time to reply, they were level with the first halftrack and its driver was indicating that they should come forward slowly and be searched, his pistol held at the ready.

The boy advanced as ordered, hands held straight in the air. Behind him, Slaughter gasped. The boy had one of the Blue Veils’ tiny, yet deadly throwing knives tied to the back of his wrist by a piece of rag, and the soldier could not see it.

‘That’s enough,’ the young panzer grenadier ordered and jerked his pistol upwards threateningly.

The boy halted. ‘
NOW!
’ he yelled at the top of his voice. He flipped the knife out of its hiding place and in one and the same movement threw it at the startled German. He screamed as it struck him directly in the chest. His legs started to crumple beneath him like those of a new-born foal. The boy kicked him in the crutch to hasten his fall and jumped forward. Slaughter dived after him. A wild burst of fire stitched the sand where they had just been standing. Slaughter flung himself into the driving seat and ripped off the brake. Machine-gun fire shattered the windscreen in front of him. The boy kicked a space clear. Slaughter thrust home first gear and grabbed the wheel. The halftrack slithered and then gripped. Zig-zagging crazily, followed by angry cries and a wild hail of bullets, the Englishman steered the halftrack down the Ascent, trailing a billowing plume of sand behind him. With a bone-jarring jolt they hit the bottom and then they were off at top speed, the armour-plating rattling madly, heading east into the desert. Within minutes they were a tiny dot on the horizon. Then they vanished altogether. Slaughter had got away.

It was nearly thirty-six hours later. Now they were rolling due east. The going was becoming better by the hour and here and there von Dodenburg, standing next to a swollen-mouthed, puckered-lipped Professor, could see the faded tracks of other vehicles in the sand. He knew that they were slowly approaching the Ain Dalla Oasis where they would meet their unknown Egyptian contact.

That day he allowed the crews to have a two hour midday break, although they had overcome their previous exhaustion. The successful outcome of the battle against the Blue Veils had been the tonic they had needed. All the same von Dodenburg insisted that the cooks should prepare a proper meal for them instead of the usual fried sausages or bully beef, and ordered that an extra ration of water should be handed out too. They had overcome the perils of the desert, but ahead of them there was probably an even more perilous venture.

After the meal, while the men lolled or slept in the shade of their vehicles, he called the two young officers and Reichert and Schulze to his command tank. He offered each of them a half-mug of his precious bottle of cognac, then got down to business. ‘Now I am sure you have wondered why we have driven so far into this miserable wilderness. Some time I have wondered myself,’ he grinned ruefully at them. ‘Well, now I can tell you a little about our mission.’

In spite of the terrible heat, the others leaned forward eagerly to listen to their CO’s disclosures.

‘Within one day’s march of here, there is the oasis of Ain Dalla, the furthest British outpost in Egypt. Now, according to my information that outpost is held mainly by men of the Egyptian Army, with only a handful of British present. Am I not right, Prof?’ The academic, embarrassed by his lack of teeth contented himself with a quick nod.

‘Now,’ von Dodenburg continued, ‘those Egyptian soldiers are loyal to the German cause, they only need the word from us and they will rise against the British. The Oasis will be in our hands.’

‘Holy strawsack!’ Meier cried with youthful enthusiasm. ‘Imagine – a German base right in the rear of the British Army in Egypt!’

‘Just imagine!’ Major von Dodenburg agreed, concealing his irony and not attempting to enlighten the bright-eyed boy. There would be time enough to tell him Wotan’s real mission later. ‘Now I intend to get word to those Egyptians tonight. Both of you young men have proved that you are capable of looking after yourselves and your men, so tonight I’m going to leave you in charge of the column.’

The two officers beamed with pleasure at the CO’s praise. Von Dodenburg smiled at them and went on. ‘Mind you, you must not be careless, because I’m taking Sergeant Doerr’s panzer grenadiers with me. You’ll have to flesh out an infantry guard from your crews.’

‘Don’t worry, sir,’ Meier said promptly. ‘We’ll cope all right, though speaking for myself, I’d prefer to be coming with you towards the sound of the guns.’

‘
Sound of my arse!
’ Schulze snorted in disgust.

‘Shut up, you oaf,’ von Dodenburg snapped ‘You’ll get plenty of action before this business is over, Meier. Never fear. Now I want you to keep radio silence from now onwards. For all I know the Tommies might have a radio detection station at the Oasis and I don’t want to give our presence away prematurely. At the same time, I want you to keep a strict radio watch throughout the night. Once we have sorted out the Oasis, I shall signal you. You will come straightaway.’

‘
Natürlich!
’ the officers agreed in one voice.

‘Good, then that’s that,’ von Dodenburg concluded, rising to his feet.

‘And what about me?’ Schulze asked.

‘You?’ von Dodenburg beamed at him maliciously. ‘You, you big rogue, are coming with me.’

‘Balls of fire!’ Schulze cursed. ‘Here we go again…’

*  *  *

They crouched at the edge of the Oasis, shivering in the night cold and nibbling the small dates they had plucked from the trees, watching the flickering fires go out one by one. Next to von Dodenburg, Schulze and Doerr were guzzling the cold spring water as if it was Wotan’s favourite
Holsten Bier
from Hamburg.

Von Dodenburg neither ate nor drank. His whole attention was concentrated on the little camp in the centre of Ain Dalla Oasis. He guessed the white bell tents arranged in two rigidly straight lines beneath the palms housed the Tommies. Unlike the average German soldier, the Tommy was highly disciplined and stuck strictly to Army regulations. On the other hand, the shabby, dirty-white pup tents slung haphazardly to the trees, or in patches of camel-grass would belong to the soldiers of the Egyptian Army. Indeed he had seen a fat soldier in khaki with the red fez of an officer on his head go into one of the pup tents before the camp settled down for the night.

Now he plotted the Egyptian sentries’ positions, which was not difficult; the Egyptians were very careless, lighting cigarettes and calling to each other in alarm whenever they were startled by the mysterious night noises Of the desert. In all there were six of them: two in the centre of the Oasis and four others patrolling the extremities. It would not be difficult to nobble them, he told himself, before they could raise the alarm.

He rolled over on his stomach and faced Schulze. ‘Listen, you and I are going down there.’

Schulze clenched his ham of a fist. ‘Gonna get us a couple of those nig-nogs are we, sir?’ he asked in happy anticipation.

‘No, we are not, Schulze. We’re just going to nobble one of their sentries before he can call out. But I don’t want him injured. I want him in good shape so that he can tell us who’s in charge down there and how he’s going to deal with the Tommies. Clear?’

‘Clear, sir.’

Von Dodenburg turned to Doerr. ‘Sergeant, stand by with your panzer grenadiers. If we run into trouble, I’ll fire a red and green flare. Then you come running.’

‘Yes sir,’ Doerr rapped smartly, and nudged Schulze. ‘Keep a tight asshole, Schulzi!’

Swiftly they slipped into the trees, heading towards the sentry on the nearside of the oasis. In an instant they had vanished into the pre-dawn gloom.

From their position in the dusty rocks near the bubbling spring the two SS men could see every detail of the sleeping sentry’s face, as he dozed at his post, his back against one of the palms. He had a thin, stupid face and von Dodenburg knew that if he spotted them his first reaction would be one of fear; he would cry out.

He clapped his hands over Schulze’s ear. ‘Work round the back of him. No noise. I don’t want him yelling his head off. I’ll come in from the front.’

Schulze nodded his understanding. At once he wormed his way into the lush undergrowth around the spring and started to come in from the rear. Von Dodenburg crawled forward on his hands and knees, taking his time, his eyes intent on the sentry.

The sentry stirred. He had heard the faint noise the crawling officer was making. His eyelids flickered. Slowly he began to open his eyes. Von Dodenburg tensed. The sentry saw him. He opened his mouth to scream, just as von Dodenburg had anticipated he would, in the same instant that Schulze’s brawny arm reached round the back of the palm tree and hooked around the sentry’s skinny neck, smothering the cry.

Hastily von Dodenburg rose to his feet and faced the terrified Egyptian. ‘Listen,’ he said in hesitant English. ‘No one will hurt you. We are friends. Do you understand?’ He nodded to Schulze and the NCO relaxed his grip sufficiently so that the man could answer.

Nothing came. The Egyptian’s dark eyes rolled in wild fear – that was all. He did not understand English.

Von Dodenburg tried German, knowing as he did so that it was hardly likely that this product of some Cairo slum would be able to understand him. He was right. All that the man’s eyes registered was blank, naked fear.