Chapter 52

Shaun was standing alongside Ken, who had his headphones on listening to the radio traffic on the radio, set into the side of the truck.

“All the positions have reported in, Shaun,” Ken said softly.

Shaun smiled and nodded; he glanced up beyond the side of the truck seeing the sun come up over the crags. The truck was facing down towards the valley floor covered in camouflage netting. Young Saul stood behind the twin 50cals, gazing at the exit of the gorge some eight hundred yards away.

Off to the side of the truck, a 3” mortar position had been prepared, and the three-man team were stacking shells ready for use.

Shaun climbed up into the cab, picking up his Zeiss binoculars.

“Here Shaun, get this inside you,” the voice of Izzy said, offering up a mug of coffee.

Izzy was one of the older members of the group. He had fought all through the North African Campaign as a Tank Sargent, before being invalided out with a shattered leg.

Izzy would be firing the twin 50s and Saul loading for him.

Shaun thanked him, placing the coffee on the dashboard. He began sweeping the valley floor with the binoculars, keeping his hands over the lenses to deflect any sunlight upon them.

After twenty minutes he put them down; he had been unable to spot Stanley’s bazooka’s positions. He knew Stanley was down there in a foxhole with his loader and could only imagine the discomfort they would be undergoing.

He sat back in the passenger’s seat, sipping his coffee.

“It’s always the waiting that is the worse,” Ken said from beside him.

“Tell me about it,” Shaun replied.

He closed his eyes, thinking about the Crater, seeing the rich pasture and the animals grazing upon it. Then he saw Sharron in his mind’s eye; a lump came into his throat. He could see each curve of her body and her beautiful face with the dark eyes and raven hair. What the hell am I doing here, he thought? But the thought vanished as soon as it appeared, he knew why, he had told Sharron months ago.

He was on his fifth cigarette when Ken suddenly muttered, “The column is in sight.”

He climbed up onto the truck bed beside Izzy, focusing his binoculars on the exit of the gorge and waited.

Half an hour later Ken called up from the radio. “They’re in the same formation, troop carriers in front with the tanks behind. The trucks behind them. Say again, Cookie?” Ken demanded.

He looked up to Shaun, “The three tanks are last, the petrol and water trucks are nowhere to be seen, Cookie says.”

They must be either returning to resupply or taking the empty jerry cans to refill, Shaun thought.

An hour went passed before Shaun saw the troops at the machine-gun posts at the exit leave their positions to stand by the road waving and cheering.

Slowly a tracked troop carrier emerged from the gorge, its troops waving back to those by the road. A second then a third, followed by more carriers emerging.

Shaun bent over the side of the truck, “Order Bobby’s jeeps to attack, Ken.”

He saw Ken muttering into the microphone, before looking back over to the gorge. Five troop carriers were now spread along the road, with the last one that towed the command post just emerging.

He focused the glasses on the dip in the road about a mile away; he knew the jeeps would be lined up below that in line astern formation.

He saw them slowly appear over the dip, the lead driver of the troop carriers would he knew have a problem making out what it was approaching him through the heat haze thrown up by the road and the dust.

Too late he realised his danger as the Jeeps leapt forward, the first opened fire with its 50 calibre machine gun. The armour piercing bullets were tearing through the thin metal sides of the carrier like tissue paper, as each Jeep swept down the line of them.

Shaun readjusted the glasses to focus on the MG42 gunners on the carriers; three were slumped over their gun. He saw another was sliding down dragging his weapon with him as it fired into the sky in a sustained burst. Sol’s snipers are doing their work, he thought.

The machine gun crew by the entrance suddenly woke up and started to run to their position, but the lead Jeeps Vickers K bowled them over, one of the bodies crashed into the Vickers machine gun knocking it over.

The Jeeps each blasted the command trailer as they passed before whirling away, leaving four of the carriers on fire. Their troops either dead or burrowing into the sand on the other side of them.

Suddenly the gun barrel of a Sherman barged out of the gorge. The tank accelerated and swung around, trying to locate the Jeeps in the dust they had thrown up, creating its own dust cloud in the process. It was soon joined by others, all firing blindly into the dust cloud.

The last tank to emerge had a longer barrel with a muzzle brake at the end, Shaun noticed. It’s a British Sherman Firefly with a 17lb gun he realised.

The tank flew a commander’s pennant, and a black-uniformed figure sat in the commander’s position in the top of the turret. He must have been issuing orders because the tanks moved into place alongside his. He was thereby creating a wall of steel between the Jeeps and the gorge.

The Jeeps were still weaving and turning to fire as they moved, the commanders of the tanks were dropping down inside the turrets to avoid the bullets. The line of tanks began to move forward, some of the ground troops came up behind them sticking close, for their protection.

It was getting difficult to see through all the dust; he could hear the guns of the tanks and their machine guns and the distinctive sound of the 50cals. Then suddenly there was a red flash of flame and an explosion, one of the jeeps had been destroyed, their crew now dead. Shaun gripped the binoculars tightly to overcome the sense of loss.

The jeeps began to fall back, still firing as they went. The tanks sensing victory started to speed up, leaving the ground troop trailing behind them and breaking their formation in their haste to kill the jeeps.

Shaun was willing the jeeps to reach the dip in the road when yet another jeep was blown up. He looked down towards the Firefly tank noticing that the black uniform figure was still standing in the turret, all the others had ducked down inside, and then he saw he wasn’t standing he was slumped over the hatch. A smile torched Shaun’s lips, “Well done Sol, bloody well done,” he whispered to himself.

The tanks except the Firefly were now racing to catch the jeeps. The crew in the Firefly were struggling to pull the body of the commander inside and had stopped. Suddenly first one then two Sherman’s burst into flames, the explosion’s coming a split second later, followed by two more.

“Bloody Ronson’s” Izzy growled.

Shaun knew British Tankie’s called Sherman’s that due to their habit of bursting into flames when hit. The Germans used a more sinister name for them ... Tommy cookers.

Three of the burning tanks exploded, the turret of one flying thirty feet into the air as the ammunition exploded inside.

Izzy was laying fire down on the entrance keeping those inside bottled up, and the mortars were supporting him. The men with the Vickers K’s had stripped off the camouflage to their foxholes and were scything down the Egyptian troops who had followed behind the tanks.

A fifth tank brewed up?????, and then the crews in the Firefly and remaining Sherman were scrambling to vacate them, the black-uniformed body was unceremoniously thrown over the side. Once on the ground, their hands shot up into the air in surrender.

Shaun glanced towards the gorge, suddenly noticing a black pall of smoke lifting from further along the gorge. Sue’s group had attacked, he knew. He turned back as he heard the jeeps returning, only three now and one of those was smoking badly. They headed for the gorge exit.

Ken shouted up to him, “Ceasefire Shaun, they want to surrender.” He gave the order to Izzy and the mortar crew, before jumping down alongside Ken.

“What about Sue’s group Ken?”

“Cookie and Prof went into the gorge in the truck with the bazooka teams, the ground troops trotting beside it. They could hear the explosions from the head of the gorge caused by lads dropping mortar shells down on the column, seems the tank commander was more interested in what was ahead rather than what lay behind. He lost interest when Cookie put a bazooka shell into his rear end. The tank blew up. It knocked Cookie and his loader for a six. Prof says they both have broken ribs. Anyhow the other tank commanders threw in the towel when they saw the troops fleeing in panic back down the pass.

Shaun thought for a moment, “Is Prof still with Sue’s jeeps at the entrance?”

“Yes, why?” Ken replied.

“Get him for me, Ken.” Shaun asked Ken adjusted the frequency, and after a moment handed the microphone to Shaun, He spoke into it for several minutes before signing off.