The Sand Panthers Read online

  CONTENTS

  Title

  The Sand Panthers

  Section One: Plan of Attack

  Section 1 One

  Section 1 Two

  Section 1 Three

  Section 1 Four

  Section 1 Five

  Section 1 Six

  Section Two: Into the Great Sand Sea

  Section 2 One

  Section 2 Two

  Section 2 Three

  Section 2 Four

  Section 2 Five

  Section 2 Six

  Section 2 Seven

  Section Three: The Oasis

  Section 3 One

  Section 3 Two

  Section 3 Three

  Section Four: A Battle is Proposed

  Section 4 One

  Section 4 Two

  Section 4 Three

  Section 4 Four

  Section 4 Five

  Section Five: Stab in the Back

  Section 5 One

  Section 5 Two

  Section 5 Three

  Section 5 Four

  Section 5 Five

  Section 5 Six

  Envoi

  Also by the Same Author

  Copyright

  THE SAND PANTHERS

  SS Assault Regiment Wotan had been sent to join the Desert Rats, their objective to liberate the Egyptian army and to wrest the control of Alexandria from the British forces. But the men of Wotan found that Rommel didn’t want them, and as they set off into the unmapped waste of the desert, they realised that something about this mission was wrong – very wrong indeed.

  One thousand kilometres of uncharted desert lay before them: a blazing, barren, limitless hell, just sand and sun and sky – the only living creatures an enemy lying somewhere in wait for them, silent and unseen…

  At that moment von Dodenburg had never felt gloomier in his life. His 1st Company had just suffered tremendous losses beating off the Tommy landing at Dieppe* and now with the gaps in their ranks filled up with raw lads from the Reich, they were expected to go into action again – with Rommel in Africa.

  ‘They don’t like the SS out there, you know, Schulze,’ von Dodenburg broke the heavy silence, disturbed only by the slither of the shingle on the beach below. ‘All those sniff-noses of the Afrikakorps want to fight a private war with the Tommies, as if they were all fifteenth century knights in armour. They don’t fancy the Black Guards’ methods, I hear.’

  ‘Maybe, sir,’ Schulze commented, his lecherous blue eyes gleaming suddenly. ‘But they’ve got those belly dancers out there, all bust and backside. Lovely grub! And sirs we’ll get our knees brown!’

  Von Dodenburg’s gloom vanished. ‘Of course, we’ll get our knees brown!’ he echoed excitedly.

  As the first shrill silver notes of the bugle outside alerted the company, Major von Dodenburg cried:

  ‘Africa, here we come!’

  ASSAULT REGIMENT WOTAN WAS GOING TO WAR AGAIN!

  Conversation between Major

  von Dodenburg and Sergeant-Major

  Schulze, 1 September, 1942

  * * *

  * See Kessler: Forced March for further details.

  SECTION ONE:

  PLAN OF ATTACK

  ‘Now you are going to show those buck-toothed Tommies back in the Delta how really to put in a commando raid.’

  Field-Marshal Rommel to Major von Dodenburg, Tobruk, 1942

  ONE

  ‘Sie kommen!’

  ‘Die Tommies?’

  ‘Jawohl, Herr Generalfeldmarschall!’

  The Desert Fox, Field-Marshal Erwin Rommel, swung round from the excited young Lieutenant of the Afrikakorps, who had just burst into the underground HQ with the news, and faced his staff. ‘Gentlemen, the English commandos have begun their attack on Tobruk! Precisely on time as expected. The Tommies are very exact in their habits.’

  There was a polite ripple of laughter among the bronzed-faced staff in their sweat-blackened khaki, which died with the sudden wail of an air-raid siren and the throaty crump of Tobruk flak.

  The Desert Fox frowned. He looked at the Major with the Knight’s Cross around his throat and the silver SS runes on his collar, but with the pale face and knees of a newcomer to the desert war ‘Major von Dodenburg.’

  ‘Field-Marshal?’

  ‘Major, the English have been carrying out commando raids in the desert for two years now. And they have become very good at it. I should know: they nearly killed me last year. Fortunately we are in position to know exactly what their plans are – in advance,’ he emphasised the words and paused, as if he expected the handsome SS Major to say something.

  But the CO of the 1st Company of Assault Regiment Wotan, who had only arrived in Tobruk with his tanks the day before, remained silent. He was new to the Desert and bewildered by the strange type of battle he had found himself plunged into so suddenly. Rommel nodded to Captain Schmidt, his bespectacled adjutant. ‘The radio,’ he barked.

  The hot underground room was filled immediately with a confused babble of voices speaking in German and English, being transmitted to the HQ by the Afrikakorps’ interceptor unit.

  ‘The Tommy commandos are attacking in three groups,’ Rommel explained. ‘Two groups from the sea and one from the land. The aim of the land force is to establish a bridgehead to the south side of the harbour. When they have that, the other two forces will land from torpedo boats and motor launches. Together the three groups will remain within the Tobruk perimeter for twelve hours, wrecking our installations and destroying the bombproof oil tanks, which hold my reserve supplies of fuel.’

  Major von Dodenburg’s face must have reflected his disbelief at the accuracy of Rommel’s outline of the enemy plan-of-attack, for the Desert Fox said: ‘It is true to the very last detail, Major. Believe me, our sources of information in the enemy camp are unimpeachable.’ He wiped the beads of sweat from his high forehead. ‘That is the Tominies’ plan. But, as you know, today is Friday 13 September – and it is going to be a very unlucky Friday the thirteenth indeed for the Tommies.’

  The Field-Marshal’s face hardened and von Dodenburg, puzzled by Wotan’s sudden summons to the Middle East and by Rommel’s personal attention to an officer of his low rank, could see why the Tommies called him the Desert Fox. There was something very sly about his ruthless, vulpine face. ‘Today we are going to exterminate them, von Dodenburg!’

  * * *

  It was dark but Colonel Haselden’s SAS men and the German Jews, who, dressed in German uniform, had got them through the Afrikakorps perimeter without difficulty, knew exactly what to do They had trained long enough for this operation. Forming up into small teams, each with a German-speaking guide, they headed for the searchlights on the dock.

  Colonel Haselden in the lead nodded his approval. Above them the twin-engined RAF Mitchells were zooming in, right on time, ignoring the flak which peppered the night sky all around them. At tree-top height they roared over the desert. Evil black eggs started to tumble from their bellies in lethal profusion. Haselden raised his voice above the racket of the exploding bombs. ‘Come on, lads, let’s give them hell!’ he cried.

  Next to him, Sergeant Hayden raised his Tommy gun and fired a burst at the nearest searchlight. There was a scream of pain, a clatter of breaking glass and suddenly the silver finger of light poking the clouds vanished. A second later they surged forward to the attack.

  Green and red Very lights, hissed into the sky. White tracer zipped through the air, and suddenly there was the angry snap and crackle of small arms fire everywhere. A commando went down, then another. A German Jew followed, cursing madly in German in his dying agony.

  ‘Christ!’ Haselden cried. ‘Now the shit has really hit the fan!’

  ‘You can say t
hat again, sir,’ Hayden gasped. ‘You’d think the buggers’d known we were coming…’ the high-pitched burst of Spandau fire nearly cut him in half. He tumbled to the ground, almost bringing the Colonel down.

  ‘Are you hit bad, Hayden?’ Haselden shouted.

  ‘I’ve ‘ad it, sir. Took half me sodding chest away,’ Hayden slurred the words through a mouth which was rapidly filling with hot, salty blood. ‘Fer chrissake, bugger off out of here…’

  The words ended suddenly. Haselden peered down at Hayden’s eyes, unnaturally large and startlingly terrified. His head lolled to one side just as the survivors of Force B’s first wave went to ground, unable to advance against the withering German fire. In spite of the slugs hissing through the air like angry fire-flies, Haselden seemed unable to move. He was too dazed. Just as the first bullet slapped him a tremendous blow in the right shoulder and flung him against the wall of the nearest hut, he knew that the operation was already a failure. The Germans had known they were coming. As he started to slither down the wall, dragging a bright red trail of blood behind him, the dying Colonel realized with a sense of overwhelming bitterness that they had been betrayed!

  * * *

  For a moment the loudspeaker in the claustrophobic staff room fell silent. Von Dodenburg started to wipe the pearls of sweat from his face. The loudspeaker crackled into life again and von Dodenburg’s hand remained where it was. That horrible, pain-racked voice of the dying British naval officer, trapped in the sinking torpedo boat filled with dead sailors and soldiers, came through again.

  It was breathless with hysteria. ‘Oh Christ, I can’t stand it… My foot’s fallen off… Where’s my bloody foot?’

  Von Dodenburg felt the hairs at the back of his neck stand erect and he shuddered in spite of himself.

  There was a pause, broken only by the dying man’s harsh breathing. Then he sobbed, ‘They’re all dead…. All dead…. They’ve left me. My God…’

  Over the loudspeaker came the most unnerving sound of all. The wailing, uncontrolled sobs of a man breaking down altogether. Rommel nodded to his adjutant. Schmidt reached up and clicked off the loud speaker. Outside the sound of firing was dying away. Inside the underground HQ, the staff officers stood there transfixed, horrified by the slaughter of the British force although they were all hardened veterans who had undergone the mayhem of the trenches in the First World War.

  Rommel remained unmoved. His face was set in a smile of ruthless triumph. The Desert Fox had beaten the British again and he was unable to conceal his sense of delight. Suddenly he brought his fly-swat down on the map table with a smart crack. The staff officers jumped, startled.

  ‘Meine Herren,’ he announced. ‘Those who are left of the Tommies are running now into the desert for their lives. We have beaten them decisively!’

  There was a murmur of agreement from the assembled officers. Rommel slapped his fly-swatter down on the table once again. ‘Gentlemen, what you have just experienced is already history, and we’ll leave the Tommies to reflect upon the past – they are very good at it. We Germans have other and better things to do.’

  He turned and stared at von Dodenburg, as if trying to see something behind the young officer’s face. ‘So, Major, you have seen your first desert commando raid.’ The Field-Marshal thrust out his pugnacious, obstinate chin aggressively. ‘Now you are going to show those buck Tommies back in the Delta how really to put in a commando raid.’ He pulled on his peaked Afrikakorps cap and nodded to Schmidt. ‘Attend me at zero hundred hours tomorrow morning, von Dodenburg. I have work for your SS ruffians. Gute Nacht, meine Herren.’ Casually touching his fly-swatter to his cap, the man who had beaten every British general in Africa for the last two years, went out into the blazing Libyan night.

  TWO

  Major von Dodenburg shivered and dug his chin deeper into the collar of his greatcoat. In the weeks to come he would always associate the stink of gasoline on the cold African dawn with the desert.

  He turned and stared at the sand waste beyond Tobruk’s perimeter. Behind him Field-Marshal Rommel was hurrying from his command halftrack to his portable thunderbox. As always before a crisis, the Swabian General’s stomach was upset. Two soldiers stood by, shovels over their shoulders, at the ready.

  The scene of the night’s attack was strewn with wrecked British equipment: Rifles, machine-guns, bits of paper, uniform, used cartridge cases – and dead men, sprawled in grotesque postures. Further on, the vehicles, which had brought the Toni Commandos to the perimeter wire, were still burning, sending up pails of thick smoke into the overcast dawn sky. Von Dodenburg shivered again. It was a sombre sight.

  He adjusted his collar and doubled over to the command halftrack, its many radios already humming and crackling with the business of a new day at war. He snapped smartly to attention in front of the waiting Field-Marshal. ‘Hauptsturmführer von Dodenburg zur Stelle, Herr General-Feldmarschall!’ he reported, staring at the distant horizon behind the Desert Fox’s right shoulder, and realizing to his horror that Sergeant- Major Schulze and his crony Corporal Matz were busily looting from the back of the Field-Marshal’s supply truck the British rations which his own staff had looted from the dead Commandos one hour earlier. ‘That damned Schulze,’ he told himself hotly, ‘I’ll have the nuts off him for this!’ Then he breathed a quick prayer that the two looters would get away with it without being discovered. The SS were not exactly popular with Rommel’s staff as it was.

  ‘Morning von Dodenburg,’ Rommel said easily, although his broad face was drawn and grey from the new bout of his stomach complaint. He flicked his fly swatter casually to his peaked cap. ‘I suppose you are wondering why I have had you and your armour posted to Africa away from the fleshpots of France?’

  ‘One doesn’t wonder – at least out loud – about the reasons for a Field-Marshal’s actions, Sir,’ von Dodenburg replied.

  Rommel’s tight mouth relaxed mto a little smile. ‘Typical SS, von Dodenburg. You are never ones to be impressed by rank. All right, you saw what happened last night on the perimeter, and the Tommies might have pulled it off – the operation was well planned for them – if it had not been for our friends in Alexandria and Cairo.’

  ‘Friends, sir?’ von Dodenburg ventured and breathed an inner sigh of relief. Schulze, a huge sack of looted British goods over his massive shoulder, was stealing back to the Wotan lines followed by Matz, similarly laden.

  ‘Yes. The Egyptians are sick of the Tommies. At least the intellectuals and most of the younger officers are. They want to be rid of the English. So far all they have done has been to supply us with information about the movements of the Eighth Army. Hence last night. But now the Delta is almost wide-open for us, they are prepared to go a stage further.’ The Desert Fox sighed like a man who has just too many burdens to bear. ‘However, like our dear Italian allies, the Egyptians are not the bravest of the brave. They need – how shall I put it? – a little backbone.’ The full rage of his frustration broke through and he snorted, ‘Spaghetti-eaters and niggers, what a pathetic bunch of allies we have!’

  Von Dodenburg did not rise to the outburst. Beyond the command halftrack the Arab grave-diggers under the command of German NCOs were swarming out into the desert to collect and bury the British dead; the Field-Marshal was always very correct about the dead. After he had photographed them for his scrapbook, he always insisted that they should be buried, whatever the circumstances.

  ‘Well, von Dodenburg, as I say they need backbone – and now I’m prepared to give them just that.’ He took his fly-swatter and drew a straight line in the sand. ‘The Tommy positions ahead of us to the East, stretching from the Mediterranean to the Qattara Depression. Just as I would do, the Tommy generals have positioned their forces with an unturnable flank to their right – the sea – and another on to their left – the salt sea of the Qattara Depression, which is totally unsuitable for heavy vehicles. Clear, von Dodenburg?’

  ‘Clear, sir,’ the SS Major answered smartly, the
little snake of apprehension already beginning to uncoil itself in his brain.

  ‘Now those commandos last night came into our positions through the back door into Libya – here.’

  Rommel drew a wavy line far below the spot where the Qattara Depression would be. ‘Starting from the Mustafa Barracks in Alexandria, the Tommies drive south west until they reach Ain Dalla Oasis. There, according to our Egyptian informants, the Tommy commandos plunge into the Great Sand Sea.’ He tapped the second line. ‘About here. It is a large sloping wall of sand which runs up a summit of rock. Again according to the niggers, the ascent is not easy, but it can be done, as we saw last night. Once that ascent is taken, there is nearly 800 kilometres of almost uncharted desert to cross. But the Tommies manage to cross it regularly.’

  Von Dodenberg intervened – ‘But the Tommies do not use tracked vehicles, Field-Marshal!’ The Desert Fox beamed at him, as if he were a schoolmaster pleased with a particularly bright pupil. ‘Ach, mein lieber von Dodenburg, you have seen through me?’

  ‘If you mean, sir, you have a plan to send my Wotan through the desert into Egypt, yes I have. But to what purpose, if I may ask?’

  ‘Well, von Dodenburg, I have just said that those niggers in the Delta need some backbone before they do anything.’ He licked his cracked lips, and stared directly at von Dodenburg’s pale, hard face. ‘Major, you and your Wotan are going to be the ones who give them that backbone. Now listen…’

  THREE

  ‘Muck ‘em all,

  Muck ‘em all, The long and the short and the tall

  You’ll get no promotion this side of the ocean

  So cheer up my lads, muck’em–’

  ‘Shut your cakehole, or l’ll have yer on a fizzer, you idle man!’

  The raucous North Country voice died immediately at the roar of some angry NCO from within Alexandria’s gleaming white Mustafa Barracks. At the gate the skinny little Arab with a bold hook of a nose jumped visibly and clutched at his skinny-ribbed donkey’s rein.