The Sand Panthers (4 page)

‘In the
Afrikakorps
, they could shoot you for that,’ the Professor exclaimed.

‘But I can’t see what your obscene pleasures and obvious infringement of military law have got to do with my link-pins, Schulze?’ von Dodenburg interjected.

A look of both embarrassment and wicked amusement appeared in the big Hamburger’s blue eyes. ‘Well, sir, the macaroni-eater took a fancy to us. She said we could have seconds – for nothing. But we’d have to wait till her next customer, Colonel Hartmann, had completed his daily session of mattress gymnastics.’

‘You mean Colonel Hartmann –
of Supply
?’ von Dodenburg cried incredulously.

‘The same, sir,’ Schulze answered and looked down modestly. ‘Every day, on the stroke of twelve, he’s in there for two solid hours. He’s a bit long in the tooth, sir, and it takes him a while to raise – er – a smile.’

‘Schulze, I’m ten kilometres ahead of you, speeding at a hundred an hour. Correct me, if I’m wrong. But you’re going to break military law yet again by assuming a false rank and while Colonel Hartmann is enjoying his luncheon break, you are going to borrow his vehicle, proceed to his HQ and do a little impromptu requisitioning. Right?’

Schulze beamed down at him. ‘Right, sir!’

‘Then what are you standing there for, you great oaf –
get on with it
! It’s already thirteen hundred hours. You’ve only got sixty minutes left.’

‘
Sir!
’ Schulze flew through the door.

Professor Reichert slumped back in his chair. ‘
Ache du lieber Himmel!
’ he sighed weakly. ‘The methods of the Armed SS! My God what have I got myself into now?’

‘What indeed?’ von Dodenburg grinned at him, happy for the first time that day.

Two o’clock came and went and there was still no sign of Schulze and Matz. Half past two arrived and von Dodenburg surveying the distance between their camp and the quay through his binoculars, still could not make them out. Three o’clock struck and he was beginning to worry that for once, the two rogues had really run into serious trouble.

Thirty minutes later, a great plume of sand, thrown up by several vehicles hurrying towards Wotan at great speed made von Dodenburg’s heart leap excitedly; Schulze and Matze had pulled it off!

But he was mistaken. The man who got out of the leading halftrack was none other than Field-Marshal Rommel himself. He pushed back his sand goggles, saluted the SS men standing rigidly to attention in the burning sun, and took von Dodenburg by the arm with a curt: ‘We shall go for a little walk, Major.’

Anticipating the worst, von Dodenburg allowed himself to be guided into the desert, watched by the curious eyes of his own men and those of Rommel’s staff.

But Schulze and Matz had not been found out. Rommel’s first words indicated that he had come to Wotan’s HQ on a completely different matter.

‘Walls, you know, my dear Major, do have ears – although we have very few of them in the desert,’ Rommel began and stopped, obviously confident that he was out of earshot. ‘Von Dodenburg, I have come up to give you your final instructions and I would suggest you keep them to yourself and don’t reveal them to that old fart of a schoolmaster you’ve picked as your adviser.’

Von Dodenburg grinned at the Desert Fox’s description of Professor Reichert. ‘I understand, sir,’ he said.

‘Good.’ Rommel swung his whisk at an importuning fly. ‘My Intelligence section has information that the Tommies are pushing out a wide screen of light tanks and armoured cars to the front of their positons at El Alamein. Obviously that new general of theirs is planning something. I want you to avoid that screen. If you do chance to bump into it, destroy it completely; prisoners will not be taken! You understand? I want no word of your operation to get back to the British HQ. Clear?’

‘Clear, sir.’

‘Two.’ Rommel ticked off the points on his fingers. ‘There will be no turning back. Once the Tommy patrols out there in the Sand Sea discover your tracks, they will attempt to block the route and I might well need it again. Understand this, you either make it, or you don’t come back at all.’ Rommel looked hard at the younger man and von Dodenburg realized that the ‘Prof’ was right; the gentlemen of the
Afrikakorps
did hate the SS, Rommel had just issued a virtual sentence of death.

‘Three. Once you are through the Sand Sea–’

‘
If
,’ a cynical little voice at the back of von Dodenburg’s head interrupted.

‘And down the Ascent, I want you to make at full speed for the Ain Dalla Oasis, which is held by the Egyptian Army and a handful of Tommies who are there to watch them. There you will meet your contact.’

Von Dodenburg looked at the Desert Fox’s ruthless face. ‘But who is my contact, sir?’ he asked a little helplessly, raising the point which had puzzled him ever since the mission had been proposed.

‘Don’t worry about that. You will be contacted all right, once you are there. Never fear. He –’ suddenly Rommel burst out in a guffaw of coarse laughter – ‘he will see to that.’

He thrust out his hand. ‘Major, from now on it’s march or croak!’ he rapped.

‘March or croak, sir!’

Rommel grinned. Von Dodenburg grinned. They understood each other: the young Major and the middle-aged Field-Marshal, who would kill himself at the
Führer
’s order, within two years.

Five minutes later, he was gone. Von Dodenburg would never see him again.

*  *  *

It was five o’clock when the big halftrack, flying a full colonel’s flag on its bonnet, rolled into the camp, followed by a captured British 3-ton truck laden up to the roof with link-pins, and manned by a half-a-dozen grinning Italians. Matz at the wheel drew up with a flourish and tipped Schulze, who was standing upright with a pair of black lace drawers wrapped around his head, neatly over the open windscreen onto the sand directly in front of von Dodenburg.

The young Major looked down at him and groaned, ‘Oh God! As pissed as a rat!’

Schulze grinned and struggled to his feet. Swaying wildly, he flung his CO a magnificent salute – and missed his forehead completely. ‘Sir, my tonsils is floating in chianti and Tommy whisky.’

Von Dodenburg glanced at the grinning Italians and realized they were drunk too. ‘Matz,’ he barked at the little corporal, who looked sober. ‘What the devil have you rogues been up to?’

‘Better not ask, sir,’ he said darkly. ‘All I can say is we’ve got what you wanted, we’ve adopted half the spaghetti-eaters’ Army,’ he indicated the drunken Italian soldiers, ‘and this.’ He pulled back what looked like a silken bed-spread which covered the rear end of the halftrack to reveal bottle after bottle of champagne, cases of cigars and a pile of what appeared to be frilly female underwear.

Von Dodenburg’s mouth dropped open in dismay. ‘Where did you get that?’

‘All I can say, sir,’ Matz replied ponderously, ‘is this. That house down on the quay will never be the same again, Colonel Hartmann has suffered an unfortunate accident which will keep him on his back for several months, I’m afraid – and…’ He hesitated.

‘And what?’ Von Dodenburg demanded.

‘I think we’ll have about till dawn before the head hunters
1
come looking for us…’

Note

1.
  Military policemen.

‘Two thousand years later, Major von Dodenburg, they are still out here, having in the meantime become more vicious and stranger in their ways.’

Professor Reichert to von Dodenburg in the Great Sand Sea

Von Dodenburg was already awake. Through the open flap of his tent, he could see the sky paling imperceptibly so that the desert all around took on a series of different hues.

For a moment he lay there in the warm, comforting sleeping bag casting his mind over the many problems ahead and wondering whether he had forgotten anything, made a mistake anywhere. He knew from the ‘Prof’ that a false estimate of the amount of water they might need to cross the Sand Sea, even a mistake in the number of salt tablets, so vital in that intense heat, could spell disaster.

Finally he decided it was too late to worry now, and with a groan rose from his sleeping bag. The new day had begun.

The next hour passed swiftly. While von Dodenburg strode from vehicle to vehicle, checking that everyone would be prepared to move out on the signal, the crews prepared their breakfast, for there would be no more cooking until they were well out into no-man’s land and away from prying British eyes.

Briefly von Dodenburg exchanged a few words with a very pale Schulze, who had his head wrapped in a rag soaked in vinegar and spoke in an unusually soft voice, as if he were afraid that any loud noise might shatter his skull for good. The major tapped him slightly on the shoulder and said in commiseration: ‘If you feel like you look, you big rogue, you must be feeling rotten. All the same thank you for those links. The crews worked all night hammering the new ones in.’

At precisely 0630 hours, 14 October, 1942, 1st Company SS Assault Regiment Wotan started to move out. Standing on the turret of his command tank, next to a morose Schulze, and the ‘Prof’, von Dodenburg watched his force begin their advance into the desert.

The clatter of the tank tracks, the rattle of the towed 088mm guns, the thump of the halftracks bouncing over the rough ground were the only sounds to be heard. The men’s cries and shouts had died immediately in the cloud of dust raised by the departing vehicles. Now the troopers, standing in the turrets and on the decks of the halftracks, had their sand goggles down and their scarves pulled up over their mouths to keep out the choking dust. Von Dodenburg surveyed the young faces of his men. They looked worried at the prospect of the long journey into the unknown that lay before them, but not afraid.

The ‘Prof’ seemed to read the Major’s thoughts, for he said: ‘They won’t let you down, Major.’

‘Lot of aspagarus Tarzans – still got the eggshell behind their spoons,’ Schulze growled grumpily.

Von Dodenburg touched his throat mike. ‘All right, Matz – roll ’em!’ he commanded.

Matz let out the clutch. The 25-ton metal monster lurched forward. They were on their way.

*  *  *

Wotan moved in a long column with the ‘Prof’ in von Dodenburg’s lead tank navigating for the whole force. To their front the desert lay bare and ominous. To von Dodenburg’s rear, the tanks were strung out over two kilometres, with a space of two hundred metres between each vehicle. Each tank and halftrack was followed by a plume of sand, highlighted by the slanting rays of the morning sun, as it pitched and rolled over the uneven surface. Von Dodenburg told himself they would make an ideal target for Tommy fighters – they could probably be seen for kilometres – but according to Rommel’s staff, the British were not using fighters in this section of the front. He hoped the rear echelon stallions were right and concentrated on the task in hand.

The hours passed leadenly. At midday von Dodenburg allowed the men, bruised and exhausted by the violent progress of the vehicles, a ten minutes’ break. After greedily drinking a quarter of his daily ration of two litres of water, which was to be used for all purposes, he made a quick inspection of his force. The tracks were holding up well, but the men were already beat. The heat, the dust and the motion of the vehicles were beginning to tell. The troopers were sprawled out full length in whatever shade they could find behind their vehicles, eyes closed, dead to the world, not even aware that their CO was looking down at them.

Schulze recognized von Dodenburg’s concern. Recovered a little from the night before, he said: ‘Don’t worry about the wet-tails, sir! They’ll make out.’ He grinned suddenly. ‘We’ll break out that champagne we borrowed tonight. That’ll perk ’em up.’

Von Dodenburg returned his grin. ‘I don’t know whether you’ll make soldiers of them, Schulze, but you’re going the right way to make them into drunkards.’

Schulze clapped his big hands around his mouth and bellowed. ‘All right, you bunch of warm brothers masquerading as soldiers, up on those twinkle-toes! Make dust! Scratch a corner! Press on the tube.
LET’S GO!
’ Their weary journey into the blank desert continued.

*  *  *

They were working their way through a very bad patch: an area of small boulders, filled in with solid tufts of scrub. As the ‘Prof’ had explained in his usual pedantic manner when they had entered it: ‘One’s usual conception of the desert is of an endless stretch of smooth sand rather like the dunes on the Baltic where one spent one’s school vacations. But it is not like that at all. There are great variations in the topography – like this.’

Now the long column worked its way across the boulder-strewn ground, where every dip and hole was flattened to the eye by the almost perpendicular rays of the burning sun so that they cast no shadow to warn the drivers. The result was that the drivers could not avoid the crashing bumps, and the weary, sweat-lathered crews could not brace themselves in time. Thus the tanks and halftracks rattled and swayed their way forward with painful slowness, making less than ten kilometres an hour, with von Dodenburg, his head rent by a violent headache, staring to their front grimly through red-rimmed eyes.

It was about four when Reichert announced through cracked lips, ‘Another kilometre and we should be out of it. According to the charts – and they’re not very reliable naturally – the terrain returns to what the layman might call normal thereafter.’

‘Good,’ von Dodenburg said. He pressed his throat mike. ‘Matz, hit the tube. I want to get ahead of the rest of the column and see what the ground ahead is like. We might be able to make another couple of hours before dark, if it’s suitable.’ He could hear Matz’s hollow groan from the depths of the tank, but the little corporal replied dutifully enough: ‘Yes sir.’

Next instant they started to draw away from the rest of the column, to which Schulze was already signalling to maintain the present speed For half a kilometre or so, Matz kept the tank at a steady twenty-five kilometres an hour, in spite of the terrible terrain. But then they hit a long ascent and he was forced to climb it in low gear.