El Alamein, Jack Murray [best autobiographies to read .txt] 📗

else had survived. He collapsed to the ground and began to sob. But he couldn’t stay long.

Manfred rose once more and pulled a jerrican of water down from the side of the tank. It was heavy but he would need it. He had a long walk back in the afternoon sun. With a final look towards his own tank, he turned in the direction from which they’d come and began to walk, slowly, home.

-

Danny had pulled himself up to the hatch. His shirt was soddened with blood and tissue. His strength was draining away. With a final effort he pulled himself up to the hatch and then out of the tank. He collapsed onto the ground. He was too tired to scream in pain. He looked down at his legs, arms and body. He was covered in red. He had no idea how much of the blood was his and how much belonged to the others.

He lay against the tank. His hands were black causing him agony; his legs and body were burning not just from the pain of the flames but the stinging barbs of the hot shrapnel. Wounds covered his body; his life blood slowly seeping out of him. He knew he was dying. His body felt like a thousand hot thorns were prodding him repeatedly. The desert was a blur now. He wanted a drink but had no strength left to stand. Alone, propped up against a tank, he would die.

His mind began to wander. He heard voices from his past. He saw the faces of his mother and father swim before him. Then Sarah’s face materialised just before the blackness came. He fell to the side, his cheek half turned into the hard, crusty desert.

-

A few hours passed, and the sounds of battle receded like waves on a beach. A tank came rumbling through the graveyard of blackened, twisted metal. Then another tank appeared and then another. The crews looked on in shocked silence at the extraordinary scene of destruction around them.

‘Halt,’ ordered the captain sitting on the cupola of one tank. He put a cheroot to his mouth and then lifted his binoculars. He could see a body, covered with blood, lying against a tank. Probably dead, he thought. Best to check anyway. Then get the hell out of this bloody place. He ordered the driver to move closer.

‘Bennett, go take a look,’ drawled the captain.

The hatch opened and Dave Bennett jumped out of the tank and strolled over to the body. The head was covered in blood yet there was something about the young soldier that seemed familiar. Then it hit him.

‘Bloody hell, sir. It’s Shaw.’

‘Shaw?’ said Captain Aston. He paused for a moment and gazed at the bloodied uniform. ‘Is he dead?’

Bennett knelt down and put his index finger and long finger into the groove of the neck near the windpipe. He seemed to take a long time about it, much to Aston’s irritation.

‘Anything?’

‘No, sir.’

Bennett stood up. He looked down at the young man that had been, briefly, his crew mate. He’d liked Shaw. A good sort. He was a mess now. Dried blood caked his hair. His cheek was a paste of dry sand and blood. He seemed to be sleeping.

‘What shall we do sir?’ asked Bennett, kneeling down again. He lifted Danny’s arm and pressed his finger against the underside of his wrist. He held it there for a minute.

‘Well?’ asked Aston, keen to move on.

‘Nothing.’

Bennett stood up and felt a sadness at the death of the young man he’d known briefly. Then a thought struck him. Why wasn’t the body cold? Aston was frowning at him. He was never the most patient of captains.

‘What’s wrong?’

Bennett knelt felt once more for a pulse.

‘It’s weak, but there’s something there.’

Bennett looked up towards Aston. The captain was already ordering Stone, the gunner, out of the tank to help Bennett. A few seconds later Stone appeared and trotted over to Bennett.

‘Bloody hell, not so good-looking now, is he?’ said Stone. This was an understatement, thought Bennett.

‘Carry him over. Probably too late, anyway by the looks of him,’ said Aston, staring down at Danny.

They crouched down, one at either end, hoisted the limp body up and carried it to the tank. They set Danny carefully down on the front. He looked a mess. The whole front of the uniform was red. Aston removed the cheroot and told Stone to get back inside the tank. He surveyed the devastation around him and shook his head. Then he pointed to Danny.

‘Wash his head wound, Bennett, see what it’s like underneath,’ ordered Aston. ‘He looks a goner, but we’ll do what we can.’

The End

Research Notes

I have mentioned a number of real-life individuals and events in this novel. Although the events described in the novel are matters of historical fact, conversations and the views attributed to the real-life individuals are my own invention.

My intention, in the following section, is to explain a little more about their connection to this period and this story.

Any other information on the fate of the people mentioned below would be welcome.

ALLIED ARMY

Field-Marshall Bernard Law Montgomery (1887-1976)

Field Marshall, later 1st Viscount Montgomery of Alamein was the fourth son of a Northern Irish Church of Ireland Reverend. His early life was spent in Tasmania where his father became a Bishop. His early life was unhappy as his mother, Maud, ruled the household with tyrannical discipline. The result was a rebellious child in Montgomery and such a deep dislike of his mother that he declined to attend her funeral or allow his son, David, to see her.

This streak of rebelliousness was a theme in his life. He was almost expelled from Sandhurst because of it. However, he did manage to graduate and went on to fight in the Great War, seeing action many times, seriously wounded through the lung early in the conflict and eventually being promoted to a role akin to Chief of Staff, effectively a Lieutenant-Colonel, by the time the war was ending.