Alamein: The turning point of World War Two

‘Dunno, sir. Lost count we’ve done that many. Good, innit? Like bleeding Bonfire Night, sir.’

Hardly had the words left his lips when another note was added to the symphony of shells and bullets around them. Crump. Crump crump crump. Mortars! Christ, he thought. They’ve zeroed in on us. Bastards. Mortars. And as he thought the words the bombs began to land among them, exploding and sending their deadly shards of shrapnel in all directions at anything from head to waist height. There was a loud crash to his left and Samwell heard a moan: ‘Oh God.’

He looked across and saw one of the men tumble to the ground. The officer was shouting again through his megaphone. Samwell strained to hear his words above the din and failed. He turned to his front and in the moonlight and flashes of explosions saw a wire ahead of him. It was only a single strand and stretched out at about waist height. Without thinking he rushed towards it and jumped, as he might have once done at Glenalmond, jumping the wire and winning for the house. He rose in the air and sensed that his trailing foot had just cleared the wire. The earth came up to meet him and he managed to his own surprise to land on two feet without breaking anything. He looked behind and saw his sergeant, Perkins, negotiating the obstacle in his own way. The man was built like an ox, all muscle and no room for agility. He looked at the wire and gingerly put one leg over the top. He was just placing his weight down on the leg when Samwell suddenly realized what was going on. This wasn’t just barbed wire. A single strand: Booby trap.

He opened his mouth to shout to Perkins but at that instant the air was split by a massive explosion as the hem of the sergeant’s shorts snagged on the wire. As the explosion caught him, Samwell instinctively turned away and a huge rush of air buffeted him on the back of the neck. In the instant though he was aware briefly of the outline of a man or what at that moment had ceased to be a man, disintegrating as Sergeant Perkins was blown to atoms. As the air cleared, he turned to the men coming on behind him and yelled, all too late. ‘Booby Traps!’

He carried on walking and wondered what it had been that had driven him to jump the wire. He had not been thinking of booby traps. He was suddenly aware that all the men around him were running. For an instant he wondered why. He could not remember hearing anyone giving the order. No matter. He quickened his pace and was soon running in time with the men. His body seemed alive with the thrill of the moment, adrenalin pumping. His mind, his whole being, was curiously euphoric. Fear gone, he charged on and was aware that he was screaming at the enemy. He knew that his side would win. He grinned hugely and looked right and left as he ran on. Turning further to his left he was aware of a man, Corporal Sykes he thought it was, running alongside him, and equally caught up in the moment. The man was laughing as he fired a Bren gun from his hip and Samwell could see his mouth was wide open and he was shouting, though no words were audible. Samwell wondered if he were aiming at anything or just ‘firing into the brown’. He looked to his front towards where the Bren rounds were hitting the desert rock and sending lethal shards flying in all directions.

Then as he ran, he saw a head protruding from the ground. For a moment he thought it might have been blown off a body. But then he saw that it wore a hat, a flat peaked cap of the Afrika Korps and that its eyes were wide and blinking. Unable to slow down he ran straight past it and as he passed saw that it was attached to the shoulders of a man crouching in a shallow foxhole. By God, they had reached the enemy without even knowing it! Trying to stop, he turned halfway round and almost collided with the bayonet of the soldier running directly behind him. Samwell raised his revolver and catching sight again of the head, loosed off three rounds towards it. Then he turned back to the front and ran on.

Christ, he thought. Did I hit him? Did I kill him? The worry did not last for long as once again he was caught up in the headlong charge. He noticed that he had drawn level with Baynes once again. Where Corporal Sykes had got to God only knew. His runner, a biddable lad called Brooks had also disappeared. He continued to run and suddenly saw directly ahead a line of men standing in a slit trench. They all had their hands above their heads and were clad in an assortment of ill-fitting desert-coloured uniforms. They were dirty and ill-shaven and would have been on a charge had they been in his company. He laughed and wondered what sort of bizarre training formula had put such a thought into his head at such a moment?

They were yelling at him: ‘Mardray! Mardray!’

Samwell wondered what the hell it meant. Mother? What did it matter. He pulled up and waved his pistol at the men in the trench. He could see now that they were Italians. He motioned to the left with his weapon indicating that they should join the group of prisoners being collected by an NCO, Sergeant McCaig of B Company. They scrambled out of the trench but one of them, clearly terrified beyond reason, began to run round in circles with his hands on his head, screaming. Samwell started to yell to a corporal to grab hold of him and then someone, Sergeant Hawkins he thought it was, shouted: ‘Watch out!’

There was a sharp blow on the toe of his boot and Samwell was aware of an object bouncing off his foot and to the rear. And then whatever it had been exploded. Dazed, he staggered backwards and instinctively placed a hand across his eyes.

For a moment he began to wobble unsteadily on his feet. Oh God, he thought, I’ve lost a leg and am being kept up by the shock. Drawing his arm away he looked down and saw nothing unusual. Both legs were still intact and unscathed. He noticed he was shaking. Instantly he wondered who had been hit and looking to where McCaig had been rounding up the Italians saw him stretched out on the ground. A big man, he was lying on his back and groaning. Samwell felt a chill run through him. He had always admired McCaig, a big tough bear of a man with leathery skin and a wide smile. But his voice now betrayed the inner child.

‘Mother, Mother. Help me, God. Help me, Mother. Mammy.’

Samwell felt sickened. A grown man reduced to an infant. The cause of his distress was all too evident: where his right leg had been was now a mess of flesh and blood and bone. Samwell knew now what had happened. One of the men in the trench had thrown a grenade as he had pretended to surrender. That had been what had bounced off his boot and on to the unlucky sergeant. He thanked God for his luck and at the same time felt guilty that McCaig should have taken the hit.

Within a second though his regret had been replaced by anger. A red rage surged over him and he ran across to the edge of the trench. Three of the Italians were still inside and without thinking he levelled his revolver and began to fire into them. Two shots hit home and they screamed and then, when he pressed the trigger again there was an empty click.

‘Bugger!’ He had forgotten to reload. Throwing his pistol away, he picked up McCaig’s rifle which had been blown to the ground, and jumped into the trench. The two men he had hit with the revolver were lying on the floor. One of them was moaning. Two other Italians lay against its sides staring wildly at him. Without thinking Samwell rushed towards them and buried the long bayonet attached to the sergeant’s rifle deep in the belly of one. He felt it go in, twisted it and stared into the eyes of the Italian. Saw his anguish and felt nothing but hate. He pulled out the blade and moved to the other man. He was crouching now, in the corner of the trench, his hands in the air. Samwell lunged and as he did so the man muttered something: ‘Madre Madre’. The steel shaft slipped upwards through his throat.

Then, as quickly as he had jumped in Samwell climbed out and laying McCaig’s weapon on the ground, looked for his pistol. The red mist had subsided now, but a rage still burned in his heart. Stupid to have thrown his gun down, he thought. What the hell would the quartermaster say when he turned up back at Company HQ without it? It occurred to him that he had also lost his walking stick. He cursed. He loved that stick. It reminded him of home. He remembered buying it in Glasgow three years earlier. He had taken it everywhere, even to the picture house in Stirling where he had left it under a seat after he and Klara had been to see a film. Waterloo Bridge it had been, with Robert Taylor and Vivien Leigh, a soppy story about a British officer who falls for a dancer. Klara had liked it. The two of them had had to disturb the whole row to get his stick back. She’d been furious then at the embarrassment but had forgiven him later. He thought of her again and wondered what she would be doing at that precise moment. Sleeping perhaps, or tidying the house before going to bed. Then he realized that he had still not yet found the revolver and her face faded from his mind.

He stopped searching and was aware that the advance had halted, for the moment and in this sector at least. Groups of Highland infantry were assembling around him, eager to attach themselves to an officer. He looked about and saw familiar faces and strangers from other companies. It seemed to him that he must be the only officer among perhaps eighty men. He was still looking at them when there was a shout.

‘Sir!’

It was followed almost instantly by the crack of a rifle. Samwell turned to follow the direction of the bullet and found himself looking back into the slit trench at the body of an Italian. The man he had wounded had dragged himself to the parapet and judging from his position and the rifle in his hands had been about to shoot him when one of the men had spotted him and taken him out with the single round that had made a neat hole in his forehead and the messy exit wound that was all that was left of what had been the back of his skull.

Banishing the thought Samwell saw that the men were looking at him expectantly and pulled himself back to his remembered orders: ‘Consolidate the position for fifteen minutes then move on.’

That was the company order, but where he wondered was Company HQ or for that matter his company commander? They had agreed that he should bring up Company HQ with the reserve platoon with Samwell as second-in-command up front with the others.

‘Follow me.’ Instinctively, the men trailing behind, he turned and began to retrace his steps in search of the HQ.

Suddenly the night air was rent by a series of explosions. He counted four shells and stood still, then looked down and knew that he hadn’t been hurt. He was covered in sand. He brushed himself down and walked on. A shape appeared on the ground and for an instant he raised McCaig’s rifle which he had picked up again after his fruitless search for the revolver. But then he recognized the man, Colin Mackay, the highly-strung Company CO, who was sitting on the ground with the wireless receiver pressed to his left ear.

‘Hello. Battalion HQ. Can you read me? Say again. Come in Battalion. Copy that.’

Samwell spoke: ‘Sir. We’ve achieved the objective, taken several trenches and a good number of prisoners. Perhaps a couple of dozen. Mostly Eyeties. But we’ve taken casualties, sir.’

Mackay ignored him: ‘Hello. Battalion. Come in. Respond damn you. For Christ’s sake, will you come in. Respond, Battalion. Say again.’

Samwell tried again: ‘Sir. We’ve made the objective. We have prisoners, sir.’

At that moment Samwell was surprised to see the Battalion Commanding Officer Colonel Anderson walking towards them: ‘Hugh. Good to see you. You’ve done well. Ah, Colin.’

Instantly the major looked up and like some dog whose master, having ignored it, deigns to cast a glance, leapt up from the sand and moved towards the CO.

‘Sir. I was trying to get through to you. Thank God you’re here.’ At last Mackay saw Samwell: ‘Ah, Hugh. Good you’re here.’ He turned back to the colonel: ‘We’re doing well, sir. First objective taken and a number of prisoners. Anything to report, Hugh?’

‘Just that, sir.’ Samwell turned to the colonel: ‘Sir, give me the reserve platoon and I’m sure that I can make more ground. I’ll detail the right forward platoon to drop into reserve.’

Anderson thought for a moment: ‘Very well, Hugh. Take them and see what you can do.’ In the moonlit confusion Samwell managed to locate the reserve platoon and called them forward then together they advanced.

They were directly behind the forward platoons now, the men who had taken the brunt of the initial fighting and as Samwell looked on he saw stretcher parties weaving their hazardous way back through the advancing infantry and the wire. He wondered for an instant how he had got there and was aware as he had not been before of his legs working independently. Then he heard a noise. The other company’s piper had started to play again and he wondered what had happened to their own, Jock Macpherson.

He turned to the left and found his new runner, a boy from Greenock named White. ‘Get back to HQ and see what on earth’s happened to our piper, will you?’

The runner sped off without question, happy to be heading back. Again he was conscious of walking forward but as he went, there was a sudden whine and a terrific explosion to his right as a shell came in. Men began to shriek and he called out instinctively: ‘Stretcher-bearer!’ Another deafening sickly crump and more shells began to fall. Two more of the boys were down, White one of them, his skull bisected by a gigantic piece of shrapnel. The platoon continued to walk forward and as they did so Samwell became aware of a strange sensation. The shells which were falling around them were coming not only from the front, but also from the rear. They were advancing steadily into their own barrage. A shell landed too close for comfort, not thirty yards in front of him. At that moment the commander of the furthest left platoon of the company deployed on his right came up, a lanky lieutenant named Mitchell who two years before had been full back for Fettes’ first XV.

‘Samwell. Don’t you think we’re going too fast? Those are our shells aren’t they?’

‘You’re right. We should stop.’

‘Yes. I’ll go and warn Major Murray.’

The boy ran off back to the right and Samwell watched as he spoke to the major who shook his head, evidently disapproving of their suggestion. They continued to advance and now their own shells were falling closer still. Samwell walked across to the company commander and looked at him in despair. Samwell spoke above the noise of battle: ‘Sir, we really should stop or at least slow down. Those are our shells.’

As he spoke more shells whizzed over their heads and landed not more than ten yards ahead of them. All three men cowered to protect themselves from the blast but it caught them nevertheless. They straightened up and the major nodded: ‘Yes, Lieutenant. I think we should stop.’

Samwell hurried back to the left to his own platoon and found Sergeant Dawson. ‘We’ll halt here. Those are our shells. Pull the men back a few yards and get out of danger.’

The man nodded: ‘Sir.’

‘And Sar’nt, get word back to Major Mackay will you? Ask him to come up closer. Within the fifty yards.’

Samwell wondered where Company HQ had gone to. It seemed to have lost itself beyond the statutory fifty-yard gap between forward platoons.

Within minutes Dawson reappeared. ‘Sir, can’t find Major Mackay, sir, or the HQ. Reserve platoon’s gone AWOL too, sir.’

Samwell cursed to himself. Had he taken a wrong turning in this damned desert? His mind was addled and he looked across to the right to C Company only to see that they had begun to advance again and were now some fifty yards ahead. He realized that their own barrage had lifted. The men were disappearing into the night and he wondered why Mackay and the young lieutenant had not troubled to warn him that they were about to restart the advance. Now he and his depleted platoon were left alone out in the ‘blue’, as the old desert hands called it. Just him and forty men in the middle of nowhere. He turned to Dawson: ‘Stay here. I’m going to see what’s happening on the left.’

His company had been placed on the farthest left of the Argyll’s line of advance and darting between the wire and the bodies, Samwell ran low across to the left where another regiment, Seventh Black Watch, was advancing. But of them there was no sign. Not a man, save the dead and a party of stretcher-bearers. Christ almighty, he thought, we’re completely isolated. He ran back to the sergeant: ‘We’re on our own. The forty-second have buggered off somewhere and C Company’s gone ahead.’

‘Right, sir. What are your orders?’

For a moment or two he was unable to speak. An unexpected and novel wave of terror swept through him, nauseating and paralysing. He was alone. The company commander and HQ had gone along with the wireless and the ‘pilot’ officer. Slowly he began to try to calm down. His palms were sweating. Instinct told him that he had simply gone over too far to the left. He realized that they had continued to advance while he had been deliberating and quickly started to swing to the right. ‘Sar’nt Dawson. Wheel towards the right.’

Again fear overtook him. Not the fear of being blown to atoms by one of the shells, which were coming in hard now from the enemy guns, but a fear of being left alone here, cut off from the battalion. Ahead of him another strongpoint loomed up in the moonlight, illuminated by the flash of the constant explosions. Samwell yelled across to Dawson: ‘Sar’nt, secure that position. Take those men prisoner.’