大象传媒

This story was submitted to the People's War site by Jock Watt. He fully understands the site's terms and conditions.

At last, through the hills of Tarhuna, and the race for Tripoli is on. The voice in my ears is getting on my nerves, - "push on, push on, we are right behind you". What the hell does he think we are doing; belting along this black tarmac road in the moonlight, with every bush on the flat desert around me an Anti-tank gun just waiting for me. A real nailbiter and the agony of this boil on the back of my neck, being rubbed by my greatcoat collar, is not much help. The muck from that shell bust at Alamein is still trying to get out and Doc. MacMillan refuses to touch it until it is ripe for his knife.

According to the map, a bridge over a Wadi should be just ahead and the two tanks ahead of me will report it. Now, what the hell was that! - a red glow on the horizon up ahead; probably the bridge being blown; we can鈥檛 be far behind their rearguard. I hope they don鈥檛 leave an 鈥�88鈥� behind to slow us down a bit, they would see us coming a mile away in this moonlight. There lay the remnants of the bridge, completely destroyed, with a thick pall of smoke hanging in the air, that was close. We had almost caught them, and the old camel track across the Wadi beside the bridge looked undisturbed, but it is sure to be mined.

The tank behind me was near the track entrance and was ordered to push on and drive through it. Sheer madness I thought, but was surprised a few minutes later when he reported a clear run through to the road on the other side. The next tank followed and was just clear of the Wadi when an Italian Box Mine blew his track off. Fortunately the old camel track was wide at that point, but now the whole route through would have to be checked. There were now only three RE鈥檚 left from our original dozen at Alamein, the Sgt. used the detector and I followed him throwing down a bayonet every two sweeps to check that the machine was working. A number of mines were found and disarmed before we cleared the disabled tank and moved on towards the main road.

The tank crew standing behind the turret called for permission to dismount and join the group of tank crews that had followed along behind us. The Sgt. agreed and we continued to sweep but hit the ground when something exploded behind. We ran back into a pall of acrid smoke and stumbled on men lying on the ground, some groaning, others quite still. Apparently the driver, who jumped down first, had landed on an 鈥淪鈥� mine which scattered hundreds of steel balls across the area at a very high velocity. I attended to the driver and by the light of the moon I could see that many had penetrated his back, his wide leather belt was cut in half and a cigarette hung from his lips. I removed it as he died.

As Doc. MacMillan worked to clear the carnage of that tragic event, we moved on in the moonlight. The dark cloud of smoke still hung over the bridge and a heavy burden of guilt pressed me down into the turret. Damn him and his, "push on, push on". I was further back in the column behind another troop of tanks but, as navigator, still had to concentrate on recording our movement towards a road junction where we would turn north to Castel Benito and Tripoli. As the sun lit up the sky the constant fear of the dark unknown and the strain of peering into the darkness was replaced by a relaxed weariness born from lack of sleep, a continuous buzz in my earphones and constant physical movement in the turret of the tank.

My dream world was suddenly ended by the scream of a shell tearing past the outside of the tank. Where the hell did that come from! The driver did not wait for an answer, he swung off the road down a bank and drove into a walled garden. I had not realised we were at our turning point in a small village and an 88mm gun had been left on guard to remind us there was still a war on. The CO鈥檚 voice was screaming in my ears for information but no one seemed to be paying much attention, so that was it; I鈥檇 had enough! We just sat there and cooked breakfast, the first for quite a number of days. I believe Buck Kite in his Sherman took care of the gun in a few minutes but it took the CO an hour to sort out our next move. Now I wonder what is on the menu for today.

Jock Watt 3rd. RTR.

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