east.
‘Let’s go,’ he said. ‘And pile the coal on, please. I’ve got news that’ll make their hair stand on end at HQ.’
2
The decision was therefore made to mount a special operation to disrupt these important supplies, together with large amounts of spare parts for the Luftwaffe and the Afrika Korps panzer divisions which were also known to be in Qaba.
Brigadier Loftus, of Eighth Army Intelligence, was a big man with far too much flesh on his bones, and he was sweating profusely because his tent was stuffy in the morning sunshine. He was a dedicated man, and it never occurred to him to take an hour off for a breather, because he had already given his complete allegiance to the new commander of the Eighth Army and was prepared to work every hour that God sent to make him successful.
The new man hadn’t been long in North Africa -- barely long enough to get his knees brown, in fact -- and to the sunburnt desert veterans, he hadn’t any particularly remarkable physical attributes with his fair hair, sharp enquiring nose and pale blue eyes. Pale though they were, however, those piercing eyes seemed to Loftus to miss nothing and there was a steely quality behind them that indicated an unexpected depth of character. It was said the general was lacking in warmth, but he was incisive, firm of purpose and, as quite a number of indifferent officers had already found out, not over-willing to make allowances for the fallibility of others. He mightn’t look very much like the sort of man who would win the hearts of his soldiers, but he did seem to be the very man who might do something about the Afrika Korps and especially about Rommel.
Rommel had caught the imagination of every man in North Africa, and his soldiers -- Erwin’s Army, they were called -- with their palm tree insignia, sun-bleached hair and bright blue eyes, had built up a legend of invincibility that was hard to break down. Because their general was good and an honourable man, too, his Afrika Korps was good also and its soldiers were clean fighters. Well equipped with excellent weapons, they envied the British nothing except their cigarettes, and it was little wonder the Eighth Army admired them.
They still stood, however, for German Schrecklichkeit - that toxic frightfulness of the Nazis - and since they had to be beaten, it was Loftus’s opinion that another legend was needed to combat the one Rommel had built up. And oddly enough, the long-nosed general, who’d come out from England only as a second choice, had already started one of his own, different but strangely similar in its austerity and ruthlessness. His attitude was quite clearly not to dance to the German tune, but to play one of his own -- only better -- and first. In the desert, the wolves of Europe were suddenly facing bigger and craftier wolves.
Brigadier Loftus had a whole series of situation reports to prepare, and despite the heat he still went on with them because every minute was important if the Germans were to be defeated. The three arms of their Drang nach Osten had all by the grace of God come to a stop at last - the Russian one at Stalingrad and Moscow, the Balkan one at Crete, and the North African one at Alamein, only a few short miles from Alexandria - but it was still necessary to guarantee the Mediterranean and somehow re-establish a footing in Europe, and the only way to do that was by the conquest of Libya and the driving out of North Africa of every last vestige of the German--Italian occupation.
Since the new commander of the Eighth Army seemed to have some pretty solid ideas on the subject, and vast new supplies of tanks and 25-pounder guns, to Brigadier Loftus it seemed that the extra effort might well be worthwhile, so when the starched and laundered young staff captain appeared in his doorway, he looked up with a frown at the interruption.
‘Chap called Hockold to see you, sir,’ the captain said.
The man in the scruffy galabiya appeared, his
‘Let’s go,’ he said. ‘And pile the coal on, please. I’ve got news that’ll make their hair stand on end at HQ.’
2
The decision was therefore made to mount a special operation to disrupt these important supplies, together with large amounts of spare parts for the Luftwaffe and the Afrika Korps panzer divisions which were also known to be in Qaba.
Brigadier Loftus, of Eighth Army Intelligence, was a big man with far too much flesh on his bones, and he was sweating profusely because his tent was stuffy in the morning sunshine. He was a dedicated man, and it never occurred to him to take an hour off for a breather, because he had already given his complete allegiance to the new commander of the Eighth Army and was prepared to work every hour that God sent to make him successful.
The new man hadn’t been long in North Africa -- barely long enough to get his knees brown, in fact -- and to the sunburnt desert veterans, he hadn’t any particularly remarkable physical attributes with his fair hair, sharp enquiring nose and pale blue eyes. Pale though they were, however, those piercing eyes seemed to Loftus to miss nothing and there was a steely quality behind them that indicated an unexpected depth of character. It was said the general was lacking in warmth, but he was incisive, firm of purpose and, as quite a number of indifferent officers had already found out, not over-willing to make allowances for the fallibility of others. He mightn’t look very much like the sort of man who would win the hearts of his soldiers, but he did seem to be the very man who might do something about the Afrika Korps and especially about Rommel.
Rommel had caught the imagination of every man in North Africa, and his soldiers -- Erwin’s Army, they were called -- with their palm tree insignia, sun-bleached hair and bright blue eyes, had built up a legend of invincibility that was hard to break down. Because their general was good and an honourable man, too, his Afrika Korps was good also and its soldiers were clean fighters. Well equipped with excellent weapons, they envied the British nothing except their cigarettes, and it was little wonder the Eighth Army admired them.
They still stood, however, for German Schrecklichkeit - that toxic frightfulness of the Nazis - and since they had to be beaten, it was Loftus’s opinion that another legend was needed to combat the one Rommel had built up. And oddly enough, the long-nosed general, who’d come out from England only as a second choice, had already started one of his own, different but strangely similar in its austerity and ruthlessness. His attitude was quite clearly not to dance to the German tune, but to play one of his own -- only better -- and first. In the desert, the wolves of Europe were suddenly facing bigger and craftier wolves.
Brigadier Loftus had a whole series of situation reports to prepare, and despite the heat he still went on with them because every minute was important if the Germans were to be defeated. The three arms of their Drang nach Osten had all by the grace of God come to a stop at last - the Russian one at Stalingrad and Moscow, the Balkan one at Crete, and the North African one at Alamein, only a few short miles from Alexandria - but it was still necessary to guarantee the Mediterranean and somehow re-establish a footing in Europe, and the only way to do that was by the conquest of Libya and the driving out of North Africa of every last vestige of the German--Italian occupation.
Since the new commander of the Eighth Army seemed to have some pretty solid ideas on the subject, and vast new supplies of tanks and 25-pounder guns, to Brigadier Loftus it seemed that the extra effort might well be worthwhile, so when the starched and laundered young staff captain appeared in his doorway, he looked up with a frown at the interruption.
‘Chap called Hockold to see you, sir,’ the captain said.
The man in the scruffy galabiya appeared, his
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