The Young Lions

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

THE General had come down to inspect the line, exuding confidence, so they all knew something was up. Even the Italian General in the party of ten bulky, binoculared, goggled, scarved, glittering officers had exuded confidence, so they knew it was something big. The General had been particularly hearty, laughing uproariously when he talked to the soldiers, patting them heavily on the shoulder, even pinching the cheek of an eighteen-year-old boy who had just come up as a replacement in Himmler's squad. This was a certain sign that a great many men were going to be killed, one way or another, very soon.

There were other signs, too. Himmler, who had been at Divisional Headquarters two days ago, had heard on the radio that the British had been burning papers again at their headquarters in Cairo. The British seemed to have an unlimited number of papers to burn. They had burned them in July, and then again in August, and here it was October, and they were still burning them.

Himmler had also heard the man on the radio say that the overall strategy was for them to break through to Alexandria and Jerusalem and finally to join up with the Japanese in India. It was true that this seemed a little grandiose and ambitious to men who had been sitting in the same place in the bitter sun for months, but there was a reassuring sound to the plan. At least it gave evidence that the General had a plan.

The night was very quiet. Occasionally there was a random small rattle of fire, or a flare, but that was all. There was a moon and the pale sky, crusted with the mild glitter of the stars, blended gently with the shadowy expanse of the desert.

Christian stood alone, loosely holding the machine-pistol in the crook of his arm, looking out towards the anonymous shadows behind which lay the enemy. There was no sound from them in the sleeping night, and no sound from the thousands of men all about him.

Night had its advantages. You could move about quite freely, without worrying that some Englishman had you in his glasses and was debating with himself whether or not you were worth a shell or two. Also, the smell died down. The smell was the salient fact about war in the desert. There was not enough water for anything but drinking, and not enough for that, so nobody washed. You sweated all day, in the same clothes, week in and week out, and your clothes rotted with it, and became stiff on your back, and you had a steady rash of prickly heat that itched and burned, but your nose suffered worst of all. The human race was only bearable when the obscene juices of living were being constantly washed away. You became dulled to your own smell, of course, otherwise you would kill yourself, but when you joined any group, the smell hit you, in a solid, jolting attack.

So the night was solace. There had been little enough solace since he had arrived in Africa. They had been wi

The only good time had been the two weeks in Cyrene, when he had been sent back with malaria. It had been cooler there, and green, and there was swimming in the Mediterranean.

When Himmler had reported that he had heard the expert on the radio a

Christian gri

Then there was the flash for a hundred miles, and a second later, the sound. He fell to the sand, just as the shells exploded all around him.

He opened his eyes. It was dark, but he knew he was moving and he knew that he was not alone, because there was the smell. The smell was like clotted wounds and the winter clothes of the children of the poor. He remembered the sound of the shells over his head, and he closed his eyes again.

It was a truck. There was no doubt about that. And somewhere the war was still on, because there was the sound of artillery, going and coming, not very far off. And something bad had happened, because a voice in the darkness near him was weeping and saying between sobs, "My name is Richard Knuhlen, my name is Richard Knuhlen," over and over again, as though the man were trying to prove to himself that he was a normal fellow who knew exactly who he was and what he was doing.

Christian stared up in the opaque darkness at the heavy-smelling canvas that swayed and jolted above him. The bones of his arms and legs felt as though they had been broken. His ears felt smashed against his head, and for a while he lay on the board floor in the complete blackness contemplating the fact that he was going to die.

"My name is Richard Knuhlen," the voice said, "and I live at Number Three, Carl Ludwigstrasse. My name is Richard Knuhlen and I live at…"

"Shut up," Christian said, and immediately felt much better. He even tried to sit up, but that was too ambitious, and he lay back again, to watch the sky-rocketing waves of colour under his eyelids.

The barrage had been bad the first night, but everyone was fairly well dug in, and only Meyer and Heiss had been hit. There had been flares and searchlights and the light of a tank burning behind them, and small petrol fires before them where the Tommies were trying to mark a path through the minefield for the tanks and infantry behind the barrage, small dark figures appearing in sudden flashes, busily jumping around so far away. Their own guns had started in behind them. Only one tank had got close. Every gun within a thousand metres of them had opened up on it. When the hatch was opened a minute later they saw with surprise that the man who tried to climb out was burning brightly.

The whole attack on their sector, after the barrage died down, had only lasted two hours, three waves with nothing more to show for it than seven immobile tanks, charred, with broken treads, at aggressive angles in the sand, and many bodies strewn peacefully around them. Everybody had been pleased. They had only lost five men in the company, and Hardenburg had gri

But at noon the guns had started on them again, and what looked like a whole company of tanks had appeared in the minefield, jiggling uncertainly in the swirling dust and sand. This, time the line had been overrun, but the British infantry had been stopped before it reached them, and what was left of the tanks had pulled back, turning maliciously from time to time to rake them before rumbling out of range. But before they could take a deep breath, the British artillery had opened up again. It had caught the medical parties out in the open, tending the wounded. They were all screaming and dying and no one could leave his hole to help them. That was probably when Knuhlen had begun to cry and Christian remembered thinking dazedly and somehow surprised: They are very serious about this.

Then he had begun to shake. He had braced himself crazily with his hands rigid against the sides of the hole he was in. When he looked over the rim of the hole there seemed to be thousands of Tommies ru