The men who fought and held Tobruk in the bitter days of 1941 have given the name of the town a dignity which has not been and can not be dimmed by any succession of later events. Regardless of catastrophe or success the word Tobruk will always hold a special meaning and a special glamour.
At the time our Ambulance Company first entered the perimeter of that famous town, the Axis forces were a good fifteen or twenty miles to the west, and there was very little fighting in progress. Nevertheless, the magic of the name was so great that as we crossed the tank ditch which marked the eastern boundary of Tobruk I kept thinking to myself: "My God, here I am in Tobruk," and I wanted to reach across thousands of miles and tell my family and friends: "I'm in Tobruk!"
We arrived in the afternoon at our assigned camp area outside the town. It was nothing but an open. sandy plain dotted with lumps of camel grass, with here and there a pile of abandoned Italian shells and grenades. There were a number of Italian dugouts near our dispersal area, but as those were still occupied by members of the British unit we were relieving, we made preparations to sleep in our ambulances temporarily, and a number of us went into town to look things over. At that time there was still enough of the town left so that you could tell it had once been a very pretty little place---I should say about four hundred modern white houses, a fine-looking school, a town hall, and a handsome Catholic church built on the top and side of a hill overlooking the hull-ridden harbor. A good many of the buildings still had shape and form---though of course they were badly scarred, and very few of them boasted a decent roof. Some of the houses were occupied by British soldiers, who had painted nostalgic or humorous names on the outside---"Mayfair Lodge," "Piccadilly Inn," etc. The streets were well built and still serviceable, and there was a pretty plaza in front of the church, flanked by what had once been nice little shops. Incidentally, the church had been thoroughly battered and wasn't safe to enter, but there was a beautiful stone figure of the Virgin still standing to one side-quite unharmed.
We returned to our dispersal area to go through the familiar routine of standing in line for bully beef, tea, and biscuits and were met with information from a "usually reliable" source that within a few days Rommel was expected to put on a large scale attack. It was further stated that this was just what the British command wanted and that before very long we might expect to move farther westward behind a victorious Eighth Army.
We spent a quiet night sleeping in our ambulances, and in the morning word was passed around that our duties would involve clearing the patients out of the Tobruk hospital back to a mobile military hospital near Capuzzo---a distance of some ninety miles along the coast road.
We hadn't been in Tobruk more than a few days when everything started to happen at once. Air activity over the town increased, Rommel attacked, and our work began in earnest. It was all brand new to us. For the first time we were carrying battle casualties; for the first time we saw enemy planes, and for the first time we discovered that there was a war going on which was part of our own everyday lives. During our first two days, while we were sitting around waiting for our work to begin, we had seen a couple of British bombers shot down in the distance, and we had heard a slight amount of antiaircraft fire at night. However, I had become so used to sitting around doing nothing day after day in Syria that, when we first got to Tobruk and started to do some more sitting, it all seemed quite familiar in spite of the added glamour. Pretty soon things were different.
Our first hint of something new came on the third night in camp. Most of us had disregarded orders to dig slit trenches and were peacefully sleeping in our ambulances when suddenly the sky was lit up with searchlights, and a terrific barrage of anti-aircraft went up. Now there's nothing very dangerous or exciting about an ack-ack barrage, especially when you re in an area which is not likely to be a target, but that Tobruk barrage was one hell of a noisy and colorful affair, and we'd never seen anything like it before. Though I say it with considerable shame now, I must admit that I was convinced at the time that the air was already full of big fat bombs heading directly for me. Bill Nichols and I jumped out of the ambulance we were sleeping in and threw ourselves into what had once been the beginning of a slit trench but which now seemed the most exposed piece of territory for miles around.
"Wish we'd dug ourselves some slit trenches," said I.
"Yeah," said Bill.
Just then an anti-aircraft fragment landed a few feet away.
"Sully's got a nice big ditch over by his car. Room for all of us."
With one accord we clutched at our tin hats and ran for the shelter of that ditch. By the time we'd arrived at Sullivan's ambulance things had quieted considerably. Bill and I were already beginning to feel silly, when, to make matters worse, Sully and Ed Pattulo stuck sleepy heads out of the back of the car and said: "What's the trouble?" "What's going on?"
"Lots of ack-ack fragments dropping around. Thought perhaps we ought to take cover."
"Ah, they won't hit you," scoffed the big Irishman.
By this time everything was quiet again. Bill and I stood there looking sheepish for a while, and then, muttering something about "Well, they might," we crept back to our own car and climbed on to our stretchers. No sooner did we settle down to sleep than the banging started all over again. Again my imagination started to run away with me, but this time I was more afraid of looking foolish than anything else. I guess Bill felt the same way, so we both stuck it out for the night and managed to get ,a fairly decent rest. In the morning we found to our great joy that we had done such a good job of alarming Sullivan and Pattulo that they had crawled out of their stretchers and spent a miserable night in the cold, cold ground.
Practically every night from this time until the time we left Tobruk there was a display of fireworks overhead, and we could hear the occasional crump of bombs in the distance. Sometimes the Germans would drop parachute flares directly overhead, and a few of these landed in among our vehicles. Flares were always quite exciting because all the machine-gunners in the area would concentrate their fire in an effort to knock them down quickly. Also, it took me some time to get over the idea that if flares were dropped over an area it meant that the area would be bombed out of existence. At odd intervals we were warned that the Germans were about to fill the sky with real live parachutists, and we were given all sorts of instructions on the proper way to behave in case of attack---I think we were supposed to immobilize our vehicles or blow horns or some such business---and I remember speculating on the possibility of accidentally sleeping through it all, in some inconspicuous hole in the ground. But nothing came of it.
When the English Ambulance Company moved out I found myself a dugout to sleep in and managed to get some very good nights' rest, free from worry about getting hit on the head. There were a lot of Anglo-Italian fleas and crab lice in that dugout, but they weren't such bad company under the circumstances.
It was essential to get a good night's sleep in those days, since the long drives to and from Capuzzo proved to be very tiring both mentally and physically. We certainly weren't overworked in any sense, and we were in no particular danger, but I'll never forget how I dreaded the early mornings when I'd take one of my section ambulances into the hospital to be loaded up with wounded. I never got used to that trip, and each day seemed just as bad as the first.
The hospital was on the western side of the town, fortunately on the opposite side from the harbor, or it wouldn't have lasted as long as it did. It was built in the shape of a hollow rectangle, with a courtyard in the middle, and the various wards opened on to the courtyard. We'd drive into the courtyard and wait for the call to back up to a particular ward, praying while we waited that we might be loaded with walking wounded and not stretcher cases. We were almost sure to get stretcher cases nine times out of ten, so praying did very little good. After we were motioned to a certain ward, it was the duty of the driver to open up the back of his ambulance and help load the patients. As each patient was loaded I used to wonder just how badly he was hit and how he'd stand the long hard ride that lay ahead.
Once away from the hospital and out on the coast road, one of the patients would invariably open a conversation by asking how long it would take to get to the next hospital. If it was an officer asking the question it would start out: "Driver, how long---" Otherwise it would be: "Say, Yank, how long---" In any case, having been informed that the trip would be a matter of four-and-a-half hours, a general groan would go up. Then some one would ask how you, an American, happened to be in Tobruk, and were you a part of the American Army? When that matter was straightened out I always picked on the most congenial-looking patient and asked how the battle was going and how he got hurt. The answer to the first part of the question was usually optimistic---overoptimistic. Having finished these routine preliminaries, the occupants of the ambulance would settle down to think their own thoughts. The next four-and-a-half hours were always miserable for every one concerned.
The Eighth Army was throwing everything it had into the battle, and consequently there was so much traffic on the coast road that it was impossible to maintain any sort of ambulance convoy. Each ambulance had to make its way individually against and around a steady stream of tank carriers, armored cars, and trucks of every description. At best, the road would have been tough going for an ambulance load of wounded men. It had once been a very good road, but now it was pock-marked and jagged-edged, and there were miles at a stretch where the macadam gave way to a washboard surface of rough stone. With the extra burden of traffic, the surface was daily deteriorating, and the macadam had become so narrow that whenever a vehicle of any size approached, it was inevitable that our ambulances should be forced to bump along with two wheels on the precarious shoulder and two wheels on the torn edges.
The patients were brave men and did their best not to complain, but one could hardly expect them to retain much composure throughout the long ride in a bouncing hot box filled with fumes, dust, and the smell of dressings. I remember vividly the nervous tension and the awful feeling in the pit of my own stomach whenever it was necessary to drive a carload of stretcher cases off the edge of the road or across a stony stretch. I knew how awful it must be for the patients, and I knew that they were bound to cry out as an automatic physical reaction. It was particularly hard at first because I wasn't at all "hardened" to the job, and I always felt that it was my fault for not driving more carefully. Still, there was nothing to do about it, because they had to get to the hospital, and it wouldn't do any good to stop and prolong the agony. I remember that back home I had seen a book with the catchy title The Wounded Don't Cry, and for some strange reason that phrase used to pass through my mind over and over again. I had never read the book, but I built up an unreasoning hatred for the title. It used to prey on my mind so that I'd find myself thinking: "Of course the wounded cry. Why in hell shouldn't they cry?"
For about three weeks my section was working almost daily on the Tobruk-Capuzzo run. Since I had no car assigned to me, we worked out a system toward the end whereby I would take over one of the cars five days out of six, instead of just riding as a passenger in the lead car, and in that manner we each got some time to stay in camp, do some washing, and get a swim in the Mediterranean. In order to get to the beach, it was necessary to endure a long and bumpy truck ride across a rocky piece of desert, but it was certainly worth while. We did our swimming in a sandy cove where the water was invariably warm and pleasant. It was almost possible to forget there was a war on as we splashed around in the blue water or sun-bathed on the white sandy beach . (Months after we left Tobruk I saw a ferocious little article in an American paper to the effect that we'd had to go through dangerous minefields to get to the beach and that we'd been machine-gunned from the air while swimming. All I know is that the minefields were well charted, and no enemy planes ever took the trouble to shoot at me while I was swimming.)
Generally speaking, there were no real hardships attached to our camp life at Tobruk. The water was quite salty, and we weren't allowed more than a pint a day for drinking, shaving, and washing, but we usually managed to wash our clothes and ourselves in the sea, and it's quite possible to drink, shave, and spruce up on what we were allowed, especially since we were given plenty of tea, which wasn't included in the water ration. Our food was the best we'd had in a long time. Once we got settled down, our R.A.S.C. cooks managed to turn out some A-1 meals. Bully beef isn't bad when cooked, and at times we even got pastry and a ration of vegetables.
We organized a "twilight league" soccer team and actually managed to win a freak victory from a neighboring South African anti-tank company. Most of our evenings' activities centered around a large dugout which had been turned into a canteen. Here one could buy tinned fruit, chocolate, a small amount of hard liquor, and a tin of beer each week. There was a radio in the canteen, which, up to the time my section was ordered away, gave out nightly news of the great victory being won in the west. We believed the damn thing, too---although we sometimes wondered why the sound of gunfire was getting closer instead of farther away.
One of the nicest things about our stay in Tobruk (though we didn't appreciate it at the time) was the fact that we were so very safe. While my section was with the main body there was really only one occasion when the "fortunes of war" threatened us. One evening after our meal, a flight of Stukas (some say twenty-four, some say six) peeled off and headed for our area. I was walking toward platoon headquarters at the time, with Lieutenant Chan Ives and some of the N.C.O.'S when we saw the bombers coming directly toward us. No sooner had I noticed them than I also noticed that they were releasing bombs and were in an ideal position to do some strafing. Chan's dugout was only a few steps away, and I moved toward it with a speed of motion which would have astounded those who know me well. I landed on the floor of the dugout just about the same instant that the bombs began to land a few hundred yards away.
It was my first experience with this sort of thing, even at such a distance, and, needless to say, I was certain that this amounted to a special attempt on my life. Of course it had never occurred to me that the Germans would go out of their way to harm me personally, or any other member of the American Field Service for that matter. It was amazing to think (even erroneously) that they were actually trying to destroy us. The "raid" had hardly begun before it was over. Apparently the German pilots had seen the mass of red crosses painted on the tops of our ambulances and had given the project up as a bad job. The few bombs that were dropped landed among our workshop trucks, wounding one man and inflicting slight damage on the vehicles. Altogether we got off very easily.
The incident gave us something to talk about for days, and it provided us with a strangely pleasant feeling that now we'd been "under fire." However, there were some unfortunate aftermaths. One of our English cooks, who had had some terrible experiences in the earlier days of the war, had to be shipped off to a rest camp with a case of nerves, and one of our own drivers convinced himself that this was not only an attempt to destroy him personally but also an unprincipled attack on the Red Cross.
Our American Field Service company was kept pretty much intact during our stay in Tobruk, with the exception of two sections---one serving with an Indian Field Ambulance in the El Adem area (south of Tobruk) and one attached to the general hospital as hardworking handymen. After we had been on the Tobruk-Capuzzo run for about three weeks, my section was picked to relieve the boys at El Adem. They had been having a particularly rough time because---in spite of the radio optimism---the Germans had managed to break through on the south and make the El Adem area exceedingly uncomfortable.
We were all as pleased as Punch at having been chosen for this detached service, because we didn't enjoy the long haul between Tobruk and Capuzzo, and we were naïvely looking forward to "seeing some action." Some of the anticipation was taken out of it for me because, as fate would have it, my older brother, Bill, who had joined the Field Service some months after I did, put in an appearance at Tobruk just before I left for the field ambulance job. We tried to fix things so that we could work together in the same section, but we had bad luck. It wasn't until August that Bill finally got into my section, and then he was suffering from a skin infection and was shortly invalided home.
Four of the cars in our section needed some attention from the workshops before undertaking the new assignment, so Bob Sullivan and I took the one serviceable machine and went ahead of the others to report to the Assistant Director of Medical Services (boss medical officer of the Indian division) at division headquarters outside El Adem. We were greatly discouraged to find that the fighting had petered out and that there was some question as to whether our five additional ambulances would be needed at all. Sully and I spent a day sitting around on a convenient hump of camel grass while the great men wondered what to do with us, and on the following day Lieutenant Andy Geer arrived with the other four cars and held a council of war with the Colonel Sahib. Apparently Andy persuaded him that we were essential in one way or another, and he returned to us with news that four cars were to be assigned to a field ambulance and one car was to serve at the regimental aid post of an armored car unit. We drew lots to see who would get the R.A.P. job, and Peter Glenn won.
During the famous siege of Tobruk the Germans had built a rough stem road which served as a detour around the town. This road is known as the "Axis Road." It branches off from the coast road about twelve miles west of Tobruk, passes through El Adem to the south, and rejoins the coast road fifteen miles to the east of Tobruk. The Indian divisional H.Q. and the main dressing-station of the Field Ambulance we were attached to were located on the Axis Road a few miles southwest of the eastern junction with the coast road---that is, about fifteen miles east northeast of the El Adem defenses.
Andy and I decided to escort Peter to his armored car unit at El Adem, so that we could see the sights and I could get some idea of the area my section might have to operate in.
At that time a majority of the fighting troops of the Indian division(5) were concentrated in and around the El Adem "box," and Peter's armored car unit was hidden away in a wadi, just outside the main area. We had a terrible time finding it but enjoyed the opportunity to do some sight-seeing. El Adem itself is nothing but a small cluster of mud-colored huts, but the "box" proved to be fascinating. Actually, the engineers had built a modern type of fort. About two square miles of uneven desert had been "walled" in with barbed wire and mines: the "garrison" sat inside waiting to sally forth or hold their ground as the occasion should demand.
While we were wandering around the box, we were engaged in conversation by a friendly British Brigadier. We asked him how the fight was going. He smiled and said: "Though I say so myself, it's going pretty well"; then he added thoughtfully, "So far." The Brigadier looked like a very capable sort to me, and I was full of confidence that he and his box could come to no harm. It all looked quite formidable to my untrained eye.
Andy and I were naively disappointed not to find the Germans close at hand and made up our minds that as soon as we should drop Peter off at his post we were going out to look for 'em. Just at lunchtime we stumbled across the headquarters of the unit we were looking for and were treated to a good meal in the "officers' mess"---a hole in the ground with a piece of canvas over the top. The officers thought Andy and I were American doctors and went out of their way to be hospitable. They even managed to dig up some cold American beer. Luckily, they also persuaded us not to go out looking for the Germans.
We left Peter beaming over the prospect of a pleasant life with good company and headed back for the Field Ambulance headquarters. Andy dumped me off at the little cluster of tents and ambulances which marked the main dressing-station of the 21st Indian Field Ambulance and drove his little truck back to the camp at Tobruk. The boys of my section immediately crowded around and wanted to know how long we were going to be stuck "back here." "Why couldn't we be attached to the advance dressing-station?" I promised them I would report to the colonel in charge of the Field Ambulance and see what could be done. The colonel turned out to be a regular Indian Army medical officer and a very hard man to talk to. He was more worried about our position in the military social hierarchy and whether we should eat with the Indian orderlies or the two white N.C.O.'s than anything else. He didn't seem to know just what to do with us, and the best I could get out of him was that he'd "think about" sending us to the advance dressing-station. In the meantime we were to disperse our cars, dig holes, and eat with the white N.C.O.'s.
There followed four days of complete boredom. The two white sergeants were nice enough little fellows, and the Indian orderlies waited on us hand and foot, but we were all excited about playing fire-eater and didn't have the sense to realize how lucky we were. I used to report to one of the medical officers each morning to tell him we were ready to go out and win the war. He didn't seem a bit impressed, "Really, old chap," he'd say, "there just aren't any casualties." Then he'd send a couple of ambulances way back to Capuzzo with some dysentery cases, and that would make us even unhappier. One day Peter Glenn came in from his R.A.P. with some more dysentery cases. He hadn't seen any fighting, but he announced that the French had evacuated Bir Hacheim and the Indian division was about to rush out and recapture the place. There was some momentary excitement over that, but it sounded like a rumor. How could the French possibly lose Bir Hacheim?
On our fourth day of sitting around the M.D.S. the general atmosphere began to change. Air activity over the near-by railhead and supply dumps became considerably heavier; there was some strafing done on a near-by unit, and there were persistent rumors that the battle had taken a turn for the worse, That evening the colonel invited us Americans into his mess tent for drinks. At first the tea party looked as though it might turn out to be a miserable frost; we didn't know what to make of the English medical officers, and they didn't know what to make of us. However, there was a good stock of liquor, and it didn't take any of us too long to drink away our respective inhibitions. The colonel turned out to be quite a talker under the proper stimulus. After about a half-hour of small talk I turned to him and asked how the battle was going. To my complete surprise he answered: "It's a muck-up. A complete unmilitary muck-up. As a matter of fact, we may be cut off right now."
As if to emphasize his remarks, the Germans picked that moment to start dropping a few bombs in the neighborhood. The bombs weren't very close, but the colonel glanced under the table and I did the same.
"Don't be shy about getting under the table if they get any closer," said he. "I'll be right with you."
I laughed unconvincingly. Up to this point it really hadn't occurred to me that there was much chance of our team getting licked. I'd given up expecting to roll on to Tripoli in the immediate future, but suddenly I thought of Peter Glenn. I asked the colonel how long Peter was supposed to stay with the armored cars.
"Get him back here right away," said the colonel.
"We may have to move. May have to go anywhere. I'll need all the ambulances I can get."
Peter hadn't come into the main dressing-station that day, and it occurred to me that he might have gone straight to Tobruk. I excused myself momentarily and walked over to a near-by signal tent. I got hold of the Field Service H.Q. on the telephone and asked if they'd seen Peter. Yes, Peter had come in during the day and had returned to El Adem. He couldn't get to us by the Axis Road and had taken a short cut direct to Tobruk. He was expected to return to Tobruk soon. I figured that there was no sense in Peter's breaking his neck to get to us when he already had a job on his hands, so I just let the headquarters sergeant know that we might be moving off soon and let it go at that. (Peter never did return to the A.F.S. headquarters as expected. He's been sitting in an Italian prison camp for a year now.)
I returned to the temporary comforts of the colonel's liquor supply to find that he had called in his two sergeants and was discussing the probability of a mass exodus of the Indian orderlies during the night. It seems that Indian medical orderlies are not exactly the same breed of men as the fighting Indians, and the colonel had had an unfortunate previous experience in which all his Indian boys had run off and left him holding the bag. "Damn unreliable chaps when they get the wind up," said the colonel. "I'd appreciate it if you'd keep an eye on things to-night. Blighters might all run off and leave us, you know."
It was arranged then and there that the two English sergeants and the boys in my section were to stand guard through the night. I was very excited at the prospect of thus bearing the white man's burden. It all seemed very adventurous. The only catch in the scheme was that, by the time the party broke up, we had all put away such a considerable quantity of liquor that we were quite ready to enjoy a full night's sleep. The Indians didn't run away that night, but it wasn't our fault.
The next day we started a little retreat all our own. I couldn't figure out just what was happening, since the general retreat hadn't started yet, but I consoled myself and the boys by trying to give credence to the rumor that we were really just moving on to a better evacuation line. We traveled east along the coast road until we came to Capuzzo and then south into the desert along the wire that marks the Libyan-Egyptian border. We kept on going about twenty-five miles down the wire until we came to a spot known as Libyan Shefersen (distinguished by nothing). To our great joy we then traveled northeast on a sandy track leading towards El Adem. Fortunately, we traveled only about ten miles along this track and then stopped.
This left us a good fifty miles away from El Adem , but we still had large ideas about dashing across the desert to pick up casualties. This was the first time that we'd really been out of sight of any sort of civilization, and I found it quite exciting for the first fifteen or twenty minutes. I viewed the rolling stretches of sand and rock with considerable interest and dusted off my compass, with the idea that it might be a real help to me out here.
We sat around that God-forsaken piece of desert for the next two days, and my compass was no help to me at all. We just sat there. Every few hours I'd go up to one of the officers and ask when we were going to move farther west. I might as well have saved my breath. For one thing, no one knew when we were going to move or where, and for another thing most of them had seen enough war so that they weren't particularly interested in moving anywhere.
On the third day we started getting a lot of news. We woke up in the morning to find that the once empty desert was dotted with hundreds of trucks streaking toward the wire---for all the world like a Cecil B. DeMille extravaganza. Word came through that the Eighth Army had lost 120 tanks in one day and that the Army was in full retreat. Once again our Field Ambulance was ordered to the east---this time way back into Egypt. Upon hearing this last I talked to the boys in my section, and we made up our mind that we'd already retreated far enough. We were naïvely believing that the rest of the Field Service was still in Tobruk having a wonderful time. After thinking it over for a while I got up my courage and told the colonel that I'd like to take my cars back to Tobruk. The colonel obviously thought that I was out of my head, but he finally allowed that it was all right with him, provided we traveled by way of the coast road and made inquiries of the Military Police along the way. That same evening the colonel and his men said good-by to us and bedded for Egypt, and we got our four cars ready for the long drive back to Tobruk.
In the morning we drove east to the border wire and followed it north toward Capuzzo and the coast road. We noticed that a number of new gaps had been opened in the wire to make way for the steady stream of motor transport moving from west to east, and when we got to Capuzzo we saw that the coast road itself was jammed with traffic moving in the wrong direction. At first I was discouraged by appearances and thought of joining in the general retreat, but since no one seemed interested in stopping us from driving westward, I decided to go through with our plans. I figured that in any case they could always use extra ambulances at Tobruk. By the time we had driven some twenty-five miles on our way and left Capuzzo and Bardia behind us, the retreating traffic had thinned considerably, and it wasn't long before we had the road all to ourselves. I had always wanted to drive along that road without being bothered by the usual mass of transport, but now I felt quite nervous and lonely. Of course I didn't have the sense to worry about getting into real trouble: I was mainly worried about looking silly.
As we neared the perimeter of Tobruk, we noticed a few scattered shell bursts to the south of the road, but they were so well off the road that they caused us no great concern.
At about noon we came to the tank ditch on the eastern side of town and stopped to talk to a lonely looking British officer who was perched on top of a chunk of concrete manipulating a pair of field glasses. He seemed rather surprised to see us---not too surprised, just politely so. We asked him how things were going, and he replied that he really didn't know himself. He was observing a group of armor that was maneuvering around to the south.
We drove on into the town, and I was surprised and relieved to see that everything looked completely normal. The usual quantity of trucks were dispersed on the patches of desert bordering the road; the supply dumps were all intact; the ordnance, service, and engineering corps were still in evidence, and the usual number of soldiers seemed to be going about their routine tasks.
It wasn't until we drove into the hospital yard that I noticed any change in the Tobruk we had left a few days earlier. We bad been accustomed to a great deal of bustle and activity around the hospital, but now the place had an entirely new atmosphere. It was as if a busy little town had suddenly closed down all the shops, stopped all traffic, and come out into the street to think things over. Nobody seemed to be doing anything---even the few English ambulances scattered around the yard looked as though they were never going to move again. I walked up to a corporal and asked him if the American Field Service had left town.
"Ah," said he, 'left three days ago; left with the nurses---cleared the hospital."
"Aren't there any patients left?"
"No---no patients."
I suddenly felt very let down. No patients, no Field Service, no noise, no motion. I'd been pretty well keyed up to expect big things, and this was anticlimactic. Feeling like a very small boy, I walked to the Administration Building and presented myself to the colonel commanding the hospital. He looked up at me impatiently.
"What is it?" he snapped.
I stammered out a confused story about how we'd been relieved of duty with the 21st Indian Field Ambulance and were looking for the American Field Service.
"Don't know what you're talking about," said he. "What are you doing here? How'd you get here?"
"Drove in from the east, sir."
"From the east? I thought we were cut off. Well you'd better get out the way you came in."
"Don't you need ambulances---can't we stay here?" I pleaded.
"Oh, no. We've got plenty of ambulances. Can't even use what we've got---no place for them to go." He looked thoughtful for a minute, then said: "Now you listen to me. I've got an extra surgical team here that's got to get to Solum. They missed the last hospital ship. Think you can take them?"
"Sure, We've got four cars."
"All right, then. Get some lunch, load up, and get under way. I don't know whether you'll get out or not, but then, if you got in so easily, I suppose you might get out."
I returned to the boys with the news. We were all very disappointed that we weren't going to stay, since we had set our hearts on being the heroes of the latest siege of Tobruk.
We lined up in the mess hall for a meager lunch consisting of one boiled egg, two pieces of bread, and a dash of jam. While we were bolting our "meal" the colonel came in to address the hospital personnel. The gist of his remarks was that Tobruk would be held at all costs, that it was well garrisoned with "between twenty and seventy thousand men," and that they weren't completely cut off even now, since four American ambulances had just come in from the east.
After lunch we loaded our surgical team---three N.C.O.'s, three doctors, and a pile of equipment---and rolled quietly out of town. If we expected a lot of blood and thunder we were disappointed. The enemy must have observed us from the escarpment which runs a few miles south of the road, but they let us go our way in peace.
By evening we had arrived at Solum across the Egyptian border, and in the morning we dropped our surgical friends off at a near-by hospital. We stopped in at the rear army headquarters to find out what had happened to the main body of the Field Service and were informed that it was resting on a beach near Sidi Barrani. We drove through normal traffic the rest of the day (the retreat had momentarily stopped at Solum) and in the late afternoon arrived at Field Service H.Q.
The Field Service had certainly picked a beautiful spot to enjoy the pause in the retreat. The cars were all dispersed along the edge of a white, sandy beach, and the area actually boasted a grove of palm trees and a stretch of green grass bordering the inland side of the dunes. The place was such a paradise that I got the feeling that I was a sort of hero coming back from the wars to a garden of peace. (By this time I had pretty well convinced myself that our uneventful dash in and out of Tobruk was a rather sensational exploit.) It was a little distressing not to be able to tell a thrilling story of our adventures, but we did our best to convey the impression that we really didn't want to talk about all we'd been through "out there."
We had expected to find Peter Glenn safe and sound with the rest of the Field Service but were disappointed to find that no one had any idea of his whereabouts, though it was believed that his unit had escaped from El Adem safely, and he was expected to show up any minute. There was some very bad news about the six Field Service men who had been with the French in the evacuation from Bir Hacheim. One had been definitely killed, three were missing, and two wounded.
The next three days were spent swimming and sun-bathing. On the second day we heard that Tobruk had fallen. We had always maintained a certain amount of confidence that the enemy would be stopped sometime soon in the natural course of events, but now our confidence was gone. We weren't surprised when the order came on the third day to start moving east again.
We retreated by stages to Mersa Matruh and El Daba, making occasional side trips into the desert to clear out dressing-stations. By this time the retreat was really a demoralizing spectacle. Not that every one didn't behave properly, but just that there was such an awful jam of traffic, trying so desperately to untangle itself and move eastward. Nobody seemed to know or care just where the army was retreating to or what it would do when it got there. The only thing that any one seemed sure of was that it was vitally necessary to keep moving.
Every man in that retreat owes a vote of thanks to the RAF. Somehow they managed to keep the enemy planes from pounding the helpless mass of retreating transport.
There is a lovely beach at El Daba, and it was made even lovelier by the fact that Rommel & Co. were a good eighty miles to the west. We had made a long and tiring routine evacuation run that day and were looking forward to a few days of lazing around in the sun with nothing to do but eat, sleep, and swim. As a matter of fact, we were anticipating the good life by downing a considerable quantity of beer. War can be very pleasant at times.
Just as I was beginning to appreciate that fact, a despatch rider appeared with orders for me to report to Lieutenant Geer at the headquarters tent. It seemed that the New Zealand Division had been rushed down from Syria to the desert and were, at that time, sitting at Mersa Matruh preparing for a delaying action. Furthermore, the New Zealanders required twenty additional ambulances in a hurry.
The upshot of the matter was that I found myself the next morning leading a convoy of twenty ambulances westward toward Mersa Matruh to join the New Zealand Division.
After considerable wanderings, I made contact with the D.A.D.M.S. of the division and was directed to assign ten cars to the supply column as a reserve, five cars to the 4th Brigade Field Ambulance, and five cars to the 5th Brigade Field Ambulance. just by chance I assigned myself and my own section (five cars) to the 5th Brigade, which I soon learned was to proceed south into the desert that night. (As I learned later, General Freyberg---the New Zealand Commander---had decided to move the bulk of his effective strength toward the south for the business on hand, since he considered Matruh something of a fire-trap.)
I had never served with New Zealanders before and consequently was not equipped with a proper appreciation of that finest of all fighting divisions. It's always a little frightening to join an entirely new unit, because you never know just what will be expected of you or what to expect of the unit. Any misgivings that I may have had about our new posting were completely abandoned from the moment I reported to the Field Ambulance transport officer, Lieutenant George Frazer. I have never, before or since that time, met a young officer who inspired such immediate confidence. Lieutenant Frazer must have known at the time that we had a hard job ahead, and he certainly had every right to be rushed and harried---instead of which, he was completely calm, explicit, and friendly. He took down the number of each ambulance, with the names of the drivers, saw to it that we were quickly supplied with five days' emergency rations: tea, bully beef, crackers, and cheese. He made sure that we were supplied with a sufficiency of water and petrol and sent us off to a good hot meal with orders to assemble at eight o'clock for complete instruction as to convoy routine, schedule of departure, etc.
As we waited in line for our meal, we were given a very friendly reception by the rank-and-file members of the 5th Field Ambulance---medical orderlies, army service corps drivers, N.C.O.'s, and despatch riders. I was immediately impressed by the fact that although these men were not, strictly speaking, "fighting troops," still they were as fine looking a lot as one could ever hope to meet.
In view of the fact that the Eighth Army was at that time busily engaged in the business of retreating eastward toward the dubious protection of El Alamein, and that the New Zealand Division had been obliged to make their way to Matruh through the middle of an army going in the wrong direction, there was a remarkable spirit of confidence among the men. There was a rumor about that we were to move south at ten o'clock that night. I didn't like the idea much myself, because, although Mersa Matruh is nothing much more than a half-ruined Egyptian town with nothing to recommend it other than a nice harbor and maybe a couple of hundred sand and plaster houses, together with a mosque, a modernistic hotel, and an occasional tired-looking tree, still Matruh did represent an established fortified position, complete with many layers of minefields, barbed wire, and anti-tank ditches, and to venture out of this position seemed a step into the great unknown.
The New Zealand soldiers, on the other hand, seemed well enough pleased by the prospect of a move anywhere. They had full confidence in their "Tiny" (General Freyberg) and were full of pride in the fact that their division had been chosen to do a big job.
Of course, there were extremes of speculation, and one corporal fastened himself on us new-comers and proceeded to give us "definite information" that the division was about to cut off, surround, and defeat the entire Axis force within five days. I was ready to believe just about anything, but I really couldn't see how a single incomplete division could effect much more than a short delaying action. Of course, I didn't have the slightest idea what a delaying action would be like. I think I had an idea that we were about to play a game of redskins and covered wagons.
Every one was anxious to give us help and advice and to tell us about the New Zealand Division. For the first time since arriving in the Middle East I felt that we were a part of something and not just attached as an extra trucking service. I certainly wanted to be a part of this crowd, and it was a tremendous vicarious thrill to listen to their casual references to Crete and Greece and the earlier desert campaigns. I must confess that I made occasional mention of the fact that we'd been at Tobruk and perhaps of one or two other places where we might have been (but hadn't).
After supper we all scattered to our own particular vehicles and made preparations so that we should be ready to move at any time. Medical supplies were loaded on ambulances and three-ton trucks, and the extra personnel of the Field Ambulance unit was divided among our five Dodge ambulances and the four Austin ambulances which were a regular part of the company. The area in which we were dispersed---a bit of gravelly desert outside the town and just south of the sea and the coast road---had been bombed the night before, and we all kept an ear cocked to the air and one eye on a convenient slit trench while we worked on our cars.
Just after dark all the drivers, including ourselves, were assembled for a short talk by the transport officer.
We were to move at eleven o'clock, traveling east on the coast road for a few miles and then south into the desert. All vehicles were to move in "Column of route" (single file) with fifty yards between cars. For short stops in the desert we were to move into leager position (a sort of stationary desert formation of five short columns instead of one long column). For long stops we were to disperse at 150 yards. Slit trenches were to be dug at any stop of over twenty minutes. No smoking would be allowed: should we be attacked from the air or from land, we were to keep on moving (some one muttered "suicide"). It was expected that we should be in contact with the enemy within twenty hours. Lieutenant Frazer then gave specific instructions as to where each vehicle should take up position, and our five cars were assigned to the end of the convoy, just in front of the workshops repair truck. The colonel was to lead the convoy in his station wagon. We would be traveling as part of the 5th Brigade.
The meeting broke up with a certain amount of chaffing about the order to continue in motion if attacked, and we all went to our trucks to sit and wait for the order to move.
It seemed as though the order would never come, and we had plenty of time for our individual reflections. I don't remember being very worried about the physical dangers which lay ahead. As a matter of fact I had never, to my knowledge, been really close to any sort of violent death, either my own or any one else's. I was mainly concerned with the responsibility of being in charge of those five ambulances. I knew I had good men in my section---Bill Nichols, Bob Sullivan, Manning Field (who had taken Peter Glenn's place), Jim Crudgington, Jim McGill---the very finest that the A.F.S. could boast, but this was a new kind of work to us, and we all wanted very much to be up to the standards of the New Zealanders---to win some measure of their respect. Against a background of excitement and the nervous tension of starting out in a new job with new people, my mind was filled with all sorts of little worries. Would we keep our convoy positions properly? Would Bob Sullivan want to travel faster than the rest? Did we really have enough gas? Would the New Zealanders discover our lack of experience in digging slit trenches? There was plenty to worry about when I set my mind to it.
Finally the order came to start off on the coast road. I was riding with Bill Nichols in the first of our ambulances, and I soon found that it was a fulltime job trying to keep track of the equipment truck in front of us. Ordinarily at night no convoy bothers too much about keeping any set distance between trucks, because it's usually necessary to keep right on the other fellow's tail in order not to lose the convoy, but to-night there was a fairly bright moon, which made it possible to see most of fifty yards, and furthermore, there was a distinct possibility of enemy air activity. Therefore we did our best to maintain strict convoy discipline. It was particularly hard going while we were still on the coast road, because the shadowy form of each vehicle ahead blended perfectly with the dark background of the road. Apart from the eye strain, there was now a certain mental strain attached to the immediate possibility of being bombed. It didn't seem to me that the enemy pilots could help picking out the darkness of the road, so perfectly outlined on either side by the whiteness of the moon-drenched desert.
Occasionally we'd hear the quick, spasmodic banging of the ack-ack guns and see the lines of tracer streaming overhead. Ack-ack and tracer had become familiar sights at Tobruk, but how different it was now that there could be no flopping into slit trenches! There actually wasn't much to worry about, yet I did get in some good practice at schooling myself to nonchalance of a sort.
After about an hour and a half of creeping eastward on the road, we came to the point where we were to turn south on to the desert. An M.P. with a red lantern pointed our way and we found ourselves on a wheel-rutted track marked with dim blue lights at various intervals. Beside each blue light stood a lone soldier, warmly bundled against the night air, presenting a dim and unmoving silhouette of watchfulness.
The atmosphere seemed less still and lonely in the desert. Now it was possible to see the shapes of many trucks and guns up ahead. An occasional motorcycle came sputtering past, and at times the stillness was broken by the noise of a racing motor, as some unfortunate driver sought to coax his vehicle through a soft spot. Now I had the feeling that we were part of a small army that was maneuvering for a special task. For the first time we were part of a direct blow, which was to be a complete factor in itself.
At about 3 A.M. our Field Ambulance unit leagered at close interval, and the word was passed to dig in and get some sleep without bothering to disperse. The ground was very rocky, and when I had finally scratched out a shallow slit trench I was quite ready to drop off to sleep.
The next morning was uneventful; we dispersed our cars and passed the time getting to know our new friends. At about three o'clock I was ordered to report to the sergeant-major, who informed me that "A" company was moving ahead with the brigade to establish an advance dressing-station and that two of my cars would be attached to "A" company along with the four New Zealand ambulances. The remaining three cars of my section were to stay with the main body of the Field Ambulance and establish a main dressing-station a few miles to the east. There was considerable wailing and gnashing of teeth as I drew lots to see who would drive the two "lucky" cars. It turned out that Manning Field and Jim McGill were to join the advance company, and I decided to join them as a spare driver---much to the dismay of Bill Nichols, who felt (rightly enough) that I was taking advantage of my position as N.C.O. to do as I pleased.
Our small convoy of five trucks and six ambulances was soon moving southward across the desert. We traveled across some eight miles of uninteresting rocky country until we came to a long escarpment running east and west and bounded on the northeast by a fairly flat elevation. At various intervals on the plain and on the slopes of the escarpment we could see the ever-present three-ton trucks scattered about and here and there the artillerymen unlimbering their 25-pounders. Three different times we dug our individual slit trenches and made ready to set up shop, only to find that we had settled on top of the 25-pounders. Finally, just before dusk, we found a suitable position and were welcomed to it by a flight of low-flying German bombers, casually making their way off from a raid on one of the battalions, and seemingly oblivious to the welter of ack-ack bursts in the air. The planes inspired us to dig some good deep slit trenches for the night's rest.
Before we rolled into our trenches the entire company was assembled before the major. I've never lived through a more dramatic moment than that. The sun was just sinking at the western end of the plain; all around us the division was digging in for the night and making ready for the battle which lay ahead; off to the north a great mass of black smoke was rising toward the dull-pink sky; one couldn't hear a sound as we lined up before the major.
He began to speak in a quiet voice: "I've called you together to give you some idea of what our situation is. The division will fight a delaying action. We can expect to have the Germans in among us by morning." Without the slightest trace of excitement he nodded towards the north. "That smoke there---that's from Matruh."
"Then the Germans have taken Matruh, sir?" asked a soldier behind me.
There was the slightest suggestion of a bitter smile on the major's face as he answered: "No---we've evacuated."
The major dismissed us, and we went off to put the finishing touches on our slit trenches. Every one was suddenly extraordinarily polite and helpful---except to one poor fellow who let slip some remark about, "This is a hell of a situation." I guess we'd more or less figured that out for ourselves.
The night passed quite uneventfully except for the fact that some of the ambulances were sent out to a battalion which had suffered heavy casualties in a bombing raid, having been caught on hard ground before they'd had time to dig in.
In the morning there were more bombing casualties, and our two cars were kept busy bringing patients in from the battalions. I spent some of my time driving Manning Field's car and some of it carrying stretchers around the A.D.S.---which consisted of nothing but two tents and a few scattered trucks. About mid-morning there was good evidence that the Germans had definitely arrived. Shells started dropping in the area to the west of us, and the New Zealand guns began putting up a continuous counter-fire. At first I thought it was all rather interesting and was foolish enough to remark to Manning that shell-fire didn't bother me particularly. Little did I know. For one thing, no shell had landed closer than two hundred yards from me, and for another thing I hadn't as yet observed at first hand what a shell fragment could do to a man.
At about eleven o'clock I took Manning's car out to one of the battalions. Just as I was some hundred yards from the first-aid post of the battalion, a tire blew out. By this time I had acquired a rather more healthy respect for shell-fire, and I was very unhappy to find that the tire had breathed its last in a very unhealthy area. I walked over to the battalion medical officer's truck and found that there were four badly wounded men waiting to be transported back to the A.D.S. Obviously, it was up to me to change the tire in a hurry. I persuaded the orderly who was traveling with me to go and sit in a convenient hole in the ground, so that he might not notice my nervousness (and so that I might not notice his) and then started to work. Under normal circumstances I could have changed a tire faster with both hands tied behind my back. Every time a shell landed within hearing distance I died one of the proverbial thousand deaths. Finally, as I was nearing the one thousand mark, I got the job done and, having picked up the patients, headed for the comparative safety of the A.D.S. As I neared the A.D.S. what should I see but Manning, trudging out to look for me. He claimed that he was worried for fear I'd come to grief, but personally I attribute his restlessness to a conviction that I had run off (in the wrong direction) with his beloved car.
The A.D.S. was rapidly becoming flooded with wounded. Apparently, we were the only medical unit in the entire area and were therefore handling casualties from at least twice as many battalions and artillery regiments as we normally would. We had had no chance of evacuating back to the main dressing-station, since all available cars were needed to bring men into the A.D.S., where they could at least get some sort of reasonable medical attention. It was heart-breaking to see the wounded lying in long rows in the sun waiting their turn to be attended by the major or one of his two assistant doctors. Even when they had been looked after, they had to he there and wait for their chance to be transported back to the M.D.S. I don't suppose it was any help to them to watch their mates being laid away in the rapidly growing graveyard which the busy chaplain had established near-by. To make matters worse, the shelling was growing heavier, and the bursts were progressively nearer as our own 25-pounders were forced in closer to our small dressing-station.
There was nothing barbaric about the way the battle was being fought, and I am quite sure that the Germans were not particularly interested in shelling a Red Cross area. It simply happened that a German armored force was in a hurry to get to the east and that the New Zealand 25-pounders were doing a very effective job of checking its progress; therefore, the main German fire was being directed against the artillery, and the artillery was being squeezed in close to us as the area became more compact. At the time it was primarily a battle of German tanks and mobile artillery against the New Zealand gunners, and there was very little that the infantry could do to help.
Just before noon four of our American ambulances which had been held in reserve were brought up to the advance dressing-station by a New Zealand headquarters major, and it was decided to load up all the available ambulances with the exception of our two original cars and clear as many of the wounded as possible back to the M.D.S. Our own major had already commandeered a small fleet of three-ton trucks for the "Walking wounded," and soon a fair-sized convoy was organized and started out toward the east. The four new Field Service cars were commanded by Mort Belshaw and driven by John Peabody, Russ Hurd, Lawrence Sanders, and Bill Mitchell. I had meant to send Jim McGill back in this convoy, but he had been sent out to a battalion sometime earlier and had not returned. We afterward learned that Jim had been cut off from us and had been forced to make his way east toward Alamein.
We were all terribly relieved to see that convoy heading for comparative safety, but our relief was short-lived. Within about fifteen minutes the entire convoy had returned to the site of the A.D.S. with a report that we were now completely surrounded and that there was no possible route by which to evacuate the patients. As if to impress the news upon us, the enemy shellfire increased its tempo, and we found ourselves hugging the ground as a lone shell burst in our midst, perforating the upper cab of Manning Field's ambulance.
The medical officers held a conference and came to the conclusion that we were in as safe a place as could be found within that confined area, but that we should strike the tents and load up all the patients and equipment, so that we might be ready to make a dash if an opportunity should present itself.
The next twelve hours proved to be the worst I've ever had to live through.
There was nothing for us to do during the afternoon but sit and wait. Word was passed that any one who wanted to dig himself in as protection against the shell-bursts could do so, and a good many of the men managed to disappear into the earth in short order. I was just about to follow suit when I noticed that all the medical officers were calmly standing about completely without shelter, waiting to do what they could, and that most of the ambulance drivers were determined to sit in the seat of their cars and keep company with the seriously wounded who could not be unloaded. Of course we weren't in any terrible danger, as none of the shelling was being intentionally directed at our area, but it's very hard to resist the physical impulse to keep yourself as flat and low as possible when the shells are whistling and bursting near-by. I must admit that I took advantage of my position as an N.C.O. of sorts to walk around and visit at each car---a course of action which seemed infinitely preferable to just sitting there and taking it.
The afternoon was fairly uneventful, though there were some three incidents that stand out in my mind. As I was walking from one ambulance to another, a New Zealand soldier stuck his head out of a hole in the ground and called out: "Hey, Yank, how'd you like to be walking down Broadway now?" It didn't require much thought to reply that nothing would suit me better.
At another time I was asked to clear an ambulance to carry a doctor over to Division headquarters (General Freyberg had been wounded). To my amazement I found an empty ambulance, but no sooner had I queried the driver than I found that this ambulance was supposed to be full to overflowing with seriously wounded men who had somehow managed to drag themselves out of the car and seek the shelter of the ground.
The most terrifying moment occurred about midafternoon, as I was passing the time of day, with my head in the window of Manning's car. We were just remarking on the fact that things seemed quieter than usual, when suddenly, without any sound of firing or explosion, little clouds of sand were kicked up by the impact of some sort of projectile. A wounded officer who had been sitting on the ground near-by made a grab at his elbow and let out a scream. We soon learned that the trouble was caused by spent non-explosive German tank shells coming in from the east and that the unfortunate officer had collected one on the elbow. It certainly was an eerie business for a time.
The behavior of the medical officers, the wounded, and the drivers throughout the afternoon was inspiring. I'll never forget Manning Field, Bill Mitchell, John Peabody, and old man Sanders sitting in their cars, calmly chatting with the wounded and never even ducking their heads as the shells landed. Mort Belshaw, an ex-professional photographer, actually managed to take pictures of the bursts. As I have said before, it's foolish to pretend that the wounded don't cry: for one thing there are certain types of stomach wounds which provide a continuous and excruciating pain, and, for another thing, any man who has been hit by shell-fire develops a consuming desire to get away from loud noises as quickly as possible. However, there are various degrees of crying, and all the wounded managed to accept the situation with a considerable degree of courage and fortitude. Moreover, they were extraordinarily considerate of each other and of the drivers who were doing their best to help them.
When darkness finally came, we fortified ourselves with some hot cocoa which the cooks had prepared, and I settled down in the front seat of Manning's ambulance for a quick nap. I did very little sleeping and smoked countless cigarettes, but somehow time wore on. At eleven o'clock the order to move immediately was given. It was believed that the infantry had managed to clear a gap through the Germans to the east, and we were quickly formed up with the main body of our brigade to make a dash for it.
The trucks and ambulances carrying wounded were placed well forward in the convoy and flanked on either side by two columns of troop transports, guns, and Bren carriers (box-shaped tractors armed with Bren machine guns). The order was given to travel at fifty-yard intervals.
Having formed, we stopped and waited for about an hour. When we did move off, in what I estimated to be a northeasterly direction, the convoy immediately became jumbled. There was a moon of sorts, but the visibility did not permit any fifty-yard interval: the various columns got completely mixed up, and we soon discovered that the only possible means of maintaining any sort of place was to crowd up to the vehicle ahead. After we had traveled a short distance, the sky was suddenly lit with flares, and tracers began to criss-cross up ahead. The convoy swung sharply to the right, and the firing ceased temporarily. By this time the only factor of order or control was the presence of a first rate Brigadier leading the way. We proceeded a short distance on our new course, and then all hell broke loose. The sky was quickly lighted by a quantity of flares; heavy firing broke out ahead and about fifty yards to the right; trucks started going up in flames, and the convoy stopped dead. There never was such a conglomeration of sights and noises. Overhead we could hear the sharp crack of anti-personnel fire; from the right a mixed stream of machine-gun and anti-tank tracers sizzled into the convoy and at odd intervals mortar bombs would explode among the mass of transport.
As an occasional truck caught fire the soldiers would leap out and scurry around looking for some means of conveyance. The orderly who bad been riding with Manning and me got out and crouched beside a wheel. It seemed to me that the convoy was properly jammed, so I started toward the back of the ambulance to get the patients out. The truck immediately behind us was going up in great sheets of flame, and as I rounded the back of our ambulance the driver abandoned his vehicle and came running toward me.
"Look," he cried. "The convoy's moving."
He ran toward the driver's seat of our car, and I followed him. Manning had kept the motor going and now moved over to let me in behind the wheel. just then the truck driver who was standing beside me let out a yell: "Oh, God, I'm hit." Our orderly returned to the car and started counting the beads of his rosary; Manning reached around behind me and held the wounded man on the running board, and we lit out for the open spaces. There was an awful lot of traffic that hadn't been immobilized by enemy fire, and it all started to move very fast. I heard an anti-tank gunner yelling to his mates: "Let's go out and have a crack at 'em." He didn't have a chance to do any such thing, for the simple reason that the wave of traffic swept everything ahead.
We hadn't traveled more than a hundred yards when we came to what seemed an impassable obstacle: a group of tanks or anti-tank guns was pouring lead and tracer directly across our path. Miraculously enough, the vehicles ahead were rushing through this fire and mostly escaping into the darkness beyond, but I was sure that we could never get through. The large, box-like Austin ambulance in front of us met the line of tracer and received a direct hit on the right-hand side (I afterward learned that the single shell had killed two patients), and I saw a large jagged hole appear as the shell tore its explosive way through the left. I ducked my head and drove as fast as the car would go. To my amazement, we came through without a scratch and found that we were racing along with a mass of other vehicles in the blessed peace of comparative darkness, still following the same unfortunate Austin.
For the next half-hour every truck was driven at top speed---no one having the slightest idea where we were going or how, except for the Brigadier who had somehow brought us through that ambush and had somehow managed to have us heading in an easterly direction when we came out.
When we did stop, I climbed out of the car and rushed around looking for Mort Belshaw's cars. I found Peabody and Hurd, but there was no sign of Mitchell or Sanders (Belshaw had been riding with one of the two). Peabody told me he'd seen Mitchell's car receive a direct hit, and various New Zealanders reported that they had seen Sanders' car immobilized and Sandy taking the patients out of the back. There was nothing to do but hope that somehow they'd get through and rejoin us with the stragglers who were already beginning to come along. I didn't hold out much hope for them, and I kept trying to clear my mind of the awful feeling that somehow we might have been able to do something. To this day, I can't get rid of that feeling---though I still can't figure just what we could have done. (It was a great comfort to learn after many months that they were taken prisoner and not, as I had imagined, killed.)
During our short stop we found that a fair number had been wounded in the ambush, and there was a great demand for ambulance space. We couldn't help out much, though we did take one fellow on the fender. He couldn't bend his legs, and so could not fit inside the ambulance. The fellow we'd picked up on the running board had only a superficial arm wound, and we managed to carry him by taking turns sitting on the remaining fender.
We put a good deal of distance between ourselves and the enemy during the night, and when morning came we found time to stop while the doctors administered morphine to the patients, and an issue of rum (Nelson's Blood) was passed out. It was my first experience with issue rum. I don't recommend it on an empty stomach.
We drove all that day over wicked, rocky ground, finding it almost impossible to keep up with the convoy without practically killing our patients, for the pain that resulted from their being jolted over the uneven ground was excruciating. The going was so rough that a number of patients did die---though fortunately none in our ambulance.
At six o'clock that evening we finally found a dressing-station near El Alamein, where we unloaded our patients and had a bite to eat. I fell asleep on the ground immediately after eating, only to be awakened with the news that we were to reload our patients and carry them some forty miles farther east to a casualty clearing station---and then rejoin the 5th Field Ambulance south of Alamein.
After many hours of driving in. the dark we finally found the clearing station and unloaded our patients, more dead than alive---I don't mean just the patients.
Before rolling up in a blanket to get what sleep I could before daylight, I asked a wounded New Zealand officer if there was a name for that part of the desert where the ambush took place. "Minquar Quam," said he.