All that morning and into the afternoon, he could hear the sounds of battle, very heavily to the north near the old city, and also to his south at the end of the Cat Tail. He had his battalion well positioned in the orchards, the men using their spades to dig field positions, b ut no attack ever came his way. What were the Germans up to?
It was just common battlefield sense, really. Everything the Germans wanted was either south near that rail yard, or along the main road to the old city, so that was where they were attacking. Around 4:00 in the afternoon, he got another message from Lathbury—move your battalion back another 500 meters to link up with the flank of Number 2 Commando in the Cat’s Tail.
That was all it said.
There were olive groves behind him, and so he would pass the word to his companies to get ready to move. They had found the date farm offered a nice sweet addition to their morning breakfast, and the almonds were good on the side for lunch with tea. Now he would get to sample the olives for dinner.
Darkness fell, and the sounds of the fighting subsided a good deal. Even Vikings needed rest, and they had come a long way from Palmyra. Around Midnight, there came a sudden outburst of 20mm AA guns. The mobile flak company had maneuvered close to the northern tip of the 2nd Sussex Battalion, which was holding all the ground south of the Barada River. They had been posted further east at the edge of the city, but moved back with Frost and Fitch to keep their lines even with those of the beleaguered Highland Light Battalion north of the River. A Company of the 2nd Royal Sussex, closest to the river, suddenly had its positions peppered with that loud AA fire.
The men grabbed their helmets and rifles, squinting into the dark, expecting a night attack to emerge from the buildings to the east at any time, but nothing came. They were getting snookered. That flak unit had just been ordered to make noise, so it would screen a little operation the Germans had underway a few hundred meters to the north on the river. Gille sent in his pontoon bridging engineers, and they quickly threw down a small bridge suitable for infantry. While A Company was hunkering down, fingers tight on the rifles and waiting for that attack, the German infantry of 9th and 10th Germania companies, and the dismounted motorcycle infantry, all crossed that little bridge. They were soon 200 meters behind A Company, flanking the entire line of 2nd Royal Sussex.
‘We’ve been buggered!” called a Sergeant when he discovered what was happening. “Jerry has snuck right over the bloody river!”
Then they heard the whoosh of nebelwerfers, and the attack that company had been waiting for finally came, only from three sides now, east, north, and west, behind their positions. The men scrambled to move a Vickers, smashing out windows in the building they occupied to get it set up to try and cover their rear. Thankfully, the French had troops from their 13th Demi Brigade, and they came up from the vicinity of the prison to the west to lend a hand. 2nd Royal Sussex was able to hold its positions, but they had just learned a lesson from their crafty enemy that would keep them sleepless the rest of the night.
The only other action before dawn was in the neck of the city that extended up towards the mountains, There, Germania’s 1st Battalion had kept fighting, eventually overrunning a company of 1st Argyll & Sutherland, and flanking the Parliament building. That attack had been meant to try and flank resistance in Old Damascus on the main road north of the river, and it succeeded in doing exactly that. The two tattered platoons left in D Company of 1st Argyll & Sutherland Battalion huddled in the public works building and the heavy concrete walled city health building, their only company being French troops from the 11th Marche that had been sent up to guard the adjacent Parliament building. The road all these buildings were on led directly to the Presidential Compound, and come morning on the 31st of March, the Germans would shift the full weight of Germania’s attack in that direction.
General Gille had been studying the maps, getting position updates hourly, and he sensed that he had the makings of a breakthrough underway. So he did what any good commander would have done. He fed more wood into that fire. It would come from Westland Regiment in the north, which he ordered to suspend its attack against the 4th Royal Sussex Battalion and then send two of its battalions south towards the Parliament district. The road he was on was called Muhamad Ali El Abed, running from the new central bank on the outskirts of the main city, and straight past Parliament to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Presidential residence. If he could get there, he would cut off everything the British had on his left north of the river and canal, which was most of 44th Recon and the 2nd Highland Light Battalion that had taken the brunt of his attack the previous day.
Now the Stugs pulled out, shifting north to use that new avenue of approach, and the Germans were dancing like the fighter who would one day take the same name of that street—dancing into the center of the ring. Gille had attacked on a broad front, but now he wanted to concentrate as much force as possible on that breakthrough zone, all made possible when that single company had been overrun.
The German Stugs blasted away at the public works building, driving out the troops that had taken refuge there, and they would soon have the Parliament building nearly surrounded. The breakthrough was cutting right across the neck of the city extending north, where only a thin screen of French Gendarme patrols protected the embassy district, where nine countries had legations all within a 1 kilometer area on the back of that neck Gille was choking. There was a fire starting close to where the initial breakthrough had been made, and the growl and fire of those Stugs rattled the morning.
Brigadier Lyne was in a hotel on the main city canal when he saw the black smoke from that fire, and got the reports of what had happened. The Germans were breaking through, and if they went much farther, they would overrun the Presidential Compound, gardens and push all the way to the big ammo dumps. He rang up General Larminat at his Army HQ building.
“They’re getting through our lines,” he exclaimed. “Where are your men?”
“Don’t worry,” said Larminat. “I have troops guarding the Presidential Compound and residence.”
“Well there’s nothing to stop them from going right into the Embassy District. I’ll have to order all my men up north to fall back to the rail line. Is there anything you can send?”
Larminat had put his best men at the city prison, thinking to make a fortress of that place. It was the very place the Vichy Colonials had imprisoned him when he refused to capitulate in 1940. So he ordered the Foreign Legionnaires to move to the public works building with all speed, and then sent word to order the entire 13th Demi Brigade there as well. The icing on his cake was to tell his artillery to train all their guns on that breakthrough zone.
Lyne could not wait for them, rushing to the scene and crouching low with the men of 1st Argyll & Sutherland Battalion. Frustrated, to see his men hunkered down, he stood up, pulling out his pistol. “Damn their eyes! Here they come, but they don’t know who they’re dealing with. We’re the Thin Red Line!” Pride was always a way to stiffen the backbone of the men, and they were up and fighting again, shouting insults at the Germans as they came.
In the south, KG Krefeld continued its strong attack into the Al Aswad District, the tanks being difficult for the lightly armed Paras of Down’s brigade. Another breakthrough seemed imminent there, but another hero emerged to save the day. Mad Jack Churchill was just north of that area, and he drew out that broadsword, letting it catch a glint of afternoon sun.