“What now, Kaling? Don’t tell me you‘ve gone and lost you drill kit yet again. I told you to be ready for training at first light.”
“No Sergeant. It’s not a drill this time! The Germans have crossed the border, and the whole division is going north to fight them!”
“What? The Germans? Don’t think you can fool me again, Kaling. I’m on to you this time.”
The Sepoy’s penchant for jest was well known. He was young at just eighteen years, with bright eyes, a quick mind and a lot of mischief in his soul. Kaling Kapoor was right in his element here, as he had come from Jodhpur in the north near the Great Thar Desert. How he managed to wrangle his way into an Engineer battalion that had formed in Madras was another story, one too long to tell here. In spite of his stern outer aspect, Halvidar Anandsubramanian had taken the lad under his wing, intending to keep the young man on his toes as well.
32nd Madras Sappers & Miners had been an established unit in the Indian Army since the outbreak of the war. Their job was to further and assist the movement of friendly forces, while impeding the movement of the enemy. As such, they would often be assigned to road details, bridge work, the building of camps and fortifications, and the demolition of enemy fieldworks. 31st Armored relied on them to make sure their new tanks could get over the many wadis and gullies that fingered their way through the Syrian deserts, so it was no surprise that they would get one of the first orders to move out.
The unit had a long history, dating back to 1780 when the first two companies were raised and eventually formed the Madras Pioneer Battalion. They were the “Queen’s Own” during the 1800s, until reference to Her Majesty was dropped from the unit designation in 1941.
Called the “Thambis” by others in the division, they wore a distinctive shako as headgear, a cylindrical cap with a red plume or ‘pompom’ at the top. With this distinguished military history, they were a tight professional unit, well trained, and many in their ranks had already fought the Germans in North Africa, and in Burma against the Japanese.
“Germans! It’s true Anand. I’m not trying to fool you this time. They came right over the border and took Aleppo. You can go and ask the Subedar if you don’t believe me. Come on! We’ve got orders to go to the rail station!”
Now here’s the Moonbird giving me orders, thought Anand. He often called the Private that in his mind, Pakshee, for the lad would sit under the full moon and sing in the late evening. He got up, straightened his uniform and cap, and fixed Private Kapoor with a level stare.
“Very well,” he said. “But please know what will happen to you if I go there and find you are singing me songs, Pakshee. I’ll boil you in the morning gruel!”
The Moonbird was not fooling him this time. By noon the entire Battalion had formed up on the rail line in the eastern quadrant of Damascus, and they were loading up, along with both the Motorized Infantry battalions, a cavalry unit, some light armored cars, and the division headquarters and staff.
The Germans, he thought. Back for more trouble again, are they? We’ll see about that. The Sergeant was all business now, sorting through his platoon, tightening the straps on backpacks, looking to see that the men all had their rifles and shovels, and always with one eye on Pakshee, watching him flit about from one squad to another, so excited to be getting a chance at combat for his very first time.
Anand had seen more than enough already, and there was a sadness in his heart as he watched the young man. He’s going to see the elephant, he thought. Right now he’s just one of the blind men taking hold of his tail and being led off to war, but soon he’ll see what it’s really all about. Something in him didn’t want that for the lad, and he wondered how the Private’s song would change after he endured the rigors, and the terrors, of real combat. For now, the Moonbird was still a young and happy man, and he inwardly hoped he would always stay that way.
Chapter 17
Brigadier Joe Kingstone was still the general warden of the Eastern Syrian Desert, and gritty and irascible as always. A veteran of the action during Operation Scimitar, his flying column had been dispatched from the Trans Jordan region in Palestine to cross 300 miles of desert and relieve the beleaguered garrison at the chief British base projecting air power in the central area, Habbaniyah. There, between Fallujah and Ramadi, northwest of Baghdad, they had come to find a legion of very strange soldiers had already held off the rebellious Iraqi troops, with equipment the like of which he had never seen before.
Kingstone had also fought for Palmyra, but found the German paratroopers there too much for his small column to handle. After that action he had left the Middle East briefly to help organize the new 30th Armored Brigade and his health had then seen him take quieter postings at home. But in this history, he remain robust and fit, and the lure of the desert still called him. He therefore requested, and was granted, a posting to the new British Mandate in Syria, back to his old command.
Now he had been reinforced, with newest armored cars replacing the old Whites and Lafeys. He had the new AEC III and Mark IV Humbers in three companies, and even a few Mark I Humber AA cars for protection against enemy aircraft. It was more fast mobile armor than he had ever seen in those halcyon early days of Habforce and Kingcol, and he admired the new AEC III for its durability, protection and hitting power with that QF 75mm gun. His force was now a proper brigade, with three battalions of motorized infantry, the 1st Essex, Wiltshire Yeomanry and Warwickshire Battalion. Now it was called simply ‘King Force,’ the wildcard in Wavell’s hand.
He had been posted on the Euphrates near Hadithah where the main pipeline came down from Baba Gurgur before splitting to service the two pipelines to Tripoli and Haifa. A tall, stocky officer with a burly build and rough disposition, Kingstone received the news about Aleppo with some surprise.
“We’re to move immediately to Dier es Zour,” he said to Colonel Albert Chambers, who was deputy commander of the force, otherwise known as ‘Big Al.’
“That’s Glubb Pasha’s beat,” said Chambers. “I’m not sure whether he’ll be happy to see us or not.”
Glubb Pasha was still hard at work writing his own legend as the leader of the Arab Legion, a force of about 300 men that scoured the desert looking for disgruntled locals still loyal to the old school governments in the region before the British came. There were many tribes who were also untethered to any flag, roving bands, brigands, desert raiders that had to be watched and kept in check. Though Glubb was not a British serving officer, he was deeply invested in their interests, the new Lawrence of Arabia in these parts, and he could move like the desert wind across shifting sands of this barren terrain, knowing it all like the back of his hand by now.
“I think he was scouting up the Khabur River towards Suwar,” said Kingstone. “Fuzzy Quack’s been milling about up there.” He was referring to the local guerilla fighter and Arab nationalist, Fawsi el Quwukji and his Bedouin raiders. “The clever little scallywag has been trying to get at the pipelines again, but Glubb is onto him—chased him halfway up that river.”
“Well now we’ve got bigger fish to fry,” said Chambers. “I thought we handed Jerry his hat here long ago, but it seems he’s a bone to pick.”
“That is does.” Kingstone put his field glasses into a light field pack and reached for the sandy desert cap he preferred. “Alright, the armored cars were down south. Let’s get them north. I’ll move out the infantry directly.”