Damn if I wasn’t looking forward to kicking Rommel’s ass into Tunisia,” he said to his gunner, Corporal Holmes, now provisionally promoted to Gunnery Sergeant Holmes by Reeves himself. “Gunny, you did well on that big 90 yesterday.”
“Sixteen kills, sir.”
“And once we get back with the rest of Brigadier Kinlan’s boys, you’ll likely log a good deal more. But why the bloody hell don’t they come this way? It’s a 350 mile ride from here to Tobruk.”
“Still can’t raise anyone in Brigade,” said Holmes.
“Oh well,” said Reeves. “Orders are orders. Off we go then, and at least it will be an air conditioned ride. I’ll have plenty of time to figure what I’ll have to say to Kinlan about losing number three. He may not be too happy about the fact that I made off with that Challenger platoon in the first place.”
“What’s done is done, Lieutenant,” said Holmes. “But I’m of the same mind as you on this. Radio silence under these circumstances is bad enough, and I can’t see why Brigade is hanging back like this. We would have blasted Rommel to hell back there.”
“Now it’s back to Tobruk,” said Reeves with a shrug.
In fact, his journey was going to take him quite a bit farther than that. For far to the west, harbored in the Azores and safely away from curious eyes, the modern day replenishment fleet the British had come to call “the Funnies” also received some cryptic orders. They were to proceed around the Cape to Alexandria at once. Sixteen hours out to sea, their escort arrived, a pair of British cruisers, a pack of destroyers and one ship they at least felt familiar with, its lines unmistakable in spite of the extensive refit. It was the Argos Fire.
The mission of this little group was to get to Alexandria, and load Reeves and all his equipment on those fast Roll On / Roll off ships. The vehicles were to be distributed to as many ships as possible, and the two Challengers were to be assigned to separate vessels. The Convoy Master shook his head, not understanding the orders at first, for they had no word about anything that had happened. Churchill was taking no chances that he might lose that remaining equipment to an enemy U-Boat attack, which was one more reason the Argos Fire was sent along. That ship was the best escort ship in the Royal Navy now with her Sampson Radar sets, excellent sonar, and an air defense that was all but impervious.
It would be a very long journey, but they were all going home to the old corporate port where Elena Fairchild had once set up its company operations, at Port Erin on the Isle of Man, where the Triskelion symbol of three legs ruled the land, along with the old saying that “no matter where you throw me, I stand.” Soon there would be more going on there than the men smoking kippers. It was a nice little isolated place, with a small island off the southern tip known as the “Calf of Man,” largely uninhabited, except for a few lighthouses and the sea birds. It would soon have some very strange visitors.
Rommel had decided. He received Almásy’s message, thinking about it for some time. His problem now was fuel, and the place Almásy was describing to him was another 30 kilometers east. He could take his tigers east if he wished, but as he did so, he would leave that 30 kilometer flank open to his north. If O’Connor called his bluff and stood his present ground, all he had to do was drive south from his defensive positions at Nofilia, and then it would be Rommel cut off, low on fuel, and with a 30 kilometer withdrawal just to get back to the fight, the fuel in his tanks that much lower.
No, he thought. They are here, the fight is right in front of me, so I turn now, this very minute. “Bayerlein! Get the word out to all panzer commanders. We turn north here!”
The Panzers turned, and there was a mighty collision with the 51st Highland Division in the center. Had it been alone, those three panzer Divisions would have punched right through to the coast. But on its right was the whole of the 23rd Armored Brigade, and on its left was the 2nd Armored Brigade and all the 1st Armored Division troops. Behind it, at Nofilia itself, O’Connor’s 7th Armored Brigade stood on defense with its infantry elements, but many of the tank battalions were still in reserve.
Most of the 15th Panzer was caught up in a battle with Briggs and his 1st Division. When 7th Panzer threatened to punch a hole to their right, the timely arrival of the 7th Motor Brigade was able to plug the gap and hold the line, the British infantry stoically defending the ground. O’Connor sent up everything he had, even the Army AA battalions, with their 40mm Bofors on portee trucks. They leveled those guns and chewed up the desert against any advance by the Panzergrenadiers. In places, the line of the Highland Division buckled, particularly when the heavy German tanks of the 501st Schwerepanzer Battalion came in, Hitler’s special gift to Rommel.
An hour into the battle Rommel had pushed the British back several kilometers, but many of his tank companies had been forced to halt, virtually out of ammunition. He sent those that had replenished forward to continue pressing the attack, but the British Army was like an onion at this point, with layer after layer of troops in the rear echelons. There were lines of AT guns, AA Guns, then the Royal Engineers. After that came the armored cars of the 7th Armored Division, held in reserve behind Nofilia. Behind them were the 6th Raja Rifles and 8th Gurkha battalions, both 8th Army reserve troops that had been among the first to arrive here. The Panzers kept coming, but there always seemed to be another layer to the defense yet unfought.
The charge of the 501st heavy battalion was like the Old Guard being sent in at Waterloo. Then the word came that Rommel had feared, and he knew his time here had run out. Almásy was on the radio, still dueling with British armored cars on the flank, and now reporting that the 1st South African Infantry Division was arriving like the Prussians on the right flank.
At that moment, Rommel was still 15 kilometers from the coast road, his tank companies depleted, fuel becoming an issue, and with an unbroken enemy still fighting doggedly in front of him. It wasn’t Kinlan and his unstoppable heavy tanks that would put an end to his attack that day, it was simple common sense, something that he had embraced after his many defeats. The old Rommel might have persisted, and to no real successful end there. The new Rommel knew that it was time to be gone.
We’ve hurt them, he thought. I stopped their advance, pushed them back, and showed them I can still box their ears if I decide to. Now, however, we need to get west. With a twinge of reluctance, he gave the order for all units to break off the attack and withdraw towards the depot stores at Al Hunjah. The artillery was to lay down a covering barrage, and then pack up and head west immediately.
As the Germans disengaged, fighting small firefights to do so, O’Connor was trying to ascertain what was happening. There was a lot of confusion on the battlefield, which stretched some ten kilometers wide at the point of the main attack. Smoke from guns and burning vehicles mixed with the dust kicked up by all the maneuvering to throw a complete pall over the landscape, and beneath it, Rommel was moving from one unit to the next in a fast Kubelwagon, pointing out the direction he wanted his columns to go.
The disengagement was slow, but the British had been beaten up enough that they held back, thinking to take the time to reorganize their own lines and bring up water and fresh ammo from the depot at Nofilia. That had been the footrace Rommel lost when he first came this way, and the dance that men like Popski, Reeves, and those SAS Commandos played on that flank was instrumental in allowing O’Connor to get to his supply point before the Germans. Added to that, O’Connor’s own understanding of what Rommel was doing enabled him to know exactly where he was going to need to make his stand. He had wisely stopped to stand his ground and fight, and while chastened and bruised, he had the final satisfaction of knowing that Rommel could not move him further.