GILES BARRINGTON
1941
16
GILES HAD NO IDEA where the regiment was going. For days he seemed to be perpetually on the move, never able to sleep for more than a couple of hours at a time. First he boarded a train, followed by a truck, before he climbed up the gangway of a troop carrier that ploughed through the ocean waves at its own pace, until it finally disgorged 1,000 soldiers from the Wessex at the Egyptian port of Alexandria on the North African coast.
During the voyage, Giles had been reunited with his chums from Ypres camp on Dartmoor, who he had to accept were now under his command. One or two of them, Bates in particular, didn’t find it easy to call him sir, and found it even more difficult to salute him every time they bumped into each other.
A convoy of army vehicles awaited the Wessex Regiment as they disembarked from the ship. Giles had never experienced such intense heat and his fresh khaki shirt was soaked in sweat within moments of him stepping on foreign soil. He quickly organized his men into three groups before they climbed on board the waiting trucks. The convoy progressed slowly along a narrow, dusty coastal road, not stopping for several hours until they finally reached the outskirts of a badly bombed town that Bates announced in a loud voice, ‘Tobruk! Told you so,’ and money began to change hands.
Once they’d entered the town, the convoy dropped the men at various points. Giles and the other officers jumped off outside the Majestic Hotel, which had been requisitioned by the Wessex as their company HQ. Giles pushed his way through the revolving doors and quickly discovered there wasn’t much majestic about the hotel. Makeshift offices had been crammed into every available space. Charts and maps were pinned on walls where paintings had once hung, and the plush red carpet that welcomed VIPs from all over the world had worn thin with the continual tramping of studded boots.
The reception area was the only feature to remind them this might once have been a hotel. A duty corporal checked off Second Lieutenant Barrington’s name on a long list of new arrivals.
‘Room two-one-nine,’ he said, handing him an envelope. ‘You’ll find everything you need in there, sir.’
Giles strode up the wide staircase to the second floor and let himself into the room. He sat on the bed, opened the envelope and read his orders. At seven o’clock he was to report to the ballroom, when the colonel of the regiment would address all officers. Giles unpacked his suitcase, took a shower, put on a clean shirt and went back downstairs. He grabbed a sandwich and a cup of tea from the officers’ mess and made his way to the ballroom just before seven.
The large room, with its high imperial ceiling and magnificent chandeliers, was already filled with boisterous officers, who were being reunited with old friends and introduced to new ones as they waited to find out which square on the chessboard they would be moved to. Giles caught a glimpse of a young lieutenant on the far side of the room whom he thought he recognized, but then lost sight of him.
At one minute to seven, Lieutenant Colonel Robertson marched up on to the stage, and everyone else in the room quickly fell silent and sprang to attention. He stopped in the centre of the stage and waved the men down. Feet apart, hands on hips, he began to address them.
‘Gentlemen, it must seem strange to you to have travelled from all parts of the empire to do battle with the Germans in North Africa. However, Field Marshal Rommel and his Afrika Korps are also here, with the purpose of maintaining a supply of oil for their troops in Europe. It is our responsibility to send him back to Berlin with a bloody nose, long before their last tank has run out of petrol.’
Cheers erupted around the hall, accompanied by the stamping of feet.
‘General Wavell has granted the Wessex the privilege of defending Tobruk, and I have told him that we will all sacrifice our lives before Rommel books a suite at the Majestic Hotel.’
This was greeted with even louder cheers and more stamping of feet.
‘Now I want you all to report to your company commanders, who will brief you on our overall plan to defend the town, and the responsibilities each of you will be expected to carry out. Gentlemen, we haven’t a moment to waste. Good luck, and happy hunting.’
The officers all sprang to attention again as the colonel left the stage. Giles checked his orders once more. He’d been allocated to 7 Platoon, C company, which was to meet in the hotel library following the colonel’s address for a briefing by Major Richards.
‘You must be Barrington,’ said the major when Giles walked into the library a few minutes later. Giles saluted. ‘It was good of you to join us so soon after being commissioned. I’ve put you in charge of seven platoon as understudy to your old friend. You will have three sections of twelve men, and your responsibility will be to patrol the west perimeter of the city. You will have a sergeant and three corporals to assist you. The lieutenant will brief you on the finer details. As you were at school together, you won’t have to spend too much time getting to know each other.’
Giles wondered who it could be. And then he recalled the familiar lone figure on the other side of the ballroom.
Second Lieutentant Giles Barrington would have liked to give Lieutenant Fisher the benefit of the doubt, although he would never be able to erase the memory of him as a prefect at St Bede’s, when he thrashed Harry every night during his first week for no reason other than that he was a docker’s son.
‘It’s good to catch up with you, Barrington, after such a long time,’ said Fisher. ‘I can’t see any reason why we shouldn’t work well together, can you?’ He obviously also recalled his treatment of Harry Clifton. Giles managed a weak smile.
‘We’ve got over thirty men under our command, along with three corporals and a sergeant. Some of them you’ll remember from your days at training camp. In fact, I’ve already put Corporal Bates in charge of number one section.’
‘Terry Bates?’
‘Corporal Bates,’ repeated Fisher. ‘Never use a Christian name when you’re referring to the other ranks. In the mess, and when we’re on our own, Giles, you can call me Alex, but never in front of the men. I’m sure you understand.’
You always were an arrogant little shit, and clearly nothing has changed, thought Giles. This time he didn’t smile.
‘Now, it’s our responsibility to patrol the western perimeter of the town in four-hour watches. Don’t underestimate the importance of our task, because if Rommel does attack Tobruk, intelligence is that he’ll try and enter the city from the west. So we have to remain vigilant at all times. I’ll leave it to you to fix the rotas. I usually manage a couple of shifts a day, but I can’t do a lot more because of my other responsibilities.’
Like what, Giles wanted to ask him.
Giles enjoyed patrolling the west side of the town with his men, and quickly got to know all thirty-six of them, not least because Corporal Bates kept him so well informed. And although he tried to keep them on perpetual alert following Fisher’s warning, as the weeks passed without incident, he began to wonder if they’d ever come face to face with the enemy.
It was on a hazy evening in early April, when all three of Giles’s patrols were out on an exercise, that a volley of bullets came from nowhere. The men instantly hit the ground, and quickly crawled to the nearest building to find whatever cover they could.
Giles had been with the leading section when the Germans presented their calling card, then fired off a second volley. The bullets fell nowhere near their target, but he knew it wouldn’t be long before the enemy identified his position.
‘Don’t fire until I say so,’ he ordered as he slowly scanned the horizon with his binoculars. He decided to brief Fisher before he made a move. He picked up the field phone and got an immediate response.
‘How many of them are there, do you think?’ Fisher asked.
‘I’d guess no more than seventy, at most eighty. If you bring forward number two and three sections, that should be more than enough to hold them off until reinforcements arrive.’
A third volley followed, but after Giles had scanned the horizon, he once again gave the order, ‘Hold your fire.’
‘I’ll send up Two Section under Sergeant Harris to support you,’ said Fisher, ‘and if you keep me briefed, I’ll decide whether to join you with Three Section.’ The phone went dead.
A fourth volley quickly followed the third, and this time when Giles focused his binoculars, he could see a dozen men crawling across the open ground towards them.
‘Take aim, but don’t fire until the target is in range, and make sure every bullet counts.’
Bates was the first to squeeze his trigger. ‘Got you,’ he said as a German collapsed into the desert sand. As he reloaded, he added, ‘That’ll teach you to bomb Broad Street.’
‘Shut up, Bates, and concentrate,’ said Giles.
‘Sorry, sir.’
Giles continued to scan the horizon. He could see two, possibly three men who’d been hit and were lying face down in the sand a few yards from their dugouts. He gave the order to fire another volley and Giles watched as several more Germans scampered back to safety, like ants scurrying down a hole.
‘Cease fire!’ shouted Giles, aware that they couldn’t afford to waste precious ammunition. He looked to his left and could see 2 Section already in position under Sergeant Harris, awaiting their orders.
He picked up the field phone and Fisher came back on the line. ‘My ammunition won’t last much longer, sir. My left flank’s now covered by Sergeant Harris, but my right flank’s exposed. If you were able to come forward, we’d have a better chance of holding them off.’
‘Now that you’ve got Two Section to strengthen your position, Barrington, I’d better stay back and cover you, in case they break through.’
Another volley of bullets flew in their direction. The Germans had clearly worked out exactly where they were positioned, but Giles still instructed his two sections to hold fire. He cursed, put down the phone and ran across the open gap to join Sergeant Harris. A volley followed his trouble.
‘What do you think, sergeant?’
‘It’s a half-company, sir, about eighty men in all. But I think they’re just a reconnaissance party, so all we have to do is bed down and be patient.’
‘I agree,’ said Giles. ‘What do you think they’ll do?’
‘The Krauts will know that they outnumber us, so they’ll want to mount an attack before any reinforcements arrive. If Lieutenant Fisher brought up Three Section to cover our right flank, it would strengthen our position.’
‘I agree,’ repeated Giles as another volley greeted them. ‘I’ll go back and speak to Fisher. Await my orders.’
Giles zigzagged across the open terrain. This time the bullets were a little too close to risk that trick again. He was just about to call Fisher when the field phone rang. He grabbed it.
‘Barrington,’ said Fisher. ‘I believe the time has come for us to take the initiative.’
Giles needed to repeat Fisher’s words to be sure he’d heard them correctly. ‘You want me to lead an attack on the Germans’ position, while you bring forward Three Section to cover me.’
‘If we do that,’ said Bates, ‘we’d be like sitting ducks on a rifle range.’
‘Shut up, Bates.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Sergeant Harris thinks, and I agree with him,’ continued Giles, ‘that if you bring up Three Section to cover our right flank, the Germans will have to mount an attack, and then we could—’
‘I’m not interested in what Sergeant Harris thinks,’ said Fisher. ‘I give the orders and you’ll carry them out. Is that clear?’
‘Yes, sir,’ Giles said as he slammed down the phone.
‘I could always kill him, sir,’ said Bates.
Giles ignored him as he loaded his pistol and attached six hand grenades to his webbed belt. He stood up so that both platoons could see him, and said in a loud voice, ‘Fix bayonets and prepare to advance.’ He then stepped out from behind his cover and shouted, ‘Follow me!’
As Giles began to run across the deep scorching sand with Sergeant Harris and Corporal Bates only a stride behind him, he was greeted with yet another volley of bullets and wondered how long he would survive against such overwhelming odds. With forty yards still to cover, he could see exactly where the three enemy dugouts were situated. He snatched a hand grenade from his belt, removed the pin and tossed it towards the centre dugout, as if he was returning a cricket ball from the deep boundary into the wicketkeeper’s gloves. It landed just above the stumps. Giles saw two men fly into the air, while another fell back.
He swung round and hurled a second grenade to his left, a definite run-out, because the enemy’s firepower suddenly dried up. The third grenade took out a machine gun. As Giles charged on, he could see the men who had him in their sights. He took his pistol out of its holster and began to fire as if he was on a shooting range but this time the bullseyes were human beings. One, two, three went down, and then Giles saw a German officer lining him up in his sights. The German pulled the trigger just a moment too late, and collapsed on the ground in front of him. Giles felt sick.
When he was only a yard from the dugout, a young German dropped his rifle on the ground, while another threw his arms high into the air. Giles stared into the desperate eyes of the defeated men. He didn’t need to speak German to know they didn’t want to die.
‘Cease fire!’ screamed Giles, as what was left of 1 and 2 sections quickly overwhelmed the enemy positions. ‘Round them up and disarm them, Sergeant Harris,’ he added, then turned back to see Harris, head down in the sand, blood trickling out of his mouth, only yards from the dugout.
Giles stared back across the open terrain they had crossed and tried not to count the number of soldiers who had sacrificed their lives because of one man’s weak decision. Stretcher bearers were already removing the dead bodies from the battlefield.
‘Corporal Bates, line up the enemy prisoners in threes, and march them back to camp.’
‘Yes, sir,’ said Bates, sounding as if he meant it.
A few minutes later, Giles and his depleted band headed back across the open ground. They had covered about fifty yards when Giles saw Fisher running towards him, with 3 Section following in his wake.
‘Right, Barrington, I’ll take over,’ he shouted. ‘You bring up the rear. Follow me,’ he ordered as he led the captured German soldiers triumphantly back towards the town.
By the time they reached the Majestic Hotel, a small crowd had gathered to cheer them. Fisher returned the salutes of his brother officers.
‘Barrington, see that the prisoners are interned, then take the lads off to the canteen for a drink; they’ve earned it. Meanwhile, I’ll report to Major Richards.’
‘Can I kill him, sir?’ asked Bates.