Alamein: The turning point of World War Two. Iain Gale

from the start position. The man looked at him, his face lit up by the moonlight, and Samwell saw that he was grinning.

      ‘How many paces, Roberts?’

      ‘Dunno, sir. Lost count we’ve done that many. Good, innit? Like bleeding Bonfire Night, sir.’

      Hardly had the words left his lips when another note was added to the symphony of shells and bullets around them. Crump. Crump crump crump. Mortars! Christ, he thought. They’ve zeroed in on us. Bastards. Mortars. And as he thought the words the bombs began to land among them, exploding and sending their deadly shards of shrapnel in all directions at anything from head to waist height. There was a loud crash to his left and Samwell heard a moan: ‘Oh God.’

      He looked across and saw one of the men tumble to the ground. The officer was shouting again through his megaphone. Samwell strained to hear his words above the din and failed. He turned to his front and in the moonlight and flashes of explosions saw a wire ahead of him. It was only a single strand and stretched out at about waist height. Without thinking he rushed towards it and jumped, as he might have once done at Glenalmond, jumping the wire and winning for the house. He rose in the air and sensed that his trailing foot had just cleared the wire. The earth came up to meet him and he managed to his own surprise to land on two feet without breaking anything. He looked behind and saw his sergeant, Perkins, negotiating the obstacle in his own way. The man was built like an ox, all muscle and no room for agility. He looked at the wire and gingerly put one leg over the top. He was just placing his weight down on the leg when Samwell suddenly realized what was going on. This wasn’t just barbed wire. A single strand: Booby trap.

      He opened his mouth to shout to Perkins but at that instant the air was split by a massive explosion as the hem of the sergeant’s shorts snagged on the wire. As the explosion caught him, Samwell instinctively turned away and a huge rush of air buffeted him on the back of the neck. In the instant though he was aware briefly of the outline of a man or what at that moment had ceased to be a man, disintegrating as Sergeant Perkins was blown to atoms. As the air cleared, he turned to the men coming on behind him and yelled, all too late. ‘Booby Traps!’

      He carried on walking and wondered what it had been that had driven him to jump the wire. He had not been thinking of booby traps. He was suddenly aware that all the men around him were running. For an instant he wondered why. He could not remember hearing anyone giving the order. No matter. He quickened his pace and was soon running in time with the men. His body seemed alive with the thrill of the moment, adrenalin pumping. His mind, his whole being, was curiously euphoric. Fear gone, he charged on and was aware that he was screaming at the enemy. He knew that his side would win. He grinned hugely and looked right and left as he ran on. Turning further to his left he was aware of a man, Corporal Sykes he thought it was, running alongside him, and equally caught up in the moment. The man was laughing as he fired a Bren gun from his hip and Samwell could see his mouth was wide open and he was shouting, though no words were audible. Samwell wondered if he were aiming at anything or just ‘firing into the brown’. He looked to his front towards where the Bren rounds were hitting the desert rock and sending lethal shards flying in all directions.

      Then as he ran, he saw a head protruding from the ground. For a moment he thought it might have been blown off a body. But then he saw that it wore a hat, a flat peaked cap of the Afrika Korps and that its eyes were wide and blinking. Unable to slow down he ran straight past it and as he passed saw that it was attached to the shoulders of a man crouching in a shallow foxhole. By God, they had reached the enemy without even knowing it! Trying to stop, he turned halfway round and almost collided with the bayonet of the soldier running directly behind him. Samwell raised his revolver and catching sight again of the head, loosed off three rounds towards it. Then he turned back to the front and ran on.

      Christ, he thought. Did I hit him? Did I kill him? The worry did not last for long as once again he was caught up in the headlong charge. He noticed that he had drawn level with Baynes once again. Where Corporal Sykes had got to God only knew. His runner, a biddable lad called Brooks had also disappeared. He continued to run and suddenly saw directly ahead a line of men standing in a slit trench. They all had their hands above their heads and were clad in an assortment of ill-fitting desert-coloured uniforms. They were dirty and ill-shaven and would have been on a charge had they been in his company. He laughed and wondered what sort of bizarre training formula had put such a thought into his head at such a moment?

      They were yelling at him: ‘Mardray! Mardray!’

      Samwell wondered what the hell it meant. Mother? What did it matter. He pulled up and waved his pistol at the men in the trench. He could see now that they were Italians. He motioned to the left with his weapon indicating that they should join the group of prisoners being collected by an NCO, Sergeant McCaig of B Company. They scrambled out of the trench but one of them, clearly terrified beyond reason, began to run round in circles with his hands on his head, screaming. Samwell started to yell to a corporal to grab hold of him and then someone, Sergeant Hawkins he thought it was, shouted: ‘Watch out!’

      There was a sharp blow on the toe of his boot and Samwell was aware of an object bouncing off his foot and to the rear. And then whatever it had been exploded. Dazed, he staggered backwards and instinctively placed a hand across his eyes.

      For a moment he began to wobble unsteadily on his feet. Oh God, he thought, I’ve lost a leg and am being kept up by the shock. Drawing his arm away he looked down and saw nothing unusual. Both legs were still intact and unscathed. He noticed he was shaking. Instantly he wondered who had been hit and looking to where McCaig had been rounding up the Italians saw him stretched out on the ground. A big man, he was lying on his back and groaning. Samwell felt a chill run through him. He had always admired McCaig, a big tough bear of a man with leathery skin and a wide smile. But his voice now betrayed the inner child.

      ‘Mother, Mother. Help me, God. Help me, Mother. Mammy.’

      Samwell felt sickened. A grown man reduced to an infant. The cause of his distress was all too evident: where his right leg had been was now a mess of flesh and blood and bone. Samwell knew now what had happened. One of the men in the trench had thrown a grenade as he had pretended to surrender. That had been what had bounced off his boot and on to the unlucky sergeant. He thanked God for his luck and at the same time felt guilty that McCaig should have taken the hit.

      Within a second though his regret had been replaced by anger. A red rage surged over him and he ran across to the edge of the trench. Three of the Italians were still inside and without thinking he levelled his revolver and began to fire into them. Two shots hit home and they screamed and then, when he pressed the trigger again there was an empty click.

      ‘Bugger!’ He had forgotten to reload. Throwing his pistol away, he picked up McCaig’s rifle which had been blown to the ground, and jumped into the trench. The two men he had hit with the revolver were lying on the floor. One of them was moaning. Two other Italians lay against its sides staring wildly at him. Without thinking Samwell rushed towards them and buried the long bayonet attached to the sergeant’s rifle deep in the belly of one. He felt it go in, twisted it and stared into the eyes of the Italian. Saw his anguish and felt nothing but hate. He pulled out the blade and moved to the other man. He was crouching now, in the corner of the trench, his hands in the air. Samwell lunged and as he did so the man muttered something: ‘Madre Madre’. The steel shaft slipped upwards through his throat.

      Then, as quickly as he had jumped in Samwell climbed out and laying McCaig’s weapon on the ground, looked for his pistol. The red mist had subsided now, but a rage still burned in his heart. Stupid to have thrown his gun down, he thought. What the hell would the quartermaster say when he turned up back at Company HQ without it? It occurred to him that he had also lost his walking stick. He cursed. He loved that stick. It reminded him of home. He remembered buying it in Glasgow three years earlier. He had taken it everywhere, even to the picture house in Stirling where he had left it under a seat after he and Klara had been to see a film. Waterloo Bridge it had been, with Robert Taylor and Vivien Leigh, a soppy story about a British officer who falls for a dancer. Klara had liked it. The two of them had had to disturb the whole row to get his stick back. She’d been furious then at the embarrassment but had forgiven him later.