The Sand Panthers (17 page)

‘Time indeed,’ von Dodenburg agreed, focusing his glasses on the cautious figures who were coming down from the hills now. He was right. They were Tommies. Against the yellow clouds of dust, they were sharply silhouetted in their pudding-basin helmets as they advanced on the Germans. Von Dodenburg’s heart ached as he saw the men in the familiar peaked-caps of the
Afrikakorps
being shepherded into disconsolate groups to be led off to the Tommies’ prison cages. The Desert Fox’s great dream of the conquest of Africa was over. He took the ‘Prof’s’ arm. He wanted to see no more. ‘Come on, Prof, let’s get below. We’ll be sailing in a minute. I’ve had enough of North Africa.’

At the stanchion, the tied prisoner sang:

‘
Best bloody place is a bloody bed

With blanket over bloody head.

And then they think you’re bloody dead.

Oh bloody! Bloody! Bloody! ...
’

*  *  *

At the gangplank, Schulze, again elevated to the temporary rank of full colonel with the aid of the epaulettes hastily fixed to his shoulders, looked down at the lighter full of
Afrikakorps
staff officers, rummaging around in their kit wondering what they should take with them for the trip to Italy. Once the great men had been accustomed to settling the lives and fates of thousands of men with a snap decision; now they could not make their minds up which one of their bulging cases to take with them on board.

‘Colonel’ Schulze gazed down at them in contempt, while Matz stared at the rich pickings with rapacious, greedy little eyes. ‘
Meine Herren!
’ Schulze drawled at last in his best Prussian Guardee’s voice, ‘would you please get your digits out! We sail in exactly five minutes – or we get sunk one minute later. One case per officer,
please
. Now make it snappy!’

The threat worked. In one minute flat the staff officers were clambering up the rope ladder and hurrying below with their single cases, leaving an evilly grinning Matz to collect their leavings.

‘Well?’ Schulze demanded when Matz had swung himself up on board again, the loot clutched to his skinny chest.

‘Four chests of cigars, two bottles of wine and a bottle of Algerian brandy – and two dirty books.’

‘Excellent, excellent, my boy,’ Schulze boomed in his officer’s voice. ‘I’m beginning to like retreats – you eat and drink better and meet a more interesting type of individual, what.’

‘Up yours!’ Matz said by way of an answer.

Five minutes later as they lounged in one of the lifeboats, ‘rented’ from an obliging deck officer for one case of cigars, the transport finally started to pull out from the Algerian bay, its siren shrieking.

Schulze looked reflectively at the African coast. A gleam came and went in his bright-blue eyes. It might have been one of rage, or of relief. It would have been hard for the observer to discover.

Schulze raised one large buttock and gave one of his lazy, musical farts, celebrated in sergeants’ messes throughout Occupied Europe. He lifted his mug of cognac in toast as the coast faded into the smoke of battle, and called with heart-felt relief: ‘
AUF WIEDERSEHEN AFRIKA…
’

Also by Leo Kessler and available as an ebook in The Dogs of War Series

No. 1  Forced March

No. 2  The Devil’s Shield

No. 3  SS Panzer Battalion

No. 4  Claws of Steel

No. 5  Blood Mountain

No. 6  Death’s Head

No. 7  Blood and Ice

First published in 1977

Reprinted in 2006

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