The Rising Tide Page 9

  Westphal smiled as well. “That’s approximately correct, sir.”

  “Did Marshal Kesselring order me to sit in my tent?”

  Westphal seemed unsure if Rommel was teasing him or not. “I don’t believe so.”

  “Relax, Colonel. I’ll leave the flying to the Messerschmitts, if Berlin decides to send us a few. You have any problem with me driving to the front? Or am I too fragile to see anything for myself?”

  “Would you prefer the Volkswagen or the Mammoth, sir?”

  “The Volkswagen will suffice. You remain here. Have five armored cars follow well behind, scattered formation, in case I run into something unexpected. Tell them to keep behind me. I’ve eaten enough dust for one day.” He stepped outside, blinked at the sunlight, saw Gunther close by, finishing the sardines.

  “Let’s go, Corporal. If you won’t fly with me, you can ride.”

  Rommel moved toward the auto park, saw Westphal beside the open-topped automobile. The Volkswagen carried no mounted machine gun, but the driver, and now Gunther, both carried sidearms. Rommel had no interest in getting into a firefight with anyone. His armored-car escorts were a different matter, each with a heavy machine gun, and a crew whose sole job was to keep watch on the horizon, to swarm forward and protect Rommel should the enemy suddenly appear.

  The engines of all the vehicles were running now, and Rommel saw Westphal speaking to one of the armored-car drivers. He smiled to himself, thought, don’t worry, Colonel, I’m not going to run off and leave anyone behind.

  Westphal was coming toward him, said, “Sir, which direction are you traveling? In the event—”

  “Southeast. I want to see this Qattara Depression. I can’t believe it’s as impassable as I’ve heard.”

  R ommel ordered his driver to halt, glanced back as the armored trucks behind him stopped as well. A few yards in front of him, the hard, rocky floor of the desert fell away abruptly, a sheer drop of more than a hundred feet.

  He stepped out of the auto, said, “Remain here.”

  Rommel stepped across the hard ground toward the edge of the precipice. The desert spread out before him in a golden sea of sandy hills, waves of tall dunes, dropping away into deep swales darkened by shadows. He moved along the edge of the hard ground, saw a shallow cut leading down to a gentle slope in the face of the rocky cliff. There were tracks, some kind of hoofprints, a camel perhaps, and he followed the trail, saw that the beast had walked down into the vast sand plain, the tracks changing to dimples in the sand, and then, the tracks were completely gone, absorbed by the endless landscape. He eased his way down the slope, used the rocks as steps. He had moved out away from the shadows, felt the heat rising up to meet him, a hot breath of stifling air. He put a hand over his mouth, pulled the goggles down over his eyes; he was in the sand now, his boots sinking into the hot softness, ankle deep. The breeze stopped, and he raised the goggles, looked out toward the vast mountains of sand, the surfaces scored by the wind, wisps of dust clouds in the distance, rippled by the glassy shimmer of heat and breeze. Stillness and movement, he thought, like an ocean. But there is a difference, one distinct difference. In all the vastness, the heat, the gentle sprays of sand, he could hear only one sound, the sound of his own breathing. There was no other sound at all.

  He smiled.

  How far does it go? he thought. He had seen the maps, sketchy details, tens of miles, certainly. And then, to the south and west, the greatest sand sea of them all, the Sahara. This is just a small piece, a child of an enormous mother. And here we choose to fight a war. The arrogance of that, that any of us believe we will occupy this place. We do not occupy the desert, any more than a ship occupies the ocean. How many conquerors have swept through here with the same arrogance? The Romans certainly, and how many others? But we believe we are superior, that with our modern machines we can make war anywhere. And all the while, the desert watches us and waits for us to pass, and if we don’t pass, if we remain too long, the desert will consume us. Like it is consuming me.

  The smile was gone now, and he turned, saw figures silhouetted along the precipice above him. All right, enough of this. He pulled his boots from the sand, struggled toward the rocks. We may have brought war to the desert, but not to this piece of desert. I’m not sending any tanks into this.

  AUGUST 30, 1942

  Rommel had rebuilt his Panzerarmee to a strength of more than four hundred fifty tanks, but over half of those were the inferior Italian machines. Across from him, he could only guess, the scouts bringing him reports that the British faced him with as many as seven hundred tanks, including a hundred or more of the Grants, the new American machine that carried a seventy-five millimeter gun, nearly as strong as anything in Rommel’s army. He did not dwell on numbers, held tightly to the belief that no matter what kind of man Montgomery was, the British were still the British, and they would fight as they had fought before. Numbers mattered little if the enemy launched his tanks at you in small clusters. And whether Montgomery planned to launch them at all, Rommel knew that trading casualties with the British had become an unacceptable option. Every day the British were pouring supplies and reinforcements through the Suez Canal, and with Rommel’s army sprawled across the desert, far from their dwindling supplies, suffering from the neglect and the unwillingness of the quartermasters in Berlin and Rome, time was clearly not on their side. There was only one way for Rommel to have his victory in North Africa. He had to press forward.

  The plan was simple: The British were spread out over the ridges and hillsides from the coast at El Alamein, southward into the desert. Rommel had one good option, to sweep around and past the British position, then turn north, slicing across their rear. If the German armor could reach the seacoast, the British would be cut off from their supply lines. Montgomery would learn as the others had learned before him. Armor meant mobility and armor meant power, and Rommel understood both far better than his opponents.

  It was called the Battle of Alam Halfa Ridge, and Rommel did as he had always done, using the tactic that had almost always worked. August 30, he shoved armor and infantry in a noisy threat to the British right and center. But then, in the darkness, he slipped the armor down to the south and, in the moonlight, pushed them eastward.

  Almost immediately, the plan disintegrated, an unmapped British minefield causing the first major delay. Then, the ground below the British flank proved much softer than expected, which slowed the tanks and caused them to consume more fuel than they could afford. Rommel was forced to shorten the routes of the armor and send them northward much sooner than he had planned. This ran the German tanks straight into the strongest part of Montgomery’s position: Alam Halfa Ridge. Instead of counterattacking Rommel’s tanks, the British held fast to their good ground, and British artillery and the guns of their armor began to punch gaping holes in Rommel’s strength. By nightfall on August 31, Rommel was forcd to halt the attack.

  SOUTH OF ALAM HALFA RIDGE—AUGUST 31, 1942

  “There is no fuel, sir! We are halted!”

  The man’s voice cut through him like a hot razor, and Rommel fought the instinct to shout.

  “General von Vaerst, you will exercise restraint in my presence.”

  Von Vaerst now commanded the Afrika Korps, and Rommel saw the anguish on the man’s face, the same twisting pain that was cutting through Rommel’s gut. They stood in the open, the armored cars gathered in an uneven row beside them, silent, the drivers conserving their gasoline.

  Von Vaerst stared down toward his feet, said, “Sir, we are merely dueling the British guns. They are dug in on the high ridges. If we remain in place, at dawn we will simply provide the enemy with targets. And we have no fuel to resume the flank attack!”

  “Return to your command, General. The British will not just sit on those ridges. By morning, Montgomery will believe he has opportunity, and he will order his tanks out of their holes and send them forward. They will attack us as they have always done, and then we will have them! Be sure yo
ur men have ammunition. We will be the ones seeking targets.”

  Von Vaerst nodded slowly.

  Westphal moved beside Rommel, said, “General, you may send your reports to me, at this location. I will remain here throughout the night.”

  Von Vaerst seemed to understand, knew what every senior commander knew, that Rommel might be anywhere, unreachable, suddenly appearing alongside some bewildered captain to guide a squad of tanks.

  Rommel waved the man away, said to Westphal, “I’m not going anywhere, Siegfried. Not now. There is nothing to see out here. We should have a tent prepared.”

  “Right away, sir.”

  Westphal seemed to hesitate, and Rommel said, “What is it, Colonel?”

  “If we gather a strong force of tanks tonight, sir, we could send them into the enemy position on a narrow front.”

  Rommel raised the goggles, blinked through the blowing dust.

  “He will come, Siegfried. They have always come. We will wait for them.”

  R ommel stared east, saw the first gray glow. He could hear the rumble of artillery, most of it British, the sky streaked with white light. He looked toward the west, expecting to see more of the same, but the German guns were firing only sporadically, a single tracer streaking toward the enemy hills.

  The reports had reached him throughout the night, and none of the news was good. The British controlled the skies, and throughout the day their bombers had obliterated enormous numbers of German guns. In front of him, his armor waited for the opportunity he still believed would come, some sign that Montgomery had ordered his tanks to move forward, to meet Rommel’s waiting gunners head-on.

  The horizon was lighter now, and he climbed up into the armored car, surprising the crew. There was no sign of Westphal, but he knew the man was dealing with the flood of messages, managing a staff engulfed in the business of war. Fuel had been promised, word that the Italians were sending five thousand tons of precious gasoline, some of it coming by air, another promise from Kesselring. But no word had come, no reports of fuel arriving anywhere along the front. Now it is day, and it will begin again, and we can barely move at all.

  The anger was too familiar, and he slapped the armor plate in front of him, the windshield that supported the machine gun.

  “Drive!”

  The crew obeyed, Rommel continuing to stand, the goggles now over his eyes, the entire line of armored cars moving into the gray dawn.

  SOUTH OF ALAM HALFA RIDGE—SEPTEMBER 1, 1942

  There had been one attack by his armor, the Fifteenth Panzers driving a short, quick stab into a mass of British armor along the ridge itself, inflicting heavy losses. But with the full daylight, Rommel could see that Montgomery still held tightly to the good ground.

  Nothing had changed. It cut him like a dull sword, ripping into his gut, draining him of the energy he needed, the strength to hold back the sickness, to keep his men in the fight. The big gun roared into life, another hard blast that knocked him to one side. He stared at the hill, thought of Montgomery. Where are you? Why do you not come? The fight is here, we are here! His ears were a fog of ringing, but he heard shouts, turned, saw men running, felt a hand on his arm, a hard grip. He saw the faces looking up, saw it himself, a formation of silver planes, coming straight at him, no more than fifty feet above the ground. The hand released his arm, and Rommel saw men dropping down into narrow slit trenches. The planes were right above him, a rush of sound, and Rommel dove into an opening, hit hard, the wind leaving him. The ground came alive around him, a thundering blast, shaking him, bouncing him hard, punching the air from his lungs. He fought to breathe, dirt falling on him, holding him down, and then there were hands, pulling him. No, let me lie here! He was up in the sunlight again, the air thick with dust, hands holding him upright, faces, shouting at him, meaningless words. He saw fire now, a truck, more trucks, black smoke, and now the voices came.

  “Sir!”

  “Sir! Are you all right?”

  He felt his chest, put one hand on his face, looked down, no blood.

  “I’m all right! See to the men! The wounded!”

  The smoke was choking him, swirling blackness, heat on his face, and he moved away, looked for clean air, a place where he could see. The air began to clear and he saw the cannon in pieces, bodies of men scattered around it. Two of the armored trucks were in flames, more bodies, men tending to anyone who was still alive. He looked up, clear blue sky, heard the sound again, the roar of engines, another formation of planes. They were farther away, and he could see it all, a flock of silver birds, bull’s-eye circles on the bodies, slight tilt of the wings, catching the sun, the sweep of the bombers as they dipped toward their targets. The bombs tumbled out, a brief glimpse, black sticks, and suddenly the ground beneath them burst into fire, blasts of earth and steel and men. He turned away, had seen enough of this, his men splayed out in the open ground like so many cattle for the slaughter. If they had fuel at all, they might have enough to withdraw, to pull back behind their minefields. He stared at the wide ridge, less than a mile away, thought again of Montgomery. You bastard. You would deny me the fight I had to have, the fight that would end this, that would give me Cairo and the Suez and all of Africa.

  B y September 4, the Germans had pulled back to their defensive positions. As Rommel strengthened his minefields and added to his observation posts, in the ocean to the north the precious tankers began to flow from Italy, driven by the relentless pressure from Kesselring, and from Rommel himself. Rommel could only wait, knowing that for the first time, he could not force the attack, could not attack the enemy’s vulnerabilities. Worse, his own vulnerabilities were growing, and the pressure from the doctors and from Kesselring finally overwhelmed his ability to deny the sickness. On September 23, Rommel flew to Rome, a quick stop before he would travel to Berlin. Once in Germany, his first priority would be to see Hitler, and then, his duty satisfied, he would settle into a hospital, to treat the sickness in his body and renew his energy for the fight he still hoped to wage. Whether Montgomery would give him time to recover and return to Africa was beyond Rommel’s control.

  Far to the west, far beyond the two armies at El Alamein, rumors began to stir, wisps of information and intelligence reports that focused more and more on the Americans.

  6. EISENHOWER

  LONDON

  JULY 1942

  T he meetings had been incessant, both social and contentious. After so much talk, he had learned to despise conferences, all those high-brass affairs with such stiff formalities, ideas flowing out like cigar smoke, drifting in the stale air until swept away by someone’s new thought, new theory, new plan. The disagreements over strategy had erupted long before, the desperation of a battle-worn Britain confronted by the brash enthusiasm of the overeager Americans. On both sides of the Atlantic, the goal was the same, defeat the enemy, but who that enemy was, how to defeat him, and where the first great stroke should fall were questions no one could agree on.

  When Eisenhower had arrived in June, the British had offered him a home in the Claridge Hotel, the finest in London. His suite had been a sprawl of rooms adorned with gilded wallpaper, palatially high ceilings, all the trappings the British seemed to feel would suit the new American commander. Eisenhower was as uncomfortable as he was appreciative, and immediately he sought less ostentatious quarters. Now, his home was a three-room suite in the Dorchester Hotel, a modest choice that amused the British. After all, he was American, a product of the rustic, backwoods quaintness that some knew as Kansas. To many in the British high command, it was likely that Eisenhower simply didn’t know any better.

  His appointment had come from the American chief of staff, George Marshall, and like all such appointments, Eisenhower’s name had dredged up voices of dissent in Washington, the same kinds of voices that had echoed around “Black Jack” Pershing in 1917. The nation faced the same sort of crisis then, an ever-expanding war, with America’s military caught woefully unprepared. Like Eisenhower, Pershing ha
d been elevated to command when the city was full of senior officers, each man insisting he was right for the job. Eisenhower’s critics were a bit more muted than the men who’d attacked Pershing. Many of them seemed to be aware that the world had grown more complicated since 1917, that this war would require the kind of mind that could wrap itself around the enormous challenges in building a military in Europe that could challenge the terrifying might of Adolf Hitler. If the tall hats in Washington didn’t know Eisenhower, they had no choice but to trust the judgment of George Marshall, a judgment seconded by Franklin Roosevelt. Outside of the planning and administrative offices of the War Department, few had even heard of Eisenhower.

  LARGS, SCOTLAND—JULY 24, 1942

  “‘We must be in action by the end of this year.’”

  Marshall put the paper down, said, “That is the essence of the president’s cable. I am in agreement with him, though my reasoning is somewhat different. He has political realities to contend with. The president has a sharp eye on the elections this November. I will not go into detail on what this could mean for him. His term, as you know, extends for two more years. But it has much to do with the makeup of the Congress, and so forth. The president’s concern is that if we do not show the rest of the world that we can strike back at the enemy in a meaningful way, the voters might interpret that as weakness. President Roosevelt will not accept anything from us that hints of weakness.”

  Most eyes were on Marshall, but not all, and Eisenhower glanced around the room, saw a dull glaze on many of the faces. Marshall had been in Britain for ten days now, and along with Roosevelt’s aide Harry Hopkins had spent every one of those days in intense meetings with British and American war planners, officials, military and civilian, hammering out the details of a plan agreeable to both sides that could make the best use of American resources and British experience. The disagreements were many, and the frustration high. Eisenhower pondered the words from Roosevelt. It’s the closest thing to an order that man can send us, he thought. Roosevelt may not be here, but he knows how this sort of thing goes. Talk. More talk. Much more talk.