Spread from MY STORY: DESERT DANGER
by Jim Eldridge
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“They’ve reached our minefields already!” shouted Chalky.
Gunfire opened up from our side. Tracers poured into the minefields and cut down the German sappers at the front.
“Poor swines,” muttered Pete.
“They’d do the same to us if the positions were the other way round,” said Chalky.
“The positions will be the other way round soon,” said Ginger grimly. “And then we’ll be the sappers being shot at.
I put my binoculars back up to my eyes, and found that one of the lenses had been smashed when the rocks had fallen on me. I lowered them and just watched, every now and then ducking down behind the walls of sandbags as German bullets and shells came hurtling towards our position.
The noise was incredible! All thought of talking vanished. Ginger opened his mouth to say something, but I couldn’t hear a word. All I could hear was the crashing and booming of explosions as German shells blew up, and the thunder of our own heavy guns returning shellfire and the metallic scream of our machine guns firing.
Behind the barricading walls of sandbag, we were joined by a platoon of infantrymen with rifles ready, bayonets fixed. Sergeant Ross appeared and gestured to us to followed him. the four of us slipped away from the cover of the wall, crouching low as bullets and shells whistled over our heads. As we did so, more infantrymen appeared and joined their mates behind the barricades. They also had their rifles — ready for hand-to-hand fighting if the Germans broke through our defences.
We followed Sergeant Ross to where one of our six-pounder guns had taken a direct hit. Two of the gun crew were lying on the ground and even in the darkness I could see the blood soaking their uniforms. Sergeant Ross pointed at the six-pounder and we set to work, taking off the parts of the big gun that still worked. The idea was that if any other six-pounders took a hit and were wrecked, we might be able to build a replacement from the cannibalized parts. Providing there were the men to man it, of course.
As we worked, a medical team arrived to tend the wounded men. It was obvious from the shake of the head of the medico who examined the two men lying on the ground that both were dead. Meanwhile, the rest of the team set to work to patch up the four other men from the gun-crew as best they could. The seriously injured who couldn’t walk were taken off in an ambulance.
As Pete and I worked at unbolting the twisted gun barrel from its mounting, I was suddenly aware of the droning noise of aeroplane engines above us, barely audibile about the noise of the gunfire. I looked up and saw a fleet of planes flying from behind our lines towards the Germans. As they reached the German positions, I saw what looked like hundreds of tiny parachutes falling from the planes . . . and then suddenly they burst into flames. Parachute flares. Hundreds of burning torches falling down on the Germans, lighting up the night sky as they fell, turning the night into broad daylight.
From My Story: Desert Danger. Text copyright © 2005 by Jim Eldridge. All rights reserved.
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