Rommel on the Move

Convoy of British tanks on the road in northern Africa. The first tank is the American M3A1 Stuart, the rest are British tanks Crusader MK.I.
(Source)

Sergeant O'Connell swore softly as he watched the columns of dust approaching in a direction which would take them around their open southern flank. Lowering his field glasses he swore again.

"What are those buggers thinking, there's naught but sand and dirt down that way?"

"Sar'nt?" Caddick asked A he climbed up to take his place in the driver's position.

"Nothing, lad. Man up, get the crate fired up, I believe we have guests coming today, whether we're ready or not."

Italian artillery
(Source)

Primo tenente¹ Salvatore Maurizio was staring intently at his wrist watch, his right hand held up in the air. As the second hand touched the "12," he dropped his hand. When he did so, his battery of 149/12 modello 14 howitzers began to roar.

Lifting his field glasses, he looked to his right. On schedule the tanks of the Ariete division began to roll forward in support of the German tanks which would be further out on the extreme southern flank.

Maurizio smiled, it had been a long campaign here in Africa. He had narrowly eluded capture when the English had destroyed Graziani's army on the border with Egypt.

After the Germans had landed, he had volunteered to act as a liaison with them, as he spoke the language. He was turned down because his own commander wanted him to stay put.

"There's no man better with his howitzers than Maurizio!" the colonel had proclaimed when headquarters had asked him to release Maurizio.

So here he remained, in this flea-bitten outpost of the Italian empire. He'd just as soon let the English have it, he'd rather be home in Tuscany.

Feldwebel Hoffmeister had his scarf wrapped tightly around his nose and mouth, his goggles strapped down tight, yet somehow the damned sand still managed to get inside his mouth and eyes.

He was standing up in his hatch, something which could prove fatal in a European setting, but here, in the desert, one could see for miles. That is, if one was not moving.

The only reason he knew they were heading in the right direction was by constantly checking his compass. Even without the clouds of dust raised by the many vehicles pushing east, trying to navigate amidst the trackless desert was an exercise in futility.

He squeezed his throat mike and said, "Keep your speed down, Fritz. When the ground starts to rise, which it should in a few hundred meters, we'll stop and let the dust settle. We should be behind the English flank at that point. Klar?"

"Aber natürlich, Willi. Where you lead, we will follow. Of course, that's if I'm paying attention, I can't see a thing from down here."

Hoffmeister had the crew buttoned up, though it was starting to get hot as the sun climbed into the African sky, he wanted to keep as much dust and grit out of the Panzer as he could. It tended to gum up anything which was lubricated and played hell with the electronics as well.

Hoffmeister felt, or thought he felt, the hull of their vehicle pitch up slightly. As it didn't pitch back down, he thought that they must be at the jump off point. His platoon, along with the rest of 4th Company, would be providing direct fire support for the advancing infantry. From the ridge, once the dust settled, they could look far into the English positions.

"Bugger and damn it!" Fitzhugh, the tank's gunner, was holding his calf, which was bloody and covered in grit.

An artillery round had impacted nearby while he was running for the tank. Though far enough away that he wasn't badly affected by the concussion of the explosion, it had been enough to send him ass over teakettle into a nearby trench.

His leg felt as if it had been sanded down to the nerve endings. He had managed to limp to the tank during a lull in the barrage and climbed aboard.

"Jaysus, lad, what happened to ya?" his loader, Private William O'Shea, asked when he saw Fitzhugh reach for a rag to clean his leg off.

"Hold on, mate, ya need to wash some o' that grit off, or ye'll just make it worse." O'Shea said as he handed a canteen over to Fitzhugh, "Wash it off first, then clean it with a wet rag."

"Thanks, Willie." Fitzhugh gritted his teeth as the water slid down his badly torn up calf. But when he soaked the rag with water, he was able to clean most of the dirt and grime from the scrapes on his leg. When he was done, O'Shea handed him a roll of cloth.

"It's one of me spare puttees, but it's too damned hot for them  anyway. Wrap yer leg wi' it, Fitzie."

As Fitzhugh wrapped his injured leg, the tank lurched forward.

"Are ye ready to fight down there lads?" O'Connell called down from the commander's hatch.

"Right as rain now, Ted. Put some Jerries under my gun, I need to pay someone back for this cock up!"

O'Shea smiled, Fitzie was in fine fettle.

¹ First Lieutenant