‘All right,’ Fee yelled. ‘Other way again! Column – about turn!’
As the Italian tanks disappeared into the distance, the Australians about-turned once more, still dragging the bewildered Italians with them, and heads came up as they began to move eastwards again. Two Messerschmitts appeared on the western horizon and, once again, the column turned to face the west. The Messerschmitts passed low over their heads but made no attempt to interfere with them. As they lifted into the sky, a squadron of Hurricanes howled down out of the blue. Guns clattered and one of the Messerschmitts swept upwards in a screaming zoom, then fell off sideways at the top and sideslipped into the desert about a mile away.
As the column of black smoke lifted into the air, the Australians began to cheer but the shouting was silenced as another group of Italian vehicles appeared in the distance from the west. This time they didn’t need any explanations. They about-turned, heads down, shoulders hunched, a few of them even entering into the spirit of the thing enough to throw sour catcalls as the lorries passed, vanishing eastwards into the dust and smoke without their crews looking twice in their direction. By this time it was becoming a game, and in great good humour the Australians about-turned again to face eastwards with a great show of lifting their knees, swinging their arms and stamping their feet as if on parade.
The horizon was full of smoke and dust. They had no idea what was happening but it seemed now that the battle was bigger than they’d expected. It had spread southwards, too, and occasionally they caught glimpses of vehicles heading in that direction. The foglike cloud of dust spread across the whole desert and, though the sky above them was clear, aircraft passing overhead disappeared almost at once as they headed into the rolling coils of smoke.
‘There’s just one thing.’ Fee was suddenly looking worried. ‘Suppose some half-baked Pom pilot in a Hurricane comes along and sees us marching west, won’t he think we’re Italians and shoot us up?’
It was something that hadn’t occurred to Dampier. But he produced an answer quickly enough. ‘Have you still got that flag of yours?’ he asked.
‘Fair dinkum, I have. No bloody Italian’s havin’ that.’
‘A splendid sentiment, sergeant major. If anybody on our side starts being awkward, let’s just make sure it’s well and truly visible.’
The sun appeared, bursting over the horizon like a flash of fire, and almost at once it began to blister their breath. The battle seemed to have changed direction now and, by a trick of the wind, they could hear the grind and clatter of armoured vehicles moving into action. The column of Australians had gone some distance eastwards now, but as they drew nearer the cloud of smoke they exchanged glances, beginning to wonder what they were heading into. Stray shells made a mewing, squealing chorus overhead and small-calibre missiles whizzed and whined past. Then, unexpectedly, an object appeared out of the murk ahead to curve downwards, strike the earth, and leap upwards, end over end, until it finally plopped into the sand at the end of its trajectory.
‘Tank shell,’ Coffin said laconically. ‘Solid shot. If you ask me, I reckon we’re getting too near this bloody battle for safety!’
Even as they halted, they saw a swarm of British aircraft bursting out of the cloud of smoke and dust. One of them, clearly imagining the column to be Italian since it was on the Italian side of the line, headed towards them. Immediately, Fee’s flag was produced and waved. But they hadn’t allowed for the height of the aircraft and the difficulty of seeing details at speed, and the Hurricane opened fire. Fortunately, the shooting went wide and the men in the column began to yell.
‘You stupid Pom bastard!’ McBean roared. ‘Can’t you see we’re Aussies?’
During the afternoon they came across an Italian column which had been caught by the RAF, a string of lorries deserted by their crews and smoking in the sun. One of them was a water tanker, which was a gift from heaven, and they also found coffee and tins of captured British bully beef that slid out of the tins like grease.
As they brewed up, they were fired on again and had to scatter. The middle of a battle was clearly not a good place for a column of unarmed prisoners to be and, as they regathered, Dampier reluctantly came to the conclusion that until the battle had sorted itself out it might be best to head back towards Zuq and get the LRDGs to signal the navy to lift them off. There was a howl of ‘Not bloody likely’ when the idea was put to the Australians and a great deal of muttering as they discussed it, but in the end everybody saw the sense of the plan.
It was evening before they gained sight of the round dome of the mosque at Zuq. In the east they could still hear the roar of the battle and see the groups of Italian vehicles heading towards it.
They finally brewed up again in the dusk and lay down in the desert where they stood, crowding together in the wind to get what warmth they could from each other. Flat and lifeless during the day, in the late evening the desert was throwing dark shadows and the low sun was making a miracle of the yellow dunes. As the light vanished hundreds of thousands of stars appeared.
‘Beautiful.’ Dampier was trying to climb stiffly to his feet. ‘But cold, Mr Rafferty. Damn cold.’
When they rose at dawn the stars had all gone but there was something sharp, exhilarating and encouraging about the smell in the air. It was fresh and clean and tantalizingly different from what they knew it would be when the sun came out to drain them of energy.
The wind had died and when the sun
