To Dampier’s ironbound honest military soul, it went hard to steal arms – even from an Italian dump. ‘There are over two hundred of us,’ he pointed out.
‘Well, two hundred’s a bit of a tall order,’ Clutterbuck admitted. ‘But I ought to be able to get a few.’
Dampier raised no objections. ‘Sergeant Clegg,’ he said. ‘Fit him out with an Italian uniform.’
When Clutterbuck returned with the lorry after dark, he was grinning all over his face.
‘Only twenty-five,’ he apologized. ‘But about five thousand rounds of ammunition and a Bren. I couldn’t make it no more.’
‘Never mind. Never mind. We already have a few.’ After so long in the wilderness, Dampier was excited to be back into his own as commanding officer of an armed unit. ‘How did you do it?’
Clutterbuck touched his nose. ‘That’s a trade secret, innit.’
That night Italian Lancia trucks prowled round the town. The Italians, still unaware of the Australians’ presence and startled to find themselves looking down the muzzles of rifles held by gaunt-looking Antipodeans, could see no other option but quietly to put down what they were doing and march off into captivity. They were thin on the ground now because most of the Italian units had been moved east into the desert and those who were left were largely lines of communications troops. One after the other they were snatched up in shadowed corners and their weapons taken. Doors were flung open and ferocious Australian faces appeared, and the number of prisoners taken at Sofi gradually grew larger and the stock of weapons increased.
The next day had hardly begun when they added two 47 mm guns, two machine-guns and more rifles, and, guided by the enthusiastic Dampier, Rafferty and the Australian NCOs, they were taking up positions in the trees and buildings on either side of the main road running into the town from the south. Dampier might have been pompous, lacking in humour and a bit of a bore, but he knew his job as a soldier. And this was the opportunity he’d been waiting for ever since 1939. Standing in the middle of the road, he directed small groups of men into drainage ditches or to the rooms and flat roofs of the empty houses. It seemed a perfect place for an ambush.
Late in the afternoon, Coffin, who’d been reconnoitring to the south, appeared at full speed in Erwin’s Mercedes, trailing an enormous cloud of yellow dust.
‘They’re on the way!’ he yelled.
‘Who are?’ Dampier yelled back.
‘Looks like a Blackshirt battalion.’
‘Which way are they coming?’
‘Right up your nose,’ Coffin said cheerfully. ‘They should be here in a quarter of an hour.’
The approaching cloud of dust was spotted within five minutes. Gradually it took the shape of a column of vehicles, mostly open trucks crowded with men, interspersed here and there with light armoured vehicles and led by two motorcyclists and a staff car containing a group of officers. Through the X12s they looked dusty and bedraggled and Morton identified them with ease.
‘They’re not Blackshirts,’ he crowed. ‘They’re the good old Longhi Hares. They won’t give us much trouble.’
The Italians weren’t expecting any opposition. Zuq had been Italian when they’d left and, since it was behind them, they were expecting it to be Italian when they returned. The Australians waited in a vengeful mood.
‘Wait till you see the whites of their eyes,’ Fee ordered. ‘Nobody fires until the word’s given.’
When Dampier gave the word the blast that hit the leading vehicles created chaos at once. The two motorcyclists veered from the road and disappeared into the drainage ditches on either side. The staff car followed, to end up nose-down, its rear wheels spinning, a cloud of steam rising from the engine. The lorries behind it swung aside and stopped dead. An armoured car endeavoured to bring its gun to bear but one of the Australians who had been practising with the 47 mms hit it with his first shot and it burst into flames.
Clegg watched the slaughter, shocked. Up to that moment, he hadn’t seen much of the war because he’d left England before the blitz had started. In Cairo he hadn’t been involved with the desert fighting at all and their adventure behind the Italian lines had been almost a joke. Even the killing at the prisoner-of-war camp at Sofi had been in the dark. This was something new and in the full glare of the sun.
A machine-gun opened up and, his head down, trying to shoot without getting hit himself – something he hadn’t completely worked out how to do – Clegg heard a cry behind him and saw someone reeling away. But there were more bodies in the road now and the Australians further down the hill began to pour in a withering fire from behind the Italian column. Their bullets started to whistle over his head.
‘Comrades and bosom friends,’ he gasped. ‘I reckon the Italians are going to win this battle! They’ll still be around after we’ve all shot each other!’
For a while it seemed he might even be right because the Italians were beginning to take cover under the lorries and fire back. Then a white flag appeared on the end of a pole with such alacrity it seemed almost as if the Italians had had it ready, and the firing died down a little. They were just about to stand up when it started again with renewed vigour and it was then that Clegg saw a Union Jack being waved from the drainage ditch by the side of the road. It was held by Micklethwaite and he looked frightened to death.
‘What’s he doing there?’ Clinch said. ‘The silly bugger’ll get his head blown off.’
The sight of the terrified Micklethwaite almost among the Italians did something to Clegg. Micklethwaite had looked bewildered most of the time he’d been with them and a lot of the time scared stiff, but at that moment he seemed totally lost
