Read Online The Sand Panthers by Leo Kessler - Free Book Online Page A

from which there was some relief in the shade. The khamsin was a searing, blistering heat that made one blink with shock, as if an oven door had been flung open to release a fearsome blast of burning air.
    ‘Jesus, Mary, Joseph!’ Schulze groaned, ‘you’d think it was bad enough with the Tommies and those Niggers out there somewhere trying to croak us – without this shitting wind roasting the nuts off us!’
    The almost unbearable heat was also making the young drivers of the sections of the column commanded by the two 18-year-old second-lieutenants more and more careless. Time and time again they drove into patches of soft sand because they were not alert enough and the whole column had to stop while the trapped vehicles were dugout.
    In the end, when yet another of Seitz’s Mark IVs became bogged down in soft sand, von Dodenburg’s temper got the better of him. He stopped the column, ordered Matz to drive back to where the weary young tank crew were staring numbly at the vehicle, which was up to its bogies in sand, and bellowed ‘Seitz and Meier to me – at the double!’ Both officers dropped from their vehicles and shambled wearily across to where von Dodenburg stood grimly on the turret, hands clamped to his hips. ‘ At the double! ’ he bellowed again. ‘Get the lead out of your damn tails, will you!’
    Sergeant Doerr, whose halftracks had not bogged down once because his drivers were exceedingly scared of him, guffawed. But the rest of the Wotan men were too weary to laugh even at the sight of two red-faced, sweat-lathered officers doubling through the sand as if they were green recruits back at Sennalager . Gasping painfully, their shirts black with sweat, the two of them came to a halt in front of von Dodenburg and stood to attention.
    Von Dodenburg’s red-rimmed eyes flashed angrily. ‘You call yourselves officers,’ he barked bitterly. ‘Officer means someone who commands, leads, makes decisions, advises. You two pathetic creatures have done none of those things. You have idled in your turrets and allowed your men to make the decisions – the wrong ones. That’s why tank after tank of yours has bogged down. Well, I have had enough of it. You must be taught to be officers the hard way!’
    He turned to the crestfallen corporal in charge of the tank which had bogged down. ‘All right, get all of your crew except the driver out of there, corporal!’ The crewmen dropped to the sand and stood staring up at their crimson-faced CO. ‘Corporal, clip off the turret shovels and give them to the officers!’
    Silently the Corporal did as he was commanded and stood to one side, leaving the young officers staring down at the implements in embarrassed bewilderment.
    ‘Now, you two. You will clear the sand away from this one by yourselves till the driver can start,’ von Dodenburg. announced grimly, ‘and you will clear away the sand from every other one of your vehicles that bogs down after this, personally and unaided! Perhaps that will teach you both to ensure that your drivers and commanders don’t sleep at their posts. Now get on with it!’
    Embarrassed, hurt, on the brink of tears, the two young officers began the back-breaking task of clearing the tracks, watched by equally embarrassed and sympathetic Wotan troopers.
    Thereafter there was no further bogging down of vehicles in the rest of the column, but the mood among the men, von Dodenburg knew, was rebellious. He longed to reach the Ascent and leave the hell of the Great Sand Sea.

    *  *  *

    That morning passsed with leaden feet. At midday, von Dodenburg allowed the column to stop to prepare a meal. Here and there a soldier dropped to the sand gratefully and tried to urinate. But the exercise was very painful. Their kidneys had suffered too much from the batterings and joltings of the last four days and the men had to clutch the sides of the vehicles to fight back the burning pain as they emptied their bladders. For the most part, the