The Key to Rebecca - Ken Follett [61]
He drew a thick forefinger down across the map. “Now consider the second prong, the main assault, on our eastern flank. This is held by the Italian Army. The attack is to be led by an Indian brigade. Knowing those Indians, and knowing our Italians, I assume the attack will succeed. I therefore order a vigorous riposte.
“One: The Italians will counterattack from the west. Two: The Panzers, having repelled the other prong of the attack at Sidra Ridge, will turn about and attack the Indians from the north. Three: Tonight our engineers will clear a gap in the minefield at Bir el-Harmat, so that the Fifteenth Panzers can make a swing to the south, emerge through the gap, and attack the British forces from the rear.”
Von Mellenthin, listening and watching, nodded appreciation. It was a typical Rommel plan, involving rapid switching of forces to maximize their effect, an encircling movement, and the surprise appearance of a powerful division where it was least expected, in the enemy’s rear. If it all worked, the attacking Allied brigades would be surrounded, cut off and wiped out.
If it all worked.
If the spy was right.
Kesselring said to Rommel: “I think you could be making a big mistake.”
“That’s your privilege,” Rommel said calmly.
Von Mellenthin did not feel calm. If it worked out badly, Berlin would soon hear about Rommel’s unjustified faith in poor intelligence; and von Mellenthin would be blamed for supplying that intelligence. Rommel’s attitude to subordinates who let him down was savage.
Rommel looked at the note-taking lieutenant. “Those, then, are my orders for tomorrow.” He glared defiantly at Kesselring.
Von Mellenthin put his hands in his pockets and crossed his fingers.
Von Mellenthin remembered that moment when, sixteen days later, he and Rommel watched the sun rise over Tobruk.
They stood together on the escarpment northeast of El Adem, waiting for the start of the battle. Rommel was wearing the goggles he had taken from the captured General O’Connor, the goggles which had become a kind of trademark of his. He was in top form: bright-eyed, lively and confident. You could almost hear his brain tick as he scanned the landscape and computed how the battle might go.
Von Mellenthin said: “The spy was right.”
Rommel smiled. “That’s exactly what I was thinking.”
The Allied counterattack of June 5 had come precisely as forecast, and Rommel’s defense had worked so well that it had turned into a counter-counterattack. Three of the four Allied brigades involved had been wiped out, and four regiments of artillery had been captured. Rommel had pressed his advantage remorselessly. On June 14 the Gazala Line had been broken and today, June 20, they were to be-siege the vital coastal garrison of Tobruk.
Von Mellenthin shivered. It was astonishing how cold the desert could be at five o’clock in the morning.
He watched the sky.
At twenty minutes past five the attack began.
A sound like distant thunder swelled to a deafening roar as the Stukas approached. The first formation flew over, dived toward the British positions, and dropped their bombs. A great cloud of dust and smoke arose, and with that Rommel’s entire artillery forces opened fire with a simultaneous earsplitting crash. Another wave of Stukas came over, then another: there were hundreds of bombers.
Von Mellenthin said: “Fantastic. Kesselring really did it.”
It was the wrong thing to say. Rommel snapped: “No credit to Kesselring: today we are directing the planes ourselves.”
The Luftwaffe was putting on a good show, even so, von Mellenthin thought; but he did not say it.
Tobruk was