It Happened to Me...

Saved by dead Sapper

The literary agent George Greenfield (1917-2000) relates a remarkable episode in his war memoir, Chasing the Beast (1998). In the summer of 1941 Greenfield was part of the 44th Division in North Africa, which was rushed forward to help construct and man the Alamein defensive position against Rommel’s Afrika Korps.

“The Alamein line was the narrowest stretch of the desert between the Mediterranean and the impassable Qattara Depression, where tanks would bog down to their axles in the treacherous black ooze [..] Detachments of Royal Engineers, the sappers, were ordered to lay down the widest possible minefields on the far side of the rudimentary defences. Some of the minefields were three hundred, even four hundred, yards wide. It was necessary to leave the obligatory zigzag paths through them both as a safe passage for some of the belated units still trickling back from the Knightsbridge defeat and, perhaps optimistically, for the Eighth Army to use when it had regrouped, held off the Afrika Korps, and launched its own attack. When the path was open – it would be wide enough to take a tank with a few feet to spare on either side – stakes would be driven in at intervals, coupled with long tapes to form a kind of avenue. Closing off the minefield took little time. The mother stakes and tapes would be removed and barbed wire spread across the gap at both ends, to link up with the wire already lining the extremities.

“There was gunfire in the distance as we reached our designated stretch of front-line desert. The Afrika Korps was closing in fast. I was ordered to take a fifteen-hundredweight truck, two Bren guns and a section from my platoon to drive to the nearside of the minefield and, if necessary, give supporting fire to the sappers who were completing the task of closing off the path in front. Stragglers were still pouring back but several determined troops, mainly from the Afrika Korps’s crack 90th Light Infantry Brigade, were known to have commandeered abandoned British trucks and under cover of their markings had infiltrated genuine Eighth Army units.

“We were a hundred yards or so short of our objective when we heard the crump-thump of a high-explosive shell landing not far ahead. When we arrived, there was a young bare-headed and fair-haired sapper officer lying dead. He was the only one caught out in the open. His men had been on the far side of their truck, which had taken most of the blast and the shell splinters. It was a write-off but at least it had saved their lives. They were naturally very shaken. I told them they could come back on our truck when the job was done and meanwhile I told my driver to park our truck under cover in a small wadi close by.

“The orders were to hold the position until twelve noon, even though the sappers had already finished closing off the minefield. Noon arrived and we were on the point of packing up when one of the Bren gunners gave a shout. There on the far side of the minefield was a truck with British markings. Was it a late straggler or were there 90th Light desperadoes lurking in the back? I told the men to be extra alert and watched through my field glasses.

“To our growing amazement, the front passenger – in British khaki – jumped out, went over to the barbed wire and removed the strip securing the path through the minefield. Then very slowly, at no more than walking pace, the truck drove in. It followed exactly the meandering path, zigging when it zigged and zagging when it zagged. Always at the same slow pace. Finally, after perhaps five minutes, which seemed like an age, it arrived. On its approach and seeing it was a friendly vehicle, I had instructed a couple of my fellows to remove the barbed wire that closed off the minefield at our end.

“‘How the hell did you get through there?’ I asked the driver, a sergeant. ‘You could have been blown up any minute.’

“‘It was that young officer, sir,’ he said. ‘That young one with the fair hair. He showed us where the track had been closed off and then walked ahead of us. Every time we came to an angle, he showed us which way it went. He was the one.’

“He glanced around and saw the body of the dead officer on the ground. We had not had time to put him in the back of our truck, covered by a groundsheet.

“‘Christ!’ said the sergeant. ‘That’s him. But what’s he doing, dead over there?’

“‘He was killed about twenty minutes ago,’ I said. “Long before you reached the far side of the minefield.’” [pp. 91-93] Edward Young

London

LigHts chaSed away

Back in the early Nineties I was working on the south-east coast of Britain, within the inshore fishing industry. One still summer evening, a small crew were involved in seine net fishing from the shore. Four of us were in a large rowing boat paying out a net over a roller on the stern.

Suddenly, our attention was drawn to three lights quite high in the sky, approaching in a V formation from the direction of the French coast. We all looked to the sky as they seemed to be approaching very fast and becoming larger. There was a loud noise behind us and three fighter jets raced over our heads towards the mystery lights. The lights then took off at such a speed that their passing would have gone unnoticed had we not been focused on what was happening. The jets also soon flew out of sight, a large shoal of mackerel hit the net and the previous few minutes were temporarily forgotten in the heat of the moment.

I now live in the West Country, but whenever I look out to sea on a calm, hot evening, I am reminded of that evening some 30 years ago.

Phil Griggs

Stogursey, Somerset

avIan Stand-off

I witnessed some peculiar bird behaviour in January 2010.

“tHere on tHe far side of tHe Minefield was a truck witH britisH Markings”

There had been thick snow for a number of days, and I threw some bread out into the back garden for the birds. From my kitchen I saw birds circling overhead. Then about 100 blackbirds lined up on the east fence and garage roof, and about the same number of redwings on the west fence and trees. The bread was on the snow in the (small) garden between the fences. I understand that gardens are not the typical habitat for redwings, but during the harsh winter they had moved in from the countryside in order to find food. I live on the edge of a market town, but not far from open fields and farms.

I went upstairs to obtain a better view. There was a ‘standoff’ between the two varieties of birds. It was uncannily quiet, no squawking; and ‘scouts’ still circled high above. It was like the gangs of the Jets and the Sharks in West Side Story,

and also like Hitchcock’s The Birds, the way they silently lined up in a sinister fashion. They appeared to be waiting for one side to make a move for the bread. I expected combat. The silent waiting game went on for about 20 minutes. I went away to do something else for a few minutes, and when I returned the birds had gone, but the bread was still there.

When I looked again some hours later, the bread had gone, but there were no imprints in the snow of birds’ claws or of any other animal, and we hadn’t had a fresh fall of snow to cover such marks.

I was fascinated by the ‘stand-off’ – the feeling of aggression was almost palpable. I have never witnessed anything like it before. Has anyone else? Jenni Kemp

Bishop’s Stortford, Hertfordshire

vaniSHIng anIMal

About six years ago, while out walking in what I think was some time in November, on a very quiet beach in Donegal [north-west Ireland], near where a river meets the sea by some cliffs, I saw three people (there may have been a fourth a little away from the others) whom I took – from their clothes and general demeanour – to be European tourists. They were walking away from the further end of the beach towards which I was walking.

The location was Maghera strand, west of Ardara (pictured above). The cliffs here run roughly perpendicular to the beach, which stretches across the inlet; and so are partly rising from the sand and further out rise up from the Atlantic waters, with a number of marine caves, sometimes accessible on foot when the tide is out.

As the aforementioned people walked along and away from the cliff across the beach, what I took to be a small dog belonging to them that had dallied behind and now wanted to catch up with its owners came racing towards them. I was close enough to see the animal well, but not close enough to take in much detail; it seemed not to be a dog at all. From its shape and movement, it was unlike any animal I knew. I couldn’t even see for certain that it had a clearly defined head or tail, nor could I say that these features were absent. It was perhaps the size of a medium terrier; its body may have been otter-like but far shorter, and its legs were far longer and it ran somewhat like a hare. It was black.

When it seemed about 30ft [9m] or a little more from the family/group (two adults probably around 50 and a younger person) towards whom it was decidedly directing its run in a way no small, wild animal would, it seemed to become aware of my presence and that I was looking at it intently. It immediately turned around and ran back the way it had come, towards the foot of the cliff.

I quickened my pace and made towards it as, apart from the odd behaviour, the more I looked at it the less like any ordinary animal did it appear. I could still see it when I caught up with the tracks it was leaving in the sand. It ran out of sight around one of the spurs of rock which sloped out from the cliffs, around which I followed just a few moments behind.

On the other side of the spur was a further, smaller, narrow spur – this had a cleft through it shaped like a narrow, vertical lozenge maybe a foot or so long, a few feet above the sand and just below eye level. It was wide enough to pass your hand through but not much of your arm beyond the wrist, and you could look clearly through it to the sea on the other side.

It wasn’t an obstacle of any kind, as you could walk around it a few feet to the right and continue in the direction the animal had appeared to be heading. Nor was it very high at that point, but it was so steeply inclined that it was almost like a wall, and to the left it rose quickly in height to the rocks of its parent cliff. These could not have been climbed with any ease.

In any case, the animal was nowhere to be seen – it had vanished between the time it left my sight when it ran around the earlier spur and the six or seven seconds it took me to do the same. Its tracks, though, ran clearly up to the foot of the subsequent spur, directly beneath the cleft, where they stopped.

If whatever it was had wanted to run around this spur it could have done so, without reducing its speed (I must have gotten close enough to it for it to have been aware that I was following it at a fairly quick pace). It could not have climbed the rocks to the left as they were too sheer, and I would have been able to see it if it had tried.

It chose to run directly into this avoidable obstacle, and vanished. It appeared to me as if it had run up to the foot of the spur and disappeared into the cleft that cut through the rock like a window, but was no way large enough to permit the passage of an animal of its size. There were no tracks on the other side of the spur, or anywhere else other than those behind me which I had followed.

The tracks were like those of a dog or mammal, with pads and the indentations of nails, the toes maybe more splayed out than those of a dog, but also seeming to be too large-of-foot for an animal of the creature’s apparent size. And after a further while spent looking around, I retraced the tracks back along the way we had come, realising that if the creature was not running to or towards those tourists, it had been running at them.

A.R. [name on file]

Dublin, Ireland