The Knight´s Legacy

El Alamein- 1942

EL ALAMEIN-EGYPT

NOVEMBER 1942

In the middle of the night darkness the lights flashed on the Northwestern horizon, beyond and very far from the dark line of dunes. The stifling  Sahara wind had ceased blowing a couple of minutes earlier. Corporal Ugo Lucioni lifted his glasses and looked around. There were no traces of the comrades who accompanied him until the beginning of the simoom. They were the scarce remains of the 3rd Battalion of the Trento Infantry Division's which had now disappeared. Ugo did not know if they had been covered by the flying sand sea and lay under a dune in recently formed or they had been simply scattered in the vastness. The notion of being again alone in the middle of the Sahara desert settled gradually in his mind, giving way to a growing despair. The Germans had withdrawn in a disorderly way aboard armored trucks and the few surviving trucks and had left the  Italian infantry in the rearguard, deprived of means of transport and combat, since their Ariete armored division had been decimated. Infants only had the essential water and food they could carry with them, and in the long walk were gradually throwing away non essential elements for mere survival, including weaponry. They marched behind the line of combat-which the English and their allies pushed further to the North and West- in the unlikely attempt to reach into new Axis lines. The first withdrawal order received commanded to pull back to the Kadim Quaret, but this wretched village had already fallen into the hands of the allies and the new order was to march to Mersah Matruh, distant 80 kilometers, distance virtually impossible to cover on foot, with scarce supplies and water and under constant attack by British aircraft.

Thus concluded the battle of El Alamein, one of the largest and fiercest armor fighting throughout history. An army of one hundred and four thousand German and Italian troops had faced over two hundred thousand British, Australians, New Zealanders, South African, Indian and French, who had a net superiority in tanks and cannons, and the crucial air supremacy. However, thank to the military genius of the leading German General Erwin Rommel and the mobility and firepower of his Afrika Korps they had been repeatedly close to tilt the decisive battle in their favor. Finally the lack of refueling, the great distance to the bases of the men in the front and the tiredness had turned the scales in favor of the allies, commanded by the English General Montgomery. In this way the dangerous maneuver which led the men of the Third Reich and their Italian allies at the gates of Alexandria and Cairo, and therefore the control of the strategic Suez Canal was aborted.

For Ugo, four frightening months of fighting in the trenches of the desert in the middle of the hot sun during the day and an intense cold at night were coming to an end. He left behind the bodies of many friends, shattered by the constant bombardment of the English artillery, air strikes, assaults of armored cars followed by the enemy infantry, night raids between the minefields and pierced bayonet charges, all was over.

Ugo was now alone. He tried to calm his mind doing some military routines in order to focus on familiar and mechanical things that could give him a false and transient feeling of security and predictability. Thus, he verified the state of his uniform, his food ration, and examined the contents of his canteen, which was only a little less than half full. He decided to walk through the cold of the night, thinking to find a shelter from the Sun during the day, avoid the fast dehydration, aggravated by exercise of the march.

He walked the desert for hours. Once he found the remains of a destroyed English armored car, but on examination it was found that it was completely empty and could not anything useful. He thought that possibly another survivor had already passed and any water or food that could have been there was already taken. Totally discouraged continued their march at random, since he no longer knew where the new front line was.

He drank the last drops of water from the canteen. The afternoon brought a small relief that as he knew was only transient to the dehydrating action of the Sun. He wanted to continue the march but he was already at the limit of his forces; his legs refused to go one step further and he fell to the ground, unable to obtain that his body obeyed his will. Consciousness was abandoning him slowly, a true defense mechanism against their desperate situation. Drowsiness, from which perhaps he would not return, seemed an escape for the exhausted body. He stayed  lying with his face on the still warm sand.

The lights came in the midst of the total darkness of a moonless night. The driver of the jeep stopped the vehicle at a certain distance from the dark figure that lay ahead

“Is an Italian soldier, Lieutenant .” Said someone with a strong Australian accent. “He doesn´t move.”

The officer pulled out his pistol from the holster in anticipation of possible ambushes but ultimately knew in advance that it was simply a soldier lost behind. The corporal approached and placed his fingers on the neck of the man lying down.

“Still breathing, though very faintly.”

They checked that the Italian was not armed, and deposited him in the jeep box . Then they searched nearby, confirming that there were no more traces of men or equipment, and continued their march towards the rear of the Australian task force.

CHAPTER 4.1

CAMP SONDERWATER

SOUTH AFRICA

JANUARY 1943

Ugo Lucioni breathed relieved for the first time in a long time. The tensions of a terrible battle, wandering through the desert without hope of getting out of it alive, the hard journey in military trucks and trains to South Africa had marked his character in indelible form. Only as he arrived at the huge camp of war prisoners his muscles and mind began to relax. Ironically he thought a prison was the safest Household that he had in three years.

The last trip in truck Ugo made a close friendship with Renzo Roselli, former tankist of the Ariete Division of Veneto so they were almost countrymen. Renzo was recovering from wounds received  when by the explosion on his weak Italian tank, known as "Tin of sardines" by its crew, not comparable in armor or firepower with the German Panzer or the new Sherman provided by the Americans to the English.

Renzo, active and dynamic man despite his injuries and defeats was already planning his return to civilian life when the war ended. He wouldn't stay in the devastated Europe since he expected his cousins in Argentina to renew their offer to work with them in their small fruit farm in the Valley of the Rio n***o, in Patagonia, where the more arms were always needed. He was trying to convince to Ugo to try his luck accompanying him but to accomplish that they had to earn the money for the trip. Ugo, who liked the idea like good peasant with his feet on the ground preferred to wait for the war -which already seemed him endless- finally came to an end with the predictable fall of the Axis. He agreed with his friend that in the defeated Italy there would be nothing for him. But neither of them knew that still were missing two long and bitter years to the end of the largest conflict of Humanity.

Meanwhile, prisoners who were capable of working were used in the tasks of extending Sonderwater, the largest prisoners of war in South Africa and perhaps throughout the British Empire, this expansion was needed to deal with the successive waves of thousands of German and Italian prisoners who had surrendered in the withdrawal from the border with Egypt from El Alamein passing through all the Cyrenaica until the last bastion in Tunisia. Some Germans were uncooperative and problematic, swollen even with the belief in the German racial superiority, thereby preventing them to resign themselves to their situation of captivity, but the vast majority was defeated and downcast men.

Ugo and Renzo were among the improvised masons; they built long and murky barracks for new prisoners. In moments of weakness they reminded one another that should not give up and that they would still have a future no matter how black everything looked in their current situation. Men with a positive mindset, focused on everyday tasks, keeping a target in front of them but without tormenting on  planning how to get to it, since at that time they had very little control over their lives. In this way they were defeating weather and discouragement.

One day an English officer came into the hut occupied by the Italians asked all occupants to form a raw, and selected thirty prisoners, including Ugo and Renzo. He explained that they would go to build a temporary bridge over a brook located about fifty kilometers from the camp, a task that would last about three weeks. The elected men boarded two trucks that were already waiting for them. Along the way they passed a hut that housed German prisoners, where ten other men climbed. Most of the Germans were youths with a lost staring, discouraged men, returning from a dream of greatness. Two of them nevertheless caught Ugo´s attention  unless he could not point out because. One was an individual of sallow skin, medium height, with a large old scar all across the left side of the face, from the jaw to the cheekbone, which gave a sinister touch to his overall appearance. The other was a burly man, with a crew cut in his hair, and showed in his actions be a subordinate. The other Germans sat in the truck leaving an empty space surrounding the two characters. All of them wore frayed uniforms of the Wehrmacht, privates or low-ranking Non-Commissioned Officers.

One of the Italian prisoners called Russo spoke German, as he had worked before the war in Bavaria, and along the way he was talking to younger Germans, while the others dozed.

Arriving at the destination point, the contingent of prisoners used the rest of the morning in establishing a camp along the stream and preparing a frugal meal. While they were eating, Russo told the small group that formed around him.

“I have a bad feeling  about those two older tedeschi. They are apparently called Grobel and Scheid. The other Germans do not believe that they are simple soldiers  and do not speak with them. Instead they inspire them  fear. They believe that they are members of the SS or some other elite unit disguised in uniforms of the Wehrmacht to avoid any investigation or punishment.”

The information was disturbing since the SS was feared by the despotism and brutality of its members, even within the scope of the Axis troops.

All that day they worked hard, and in the evening, after an also frugal dinner, they lay on beds that they had improvised. Ugo slept at the very moment his head touched the floor.

He was awakened by intense shooting, whistles and men running. As he woke up agitated he glimpsed in the dark one of the Italians who came with news.

“Grobel and Scheid escaped from the camp, after stabbing  two Hindu sentries. They are looking for them in the vicinity but they got into the jungle and their trail is now cold. I hope that the guards do not take reprisals against us.”

Since then the camp security measures were tightened, and the life conditions and closure of prisoners worsened. They did not forget easily the two henchmen responsible for their new situation.