fident. You could almost bear 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 ind today, June 20, they were to besiege 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 an- other: 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 a concentric fortress. The garrison itself was within a town, and the town was at the heart of a larger British-held area surrounded by a thirty-five-mile perimeter wire dotted with strongpoints. The Germans had to cross the wire, then penetrate the town, then take the garrison. A cloud of orange smoke arose in the middle of the battlefield. Von Mellenthin said: “That’s a signal from the assault engineers, telling the artillery to lengthen their range.” Rommel nodded. “Good. We’re making progress.” Suddenly von Mellenthin was seized by optimism. There was booty in Tobruk: petrol, and dynamite, and tents, and trucks–already more than half Rommel’s motorized trans- 132 Ken Follett
port consisted of captured British vehicles-and food. Von Mellenthin smiled and said: “Fresh fish for dinner?” Rommel understood his train of thought. “Liver,” he said. “Fried potatoes. Fresh bread.” “A real bed, with a feather pillow.” “In a house with stone walls to keep out the heat and the bugs.” A runner arrived with a signal. Von Mellenthin took it and read it. He tried to keep the excitement out of his voice as he said: “They’ve cut the wire at Strongpoint Sixty-nine. Group Menny is attacking with the infantry of the Afrika Korps.” “That’s it,” said Rommel. “We!ve opened a breach. Let’s It 90.
It was ten-thirty in the morning when Lieutenant Colonel Reggie Bogge poked his head around the door of Vandam’s office and said: “Tobruk is under siege.” It seemed pointless to work then. Vandam went on mechanically, reading reports from informants, considering the case of a lazy lieutenant who was due for promotion but did not deserve it, trying to think of a fresh approach to the Alex Wolff case; but everything seemed hopelessly trivial. The news became more depressing as the day wore on. The Germans breached the perimeter wire; they bridged the antitank ditch; they crossed the inner minefield; they reached the strategic road junction known as King’s Cross. Vandam went home at seven to have supper with Billy. He could not tell the boy about Tobruk: the news was not to be released at present As they ate their lamb chops, Billy said that his English teacher, a young man with a lung condition who could not get into the Army, never stopped talking about how he would love to get out into the desert and have a bash at the Hun. “I don’t believe him, though,” Billy said. “Do you?$$ “I expect he means it,” Vandam said. “He just feels guilty.” Billy was at an argumentative age. “Guilty? He can’t feel guilty-it’s not his fault.” “Unconsciously he can.” “What’s the difference?” I walked into that one, Vandam thought. He considered THE KEY TO REBECCA 133