Results of the Battle

Chapter 67 Results of the Battle

Upon seeing Loran, the soldier with the gun paused for a moment, then lowered it. He turned and shouted something into the tent, at which point the tent flap was lifted, and a person emerged.

The man was very tall, a full head taller than Loran, with broad shoulders, a square jaw, and a face tanned a deep brown. He wore aviator sunglasses that reflected the white light of the desert. He wore a faded khaki shirt with the sleeves rolled up above his elbows, revealing two strong forearms with a long scar running from his wrist to his elbow.

Campbell stood at attention and saluted Lorraine.

Loran stood at the camp entrance, watching Campbell salute him.

The salute was impeccable; his right hand, fingers together, fingertips touching his temple, paused for a full two seconds. In the desert, in a place where even water is rationed, no one cares about the precision of a salute. But Campbell's salute was impeccable, as if he were back on the parade grounds of Sandhurst Military Academy.

Loran raised his hand and returned the greeting.

His hands were trembling. Not from excitement, but from exhaustion. He hadn't slept a wink for three days and two nights since leaving Tobruk. With every step, the wounds on his legs felt like they were being sawed back and forth with a dull knife. His lips were split in six places, each oozing blood and forming layers of black scabs.

Campbell looked at him, then stepped aside to make way for the path leading to the tent behind him.

"Please come in, sir," he said.

Lorraine followed him inside. Everything in the camp was quiet; the semi-circle of trucks formed a low wall in the desert, blocking the sandstorm blowing in from the north. Tents were pitched on the leeward side, their canvases rustling in the sand. Several soldiers squatted beside ammunition boxes, cleaning their rifles. They looked up at Lorraine, then looked down again. They didn't recognize him. They only saw a wounded French officer following their division commander into the tent.

It was darker inside the tent than outside. The canvas blocked most of the sunlight, with only a few beams of light filtering through the gaps, illuminating the dust motes in the air. In the center was a table made of ammunition boxes, on which lay a map, with a spent cartridge case on top of it. A line of small writing was engraved on the cartridge case, which Loran couldn't make out. Two people stood beside the table.

Leclerc stood on the left, hands behind his back, back ramrod straight. He saw Lorraine enter, his lips twitched as if he wanted to say something, but he swallowed it back. He simply nodded, a look of delight in his eyes.

Moshead stood on the right, a crumpled unlit cigarette clutched in his hand. He saw Loran, looked him up and down, his gaze settling on Loran's blood-soaked trouser leg. His brow furrowed, like a snake whose tail had been stepped on.

"Where are your men?" Moshead asked.

Loran sat down opposite him. As he sat down, the wound on his leg was pulled, causing him to gasp in pain. But he didn't frown; he simply placed his hand on his knee and waited for the pain to subside.

"Eighteen hundred," he said. "It was two thousand three when I left Tobruk, and I lost five hundred on the way."

Moshead's brow furrowed even more. "Lost? How did it get lost?"

"They got separated. Some collapsed on the road, some encountered German reconnaissance teams. In the desert, turning back meant death."

Moshead didn't say anything. He put the crumpled cigarette in his mouth, took out a lighter from his pocket, and tried to light it several times before it finally did.

Campbell walked to the table, picked up the spent cartridge from the map, and set it aside. The map was covered with markings: red lines for German forces, blue lines for British forces, and green lines for Free French forces. The red line stretched north from Lower Rega, turned a corner outside Tobruk, and then stopped. The blue line ran west from Egypt, stopping south of Tobruk as well. And the green line? It started in Chad, crossed the entire Sahara, turned at Wadi Rum, circled back to Lower Rega, and then came back, drawing a huge arc that encircled all the red lines.

Campbell's finger landed on the location of Porto Regga on the map. There was a circle drawn there with an X inside.

"The fuel depot," he said. "Twelve fuel tanks, two thousand four hundred tons of fuel, all burned. The German barracks are gone, the anti-aircraft guns are gone, and the patrol motorcycles are burned to a pile of metal frames."

He looked up at Loran.

"It was your men. Ramorini. He took six men and stole twelve boxes of explosives from the port warehouse, buried them under the oil tanks. They detonated them at 4:34 a.m., and none of the twelve tanks survived."

Loren nodded. He didn't ask how Ramorini was doing. He didn't need to. Ramorini had made his own choices.

"Lamorini," he asked, "did he leave any message?"

Campbell pulled a piece of paper from his pocket and handed it to Lorraine. The paper was small, folded into quarters, its edges damp with sweat. Lorraine took it and unfolded it. There was only one line on the paper, written in a very messy hand, as if it had been written with a trembling hand: "Tell Lorraine I did it."

Lorraine stared at the words for a long time. He folded the paper again, put it in his pocket, and placed it against his heart.

"Does he have any other relatives?" he asked.

Campbell shook his head. "No. He's been in Africa for thirty years, unmarried, and childless. The Foreign Legion is his home."

Loran nodded. He stood up and walked to the map.

"Where is Rommel now?"

Campbell moved his finger to the outskirts of Tobruk. There were three red lines drawn there: east, south, and west of the city.

The one in the east of the city is the thickest, and the one in the south of the city is the thinnest.

"Yesterday morning, Rommel launched a probing attack on the east side of the city. A tank company and an infantry battalion fought for an hour, surveying your position from beginning to end. Then he withdrew. Not because he couldn't take it, but because he discovered there were no follow-up troops behind your position. He realized he had been tricked."

His finger moved to the south of the city. "Early this morning, the Italians began to retreat. Not in an orderly manner, but in a run. The Ariete Division abandoned more than twenty tanks and dozens of artillery pieces and ran north. Rommel did not stop them. He had no time to deal with the Italians now; he wanted to gather all the mobile troops and wait for the retreat."

His finger finally moved to the north of Tobruk. "Rommel's main force is still in the north. The 15th Panzer Division, the 5th Light Panzer Division, and several Italian infantry divisions. Roughly estimated, they number only about 60,000 men, which is different from the actual intelligence. They still have about 200 tanks, but they're out of fuel. Their fuel will only last for ten days. After ten days, they won't be able to move."

Loran stared at the red lines for a long time. He went through all the lines in his mind—Rommel's, Campbell's, and his own. Sixty thousand men, two hundred tanks, no fuel. Twenty-three thousand men, forty-seven tanks, fuel. Four to one, but he had fuel, Rommel didn't.

"Ten days," Loran said. "Rommel's fuel will only last ten days. After ten days, his tanks will be nothing but scrap metal. His trucks will be nothing but scrap metal. His artillery will be nothing but scrap metal. His sixty thousand men will become sixty thousand legs."

His finger moved across the map, starting north of Tobruk, westward along the coastline, past Lower Regga, past Sirte, past Misrata, and finally stopping at a point.

Tripoli.

He looked up at the people inside the tent.

"Rommel's oil depots are in the port of Brega, that's his main reserve. But Tripoli also has reserves, not many, maybe enough for him to last half a month. If he can withdraw his troops to Tripoli and get that batch of oil, he can reorganize his defenses and wait for the Germans to bring oil by sea. At that point, we'll have to start all over again."

His fingers tapped on the map, pointing to Tripoli.

"So we can't let him get there. We have to intercept him on his retreat route. We have to attack his rear guard, cut off his supplies, and slow him down. Every day we delay him, he has to burn more fuel. Every day he burns more fuel, he is more in danger of running out of fuel. By the time he reaches Lower Riga, he will have run out of fuel. At that point, he will have no choice but to stop. To stop is to wait for death."

Moshead frowned and spoke. "You make it sound so easy. We only have 23,000 men and 47 tanks. Rommel has 60,000 men and 200 tanks. Even if he runs out of fuel, he still has artillery, soldiers, and fortifications. What are you going to use to stop him?"

Loran did not answer immediately. He turned and looked at Moshead.

"Do you know what Rommel is most afraid of right now?" he asked.

Moshead paused for a moment. "What are you afraid of?"

"You're afraid of me."

Loran stared into Moshead's eyes.

The tent fell silent instantly.

Moshead stared at Loran, his mouth slightly agape, as if he were seeing his superior standing angrily in front of him when he was still a green recruit.

"I can't help but ask," Loran asked calmly.

"What do you think we should do? Wait for Rommel to escape? Wait for German and Italian supplies to reach him, and then watch him sweep across Africa again? Send our spoils back ourselves, or do you think everything we're doing is just stalling for time?"

Campbell regained his senses and looked at Loran, questioning Moshead.

He realized that they had been oppressed by the Germans for too long and dared not even dream of victory.

Lorraine took a deep breath.

"Send a telegram to London now, requesting air and naval support. All we need to do is cut off all of Rommel's supplies. Gather all ammunition, and once airlifted supplies are spotted, immediately launch a fire attack without prior notice."

"In addition, the entire army was divided into twelve detachments, each led by a brigadier general, to surround the German troops and launch repeated harassment attacks to wear down the soldiers' morale. Furthermore, in the event of a surprise attack, they were to retreat immediately and concentrate their firepower to break through the flanks."

"If there are no other issues, we will disband immediately to allow the soldiers to rest and recuperate. They need plenty of rest."

After watching Lorraine leave, Campbell walked to the map on the table and pondered the possible next marching route of the German army.