The Sand Panthers by Leo Kessler

through the man’s veil and into his nostrils. ‘Try that one on for size you bloody queer!’ he grunted and heaved upwards. The Arab screamed shrilly. Hot blood spurted out of his nostrils and soaked his veil red. Schulze had no pity. He did not relax his terrible grip. Instead he ripped upwards even more, with the Arab wriggling frantically on his fingers like a hooked fish, blood streaming everywhere.
    ‘Look out, Major!’ the ‘Prof’ quavered through bloody, toothless lips.
    Von Dodenburg spun round. Two Arabs had appeared above the edge of the turret behind him. He fired instinctively. The right one threw up his arms with a scream of sheer agony and disappeared. The other lunged at the Major with a curved knife. He pressed the trigger of his pistol but nothing happened. He had run out of ammunition! The Arab’s dark eyes above the veil sparkled with cruel triumph. His knife whizzed through the air. Just in time von Dodenburg parried it with his pistol. Steel locked against steel. Desperately von Dodenburg pulled back his pistol. Before the Arab could lunge again, he thrashed the pistol across his face. The man’s nosebone snapped like a twig underfoot in a dry summer. Great gobs of thick red blood spattered the front of von Dodenburg’s shirt. The Arab disappeared over the side of the turret, screaming.
    The next moment another appeared, just as Schulze let go of the man he was holding. He dived for his machine pistol. On the turret-edge, the Arab levelled his rifle at the bending man’s broad back, a look of triumphant anticipation in his night-black eyes. His finger crooked round the trigger. At that range he couldn’t miss.
    Just as he fired, a furious burst of 9mm slugs ripped his back away, and hands fluttering frenetically, he fell down to the sand. Von Dodenburg slumped to the bloody, cartridge-case littered metal deck in exhausted relief. There was no mistaking that sound. It was the high-pitched, hysterical hiss of a German machine pistol. Sergeant Doerr had found his way through the rock ridges after all. They were saved!

    *  *  *

    ‘ No! ’ the boy warned, as Slaughter raised his Tommy gun to tackle the panzer grenadiers who had appeared on the scene so dramatically and who were now pouring down the slope, firing from the hip at the completely surprised Blue Veils. ‘Don’t fire!’
    Before Slaughter could react, the boy had knocked the Tommy gun from his hands and throwing away his own precious rifle, had raised his hands in a token of surrender.
    The nearest panzer grenadier, a fresh-faced youth, eyes wild under his peaked cap, raised his Schmeisser as if to mow the surrendering Blue Veil down. Then he thought better of it. ‘All right, keep those paws in the air,’ he cried in German, ‘and walk up to the halftracks – slowly.’
    The Blue Veil did not understand German, but the iron butt of the Schmeisser slamming into his skinny ribs told him all he wanted to know. Hands raised high in the air and accompanied by Slaughter, who had understood the German, he walked up the slope towards the waiting halftracks, their engines still ticking over. ‘Can you drive?’ the boy asked out of the corner of his mouth, ‘one of those?’
    Slaughter stepped over the body of the old Chief, his face now looking as if someone had thrown a handful of strawberry jam into it. ‘Yes,’ he whispered back. ‘But what are you going to do?’
    Before the boy had time to reply, they were level with the first halftrack and its driver was indicating that they should come forward slowly and be searched, his pistol held at the ready.
    The boy advanced as ordered, hands held straight in the air. Behind him, Slaughter gasped. The boy had one of the Blue Veils’ tiny, yet deadly throwing knives tied to the back of his wrist by a piece of rag, and the soldier could not see it.
    ‘That’s enough,’ the young panzer grenadier ordered and jerked his pistol upwards threateningly.
    The boy halted. ‘ NOW! ’