The Rats of Tobruk by John Berchmans Devine

Author:John Berchmans Devine
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Pickle Partners Publishing
Published: 2016-07-19T00:00:00+00:00

Perhaps a few quick word sketches may give something of the atmosphere of bombing raids.

Firstly, from the point of view of one spending a raid in a shelter:

Men are walking to and fro across the courtyard, and business goes on as usual. Thus the stretched canvas is set. Now someone with ears better than his neighbour has heard a distant intermittent hum, and is moving towards the shelter in a manner meant to convey to his fellow beings that he merely wishes to see that the shelter has been well swept. But now others have heard the distant hum, and more people change their direction and begin to converge towards the shelter. The hum is getting louder, and more venturesome souls are searching the sky for the planes. Even these, however, are usually fairly close to the door of the shelter, and at this minute a shrill, rising, soul-searing crescendo whistle jerks the tempo of all movement to double quick time, and everyone tries to beat the whistle to the shelter. Behind the brick blast wall of the shelter is the narrow arched doorway. Passing behind the concrete walls, we turn a sharp right-angle bend, and there is the main corridor of the shelter, with an opening similar to that through which we have entered at the other end. In the dim blue light people are still scurrying round and jockeying for comfortable positions, for who knows how long this raid may be? While movement is still going on, a distant crash indicates the fall of the first bomb. Gradually order comes out of chaos, and everyone is seated with his back against the wall and his legs stretched out straight in front of him. Along a corridor left in the centre of the shelter, boots in various stages of disrepair point up towards the roof at various angles on each side. Some of the owners stare silently at the floor, while others chatter artificially to each other. By now the heavy anti-aircraft gun has opened up, and the hollow reverberating crashes shake the concrete tunnel and cause dust and pieces of rubble to detach themselves from among the cobwebs on the shelter roof and fall to the musty floor.

Now, from somewhere near at hand, a Bofors gun (a light, anti-aircraft type firing shells) coughs apologetically five times, stops, and then coughs five more times. Flashes and reverberations are growing more intense, and—sure sign of the approaching proximity of the planes—a few of the more optimistic machine-gunners have already opened up at decreasing range and added their light rattle to the general din. Now the whistle and crash of bombs become more frequent, and at each whistle the shelter occupants, who are not now prone to much conversation, instinctively crouch lower, while at each crash their tension relaxes and up they bob again. There is a particularly loud and piercing whistle, and someone mutters, “This’ll be a close one.” There is a mighty crash, the shelter shakes, and a great

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