ACROSS WADI ZIGZAU

On the afternoon of March 22 the Germans counterattacked the Eighth Army's positions in the Mareth Line and drove the British infantry back upon the Wadi Zigzau. In order to relieve the situation of this infantry, the British command that evening ordered troops across the wadi to counterattack the German counter-attackers. TIME Correspondent Jack Belden accompanied the troops and cabled this soldier's-eye view of war:

As a shell rang above us, the battalion commander climbed down into a slit trench and, with a flashlight held over a map, began to explain the situation to his company commanders.

"The plan is for us to cross the wadi to retake the high ground. We will get the support of a creeping barrage. I hope they get that barrage right," he added wistfully.

"Tell your companies," he said, looking at his commanders, "that we will distinguish ourselves magnificently."

I went with a captain called Peter in his Bren gun carrier. His job was to go in with the first infantry attack and then to haul mortars and anti-tank guns across the wadi, once we had consolidated our positions. Zero hour was originally 11, then it was postponed until 1 in the morning

Under the open sky in the bright glare of the moon the thin column of soldiers advancing with the slow step of a funeral procession appeared pitifully small. As they went with dead, plodding steps by me and up and out of sight over the slope, I thought that in the final analysis it is not planes, nor tanks, nor guns that bring victory in battle, but the infantry that go forward and drive the enemy from their positions and open a way for the rest of the army to follow over their bodies.

A terrible scream rent the air and a concussion shook the earth. One shell after another whistled by, exploded with an ear-bursting crack on the slope.

The Crossing. Peter told the driver to go ahead, and we rumbled up the slope and headed down the other side toward the Wadi Zigzau. Abruptly we came to the brink. Across the wadi machine guns were dueling with unexampled ferocity. Below, between two banks, perhaps 50 yards across, glinted water and broken pieces of ground. It looked like an infernal death trap to enter.

Venturing slowly out across the lip of the gulch, we plunged downward. Dimly I saw troops hurling great bundles of fagots on to the muck and mud in the bottom of the track, trying to build a bridge for our tanks to cross. Tracers were spitting down toward them.

We roared angrily across and up the opposite slope and came to a halt under a palm tree. Peter jumped out of the carrier and an officer from another carrier that had followed behind us ran up and said, "Peter, do you think we ought to be here?"

"I don't know," answered Peter, "everything's confused." Both officers disappeared.

Under Cover. We were in a thin grove of palm trees, on the very bank of the wadi. Among these few trees were crowded a dozen or more Valentine tanks. We scampered out of the carrier and crawled under a tank. My companions under the tank with me, in the fashion of British and American soldiers, began gibing at each other and at the situation.

"Tell them you marched with the Eighth Army," said one, quoting a speech of Churchill to troops.

"Yeah, tell 'em you marched under a tank," the other laughed.

At this moment I noticed two figures staggering out of the gloom toward us, one supporting the other. With a little gasp Peter fell on the ground in front of us. "Almost castrated me, that one did," he said. He had been wounded in the leg.

Peter was laughing, "We're not supposed to be here, but we can't get back now. Ha, ha, I brought you to a place where you're not supposed to be!"

He seemed anxious to keep his mind clear by talking. "The colonel's going to put in his attack now. The barrage will start at 1:30."

I looked at my watch again. It was a quarter of 2. "Your watch is fast," said Peter. "It'll come."

Five minutes later four or five shells came whistling over from our side of the lines. That was all. "Do they call that a barrage?" said someone.

Prisoners. Three more figures came through the gloom toward us. They were bending low and running, dodging a line of tracer bullets. One of them with a rifle and bayonet shoved the other two ahead of him and toward us. "Prisoners," he said. "What'll I do with them?"

"Kill them," shouted a voice. "I'll kill the bastards myself."

"No, don't do that," said another voice, and the prisoners fell on their knees before us.

"Feel under his testicles for hand grenades," said somebody, "they're tricky bastards." A British soldier scampered up and announced he was going to cross back over the wadi.

"Good boy," said Peter, "can you take these prisoners with you?"

"Sure."

"Got a gun?"

"No, I don't need one. They'll come with me. Come on, chums," he said menacingly, and the three of them scampered off.

The Recrossing. An officer who had talked with headquarters on a radio came and announced: "The barrage will now come down at 2:45." But when the appointed hour came, and then 3 o'clock, and then 3:30, and still there was no barrage, we were gripped by disappointment and almost despair.

Shortly after 4 o'clock, when the barrage from our guns had still failed to open up, an officer came to our hole and announced that he was going back to the other side. Quickly I decided to accompany him. With a swift look of regret at the drooping form of Peter, who was getting his first sleep in 60 hours, I darted out toward the crossing. Immediately a stream of tracers flew over the wadi. Without hesitation we plunged swiftly over the bank, down onto the track crossing, up the other side.

Shortly before dawn, as I stumbled into Brigade headquarters, shells in great numbers, like a huge flock of birds, flew over my head, their sound diminishing in the distance as they sang toward the German line. At last the long awaited barrage had started.

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