A Knocking at the Gate

Soldiers of the First Army stood on a hilltop. They looked out over a broad valley, through which a river twisted like a piece of careless string.

Behind them were other hills, and there were hills to the right and the left. But before them, to the right of the Medjerda River's path (see map), the valley stretched straight and flat as far as the eye could see, toward Tunis.

It was not easy for the soldiers of the First Army to turn their eyes away from the valley. In the maturity of Tunisia's spring it was one vast bouquet. There were great fields of yellow and blue, purple and orange, violet and red, laid out in symmetrical squares and irregular pat terns. There were fields in which all these colors and more were mixed in dazzling profusion. Everywhere there were poppies, ripe and crimson.

There were living things in the valley: herds of cattle and horses and sheep, with dogs and Arabs tending them. And above them there was the occasional flutter of a sparrow or the swoop of a hawk. Over head the sky was bright with patches of creamy cloud. This was a valley to which men could come for peace.

But peace was not this valley's destiny. This valley was the gate to Tunis, 35 miles from the soldiers' hilltop. Of all the positions held by the Allies in Tunisia, these on the rim of the valley were the most important.

The Hill Beside the Valley. When early this month the British First Army pushed northward into hills on the valley rim, they found the going good. They took the high ground above Medjez-el-Bab. Up the nearby heights by mule pack they hauled artillery. With the artillery already in place west and south of Medjez-el-Bab, a great horseshoe of batteries covered the valley where it de bouches on the plain before Tunis. All the batteries pointed toward three objectives: the fortified hill known as Long Stop and the two hills in front of it. Without Long Stop, dominating the Medjerda valley, all the other hills would be useless, and the way into the valley would be closed.

Darkness closed over the valley. The sky cleared after a thunderstorm. The air was fresh and sweet with the smell of clover. There was hardly a sound except the distant thunder and the most distant echo of a gun. The cattle and horses and sheep had gone and the valley seemed empty of all life. It was five minutes to eight p.m.

It was the moment for which the First Army had waited and trained and fought throughout the winter, the climax toward which the Tunisian campaign had been growing for months and which the enemy had tried to stave off with counter-attacks -- the most recent of which, only two nights before, had cost him 33 tanks when his armor plunged headlong into British gun positions. It was a moment carefully chosen: the Eighth Army had taken Takrouna and was diverting Axis strength to the southwest; since before dawn other British units of the First Army had been attacking just to the south; before the next dawn American units would launch their attack to the northeast.

It was the eve of Saint George's Day, and the emblem of the First Army is the cross of Saint George.

The Climbing of the Hill. There was a flash on the horizon and another flash as the shell burst on the heights. Then all the horizon was bright with flashes and the sound was like one long rolling peal of thunder. From behind, in the nearest hills, came a jarring breath of air and the crash of those guns blended with the eerie, chilling whistle of the shells overhead, like a monstrous bat's cry. The first two hills came forward through the curtain of darkness as flares hung in the sky above them. Behind them Long Stop was still black.

The rest of this night and the day that followed were grisly. Before dawn the infantry, following the barrage, had taken most of the first hill and surrounded the second. Then it was Long Stop's turn. Because Long Stop consists of scrub and gravel, into which the Germans had dug themselves for a long stay, the attack on it had been put off until all the artillery could be brought to bear on it alone. That was not until 11:30 Friday morning. Then the guns spoke and for exactly 28 minutes the lower slopes of Long Stop Hill shook and smoked and burned. Then the barrage crept forward and upward, moving 200 yards every six minutes, and behind it--only 150 yards behind it--moved the infantry.

By 12:15 the first two brigades of infantry held the foothills; they stopped and dug in; and past them went shock troops toward the summit. Just before two o'clock the shells of a new barrage that burst on Long Stop seemed to be cracking off pieces of its summit, and the whole long hill smoked like a volcano in labor.

At two minutes before two the barrage stopped as suddenly as it had begun, and at 2:30 all but the eastern peak of Long Stop had been taken. The gate into the valley had been cracked; it had yet to be opened wide.

The First Army, which did this bitter work, and has done much more, differs from the more famous Eighth.

The Eighth, along with units from British regiments, embraces several peoples and dominions. Aside from its attached French and U.S. units, the First consists almost entirely of British regiments* of ancient name. One or another of these regiments has assisted at most of England's battles, from the time of the pike and the matchlock.

The final phase in North Africa has become a kind of race between the First and the Eighth Armies. The Eighth, which has made plenty of history, could be pardoned for wanting to hoard it. The men of the First have the double duty of proving themselves as good as the Eighth and as good as their regimental traditions.

Among the men of the First:

There are Coldstream Guards. Cromwell raised them first. But their hearts were with royalty and in 1660 they marched from Coldstream to help restore King Charles II. They were the only Puritan foot regiment kept in the Royal Army. Charles II called them his Second Foot Guards, but their leader said: "Sire, that regiment refuses to be known as second to any in the British Army." And the King said: "Coldstream Guards, take up your arms."

There are Hampshires. They fought in the Battle of Minden, on German soil, in 1759. As they marched into battle they saw roses growing, and thought of home. They picked the roses, fixed them in their hats, and went on into battle.

There are Lancashire Fusiliers, whose motto is "Bold in Everything." They got their name from fusils, which were lighter muskets than the old matchlocks. They had the honor of guarding Napoleon on St. Helena, and their Doctor Arnott attended Boney as he wasted away.

There are Grenadier Guards. In 1677 the noisy grenade was introduced into battle and each regiment got a grenadier company of picked men. Gradually the word grenadier became synonymous with elite. At Waterloo the Guards defeated Napoleon's last hope, his Imperial Guard, so decisively that they were awarded the title Grenadiers. At Ypres in 1914, 61 officers and 650 men of the Grenadiers went into action, and four officers and 150 men came out.

There are the East Surreys, who were once Marines and helped take Gibraltar from the Spanish. On the Somme in 1916 the 8th Battalion advanced more than a mile toward the German trenches kicking four soccer balls, and finally they kicked the balls right into the trenches and the Germans right out.

There are the 17th/21st Lancers, ancient cavalry converted from well-curried horses to stinking machines, from lances and sabers to clanking General Shermans. The famous 17th was founded in memory of Wolfe's death at Quebec. They were the original "Horse Marines." They charged with the Light Brigade at Balaklava and lost 76% of their number. The 17th Lancers and 21st Lancers were amalgamated in 1922, and they lost their horses in 1938. Their badge is a death's head, their motto is "Or Glory," and they call themselves "the tots," from der Tod, German for death.

> Some of these regiments fought at La Coruna, Alma, Khartoum, Lucknow, Ypres and the Marne. They were in the Crimean War. They embarked for the St. Lawrence, they landed on the beaches of Gallipoli. They fought with France and the U.S., and against them.

Army with a Purpose. These are the regiments' separate memories, their separate battles. The common memory freshest in all their minds, vivid even in the minds of those who were not there, is of a terrible, bloody half-battle: Dunkirk.

The First Army was just about to be formed when France fell. Many of its units fought in France and were evacuated at Dunkirk. They, and the ones to whom they have told their story, remember the lines of soldiers on the beaches, the derelict equipment, the English jokes, the exhausted men running the little boats--and the determination to find, on some beach somewhere, revenge.

After Dunkirk the First was formed up in southeast and eastern England. Its first two commanders, fittingly, were Alexander and Montgomery, though the latter only commanded for about a week. Then Kenneth Arthur Noel Anderson took over.

His training job was terrific. Whereas the Eighth Army had thousands of square miles of desert to range and thousands of gallons of Iraq-Persia oil to expend, General Anderson had to conduct his maneuvers on the great farm that is England, and ration his thirsty tanks to save shipping. He had to remember that a single armored division's exercises would destroy crops equal to one week's food for England. Consequently the First had very little training as an Army before it went off to the wars.

Man With a Purpose. Kenneth Anderson brings to the First Army a cosmopolitan point of view which it needs--fighting as it is with French and Americans against Germans and Italians on French, and perhaps eventually Italian, soil. His background is broad. He is a Scot. He was born in India on Christmas, 1891. He was educated in England at Charterhouse and Sandhurst. He fought in France, Syria and Palestine in World War I. Between wars he traveled widely in the Middle East, from Tibet to the Mediterranean. He has spoken French since boyhood and has a good working knowledge of Italian.

He is personally austere, publicity-shy, reticent. He talks to the press only off the record and says to correspondents: "Remember, if you print that, out you go." Even his wife could not pry out of him his destination when he left for Africa. She found some mosquito-repellent lotion in his luggage, said: "I think I know where you're going." He said: "Look some more." She did, and found anti-frostbite lotion.

He is a quiet, strict, forceful soldier, and he has advanced in World War II from colonel to lieutenant general, from brigade commander to commander of a whole army. His definition of a good general is not flashy: "He must have the ability to know and instruct his men and must let them see him and know him as much as possible. . . . In modern war with its terrifying destructiveness and terrible strain on the morale and guts of the nation and the individual, the value of personal leadership in the general is greater than ever before." He also says: "I haven't much use for the blood and hate training. Our men don't need that. . . ."

He has one basic experience in common with his Army which will give him, along with them, determination to do his job as well as possible: He started the Battle of France at the Saar Valley and ended it in the water of Dunkirk.

General Anderson wants his troops to enjoy a Dunkirk in reverse. But he knows that they have a bigger task than that enjoyment. For though revenge lies just beyond the bitter hills and at the ends of the valleys, victory lies farther away. Victory is beyond the islands and over the sea.

*British regiments (in contrast to those of the U.S., which contain only three battalions) are geographic, professional, and sometimes almost social organisms, and can be expanded indefinitely in wartime. A regiment raised from an English county may contain as many as 35 battalions. British regiments may therefore be scattered through several divisions, several armies.

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