Two minutes later Bushel stopped; easing the heavy pack from his back he dropped to his belly and inched carefully forward until he could see over the crest.
Below was the camouflaged compound. It was piled high with the twenty-gallon oil drums. The moon abruptly appeared from behind its cloud cover and revealed the helmeted sentry blowing into his hands, his machine pistol slung over one shoulder.
With difficulty he picked out ‘Snake’ below him, he was moving slowly around the back of the compound, keeping it between him and the German guard. Bushel would have been the first to admit, he was watching a master at work, it was classic stuff all right. When ‘Snake’ reached the corner of the compound he disappeared, as if by magic, into the thin blue shadow cast by the wooden end post. Unless you knew he was there…and even then. Bushel shook his head in wonder. He did not like the man, but his admiration had nothing to do with like or dislike…Stilson was making no attempt to get nearer. They had watched this particular sentry from a distance. He was a creature of habit, not a good characteristic in a sentry. He rubbed his hands together, pulled at his belt. Bushel almost said aloud ‘Now straighten your helmet’…There he goes… yeah a creature of habit all right. The corporal of marines felt almost sorry for him. He was looking at a dead man; there was a morbid fascination in watching him. He swung about on one jackbooted heel and trudged slowly back through the snow towards the concealed ‘Snake’. He turned once more, paused momentarily, as usual, and died.
‘Snake’s’ trade mark, what he called his ‘three in one overkill’, break the neck, break the back and slit the throat.
* * *
Even before the sentry was gently lowered to the ground, Bushel was up and skiing fast downhill. One minute later and his bolt cutters were slicing through the wire compound fence. Stilson dragged the body of the sentry through the hole and dumped him unceremoniously on the oily slush.
Bushel drew a marlin spike from his belt and stabbed into the nearest drum, black oil spouted out forming a pool at his feet. In the lee of the drums he reached deep inside his ski-suit and pulled out a wad of cotton waste. He lit it, pushed it into the puddle of thick oil and watched it slowly catch and then roar into bright life. Then he was up and running for his skis, following in ‘Snake’s’ shallow footprints.
He caught Stilson up at the crest just as the first drum exploded, a deep throated roar that turned to a ripple as its neighbours joined the conflagration shooting a ball of flame and black smoke rolling high into the night sky. The west wind lifted the oily cloud and sent it billowing off across the southern end of the fjord.
* * *
Grant looked over his shoulder at the signalman poised ready at the foot of the stubby mast. “Hoist Battle Ensign… Make to ‘Ethel’ ‘Follow me with all speed’.” He crouched over the compass repeater… “Full ahead. Steer east by north.”
The E-boat’s diesels roared into life, sparks flew from the triple exhausts and the boat's fore ends lifting gracefully as they gathered speed. Within seconds they were cutting through the water like a sharp knife through hot butter, each boat lifting a bow wave of clear white water as high as their bridges before it was allowed to dance away and settle into a broad avenue of incandescent frolicking foam.
Ahead the entrance to the fjord appeared out on the edge of the darkness. They eased round to port and shot through the entrance at forty knots, their combined wash sending waves crashing and clawing up the rocks to port and starboard.
The fjord widened abruptly and they saw the huge pall of black smoke, from the burning oil drums. It covered the entire south side, completely obscuring the target. Grant altered course to run down its edge. Hogg’s boat, on the quarter followed suit. Tips of masts could be seen poking above the foul acrid fumes.
He waited until the first of the mastheads were abeam and bawled “Open fire!” The depth charge launcher coughed and the canister flew up just as, with a deafening roar every gun on board opened up.
Astern Hogg played follow-my-leader as he too opened fire, adding to the general and noisy mayhem. The terrifying cacophony from the guns and exploding depth charges were soon drowned by the explosions from the target itself. Shells stored deep in the holds of the enemy coasters ignited, sending projectiles screaming into the air in a deadly firework display. Great belches of red-hot flame soared up above the target. Both speeding boats managed to fire a second depth charge before they reached the end of the run. Still at full speed they carried out a racing turn to port. Suddenly the water around Hogg’s boat spouted columns of water. An eighty-eight at the harbour entrance had opened fire. The sea around both boats became alive, spray sweeping across their bridges in drenching sheets of icy water. Undeterred they completed their long turn and raced in towards their target for a second time.
Their objective looked like a scene out of Dante’s Inferno, massive explosions were ripping the thick smoke apart, sending pillars of flame and smoke spurting into the sky. Between the billowing smoke clouds they caught brief glimpses of the havoc they were causing, figures running, flames everywhere, a writhing man of fire, mouth open in a soundless scream.
* * *
The German crew of the eighty-eight worked frantically at their smoking, jumping charge as it rapidly trained right following the racing Schnellbootes. Their fleeting targets were impossible to anticipate. At times the great waves of spray shooting out from their sides hid them completely. The gun aimer had to find them with the naked eye before training the gun back onto target. Their concentration was intense… too intense to see the two white-clad skiers approaching fast from the south… out from the source of the swirling black smoke.
The two figures shot past bent double over their skis, they bobbed straight in turn, two black dots sailed lazily through the cold air.
* * *
Grant realised, too late, that the second run was unnecessary, the target was completely destroyed. He signalled ‘cease fire’ and turned the boat early to fool the enemy gun. It was then that he realised the eighty-eight had stopped firing. As they roared on out to sea, he looked up at the gun emplacement, high on the cliffs above them, but he could see nothing to explain the welcome lack of activity.
Elated with their success they emerged from the fjord and raced out into the swept channel.
He slowed his boat as they approached the mine field. Suddenly the white-hard flash of a signal lamp pierced the gloom ahead. Seconds later a ghost-grey shape resolved into the unmistakable silhouette of a German destroyer. It was straddling the only navigable channel. Either side, just beneath the surface, the spiked menace of the mines waited, astern the furious wasp nest they had just stirred up.
* * *
The German Destroyer. ‘Wagner’.
Freggatenkapitan Linz stamped back onto the ‘Wagner’s’ bridge, “Will you look at those… those mad misstuck Schnellbootes! They think they are the new cavalry. Will you look? They are blocking the channel with their, their rowing boats!”
Leutnant Ankar, his First Watch Officer, hid a smile as he watched the bridge signalman replying to the flashing light from the lead Schnellboote. Linz’s fiery temper was well known throughout the squadron probably the Kriegsmarine, almost as well known as his dislike for young officers of the Reconnaissance Force and their commander Kapitan zer See Hans Butow.
* * *
HMS Edward
“Jesus! Where did she come from?” exclaimed one lookout.
“A shrewd guess would be Germany.”
The shock of suddenly seeing the enemy so close, no more than three cables ahead of the two E-boats, threw Grant for a moment…. The bridge team turned towards him… In that split second he felt, maybe for the first time, the full weight of command fall on his young shoulders and how, oh how, he wished he had someone to turn to…
“Hold your fire, Middy, hoist the German colours, lively there!” He turned grabbing the signalman by one shoulder, “Make to the ‘Ethel�
�, ‘Hold your fire, pass fast and close down the enemy’s starboard side.’… O’Neill! Take us down the enemy’s port side, watch your steering, remember the mines.”
“Middy, make to the enemy destroyer ‘Enemy seaborne force attacking fjord suggest you remain here, to cut off their retreat. God’s speed’… Send it slow as you like now… the longer it takes the better.”
* * *
‘Wagner’.
The signalman was calling from the wing of the bridge.
“The Schnellboot report enemy boats are in the fjord… her capitan suggests we stay here to…
“Suggests?…Suggests!” screamed Linz his face turning a brick red, “The blasted cheek of the young whelp…He makes suggestions to me!”
The Schnellbootes were now almost on top of them and seemed to have increased speed they were going to pass one down either side.
“What are they doing!” Linz yelled to nobody in particular. “What are they doing! Don’t they know we are in the middle of a minefield?” He broke into a panicked run across the width of the bridge. Leaning out over the side he raised his fist and shook it in the direction of the two boats. “Dummkopt! Dummkopt! Slow down, slow down!” he was screaming now, completely beside himself with rage.
* * *
HMS Edward
“Bunty!” bawled Grant, pointing to the swastika flapping madly at the stern. “Stand by on those ensigns now, on my order get that bloody rag down, and hoist our own colours. Full ahead all engines!”
* * *
‘Wagner’
From his vantage point, on the wing of the bridge, Litz was now looking right down into the speeding boat as it tore pass him at forty knots. A young grinning gunner, on the E-boat’s bridge, was looking directly up at him, an insolent look on his bearded face. The man raised two fingers in an unmistakable sign. Litz blinked his astonishment. Flags suddenly fluttered from the tiny masthead… Litz blinked again, this time in disbelief. “Mein Gott! White Ensigns!”
“Open fire! Open fire!” he screamed at the top of his lungs as he darted back into the bridge. He tripped on the step and staggered on at a furious pace, before regaining control… “That…that man,” he blustered,” He put his fingers up to me!”
Ankar hesitated... Open fire? That seemed a strong reaction even for Litz.
The lean shanked destroyer had began to roll madly in the huge wash from the two E-boats as they disappeared into the drizzle-grey of a Norwegian Sea dawn.
Chapter 12
Pontoons, bridges and bluffs
Norway, Wednesday, 18th May, 1940.
Farther north, the situation was deteriorating fast, the ‘Nishga’ found herself in the thick of the fighting. Now, due to the enemy’s overwhelming air superiority the ‘Grocer Runs’, were having to be carried out under cover of darkness.
As the situation steadily worsened, Barr signalled the rest of his flotilla, ordering them north, to rejoin the ‘Nishga’. She had spent the whole of Tuesday in hiding, with enemy aircraft almost constantly overhead. The increase in air activity had coincided with another attack on the Guards battalion at Mo.
The day after the attack the Guards began their withdrawal through prepared positions. The same night the two E-boats entered the part of the vast fjord that the ‘Nishga’ was using as a base. Later, at 2100 hours, they were joined by the two M.T.B.s, following their fast and uncomfortable passage from Scapa Flow.
As soon as the M.T.B.s had secured alongside, all four captains were called to a briefing in Barr’s day cabin.
“Good evening, Gentlemen, nice to see you all here, alive and well. Although I suspect Jerry will be doing his damnedest to change that. I know you haven’t had much rest I intend to be as brief as I can. I’m sorry to tell you we have an op scheduled for 0400…”
There were a number of groans.
Barr smiling and nodding held up his hands. “And that’s the good news” He picked up a pointer, propped in one corner of the cabin and crossed to a chart on the bulkhead. “General Auchinleck has ordered that the town of Mo, here, be held for as long as possible. The army has prepared a number of positions on this road. At these they plan to fight a series of rearguard actions to delay Jerry’s advance.
Today the Twenty-fourth began withdrawing towards us here at Bodo… Jerry will be hot on their heels. They are, at this very moment, building a pontoon bridge across this fjord.” He pointed to the chart. “As you can see, if he is allowed to complete the bridge and cross the fjord he will cut the coastal road that the Guards are using for their withdrawal. Our task, tonight, will be to get to this bridge before he can complete it and destroy it.
It’s one hundred and seventy miles to the pontoon bridge and by a strange coincidence, discovered by our own flotilla’s Navigating Officer, the same distance back.” He paused for the expected laughter and an embarrassed grin from Usbourne. “There is a good chance that the destruction of their bridge will annoy Jerry, and I expect he will be after our blood as soon as it is light, hence the early start.
Obviously torpedoes will be of no use against shallow drafted pontoon bridges, so we will be taking the opportunity to try out the new depth charge throwers. The usual pressure detonators are being replaced as we speak, they will be of no use, our torpedomen have been busy adapting fuses to work on a simple timing mechanism. We will need all four boats if we are to stand any chance of success. There was a murmur from his audience, “I know, I know the M.T.B.s will stand out like sore thumbs… So my plan is this…”
* * *
Heereskustenartillerie emplacement.
Leutnant Klaus Westlich, Commanding Officer of Number Two battery, Heereskustenartillerie, grinned his pleasure as his men cheered to the echo their comrades in the Kriegsmarine. There was no denying it was a glorious sight. In the dying light, not one, but two captured enemy motor torpedo boats were being towed ignominiously back along the fjord, under the guns of the battery. Through his powerful Zeiss binoculars he could see the enemy sailors were subdued and downcast hanging their heads sitting on their battered boat’s decks. The German sailors, by contrast, were magnificent, proud in victory, cheering and waving as the two boats sounding their klaxons.
He smiled indulgently. Those men of the E-boats were indubitably exhibitionists but it was all good for morale. He had heard of their approach from his colleague, downstream at Number Three battery. Apparently it had been the same along the entire length of the fjord, wherever the little flotilla had passed with the glorious Reichskriegsflagge fluttering proudly above the cursed Britisher’s flag.
He raised the glasses once more and closely studied the four boats in the little armada. It must have been quite a fight, he could clearly see the damage that the vastly superior German Schnellbootes had inflicted. The English dead and wounded littered their decks.
* * *
“I never gave us much of a chance at pulling this off,” said Wilson as he squeezed past Wyatt at the helm, “another twenty minutes and we’ll reach the target.”
“Oh yeah! But the journey back will be the crippler though, won’t it? What are we supposed to do on the way back, eh? Tell me that. Even bloody Jerry’s going to catch on once the fireworks start, ain’t ‘e. You mark my words we’ll cop it on the way back. Up the bloody fjord without a bloody paddle, that’s where we’ll be.”
“Silence you men,” hissed Midshipman Maurice.
* * *
The German field engineers were working by floodlight, lashing the barges together broadside on to the bank and laying heavy bridging timbers across them. They were already half way across, with no fear of attack from the air, or a retreating British Army, they could afford to be complacent and so they were.
The four boats bobbed gently in the dark centre of the fjord, away from the loom of light that enveloped the work site. The tow ropes were slipped and stowed below decks. The correct flags, broken out and hoisted, hung limp in the light airs.
Gr
ant watched the engineers at work through his powerful binoculars. It looked as if ‘Orca’ had arrived not a moment too soon. At the rate the enemy was working they would finish the job by daylight.
He looked around, they were ready he raised his cap above his head, “Line ahead, gentlemen… let’s go!”
The four boats’ powerful engines coughed and thundered into life, the roar of five thousand break horsepower revving up and echoing in the confines of the fjord assailed the eardrums.
They shot forward as one, in seconds, they were in line astern, their combined wash engulfing the sides of the fjord as they roared towards the target. Complete surprise was theirs. The captured E-boats’ cannon wrought havoc on the closely packed barrages. Explosions ripped the night into searing day, tracer swept the enemy decks clear of life. The machine guns on the M.T.B.s joined in, opening fire at point blank range. Within forty-five seconds of flashing up, all four boats were past the pontoon bridge and turning sharply to port, engine revolutions dropping as they turned to negotiate the narrowing fjord. They lined up for the second pass like racing cars at a staggered start. One by one they shot forward, leaping and bounding across water that now churned and leapt like a live thing. Ahead their old wash had swelled in across the low barges, sweeping the German soldiers from their feet as they madly scrambled for the safety of the shore.
On this pass they fired the depth charges sending them high into the fiery havoc they had created on the first run. As each boat passed the pontoons its launcher thumped once, the grey canister flew up and into the tidal wave from their wash as it crashed once again across the bucking decks of the barges.
On the Edge of Darkness Page 16
