Marine B SBS

by Ian Blake

  Griffiths swivelled the Solothurn on its bipod ready for it to fire over the starboard bow; the Bren was set up in the cockpit, where it could fire through one of the brass bushes which had been specially let into the caique’s high gunwales for just such a purpose. The range, they agreed, would probably be about 300 yards if the Germans came round the headland on course for Maltezana. At that distance even the Solothurn could hardly miss.

  Soon after the caique was in position Donington appeared on the beach and called out that he had found a good concealed position from which to fire and that he could see the German schooner about a mile up the coast. She seemed to be keeping close inshore. ‘Perfect,’ said Maygan. ‘Griffiths, fire into her engine space first and then riddle her below the water-line. Tiger, I want you to take out the helmsman and then keep the deck clear of Krauts. I’ll fire first.’

  Tiller nodded, flipped up the rear sights of the Bren, slid the catch to automatic, and cocked the mechanism. The pistol grip, which he held in his right hand, felt slippery with sweat, but the butt, guided by his left, nuzzled comfortably into his shoulder as he squinted down the sights.

  Bryson crouched next to Tiller, his Lanchester carbine to hand, and piled up some spare magazines for the Bren.

  It seemed to take an age before they first heard the faint but slow, steady thump of the schooner’s diesel. It became gradually louder but then began to fade, and it took Tiller a moment to realize that the sound of it was being screened by the promontory so that he saw the schooner before he heard its engine again.

  The schooner was coming on the exact course they had calculated, but it was much bigger than it had looked from the observation post. It must have been at least eighty feet long, and the pronounced curve of its hull gave it a distinctly Arab appearance. Its hull was white, or had been once, and it had a high, ornate stem which protruded above the gunwale. Sheltering behind this were two Germans with a Spandau machine-gun fixed on a bipod. Three more were standing around the foremast with Schmeisser sub-machine-guns hanging from their shoulders. In the stern the helmsman was standing on a kind of platform so that he could see his way ahead. Both his hands were on the large, curved tiller.

  All of the Germans were staring ahead, except one in the cockpit, who was shading his eyes and looking behind him at the headland.

  Tiller watched this man carefully as he scanned in from the headland until he was looking directly at the caique. Then the man’s gaze shifted beyond the caique and into the bay behind it, and Tiller marvelled at the skill of the chief camouflage officer of the 9th Army who had devised the netting and specially coloured scrim. The man was a genius.

  But the caique’s netting was to disguise the caique from the air, not at close quarters from the sea, and something in the strange outline under the cliff must have alerted the German, for his gaze shifted back again to it. He lifted the binoculars slung around his neck and was focusing them on the caique when Maygan shot him with his Lanchester.

  Almost simultaneously Griffiths fired his first round from the semi-automatic Solothurn. The kick was so violent that the caique rolled and bounced, but this did not prevent Tiller killing the helmsman with a short, sharp burst from the Bren.

  He then swivelled the light machine-gun to the other end of the schooner and fired a more prolonged burst at the Spandau crew. As he did so he heard Bryson’s Lanchester bark twice, three times, and then the Solothurn fired again.

  At first the schooner seemed quite unaffected and sailed serenely on, though no one was at the helm. Then gradually she began to yaw. The Solothurn fired again, shaking the caique, and the schooner’s engine faltered and then stopped, and slowly she lost way.

  It was difficult for Tiller to find a target now, as the Germans on the deck had thrown themselves flat and those below had obviously thought it wiser to remain there. But Donington had a better view and his rifle cracked a number of times somewhere on the headland above the caique. The schooner was drifting very slowly now and was visibly lower in the water, but Griffiths kept pumping 20mm shells into her hull.

  One of the Germans, braver – or more foolish – than the others, opened fire from behind the foremast, but the Schmeisser’s bullets sang harmlessly over the caique and a burst from the Bren tumbled him into the water.

  The schooner drifted to a halt and a lick of flame came out of the main cabin. Griffiths stopped firing. They watched as the schooner began settling by the stern; the sea had already started flooding into its cockpit before the two remaining Germans burst out of a forward hatch and flung themselves into the water.

  Tiller watched them dog-paddling towards the caique and was wondering how they would be able to find room for two prisoners as well as the RAF crew when the schooner blew itself apart with a muffled crump that shook the caique from stem to stern. Waves created by the detonation hammered against its side and bits of debris, thrown high in the air, started cascading into the water all around them. Then there was a large gout of steam and what remained of the schooner slid quickly into the water.

  ‘I suppose, we’d better pick up those Krauts,’ Maygan said.

  ‘No point,’ replied Tiller. He knew what happened to anyone caught in the water near an underwater explosion – their vulnerable stomachs would have been split open like gutted fish. ‘They’ll be very dead.’

  Griffiths came aft, grinning from ear to ear. ‘I said it would work, Sarge,’ he said elatedly to Tiller. ‘Cuckoo clocks aren’t the only things the Swiss make well.’

  Cuckoo clocks reminded Tiller of his long-cherished opinion of naval officers. Perhaps some of them weren’t so bad, he thought now. Maygan had certainly acted with cool courage throughout the whole brief fire-fight. He already had his log out and was jotting down details before he forgot them.

  ‘Did you see the schooner’s name?’ he asked, but no one had.

  ‘You sank her too quickly, sir,’ said Griffiths.

  ‘She was a trehandiri, that’s all I know,’ said Tiller.

  ‘A what?’

  ‘Local craft. Lugger rig. I would’ve thought you would’ve known that, sir,’ Tiller said with a grin.

  ‘I didn’t know you’re an expert at recognizing boats as well as aircraft, Tiger. What do you think she was carrying to make an explosion like that?’

  ‘Mines probably.’

  The SBS men received a great reception when they returned to Livadia Bay. During the caique’s absence a radio message had come through telling them to withdraw the observation post from the island and everyone guessed that indeed something big was brewing.

  Bryson went to fetch the medic and arrived in time to help bury one of the RAF crewmen, who had died soon after Tiller had seen him, and to bring the other down on a stretcher. By the time LS8 left Stampalia it had been dark for two hours. The caique’s deck was crowded but the weather was calm. The stretcher case was wrapped in a tarpaulin, and the others huddled together around him. Angelika remained in the cockpit with Maygan and Griffiths, who took turns to steer. Bryson opened up the Matilda engine more than he should have, making the caique roll and butt its way through the glassy water.

  Nisiros was sighted an hour before dawn and as the first rays of the sun broke over the horizon ahead of them the rumble of guns and then the sound of aircraft wafted across to them from Kos, which lay on the horizon to the north.

  Tiller scanned the sky with his binoculars and pointed. ‘There. Look.’

  Stukas were bombing the island and the rumble of the explosions floated faintly across the sea like thunder. Then bigger aircraft, which Tiller identified as Ju52 transports, appeared from the north-west and suddenly parachutes began to blossom beneath them. Above the transports flew Me109 fighters. There was no sign of any British aircraft.

  ‘Can we go any faster, Jock?’ Maygan asked, but the stoker shook his head. ‘I think she’s almost falling to bits as it is, sir,’ he replied.

  They all watched the invasion of Kos in shocked silence until the Turkish coastline
blocked the faint sounds of battle from their ears as well as the island from their view.

  At midday Maygan made the caique’s routine position report to Simi on the radio and was told to go to Kos and collect Jarrett. But Simi did not know where Jarrett exactly was on the island as the message had been garbled.

  Maygan and Tiller were just discussing the dilemma this put them in – the injured RAF man needed urgent medical attention – when ahead of them they saw another caique moving along the coast towards them under sail.

  Griffiths dashed forwards to man the Solothurn and Tiller brought the Bren up from the hold before watching the slow progress of the approaching caique through his binoculars. It was about the same size as LS8 and looked genuine enough.

  ‘What do you think, Tiger?’

  ‘It could be a local Greek one.’

  He handed the binoculars to Angelika, who confirmed that it was.

  I am going to unload our passengers,’ said Maygan, ‘and then make for Kos.’

  Tiller nodded his agreement. When the Greek caique was within hailing distance Angelika shouted across to it. At first the crew seemed reluctant to comply but when Griffiths unveiled the Solothurn from under the foresail they quickly came to a stop.

  ‘They come from Kalimnos,’ Angelika said. ‘They’re genuine.’

  ‘Tell them,’ said Maygan, ‘we’ll pay them to take a wounded man and his friends to Simi.’

  Angelika shouted again and then said to Maygan: ‘They don’t want money. They do it anyway.’

  The Greek caique came alongside LS8 and the wounded man was carefully transferred. Then the others crossed, and Maygan indicated that Angelika should join them, but she did not move.

  ‘You know Kos?’ she asked him.

  Maygan shook his head and said: ‘No, but it’s only over there. I can hardly miss it.’

  ‘I know Kos. I know every rock and every bay. It is not an easy island to navigate.’

  Maygan glanced at Tiller, who shrugged. What the hell, he thought, if she knows how to handle a pistol it is not as if she is some sweet innocent caught up in a war she didn’t understand.

  For a while, they watched the Greek caique sail back along the coast before turning about themselves.

  ‘We’ll stay by the coast after rounding the point,’ said Angelika. ‘Then we’ll cut across to the port of Kos.’

  ‘Is there nothing nearer?’ Maygan asked, looking at the chart. Angelika pointed a slim finger. ‘There’s Kamares Bay. It is where ships used to go in before the war to load the ore that is mined above the port. But communications with the rest of the island are bad. The port of Kos is better.’

  Once they had rounded Cape Krio and began crossing the Gulf of Kos the sound of battle, faint at first, became more distinct.

  ‘If they take Kos,’ said Maygan, ‘Simi will be the meat in the sandwich between Kos and Rhodes.’

  ‘Or the thorn in their side,’ said Tiller. ‘If we hold Simi their flank will be exposed.’

  The port of Kos was dominated by a castle built to the south of the entry to the port. As they approached its entrance they could see a tattered Union Jack flying from its highest point.

  ‘Hoist the white ensign,’ Maygan told Griffiths. ‘I don’t want some trigger–happy gunner putting a hole in us.’

  But the gunners had other, more important, targets, for as the caique sailed past the imposing stone walls of the fortress two Stukas came screaming almost vertically out of the sky, dropped their bombs, pulled out of their dive, banked, then disappeared to the north pursued by Bofors fire from the castle.

  The double boom of the bombs was followed by clouds of dust from pulverized masonry.

  ‘Get the Bren up here,’ Maygan shouted to Tiller. ‘If those bastards come back we can have a go at them.’

  Inland from the port they could hear the chatter of machine-gun fire and the occasional report of something heavier being fired. Perhaps, Tiller thought, the Fallschirmjäger, the paratroops, had parachuted in some light mountain guns, a daunting prospect.

  The island’s defenders had obviously received some warning of the attack, because the port had been almost cleared of shipping. A wrecked landing-craft lay half sunk at one end; at the other a Tribal-class destroyer was just casting off its warps from the quay. As it passed LS8 Maygan ordered Griffiths to dip the caique’s white ensign. After a prolonged pause, during which they could see a naval officer on the destroyer’s open bridge studying them with interest, the destroyer replied by dipping hers.

  Tiller could see from the officer’s three straight gold stripes on the epaulettes of his white service shirt and the ‘scrambled eggs’ on the peak of his cap that he was a commander in the Royal Navy. He leant over the side of the destroyer’s bridge and shouted down: ‘Who the hell are you?’

  ‘Levant Schooner Flotilla, sir,’ Maygan shouted back.

  ‘Never heard of you,’ the commander replied, and moved back to the centre of his bridge.

  ‘That’s fame for you,’ said Maygan to the others with a grin.

  They came alongside the part of the quay the destroyer had just vacated and were met by an army major and two military policemen. The major looked harassed.

  ‘I’m the port evacuation officer,’ he said. ‘What exactly do you think you’re up to? We happen to be in the middle of fighting off an invasion and you come motoring in here as if you were on holiday. You’re bloody lucky those Stukas didn’t get you. Who are you anyway?’

  ‘Levant Schooner Flotilla, sir,’ Maygan said reeling off a casual salute.

  ‘Never heard of you,’ said the major testily, returning the salute by raising his cane in the direction of his cap. Maygan caught Tiller’s eye and Tiller found it hard to suppress a smile.

  ‘Special Operations,’ added Maygan by way of explanation.

  The major’s expression softened slightly. ‘Ah, I see. And whose orders are you under and who are these men with you?’

  He looked hard at Angelika, who turned quickly away.

  ‘Special Boat Squadron, sir,’ said Tiller, saluting smartly. ‘Orders to contact Major Jarrett immediately. Do you happen to know where he is?’

  ‘Jarrett, eh?’

  The name worked like a password, for the major turned to the military policemen and said: ‘Show them the way to Major Jarrett’s HQ as soon as they’re ready.’

  He turned back to Maygan and added: ‘Good luck. You’re going to need it.’

  The deserted streets were littered with rubble, as the Stukas had been giving the port their attention ever since the German invasion had been launched. Maygan and Tiller picked their way through it behind the two military policemen.

  ‘Where have the locals gone?’ Maygan asked one of them.

  ‘Most of them took to the hills before it started,’ he replied. ‘They seemed to know what was going to happen almost before we did. Some are probably hiding in their cellars – those that have got them, that is. Here you are, sir.’

  Jarrett’s HQ was an old stone warehouse on the outskirts of the port. A sack covered the gap where the door had been. Tiller pulled it to one side and entered, and Maygan followed him. On the left a radio operator was working on his Morse key with his headphones. Next to him Jarrett sat on a packing case reading a signal. He looked up when Tiller entered and acknowledged his salute.

  ‘Where the hell have you been?’ he asked irritably.

  ‘We got here as quickly as we could,’ said Maygan. ‘We were taking back an injured man from Stampalia when we got your message. What’s happening?’

  Jarrett stood up and pointed to the map of Kos pinned on the wall behind him. ‘They’ve put two battalions ashore, one at Cape Foca, here, the other further west, and at another two points. There are also about two hundred parachutists from the Brandenburgers around Antimachia airfield. Here.’

  ‘Brandenburgers?’

  ‘Brandenburg Regiment. Special service troops. Kraut equivalent of Commandos. I have about twenty men
up there, trying to stop them from taking it, but we’ve now had orders to pull out.’

  ‘Are we going to stop them here, sir?’ Tiller asked.

  Jarrett shrugged. ‘It doesn’t look like it. We tried to organize the garrison and put some heart into them. But frankly it’s a shambles and the trouble is we’ve got no air support. The few Spits which we had here were shot up before they even got into the air and the Beaufighters they send from Cyprus just get chased away by the Me109s.’

  The radio operator handed Jarrett another signal, which he read before crumpling it up and letting it drop to the floor.

  ‘They’ve taken the airfield.’ He shook his head and then added wearily: ‘We need as many Flotilla caiques and boats to get here as quickly as possible to take us off. How many do you think are available right now?’

  Maygan thought. ‘Four caiques at the last count. Unless we’ve lost any in the last forty-eight hours. There are a couple of MLs as well, but they’re at Castelrosso. That’s about it.’

  ‘It’ll have to be enough, then,’ said Jarrett. ‘Andrew, I want you to take my HQ staff and myself to Leros. Right away. Tiger, I want you to stay here and wait for the others to arrive from Antimachia, tell them what’s happening, and then make sure they know where the caiques are. I’d already given Bob Baring orders to withdraw before the airfield fell. He knows we’re withdrawing to Leros. Andrew will pick you up and take you back to Simi tomorrow. Let’s go.’

  As dusk fell Tiller watched LS8, its decks crowded with Jarrett’s HQ staff, leave Kos harbour. An hour later, two of the caiques arrived from Leros and a third, which had been at Levita, crept in at midnight. They had all been working in the more northerly of the Dodecanese, setting up SBS observation posts on the smaller islands and taking reconnaissance patrols of the Long Range Desert Group to the bigger ones. Tiller estimated how many passengers each could take, told them what was happening, and then returned to Jarrett’s HQ.