They Used Dark Forces gs-8

by Dennis Wheatley

  `Ever looked at the map of Italy?'

  `Yes; and of course we've got ourselves bogged down here:

  `You've said it. But, infinitely worse, we've chosen the worst conceivable place to launch a campaign against Axis-held southern Europe. We're not only bogged down now, but when we do break out the territory is so much in favour of the enemy that we're goin' to be bogged down again and again, the whole way up Italy.

  `Once we had North Africa the game was in our hands. But we threw away all our trumps. Those damn' fool Americans vetoed Churchill's plan for going into the Balkans, where the Greeks and Yugoslavs would have risen to a man and slit the throats of the German garrisons. We could have driven straight up to Budapest then and had the Hungarians with us, too. Joined up with the Russians, saved ourselves from this murderous business of the Arctic convoys and encircled the southern flank of the German Army in the East.'

  Sir Pellinore swallowed another gulp of champagne and went on angrily, `To have missed that chance was bad enough, but since the Yanks wouldn't have it from fear that after the war Central Europe would become a sphere of British influence we might at least have done better than go into Italy by the basement.'

  `I couldn't agree more,' Gregory said quickly. `And if the intention was not limited to relieving Malta and making the Med reasonably safe for Allied shipping, but later to invade the Italian mainland, we ought never to have gone into Sicily at all. We should have done it via Sardinia and the Gulf of Leghorn.'

  `Of course. Mountbatten was for that, Cunningham was for it; and it would have been their responsibility to get the troops ashore. Portal and Pug Ismay inclined that way, too; and in the early days, when the pros and cons of Sicily and Sardinia were discussed, Churchill had said that he could see no sense in climbing up the leg of Italy like a harvest bug. From the beginning the Joint Planning Staff had been all for Sardinia and at the Casablanca Conference, when the matter was finally decided, they staged a revolt. But Alan Brooke wouldn't have it. He'd always favoured Sicily and at the last conference in Washington he'd persuaded the Americans to accept his choice. At Casablanca he fought the others tooth and nail. He flatly refused to go back to the Americans and reopen the question. Said they would get the idea that the British didn't know their own minds."

  `What!' Gregory exclaimed. `You can't really mean that he forced the issue upon which the whole course of the war and thousands of British lives depended simply to avoid having to confess to the Americans that his colleagues were against him and he might be wrong.'

  That's what it amounted to.'

  `Why didn't Churchill intervene?'

  Sir Pellinore shook his head. `He never does. He produces some very good ideas and some very dangerous ones. He never stops gingering up his Chiefs of Staff to use everything we've got against the enemy. But he sticks to protocol like a leech. Can’t blame him for that. Duty of a Prime Minister to accept he decisions of his military advisers. How at times he resists he temptation to override them I can't think. But he never abuses his position. As spokesman for the Chiefs of Staff, Allan Brooke had sold him this one about going into Sicily Before they left London. And he has great faith in "Brookie", so that was that.'

  `What a shocking business!'

  `And look where Alan Brooke's pigheadedness has landed us. Etna commands the whole of north-eastern Sicily. Any fool could have foreseen that the wurst-eaters would dig in on its slopes and hold us up there while they reinforced southern Italy. Naturally, by the time Montgomery did throw them out they were ready for us and able to give us a bloody nose when we landed-and another at Salerno. And why Salerno, in God's name? If we'd gone in further up at Anzio we'd have had Rome for the askin'! The Italians had surrendered and could hardly wait to come over to us so as to get their own back

  · Musso's Nazi pals who have been kicking them round for so long. But rather than take a justified risk we missed the boat again; and as we failed to show the flag the Eyeties knuckled under.'

  Gregory nodded. `Yes, we ought to have made the Anzio landing in September instead of last week. How are things going there?'

  1. Historical note: See Arthur Bryant's Turn of the Tide, based on the

  war diaries of Field Marshal Viscount Alanbrooke, pages 557-8.

  `They're not. The whole Italian campaign is one hell of a mess. What's more the Generals have landed themselves with just the sort of party they always swore they would avoid. All of them were junior officers in the First World War. Fought at Loos, Ypres and that other bloodbath, the Somme. Never again, they said; never again will we expose troops to wholesale slaughter. And Churchill laid it down that whenever a battle looked like becoming a sloggin' match it was to be broken off. Then what happens? The Army is sent to fight its way up Italy. Two-thirds of the country's rugged mountains and rushing. rivers. No room for manoeuvre. Poor devils have got to fight for every yard of ground and are held for weeks while being shelled to blazes in the same position.

  `It's more than six months now since this crazy business started with our landings in Sicily. The wurst-eaters have had all that time to fortify their Gustav Line along the Grigliano and Rapido rivers. The whole thing is stiff with steel and concrete pill-boxes and they've got us pinned down there. In the centre of the line there's a damn' great mountain with the monastery of Casino on top. No getting round it. The place has got to be taken by assault and the fighting there now is just about as bloody as it was at Passchendaele. The only solution was a landing at Anzio. If it had come off we should have outflanked the whole German line. But it hasn't, because a bun-headed American General was given command and he's bungled the whole job.'

  Gregory raised his eyebrows. `Tell me more. I haven't heard a thing about this.'

  `Neither, thank God, has the British public as yet, else they'd be yellin' for his head on a pole. He's a feller named Lucas. The great battle-launched at Cassino on the 12th was to draw down all the enemy reserves from central Italy; and it did the trick. What is more our deception people did a splendid job. They foxed the wurst-eaters completely and handed Anzio to Lucas on a plate. His troops got ashore with hardly a shot fired. By midnight he had landed thirty-six thousand men and three thousand vehicles. Our Guards Division, bless 'em, was in the van and ran true to form. They penetrated sixteen miles inland. Sixteen miles! And they cut the road between Rome and Cassino. Then, what does this moron do? He thinks he'd like to wait for his armoured corps in case there might be a battle. So he recalls all his advance troops back to the beach and makes them sit there for two days. Two days, mark you! And for all that time the road to Rome was open. The Italians have informed us since that the Germans had sent every man jack they had up to Cassino and a single mechanized battalion could have seized the city.'

  Grabbing the neck of the magnum, the Baronet picked it up. Then, seeing that it was empty, he thrust it back and rang the bell. Still scowling, he muttered, `I've always said that the one thing wrong with a magnum is that it holds too much for one and not enough for two. We'll open another to keep us going till lunch.'

  `That's fine by me,' Gregory agreed, `I haven't tasted the real stuff for eight months. But what a shocking story. What's the position now?

  'Owing to Lucas's bungling, he got himself boxed in and darn near chucked back into the sea. Must give it to the sauerkrauters that they know how to meet a crisis. God only knows where they found them, but they rushed up about twenty thousand men. On the third day it was touch and go. But Alex went in himself. Saw every Brigadier in the outfit personally and restored the situation. Battle at Casino couldn't be broken off, of course. And the Anzio beach-head averages only four miles in depth, with our people thick as flies on it, taking casualties from every shell that comes over. So now we've got two bloodbaths on our hands.'

  `And to think how different things might be if only we had gone into Sardinia.'

  `Yes, we'd be in the valley of the Piave by now and at far less cost. Alex would have been preparing for a drive in the spring by the route throu
gh the Julian Alps that Napoleon took. By summer we'd be in Munich and Vienna. Would have saved us from the immense task of preparing for a Second Front, too; and all the risks entailed by buttin' our heads against the house-painter feller's Atlantic Wall. But we haven't even got Rome yet so I would put my shirt on it that the historians will assess Alan Brooke's having pushed us into going into Europe by way of Sicily as about the biggest strategic plunder of all time.'

  `An invasion of the Continent from England is definitely on, then?

  'Yes. Roosevelt and Churchill gave Uncle Joe their word on that at Teheran. I don't have to tell you to keep a still tongue a your head. Anyhow, you'll pick up all the lowdown about it when you get back to the War Room. It's scheduled for the first week in May and detailed plannin' for it is going ahead full steam now. As you may know, Oliver Stanley and his Future Planners did all the ground work as far back as early '42, and he pot's been kept bubbling ever since. Churchill's never been keen on it because it's against all sense to attack a powerful enemy at his point of greatest strength. He's always favoured using our sea power to go in through the Balkans. Dead right too. We could have taken our pick of a thousand miles of coast where the enemy's very thinly spread and so far from home that it would take him weeks to build up a front. But

  Americans have been all for a cross-Channel show from word go. Our people had all they could do to stall them off from getting themselves and us a bloody nose last year. We had to agree, though, to rev up the planning. About the time you went to Germany, General Morgan was appointed top joy of a show called C.O.S.S.A.C. with a big combined staff and they've been at it hammer and tongs ever since working out the nuts and bolts needed for the job. So when you go back you'll hear talk of nothing but Mulberries and landin' craft.'

  `Who's going to command the big show?'

  `Eisenhower.'

  `What do you think of him?

  'Grand chap. Mind, he has yet to prove his abilities as a General. Alex ran the show for him in North Africa. But as a person you couldn't have a better. He has buckets of charm, has the sense to listen to what other people have to say and is determined that there shall be no jealous bickering. He's told his own staff that if any of them don't get on with the British they'll get a ticket for the first ship home.'

  `Oh come, now,' Gregory smiled, `you can't really mean that you approve of one of our Allies?'

  `What's that? Insolent young devil! Nonsense! I've never said a thing against the Americans. Splendid fellers. Their generosity is boundless and if you don't lay the law down to them they're eager to learn. Fight like tigers, too, once they've been shown how. It isn't their fault that most of their top men have nothing but sawdust in their heads.'

  At that moment the door opened and Erika was shown in by the parlourmaid, who also brought the second magnum. With cries of joy, the lovers embraced while Sir Pellinore opened the champagne and soon Gregory was telling Erika of his escape from Malacou.

  Stefan Kuporovitch arrived shortly afterwards. Twelve days earlier his wife had presented him with a son; so Gregory had got back in time to act in person as one of the boy's godfathers, Sir Pellinore having agreed to be the other, while Erika was to be godmother. In due course the four of them enjoyed a lunch that few restaurants could have provided in the fifth year of the war, and with the dessert they drank a bottle of Imperial Tokay to the health of Madeleine and the small Gregory Pellinore Kuporovitch.

  The following day Gregory saw a specialist who said that Dr. Zetterberg had done a splendid job on his leg and that, although he might suffer some pain from it from time to time if he overtaxed it, in another few months it should serve him as well as the one that had not been injured. It would, however, always be about half an inch shorter than the other.

  In order to correct that he went to Lobbs in St. James's Street and ordered himself several pairs of shoes, the sole and heel of the left one of each pair to be half an inch thicker than the right, so that when he wore them his limp would not be noticeable. After three days in London he returned with Erika to Gwaine Meads.

  The greater part of the lovely old house had been lent by Sir Pellinore to the R.A.F. as a hospital, but he had retained one wing to which he sent a few special guests who needed a quiet time to recover from particularly arduous service in the war. Gregory always stayed there after his missions and Erika had lived there permanently since she had escaped from the Continent. Although in the early months of the war she had trained as a nurse, she greatly preferred administrative work; so she had taken on the job of supervising the non-medical staff, dealing with rations, arranging recreations for the patients and other such tasks. Madeleine, having been a professional nurse in France before her marriage, had worked there up till Christmas as a Sister and was soon to resume part-time duty.

  Early in February Kuporovitch took a fortnight's leave from his job of translating Russian documents in the War Office, and on his first Sunday at Gwaine Meads the baby was christened in the local church. Sir Pellinore came up for the ceremony and presented his godson with a gold-and-coral rattle and a cheque for a thousand pounds, then he ordered up from the cellars champagne for the whole staff of the hospital and its patients.

  After their generous host had departed the following morning for London the four friends settled down to as pleasant a time as was possible in view of the bitter winter weather. Several days of snow and sleet, followed by biting winds, kept them largely to the house and, as none of them was a keen bridge player, to amuse themselves they resorted to various pastimes such as bezique, dominoes, Monopoly and guessing games.

  In mid- March, a shade regretfully yet eager to be again in the swim of things, Gregory returned to London and once more put on the uniform of a Wing Commander. Both his uniforms dated from August 1942, so he thought it time he had another. When he was measured for it at Anderson and Sheppard's he told his cutter that he was in no hurry for it, is he did not mean to use it until he next went on leave. To order it proved a waste of money, for he never went on leave again-

  12

  The New Menace

  GREGORY'S colleagues in the War Room were mainly other Wing Commanders, Lieutenant-Colonels and Commanders R.N., all middle-aged or elderly men specially selected from the host of officers who had served in the First World War and had been eager to serve again. As they were all intelligent and charming people the War Room could be described as a `happy ship'. They welcomed Gregory back with drinks in the tiny mess and invitations to lunch at their clubs, but were much too discreet to ask him where he had been during the past ten months.

  Neither did any of them go out of their way to pass on to him such information as they had picked up about the plans for 'Overlord'-the codeword for the coming invasion of the Continent-but from conversations with senior officers and. Cabinet Ministers who, looked in at the War Room late at night, and usually seemed to assume that only very special secrets were kept from its staff, Gregory soon had a very good idea of what was going on and he discussed such matters with Sir Pellinore, who was always extremely well informed.

  They had resumed their arrangement that Gregory should have supper with the elderly Baronet every Sunday evening. Like everyone else, Sir Pellinore's household was subject to rationing, but he had tackled that problem with his usual vigour and every week had sent up from Gwaine Meads supplies of non-rationed items, such as poultry, turkey eggs for omelettes and home-smoked eels. So after meals that were treats to Gregory they retired to the library and, stimulating their minds with ample potations of pre-1914 Kьlmmel and old brandy, reviewed every aspect of the war.

  Sir Pellinore continued to deplore the fact that as the Americans had more men and more money they were in a position to dictate how the Allies' forces should be employed. Among their major stupidities he counted their flat refusal, in spite of Churchill's most desperate pleas, to spare a single Brigade to take over Rhodes from the Italians before the Germans had a chance to get there; thus having ruined our excellent prospects of persuadin
g Turkey to enter the war as our allies.

  The reason the Americans gave was that they needed every man they could lay hands on, not alone for the cross-Channel operation but to stage a subsidiary invasion of the south of France. And for this project they also intended to rob General Alexander of the best Divisions from his Army in Italy.

  In the meantime things were going no better there. With a resolution that could only be admired, the Germans were obeying their Fьhrer’s

  order that there should be no withdrawal. They had clamped down like a vice on the country and terrorized the Italians into continuing to keep the railways and their supply services going. Meanwhile, the Anzio beach-head continued to be boxed in.

  After the great battle for Casino in January there was a temporary lull. But it had flared up again in mid-February and, although the American General Mark Clark had the historic monastery reduced to ruins by bombing, that got the Allies no further.

  On the 6th of the month the enemy made a ferocious assault on the Anzio bridgehead and it was again touch and go whether the seventy thousand men now crammed in there were to be driven into the sea. They succeeded in clinging on to their few miles of Italian soil, but only at the cost of terrible casualties. In mid-March there came the third great battle for Casino, but the Germans held the heights and the Allies were again driven back with fearful losses. Strategy had gone by the board, the Allies were now paying an appalling price for entering Europe by way of Sicily and the Italian campaign had degenerated into the same ghastly war of attrition and futile sacrifice of life that had been waged for so long by the boneheaded Generals of the First World War on the Western Front.

  Each time Sir Pellinore and Gregory met, after deploring the situation in Italy the Baronet asked gruffly, `Got yourself out of this habit of thinking about that Black Magician feller yet?'