Not the safest way to carry a pistol whilst climbing up an unfamiliar hill in the dead of night, Lynch mused, but to be sure, there isn’t anything safe about this venture to begin with.
Slowly, very slowly, the two Commandos began to scale the side of the hill. The angle was steep, and there was plenty of sand and grit covering every nook and handhold, which made finding a solid grip treacherous. Not for the first time, Lynch was grateful for their Commando-issue boots, which had soft rubber soles, well-suited for this sort of work without making much noise. The problem was ensuring no pebbles or flakes of rock were knocked loose and sent tumbling and rattling down the side of the hill, a feat made all the more difficult because the only way to find such loose debris was to make contact with it in the dark. On more than one occasion, Lynch and Herring both cringed at the seeming racket caused by a small stone skipping and bouncing down to the ground below, and the two men tensed, dreading the shouts and rattle of automatic weapons fire signalling their demise.
But the alarm was never raised, and after perhaps fifteen minutes, the two men made it to the top of the ridge. Crouching low and unslinging his Thompson, Lynch saw they were halfway along one “arm” of the crescent-shaped hill, about a hundred yards from the fortress itself. He saw the building’s outline against the starry sky, but didn’t see any sentries along the rooftop, nor did he see any movement anywhere along the ridge. There did appear to be a sangar halfway between them and the fortress, but no one inside noticed their presence.
Looking down the almost-vertical eastern slope, Lynch saw the dim outlines of covered shapes, probably vehicles shrouded with camouflage netting. Of particular interest was a large rectangle of netting almost directly below him. From where he crouched, Lynch noticed a pair of sentries walking a slow perimeter patrol around the netting, and he wondered if that was where the British prisoners were confined. There was going to be a lot of hot lead and steel flying through the air very shortly; he just hoped whoever was down there had the presence of mind to hit the dirt and stay down until the shooting stopped.
As Lynch kept watch, Herring made fast the climbing rope. Unable to use a hammer or stake to secure the line, they instead used a monkey’s fist knot, with a thick wooden toggle through the middle. Herring found a suitable crack in the stone along the ridge, and with considerable effort, wedged the knot deep into the crack, making sure the wooden toggle was set so that weight from below would help keep the knot in place. The job completed, Herring gave the line three sharp tugs, and received two tugs in return. Feeling the rope go taut and satisfied after a few seconds that it would stay secured, Herring unslung his own weapon and took up a position back-to-back with Lynch.
Three men made it to the top of the ridge before their luck ran out. Lynch saw a figure begin a quick ascent along the ridge’s footpath, running in his direction. The man moved with surprising speed along the ridge in the dark, and he wasn’t going to give them anywhere near enough time before the rest of the squad made it onto the ridge. Lynch tapped the nearest man - it was McTeague - on the shoulder to draw the Scot’s attention to the problem at hand. McTeague touched Lynch on the throat and drew his finger across in an obvious gesture. Lynch slung his Thompson over his shoulder so the weapon’s distinctive outline was hidden from view and pulled his F-S knife free from its sheath. Rising from his crouch, he began to amble with a nonchalant gait down the ridge towards the approaching figure.
About fifteen feet away, the man noticed Lynch approaching and halted, muttering something in Italian that Lynch didn’t understand. Needing a few more seconds, he simply grunted and muttered, “Ja, ja,” to the Italian.
The man gave him a strange look and said, “Che cosa?”
Lynch’s free hand shot out and grabbed the Italian by the throat a split second before his knife rammed itself to the hilt in the man’s chest. With surprising strength, the Bersaglieri lashed out, and he tore Lynch’s hand away from his throat while stepping back, instinctively trying to pull himself free of the blade impaling his heart. Lynch lost his grip on the hilt of his knife and went after the man with a lunge, but his toe caught on a wrinkle of stone and he fell forward, his shoulder catching the man in the thigh.
With an inarticulate cry, the Italian fell off the ridge and plummeted down the side of the eastern slope, taking Lynch’s knife with him. The Italian’s body cartwheeled as it repeatedly smashed and slid along the rock face, finally coming to a stop in a mangled, boneless heap about ten feet from a horrified sentry. Lynch watched on his hands and knees, peering over the edge of the ridge, momentarily stunned at how completely and utterly he’d bolloxed the mission.
Chapter 23
The Outpost
November 1st, 0055 Hours
With about five seconds before the sentry down below found the knife buried in the dead man’s heart, Lynch decided that if they were in for a penny, they were in for a pound. He ripped a grenade from his web gear, pulled the pin, and threw it as hard as he could in the direction of what he assumed was the enemy’s motor pool. Before the first grenade even hit the ground, it was followed by another. The first grenade exploded with a flat crack, shockingly loud in the silent desert night, and by the time the second grenade detonated, Lynch had already thrown his third.
A heartbeat after the third grenade exploded, the desert night lit up with fire. Lynch’s first grenade must have punctured a vehicle’s petrol tank, because the third grenade ignited a spreading pool of fuel, and in seconds, the flames reached the tank itself. With a whooomp, a ball of fire several yards in diameter rolled up into the sky, illuminating the crescent shape of the hill and the eastern face of the fortress.
Lynch was already running by the time his third grenade exploded. He charged back up the ridge, his Thompson in his hands, loudly whispering, “Don’t shoot you bloody idiots, it’s me!”
He skidded to a halt next to McTeague, whose shocked features were illuminated by the flames licking up into the air. The Scotsman grabbed Lynch and pulled him to within an inch of his face.
“Ye daft shite! What’d ye do that for?” he growled at Lynch.
“The bugger went over the edge, so he did!” Lynch gasped. “He still has my bloody knife sticking out of him. We’ve been rumbled for sure, so I threw a few eggs to make ‘em look the other way.”
“Oh, I do believe they’re looking, all right,” Lynch heard Price remark in the Englishman’s usual dry tone.
Turning to look, he could see Italians and Germans running about below, some rushing towards the source of the flames with buckets of sand, others running away, wary of another vehicle explosion. Other men began firing randomly into the night, streams of machine gun tracers arcing into the darkness, ricocheting and careening off of rocks and tumbling through sand hundreds of yards away.
“How many men are up?” Lynch asked McTeague.
“Bowen, Johnson, and Nelson are still below,” the sergeant replied.
Just then, there was a shout from the sangar between them and the fortress. A rifle cracked, and automatic weapons fire blazed at them from a pair of Italian machine pistols. Bullets smashed and ricocheted off of the stones around the ridgeline where they stood, and Stilwell grunted, dropping to one knee.
“Bloody hell!” he cried out. “Caught one in me thigh!”
“Return fire!” McTeague roared. “Take that bloody position!”
The squad put its enhanced firepower to good use. Dragging a limping Stilwell with him, McTeague advanced and fired the Bren one-handed, the buttstock tucked under his arm, the massive weapon rising with the heavy recoil doing some of the work for him. Higgins and Brooks steadied the muzzles of their slung Breda machine guns and cut loose with long bursts, stitching the stones of the sangar with fist-sized craters. One of the Italians was hit, and with a cry of agony, he stumbled away clutching his gut, then pitched headlong over the western edge of the ridge.
Lynch, Price, and several other Commandos added the firepower of their Thompsons, raking the sa
ngar with short, chopping bursts of slugs. They advanced behind their suppressing fire, and finally took the position with a buttstroke to the face of the last surviving defender. The sangar was an anti-aircraft position, and contained a 20mm Breda cannon, similar to the weapon mounted inside the Autoblinda armoured cars. A crate containing twelve-round clips of 20mm cannon shells sat next to the Breda’s mount, open and ready for action.
Behind them, first Nelson, then Bowen, and finally Johnson made it to the top, and as each man found his feet, he helped the other up and onto the ridge. With the entire squad together at last, the unit gathered at the captured sangar as Price issued his orders.
“Sergeant, take three men and begin sweeping down this side of the hill, clearing the enemy positions. Bowen, you and Johnson hold this sangar with Stilwell and begin the second phase of the assault. The rest of you lads are sticking with me - we’re going to clear the fort.”
“She looks buttoned up pretty tight, sir,” Nelson said. “Want me to blow the door with a charge?”
“No, Corporal. I’ve got a better idea,” Price replied. Smiling, he reached out and patted a hand against the Breda cannon’s receiver.
Nelson’s eyes went wide. “Oh...that’s bloody brilliant! Can I?”
“Only if Sergeant McTeague doesn’t need you. Dougal?” Price asked.
“I’m taking Higgins, Brooks, and Herring. Ye can have the rogue, Lieutenant. All right ye scallywags, on me. Stilwell, give Herring that bag of Eyetie magazines!”
Price’s decision wasn’t a moment too soon. As McTeague and the three other Commandos took off down the ridge towards the hill’s southern weapons emplacements, the southern door to the fortress swung open, and a squad of Bersaglieri emerged. The men shouted in Italian towards the sangar, but seeing the four armed men moving away, and a number of other men clustered around the 20mm cannon, they quickly realized what all the recent gunfire was about. Rifles and machine pistols sent dozens of bullets towards Price and his remaining men, who now endured the same kind of withering fire they themselves had employed against the emplacement a minute ago. Slugs chipped stone and whined away, more than a few glancing off the steel mechanisms of the Breda cannon.
Price and the seven other Commandos flattened themselves against the ground, unable to even return fire against the Italians. Finally, Nelson pulled a Mills bomb from his webbing, and risking exposure, crouched and hurled the deadly missile towards the approaching enemy. The incoming fire slackened as the Bersaglieri scattered, and two more men threw grenades.
“Suppressing fire!” Price ordered. “Nelson, on that cannon! White, load him!”
The men sprang into action. As the rest of the Commandos pinned down the Italians, White slapped a clip of 20mm cannon shells into the Breda’s receiver and Nelson sat in the gunner’s seat, frantically spinning the elevation and traversing wheels. The cannon’s barrel tipped down and swung to the left, pointing towards the fortress.
“Cover your ears lads!” Nelson shouted. “It’s about to get loud!”
The Italians were just getting to their feet and bringing their weapons to bear when the slaughter began. The Breda opened fire with an immense roar, a six-foot tongue of flame leaping from its muzzle. As Nelson spun the traversing wheel and swept cannon fire across the enemy squad, men struck by the 20mm high-explosive shells were instantly destroyed, their bodies pulped, limbs shredded. One soldier had his head vaporized in the blink of an eye, his body toppling like a tree felled by a woodcutter. Another man was blown clean in half by a cannon shell in the belly, while the man next to him had his rib cage blown wide open, fragments of gleaming white bone spinning through the air.
The cannon fell silent. White slapped home another twelve-round clip, and Nelson swept the muzzle back across the enemy, further depressing the barrel’s angle since anyone still alive was now pressed flat against the rocky ground. Bodies already ripped apart were further reduced to little more than rags and pulped meat, and after the second pass those few men still alive threw away their weapons and raised their hands into the air, pleading for their lives to be spared the horror of the cannon’s wrath.
At this point, the entire garrison knew the enemy was among them. Rifle shots and bursts of machine pistol slugs came at the Commandos from all directions, but the sangar wall and the steep hill meant few of the defenders had a good firing angle. Furthermore, the guttering flames at the base of the hill created a host of flickering shadows that confused the defenders, causing many to fire on nothing but smoke and darkness.
The fortress was now shrouded in a cloud of rock dust knocked loose by cannon shells tearing holes in the wall big enough to stick a man’s arm straight through. The heavy wooden door was gone, blasted to kindling by several cannon shells, and inside there were shouts and cries from wounded men.
“Sir?” Nelson asked, as White reloaded the cannon with another twelve rounds of high-explosive death.
Price peered through the dust and gloom at the men pleading on the ground, and the shattered stone wall of the fort, fifty yards away. “Corporal Nelson, tear that building apart. Corporal Bowen, it’s your turn.”
Bowen nodded, and pulled a wide-muzzled flare pistol from his pocket.
Chapter 24
The Outpost
November 1st, 0105 Hours
Sergeant McTeague advanced down the path, following the top of the ridgeline down the southern arm of the hill. His Bren was fully loaded and the two men on either side of him, Higgins and Brooks, carried their slung Breda machine guns at the ready. Behind the trio, Herring kept watch to their rear and flanks with a Thompson in his hands, the heavy bag of Breda magazines slung over his shoulder.
A short distance ahead of them, a sangar covered with camouflage netting concealed the low, menacing shape of a cannon. McTeague could hear several Italians talking in fevered tones, no doubt peering out into the moonlit desert, searching for the attackers causing all the havoc. From further up the hill came the slow, methodical hammering of the 20mm cannon, and the nearby Italians shouted and began traversing their gun, trying to bring it about so they could engage the cannon chewing their fortress into rubble.
“Easy now lads,” McTeague growled. “Short bursts.”
The three light machine guns ripped into the stone redoubt. Unprepared and exposed, the four men inside the sangar perished in a heartbeat, riddled with a dozen bullets. With little more than a few wet gurgles, the Italians sprawled and died where they stood, never knowing what killed them.
It took a few seconds’ work to drag the bodies clear of the emplacement. A hundred yards further down the ridge, the three men manning a machine gun nest had seen the fate of their comrades, and brought their machine gun around to fire back up the ridge. They sent a blizzard of lead tearing into the anti-tank gun emplacement, forcing McTeague and the others to drop down onto their bellies as bullets smacked into stone and rang off the gun’s armour shield.
“Prickly buggers, aren’t they?” Herring shouted over the din as he dove for cover.
“Ach, load the bloody cannon!” McTeague shouted back, crawling on his hands and knees to the anti-tank gun’s firing mechanism.
Herring opened a crate and pulled free a heavy 28mm armour-piercing shell, then rammed the shell home. As the breech locked itself, he leaned out of the gun’s recoil path and grabbed another shell. McTeague took a deep breath, then raised himself up so he could peer through the gun-sight. The machine gun nest was lit up again by another burst of automatic fire, and ignoring the murderous hail rattling off rocks and steel plate inches from his face, the Scot centered the crosshairs on where he’d seen the muzzle blast, then tripped the firing mechanism.
The 28mm high-velocity cannon slammed back on its mount with a roar, flame spurting from its muzzle and dust swirling about from the blast. Herring immediately reloaded the weapon, and not bothering to fix his aim, McTeague fired again. There was the sound of ringing metal and a wavering cry of pain as the armour-piercing “squeeze bore�
� round smashed home at over four thousand feet a second.
“Another one, laddie!” McTeague ordered.
Herring loaded another shell, and McTeague fired again. This time the round sounded like it struck the sangar itself, with a crack of splintering stone. With a look of grim determination, McTeague fired one more shell into the machine gun nest, hearing the round pulverize steel and stone with its impact.
After the last shot crashed home, the four men sat in silence for a few seconds. There was no return fire from the machine gun, and each man privately shuddered at the thought of what such a terrible cannon could do to a man’s body.
“Well, Sergeant?” Herring asked after a few seconds. “Do we clear that position?”
“Clear it?” McTeague replied. “I cannae think there’s anything left.”
Just then, a wavering red glow illuminated everything around them, and the men looked out to the north, towards the other arm of the crescent. A parachute flare burned crimson a hundred yards above the ridge, slowly sparking and smoking as it descended, bathing everything for several hundred yards in a flickering glow.
“Here it comes,” McTeague said softly. “Poor buggers.”
A moment later, the whump of a discharging three-inch mortar was heard from out in the desert. Seconds passed, and then an explosion blossomed in the night as a mortar bomb landed beneath the flare, several yards from a sangar housing a 20mm Breda anti-aircraft gun. A few seconds later more reports were heard in quick succession as the mortar crew fired for effect. Several of the ten-pound mortar bombs landed on target, pulverizing rock and shredding the Italians cowering inside their ineffectual defenses.
Brooks stood up to get a better look at where the mortar rounds were landing. “Bloody hell, looks like those Eyeties are really getting-”
As if he’d swallowed a live grenade, Brooks’ body exploded in a shower of bloody meat and tattered rags. A split-second later, the boom of an anti-tank gun reached them from the other arm of the crescent.
Commando- The Complete World War II Action Collection Volume I Page 43
