Commando- The Complete World War II Action Collection Volume I

by Jack Badelaire

  Higgins wiped a sheen of blood and flesh from his face with his uniform sleeve. “What the blazes…?”

  “Bloody Eyeties are givin’ us a dose of our own medicine! Alright lads, let’s shift this gun. Put yer backs into it!” McTeague ordered.

  The three men shifted the gun mount, straining to move several hundred pounds of steel. They grabbed the split rail and dragged the gun back and around so that, with effort, it could be traversed to fire towards the other arm of the hill. Another anti-tank round clipped the top of the sangar, lacerating everyone with tiny, razor-edged stone splinters.

  “They’re getting closer!” Herring shouted.

  McTeague lined up his shot, and as Herring loaded another round, the Scot fired at the distant target. Illuminated by the flare dropping out of the sky, the effect of the high-velocity anti-tank shell was easy to see. The round struck the stones making up the sangar and knocked several spinning through the air, one of them flying up to tear away the camouflage netting over the emplacement. At the same moment, the Italians fired again, and the three men felt the air buffet them as the projectile cracked past inches above their heads.

  McTeague’s second shot came in slightly higher, and the four Commandos saw sparks fly as the round tore through the 28mm anti-tank gun like it was a child’s toy. Tiny, ant-like figures limped away from the emplacement, only to be picked off one at a time by single rifle shots.

  “Sounds like Rhys is putting his lady to work,” Higgins said.

  “At that range, he cannae miss,” McTeague replied.

  “Well, Sergeant?” Herring asked. “What’re we to do now?”

  McTeague thumped the cannon with his fist. “Lads, let’s find us another target.”

  Chapter 25

  The Outpost

  November 1st, 0110 Hours

  With a disappointed sigh, Nelson fired the last of the 20mm cannon shells into the side of the fortress. He’d been having the time of his life, and was only sorry that after the first squad of Italians, no one had shown themselves to offer him a more exciting target. Nearly a hundred rounds of 20mm ammunition had been fired into the side of the stone fort. The wall appeared as if it was on the verge of collapse, in some places the holes large enough for a man to crawl through with ease.

  “Alright lads, Nelson’s had his fun. On your feet - we’re clearing that building!”

  Everyone except Bowen, Johnson, and Stilwell moved forward at a crouch, their Thompsons at the ready. Several times, one man or another slipped or skidded across glistening smears of human remains, and they struggled to avoid being sick in front of each other, gagging from the overwhelming slaughterhouse smell rising up from the horror at their feet. The three Italians who’d survived the barrage remained prone in the blood and gore, splattered in so much human wreckage that they could have passed for dead men themselves. Lynch approached one Italian who looked up at him, tears cutting streaks in the dust and blood across the man’s face. The once-proud soldier was now reduced to a weeping, trembling child.

  “Sorry mate,” Lynch muttered to the Italian. “Nothing personal.”

  The five men approached the shattered doorway, and at Price’s signal, White lobbed a grenade into the courtyard beyond. The instant after the explosion, the five Commandos flowed through the entrance, Thompsons up and at the ready. The courtyard appeared empty save for a pair of corpses in the now-familiar uniform of the Bersaglieri, but immediately shots rang out, bullets smacking into the stone walls behind them. Lynch felt a bullet tug at his trouser leg, and the Commandos dove towards the nearest cover while spraying slugs at the muzzle flashes.

  “Looks like I didn’t get ‘em all!” Nelson shouted above the din.

  “It bloody well appears that way, doesn’t it?” White shouted back.

  Once they took stock of the situation, it was apparent there were only three or four riflemen on the other side of the courtyard. Not wanting to be pinned down here, Lynch and Nelson provided cover fire while the others moved towards the nearest building entrance. In a few seconds the five Commandos were inside the fortress proper.

  “That was a hot reception!” quipped Hall.

  Price shot him a silencing look. “Alright lads, we’re going to do this one room at a time and make sure we’ve flushed out every last Jerry or Eyetie. Oh, and be sure we don’t shoot any of those poor bloody prisoners, either.”

  While the momentum of the battle at large might have shifted in favor of the British, the Germans and Italians were far from beaten. Two rooms into their sweep, in a long, narrow mess hall, the Italians had set up a barricade of wooden tables and supply crates across a narrow doorway. Rifles and Beretta machine pistols cracked and chattered, sending slugs ricocheting off walls and around corners. Lynch felt a bullet fragment cut a stinging furrow across his ribs, and Nelson received a deep, bloody groove down the length of his forearm from a ricochet. Determined to break the stalemate, Price reloaded his Thompson, then dove out and rolled into the open, below the Italians’ fire. With a sweep of his Thompson, Price ripped twenty .45 calibre slugs into the wooden table blockading the door, sawing a jagged tear across the barrier at waist-level. The shooting stopped abruptly, and seizing the initiative, the other Commandos ran past, their Thompsons roaring.

  The barrier came apart under their withering fire, and the men smashed through, only to shout in alarm as fixed bayonets and rifle butts came at them from several angles at once. Lynch stumbled back, reeling from a glancing blow to the head from a buttstock, and brought his Thompson up just in time to deflect another blow strong enough to shatter a man’s head like a melon. Lynch kicked out and heard his assailant curse in pain as he made contact with the man’s groin. With a moment of freedom to act, Lynch drew his already-cocked .45 automatic from its holster. Firing from the hip, he put three bullets in his attacker’s chest. The German, the same sergeant who’d accompanied Steiner to their meeting, gurgled out a curse as he stumbled back, clutching the ruin of his chest as he spun around and fell face-first to the floor.

  Turning, Lynch saw the other Commandos were all on their feet, although several had acquired new cuts and bruises. Nelson wiped the blade of his trench knife across the tunic of the nearest Italian corpse, while rivulets of blood leaked down from his scalp. Hall fingered a nasty-looking notch carved out of his Thompson’s buttstock.

  “Closest I ever want to get to the tip of an Eyetie bayonet,” he muttered.

  Price gently massaged a battered jaw and holstered his smoking pistol while eyeing the dead man at his feet. “Plucky lot, these Bersaglieri. That fellow loosened a couple of my back teeth with his last swing.”

  After everyone took a moment to steady themselves, the Commandos moved ahead swiftly, keeping an eye out not only for any lurking enemies, but any sign of the captured British soldiers as well. However, it soon became apparent they were flushing the last of the fort’s defenders ahead of them. Pot-shots were taken in their direction from around corners and through doorways, forcing them behind cover and halting their pursuit. But, as soon as the Commandos returned fire and advanced, the resistance vanished.

  As Lynch rounded a corner, a German stick-grenade flew towards him and on instinct he slapped it into an adjacent room with the butt of his Thompson. As everyone dove for cover, Lynch found himself on the floor, his head sticking out around the corner of the wall. Just as the grenade detonated he saw several men in German uniforms duck around a far corner moving at a run.

  “Jerry’s legging it, boyos!” he shouted.

  “We’ve got ‘em on the bloody ropes!” Nelson agreed. Every man took a second to load fresh magazines into their weapons, then they rose to their feet and hurried after their quarry.

  Seconds later, the Commandos found themselves on the other side of the courtyard from where they’d entered. To their left, the northern doorway leading out of the fortress stood partially open. Crouching, Hall glanced outside, only to yank his head back a split second before several rifle bullets smashed hole
s in the wooden door.

  “They’re holding fast in another sangar about fifty yards away,” he said. “Didn’t look like a cannon though, maybe a mortar emplacement. Must be a dozen or more out there, Jerries and Eyeties.”

  Lynch looked at Price. “We go through that door now, and you can be sure they’re going to blast us the same way we blasted them.”

  “Oh, I expect they’re positively giddy at the thought,” Price replied. “Any suggestions?”

  “Well, if we can’t go out,” Nelson answered, “we might as well go up!” He pointed towards a set of stone stairs leading to the walkway around the courtyard wall, several yards above their heads.

  “Good show! Alright lads, up we go,” Price ordered.

  The five men charged up the stairs and onto the walkway, taking care to stay low and out of sight. Each man found a place along the crenellations, and at Price’s command, they peered over the edge of the wall and cut loose with their Thompsons.

  At fifty yards away and firing in the dark, the Thompsons weren’t ideal for the situation at hand. However, the amount of lead they put in the air more than made up for the range and poor visibility. Several cries of pain were heard from the sangar, but almost immediately, the Italians returned fire. Bullets snapped through the air around the Commandos’ heads and punched craters into the stone battlements. A Beretta machine pistol chattered, and Lynch ducked as slugs ricocheted over his head and whined into the night.

  “Lieutenant, this isn’t working exactly as planned!” White shouted while reloading.

  “Keep them guessing,” Price ordered. “Fire and displace. Use the whole wall!”

  The Commandos exchanged gunfire with the Italians for several minutes. Each man cut loose with a burst of slugs and ducked below the wall before moving to another firing position as return fire lashed at where they’d just been. Despite their best efforts, it didn’t seem as if the Italians were taking any casualties. If they were losing men, those who remained were doing their best to make up for the losses.

  As Lynch raised his head up over the edge of the wall again, he saw another flare slowly descending, this time over what remained of the enemy’s motor pool. A few seconds later, there came the slow, methodical thumpthumpthump sound of an autocannon out in the darkness, and he could see the flickering tongue of a muzzle flash, several hundred yards away. It was their captured Autoblinda, firing as it approached from the east. A moment passed, and then armour-piercing shells began to smash into the vehicles down below, tearing clean through the thin-skinned Bedfords parked neatly side-by-side under their camouflage netting.

  Mortar bombs soon followed the cannon fire, exploding among the vehicles every four or five seconds. Although Eldred’s Commandos had only brought one three-inch mortar with them, and a limited number of the ten-pound mortar bombs, the three men from Peabody’s squad crewing the weapon were clearly experts in its use, bringing their shots down onto the targets designated by Bowen’s flares with impressive accuracy.

  One extremely well-placed mortar bomb struck the captured petrol tanker, and the immense blast sent a ball of fire rolling up into the sky, past the top of the fortress, and Lynch ducked as he felt the heat coming from the explosion over a hundred yards away. The entire outpost was lit up by the blast, and off to the east he could see the armoured cars and Desert Group vehicles approaching with crouching Commandos interspersed between them.

  As the rolling ball of flame slowly dissipated, Lynch turned to the other Commandos, a wide-eyed look on his face. “I hope the poor bastards Jerry had in the bag weren’t anywhere near that!”

  The explosion had another immediate effect. Shouts of dismay came from the Italians in the sangar, and first one, then several other Bersaglieri threw their weapons over the edge of the emplacement.

  “Non sparare!” they began to shout, and several hesitantly raised their hands in the air, surrendering.

  Lynch looked over at Price. “Well, what do we do, now?”

  Price frowned at the question. “I think the answer is quite obvious,” he replied. “We accept their surrender. It’s the only civilized thing to do.”

  Chapter 26

  The Outpost

  November 1st, 0125 Hours

  Lieutenant James Lewis had never been both so happy and so terrified at the same time in all his life. He and his fifteen men were face down in the dirt within their barbed wire enclosure, hands over their heads, as gunfire and explosions hammered the air all around them. Voices shouted nearby in Italian and German as boots pounded sand outside their fencing. Once, Lewis even thought he heard a few words of English, but with such a cacophony of noise he couldn’t be sure.

  One thing was certain, though. The outpost was being attacked, and it seemed from Lewis’ vantage point - poor though it was - that his captors were losing. He could sense the uncertainty in their voices, the disorganized nature of their movements. In their minds, something was most definitely not going according to plan.

  “Freddy!” Lewis whispered to the prone figure next to him.

  “Aye, sir?”

  “D’you see the little blighter?”

  Lewis sensed Freddy shifting in the sand next to him.

  “Aye, sir! He’s off to my left. Hopping about like he’s gotta take a piss. I think he’s just too afraid of those Jerries to leg it.”

  “Is it just him? Do you see anyone else nearby?” Lewis asked.

  Freddy shifted some more. “No, sir. It’s just the one fellow, has himself one of those little Eyetie machine guns, sir.”

  “Do you have your rock, Freddy?”

  “Aye sir, tucked in me pocket. Shall I spread the word?”

  Lewis thought hard for a moment. “It’s now or never, old bean. Soon as he’s distracted and pointing that bloody perforator someplace else.”

  As much as he trusted Steiner - and that was probably as much as one could ever trust a German - Lewis understood his duty as an officer in the British armed forces. And that duty was to resist. Within a day of their capture, he’d instructed all of his men to find one or two well-shaped rocks, something sizable enough to use as a missile or a bludgeon, but small enough to hold and conceal easily. Over the course of a couple nights, each man dug about until they unearthed something of the proper size, at which point the makeshift weapon was surreptitiously tucked away in a place that was easy to remember, usually at a specific point underneath the prisoner’s bedroll.

  When the first three explosions shattered the silence of the night, Lewis thought there might have been an accident. But when gunfire followed shortly thereafter, quickly escalating into a full-fledged firefight, Lewis knew someone was attacking the base. The cannon fire up on the ridge confused him for a moment, and he wondered if the first explosions had been bombs, but he immediately dismissed the idea. He’d not heard any aircraft engines, and the bombs were far too small.

  No, they were being infiltrated, possibly by men of the Desert Group, or maybe that newly-formed irregular raiding unit - Detachment “L” - that everyone was whispering about. Lewis guessed that those first three explosions had probably been some kind of distraction to sow confusion while the raiders launched their attack. At the start, he had been content to keep his men low and quiet, hopeful that someone would be along soon to shoot their gaoler and set them free. But now, as cannon fire, mortars, and anti-tank guns roared all around them, Lewis grew more worried they’d be on the receiving end of a poorly-aimed mortar bomb or grenade, and that’d be the end of it all.

  Suddenly, there were a series of high-velocity impacts, as autocannon fire tore into the vehicles parked to the north of their tent. The sounds of tortured, ringing metal were quickly followed by several mortar bombs exploding amongst the motor pool, and in an instant, a massive conflagration lit up everything bright as day. Lewis felt the heat against his skin, and risked a look up from forcing his face into the sand. A few feet away, their guard was shakily picking himself up from the ground.

  “Now, lads!
Now!” Lewis shouted.

  The men overcame their fear and jumped to their feet. The Italian, sensing movement behind him, turned just in time to receive a fast pitch to the side of the head from one of Lewis’ men, the fist-sized rock smacking home with an audible thud. The guard staggered and made a motion to raise his Beretta machine pistol, but the first rock was followed by several more in quick succession, and one of them caught him square between the eyes. The guard lurched drunkenly, and with a mumbled curse, fell flat on his face, the gun tumbling from his hands.

  “The fencepost!” Lewis shouted. “The corner post!”

  Two of his strongest men ran to the corner post closest to the guard. Each man grabbed ahold of the fence post with both hands and put all their strength into bending it back towards them. The post, two inches in diameter, resisted for a few agonizing seconds, but with a sharp crack, snapped clean through just above the sand. The two men dropped the post, and as soon as the barbed wire fell safely to the ground, they were charging over the barrier.

  The guard managed to raise his head off the ground just a moment before an Englishman’s booted foot connected with his temple. The guard let out a groan and raised a pleading hand above his head, but before his attacker could get the boot in again, Lewis grabbed the man by the shoulder.

  “That’s enough lad. Get his gun and let’s find some cover,” Lewis ordered.

  The rest of the men jumped over the downed wire, but once free from captivity, Lewis didn’t know what to do. There were still shots ringing out in the darkness, and he saw a number of Bersaglieri rushing about, many heading towards the undamaged vehicles. Lewis motioned for the men to go prone, hopefully avoiding any stray bullets or shell fragments zipping through the air.

  “Sir, look!” Freddy shouted next to Lewis, pointing into the moonlit desert beyond the firelight.