by Alan Evans
When they were out of sight of the watchers on the headland Buckley turned the boat at Smith’s order and ran in towards the shore. He was working from the chart now, saw the inlet he wanted as they closed the coast and pointed Buckley towards it. Ellis, Merrick, Phillips and Lugg had been huddled in the cabin, comparing notes and planning, since Smith had ordered the turn to close the shore. Ellis was still in there, drafting orders now, but the others were out in the well.
Smith asked Phillips, “You know what you have to do?”
The sergeant was young for his rank, broad and stocky, confident but not cocky. “Ascertain enemy strengths and dispositions…” He recited the orders Smith had given him before they left Cassandra, then finished, “ … and to see without being seen, avoid action.”
“Don’t forget that. Understood?” Smith addressed Phillips but cocked an eye at Corporal Lugg, tall and muscular, hatchet-faced and pugnacious.
Lugg caught the eye on him: “Yes, sir. Softly, softly.”
The pair of them landed on the southern shore of the inlet, that nearer to Bergsund, and started the climb up the snow-covered hillside towards the ragged crest. They would approach the port over the high ground. Smith watched them go as the boat headed out to sea and prayed they would be all right. He had set them a large task and sent them into enemy-held country. But now Ellis and Merrick claimed his attention, wanting to discuss their plans.
Ellis was serious. “I think, from what I saw of the stores, guns and transport going ashore or already there, and from the size of that troopship, there could be a couple of battalions in there, fifteen hundred men or more.”
That was double the force that Ellis commanded. Smith thought that now the soldier was remembering that phrase “at all costs” and thinking of what it might mean in terms of the lives of his men. Because they would not be just occupying a friendly, undefended port. Smith did not like the idea, either, but — He said slowly, “There weren’t many soldiers to be seen in the town. There was no barracks, no sign of any garrison being stationed there. It’s a small town and I think it was probably taken by very few men. It may be held now by only a company or two while the rest have gone inland. So if we can achieve surprise, and using the fire-power of Cassandra, we can take the port.”
“But that’s only what you think,” said Ellis, eyes on Smith, “your opinion.” Smith had to agree and nodded.
Ellis pressed, “It looks like they’ve got the —” He hesitated, remembering that his orders were for the eyes of Commanding Officers only and Merrick was present, then finished: “— the cargo. But suppose they haven’t?”
“We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it,” Smith replied. He was in command here. What risks he took to seek out and seize the ‘cargo’, that would be for him to decide. The orders he had inherited from Miller had not envisaged that Bergsund would be held by the enemy, but they had not said that he could back off if it was. Also the attack on Bergsund and the manner of it would be his decision, too, and to be taken in just a few hours.
There was Cassandra ahead, turning, running in to pick them up, and the Ailsa Grange staying out on the patrol line. The troops in her, and Smith’s own men in Cassandra, would be wondering what lay ahead for them. He felt a moment of self-doubt. Was he being influenced by emotion? But his orders were clear and permitted no divergence. In his mind he had already taken the decision and if he was wrong the awful burden would lie on his conscience. His face was bleak as he climbed the ladder to the deck of his ship.
10
A dark night and now snow was falling, but lightly, tossed on the wind. The inlet should lie ahead, over the nodding bow of the fishing boat, but darkness and the whirling white flakes hid it. Smith looked at his watch using a torch, held in his cupped hands so there would be no leakage of light. There was always the possibility of an enemy patrol on the dark shore. It was time. He said quietly, “Look out for their light. They should show it now if they are there.” If. And if this boat was in the right place and he and Harry Vincent, standing beside him now, had not made a balls-up of their navigation so that the inlet was a mile away. He licked his lips.
He was using Per Kosskull’s boat again because he was ready to try to bluff if he found a German patrol waiting for him at the inlet. There was silence in the fishing boat except for the low putter of its engine as it crept in towards the unseen shore. They all tried to pierce the darkness and the blinding snow. The same team was in the boat as earlier in the day but with the addition of Harry Vincent and the other soldier rescued from Hornet with Ellis.
He sat in the sternsheets of the boat now, wrapped in a borrowed oilskin, a young second-lieutenant attached to the battalion as interpreter. Tall, gangling, relaxed, he had explained: “My father was in the timber business in Bergen from before I was born.” He had grinned at Smith, “The old man had the right name for it — Woodman. I lived in Norway until I was nine years old and then I went to school in England. But I still came back for vacations up to 1938. Father was promoted and moved back to the London office then.”
When he climbed into the boat Smith had asked him, “Are you being looked after all right, Mr Woodman?”
“Yes, sir, thank you. Mr Kelso lent me this oilskin and really made me welcome.”
“I’ll bet he has.”
Dry humour there because Ben Kelso would greet an interpreter with heartfelt relief, and Harry Vincent had laughed. But they were all serious now: Phillips and Lugg were missing from the team, the two men they had put ashore and had come for now, the men Smith worried over. But —
“There it is! Port bow!” The low call came from one of the two seamen acting as lookouts, standing in the bow with one arm outstretched, pointing.
Smith had seen the three short flashes, yellow sparks in the night. They had gone now but he told Buckley at the helm, “Port ten … steady…now steer that.” The boat crept on in and now Smith saw the looming shadow of the shore, the black lift of the hillside on either side of the inlet. The boat rode more easily as they slid into the sheltered water, the way came off her as the clutch was thrown out and then the bow grounded gently on the southern shore. He called softly, “Quickly now!”
The voice of Phillips drifted back to him, “We’ve got an extra one, sir.” Now Smith could see the two figures that would be the stocky marine sergeant and the taller corporal, standing in the surf that washed the beach. They were shoving a third man up into the bow where one of the lookouts hauled him in and passed him to the other seaman who brought him aft into the well. Phillips followed, thickset body dropping springily into the well, and introduced the man he had brought, “This is Harald Olsen, sir. He only has a couple of dozen words of English and most of them aren’t fit for mixed company. But we got him to understand who we were and what we wanted and he agreed to come of his own free will.”
Smith saw the corporal still waiting on the shore and asked, “So it’s all right?”
Phillips answered, “All set, sir. Lugg knows what he has to do.”
The fishing boat was going astern out of the inlet and Lugg fading rapidly into the gloom as he watched them go. Smith gave Buckley the course he had to steer back to Cassandra then left Harry Vincent with the conn and told Phillips, “Come on.” He led the two, Phillips urging Olsen, to the cabin and ducked in through the door. They walked into total darkness that fled as Smith closed the door behind them and its automatic switch triggered the light. The men of Cassandra’s torpedo, branch, the ship’s electrical experts, had installed the light and switch at Smith’s order.
They squeezed in around the little table where Ellis and Merrick sat already with the lazily grinning Woodman. Young Phillips was grubby, face sweat-streaked despite the cold. He fumbled now at his pocket, pulling out a notebook. “I found Mr Olsen at his house, up on the hill about a half-mile behind the town. I didn’t want to risk getting any closer — I could see a few soldiers patrolling the outskirts.”
“Quite right,” Smith agreed. Hara
ld Olsen was a man in his sixties wearing an ancient overcoat and suit. Before he sat down Smith saw the bottoms of the trousers were tucked into thick socks and he wore heavy boots. He had come dressed to walk on the hills. He had pulled off a woollen hat and now clutched it in one hand. A fringe of grey hair stuck up wildly around a pink pate over a weather-beaten face.
Smith said, “Tell him who I am and that I would like some information.” He smiled at Olsen while Woodman spoke, pleasantly, also smiling. Smith saw the old Norwegian relaxing in the light and nodding his bald head as he was addressed in his own tongue.
He spoke to Woodman who confirmed, “He says he will help in any way he can, sir.”
He interpreted as Smith put his questions. Olsen said he had been born in Bergsund and lived there all his life. He had been a fisherman for many years plying out of Bergsund, running a one-man business, selling fish on the quay there and also carrying it upriver by boat, stopping at every village to sell. But his wife had become ill a few years ago and he had given up the boat and bought a smallholding outside of town. His wife was dead now but he would not go back on the water. He had a cow and grew vegetables. Some of these, and most of the milk from the cow, he sold. “I want to live quietly, in peace.”
Ellis was showing signs of impatience yet again but Smith needed to know the background of this man, to judge his worth as a source of information. He thought Harald Olsen would be sound.
The old man had heard shooting the previous day and seen the transport and a German warship outside the harbour. Smith thought, That could be Brandenburg. Olsen said he had not gone into town because of the shooting, but a man coming out and hurrying away inland to safety had told him what was happening. About two thousand men and some guns and vehicles had been landed. Shots had been fired but only as a warning. No one had been hurt.
Ellis scowled at Smith, but in answer to his next question Olsen said he didn’t think there were so many soldiers to be seen now. Some of them may have gone but he didn’t know when or how. He thought possibly in trucks or more likely on foot. When pressed he refused to elaborate, spread his hands and said he could only speak of what he had seen.
Smith liked that and nodded approval, then asked about the road leading inland. Olsen said it was narrow but a good metalled surface. At present it was snow-covered and treacherous for vehicles. It led to the next village some fifteen kilometres inland.
“That’s Heimen, sir,” Woodman explained.
Smith nodded, expressionless but taking it in, then said thickly, “Go on. What about the fjord? To what extent is it navigable?” He went on with his questions and Woodman with his translating. The fjord was navigable for thirty or forty kilometres from its mouth. There was a buoyed channel with a depth of five to six fathoms and ships regularly used it to go upriver.
“In fact,” said Woodman, “he says a ship goes up every month to load timber. There’s a sawmill at Heimen and a few houses belonging to the people who make a living from it.”
Smith’s questions went on as he tried to build up a picture of Bergsund and its defences. Ellis drummed his fingers on the table and looked pointedly at his watch. He was reminding Smith of the warning he had given to Ellis and the rest at that afternoon’s briefing. Smith had told them baldly, “Time is short.” When — if — they attacked Bergsund the enemy would call for help and it might not be long in coming. There were German ships active all along the Norwegian coast and Smith did not want to be caught in Bergsund.
But Olsen’s information could be valuable and they could not take any action until they got back to Cassandra. Smith stole a glance at his own watch, asked two more questions of Olsen and then finished with him. He told Woodman, “Give Mr Olsen my thanks: I may ask him for more help later but I will return him to his home as soon as I can.”
Olsen shrugged at that, a gap-toothed grin cracking his red face. Woodman translated, “He says no one will worry over him now and you only have to put him ashore. An old dog like him will always find his way home.”
Smith turned to Phillips, who recited the results of his reconnaissance, detailing enemy positions and strengths, reading from his notes, his pencil marching over the map. “…We located the telephone lines, both the one running inland along the side of the road and the other field telephone line Jerry has run up to his lookouts on the hill. They won’t be any trouble, sir —” He grinned at Smith, “Not the lines nor the lookouts…”
When the fishing boat finally ran in alongside Cassandra they had done. Ellis scowled dubiously at his notes but Smith’s plans were complete — or as complete as they could be. “Events might dictate changes and we’ll have to be ready for them. I never knew one of these amphibious operations that didn’t go wrong somewhere.” He spoke with the bitter knowledge of a veteran of a dozen such ventures. Ellis kept the silence of a man embarking on his first.
There were other boats alongside, from the Ailsa Grange, that had brought two companies of Ellis’s battalion. The last of the men of one company, awkward with slung rifles and girded with ammunition pouches, were climbing up the nets to Cassandra’s deck. The other company still sat on the thwarts of the pulling boats, rifles, Bren guns or mortars held upright between their knees. The major commanding them called from the sternsheets of his boat, reporting to Ellis, “All correct.”
Ellis passed on to him the orders drawn up by Smith then looked over the white faces turned to him. He bawled a few cheerful words of encouragement, clearly so all of them could hear him: “Well done! They look fine!” Then he muttered, “God help them. They’ve got over their seasickness, anyway.”
He transferred to one of the empty boats vacated by the soldiers now aboard Cassandra. It carried him back to the Ailsa Grange, there to brief the two companies still aboard her. He would not have long.
Smith boarded Cassandra and ran up the ladders to her bridge. Phillips would take Olsen below and see he got a meal and a cabin where he could rest. When Smith leant over the screen on the wing of the bridge he saw Harry Vincent, still in the fishing boat. Harry had taken in tow the boats from the Ailsa Grange carrying the company of soldiers. As Smith watched Harry got under way, the boats dragging astern, headed back to the inlet where Lugg waited. The Corporal would be showing a light briefly every ten minutes, as Smith had ordered — he glanced at his watch — starting about now.
Smith briefed his own officers, with Miller and the other officers from Hornet, and those from the company of soldiers now aboard Cassandra. Then he set them and their men to making their preparations, drove them all, striding rapidly among them: “Come on! We haven’t got all night!” But he was on his bridge when Harry Vincent returned in Per Kosskull’s boat and towing the now empty pulling boats rising and falling on the swell. Harry took them to the Ailsa Grange then brought the fishing boat back to Cassandra and reported to Smith on the bridge: “All the soldiers safe ashore and on their way, sir.”
“Very good,” Smith acknowledged, grateful for that one crumb of comfort. All manner of disasters might have befallen that first party; Harry getting lost or the soldiers landing only to be ambushed…But that had not happened. And now he glanced at his watch again and told Galloway, “I want all our boats inboard and quickly. Tell Ailsa Grange the same. As soon as she’s ready we’ll get under way.”
He took a deep breath and sat back in his chair. There was a huge prize at stake this night. His orders demanded he should make this attempt to recover the cargo of — machine tools? But he would be lucky to come away with it. The bigger prize for him was out of his reach except for a miracle. But he could pray for that. He looked around at the ships, seen through the snow as shadows in the night, and the men like smaller shadows hurrying about their decks. He would pray for all of them.
It was quiet on the bridge now, all of them silent because they would soon be in action and no one could be sure he would survive. Cassandra slid into the mouth of the fjord at a creeping five knots, not a light showing except a red pin-prick in the nigh
t, like the glow from a cigarette, at her stern. That was a marker for the Ailsa Grange following her in. This was not like entering the Jossingfjord, with a moonlit sky and the yellow squares of lit windows. All was darkness and Smith could just see the loom of the headlands. The snow-shrouded slopes rose steeply from the water on either hand, the glassy surface of the fjord between.
Smith called softly into the tension, “Mr Appleby!” The young midshipman jerked into life and hurried to his side, breathless. “Sir?”
Smith told him, “You’re coming ashore with me, I want a minner and a signalman with his lamp to go with us. Get ‘em.”
“Aye, aye, sir!” Appleby scurried away and Smith faced forward again. That would keep the boy occupied.
He thought the snow was falling more thickly. Peering through it he could just make out the enemy troopship bulking large. She lay at anchor in the fjord off the little harbour. There was no need to worry about the lookouts on the headland because Lugg and the soldiers would have dealt with them. The snow had probably hidden Cassandra’s approach from the lookouts on the trooper, but now — ? The men over there, with watering eyes on this bitterly cold night, might miss the slender cruiser, but not the bulk of the Ailsa Grange, standing high out of the water and broad in the beam.
He would not wait for them to raise the alarm. He wanted complete surprise. “Lights! Engage!”
They were the only orders needed. The searchlight above the bridge ignited with a crackle of carbons and shot out a long beam that found the end of the sea-wall, then ran along it like a questing finger and stopped on the Oerlikon gun. It was not manned. Only a sentry, in a greatcoat reaching down to his ankles and with a rifle slung over his shoulder, stood beside it. “A” gun fired from Cassandra’s bow, was laid fractionally low and the shell burst below the sea-wall. The next was on target and the Oerlikon was hurled over onto its back. By then the sentry was off the sea-wall and running for his life across the quay. The snow spurted up from his boots and the long skirts of his coat flapped like wings.
