Initiative (The Red Gambit Series Book 6)

by Colin Gee

  He saw nothing of note, save nature flourishing, untackled by man.

  The boat grounded and the engineer led the way, splashing his way up to the beach, before turning to wait for Kalinin, the triumph of his achievement writ large on his face.

  Kalinin dropped into the water and looked around him, assuming that the boat had grounded near to the site that was the object of the morning’s search.

  The old boathouse caught his eye immediately, as it had on the run in, and he used the proximity to examine it more closely.

  It was simply an old boathouse.

  Morsin, the engineer, waited patiently as Kalinin used the steadiness of the beach to scan the coastline to the north and south.

  ‘Nothing.’

  “Perhaps you would like to look from up there, Comrade Kapitan?”

  Morsin indicated the hill and the rough stone steps set in its front edge.

  By way of an answer, Kalinin set off with a will, determined to leave the civilian floundering in his wake.

  Reaching the top first, the submariner took in his surroundings, first with the naked eye and then with the powerful naval binoculars.

  He had been part of the planning of the facility, so had some idea of what he was looking for, the size and extent of it, but there was nothing even close… and yet here it was… apparently.

  The engineer arrived, seemingly on death’s door from his climbing exertions.

  He placed his hands on his knees and took his time to recover, every second of which Kalinin used to find the damned facility.

  Reluctantly, he dropped his binoculars to his chest.

  “I have to say, Comrade Engineer Morsin, the camouflage is excellent. I cannot see it, I cannot sense it… there seems to be nothing at all of interest for kilometres around.”

  Morsin held up his hand as he gulped in volumes of oxygen.

  “It is how we were ordered, Comrade. There… should be nothing to alert Allied observation, either from… the air or from the sea.”

  Kalinin nodded, happy that, wherever it was, the facility would not be detected.

  “Fine, the job is clearly excellent, Comrade Engineer. Now, let us go and inspect the damn thing. Show me… where is it?”

  Morsin laughed and pointed out to sea, slowly turning and sweeping his single finger across the horizon.

  Enjoying his moment, he prescribed a full circumference before coming to a halt, looking at the naval officer, and pointing to the ground.

  “You’re standing on it, Comrade Kapitan.”

  Kalinin had seen the inside before, but only in drawings and a scale model that had long since been burned in the courtyard of the Black Sea Fleet’s headquarters in Sevastopol.

  In the flesh, the construction was more impressive than he had imagined.

  Much of the work had been done during the interwar years and on into the Patriotic War when, given the impending demise of Nazi Germany and her cohorts, work on the special facility had been halted.

  The imperatives and requirements of the new conflict, and, in particular, Operation Raduga, meant that the inoffensively named ‘Vinogradar Young Communists Sailing Club’ was reborn and work continued.

  The whole floor area was flat, broken by two types of constructions.

  Firstly there were steel pillars, rising to the rock ceiling, offering the additional support needed to the hewn rock curve that ran for nearly two hundred metres, side to side.

  Secondly were the bays, six of them, each twenty metres wide and one hundred and fifty metres long, two dry and containing the parts of submarines under construction, the other four wet and ready to receive whatever was allowed to proceed through the huge doors that protected the entrance.

  The six bays were slightly angled in, so as to present their openings at a better angle to the entrance.

  Had Kalinin been able to work it out, he would have seen the old boathouse sat across the join of the two doors, obscuring their presence as had been intended.

  The Captain moved around, observing the sections that had been transported from the Baltic to the Black Sea being put together by the best quality ship builders the Soviet Union could find.

  The two type XXIs required no less than the best.

  Elsewhere, the offices, stores, fuel tanks, and armouries that would make the base into an operational covert facility were being made ready by different but equally skilled men.

  One tunnel was already guarded by NKVD soldiers, and Kalinin, lacking the necessary authority, was refused entry.

  He did not push the matter, for he had seen what lay beyond in model form and had little need to see it in the flesh, at least not until it was occupied by the weapons of Raduga.

  In the antechamber, to the side of the XXI berths, he could not help but admire the sleek forms waiting silently, their potential unrealised, their deadly task ahead of them, his part known only to him and a handful of others.

  Morsin slapped him on the back, a comradely slap that Kalinin did not in the slightest welcome. None the less, he felt invigorated by what he had just seen, so he let it go with a smile.

  “Beautiful aren’t they, Comrade Kapitan.”

  The engineer looked up at the quiet sentinels and sighed.

  “How I wish I had designed and built them. I’d have the Hero Award for it, I tell you. Anyway, they’re ours and I’m sure that our glorious leaders have found a way to use them properly. Now… come… lunch with the facility commander awaits.”

  Kalinin turned away to follow in the hungry Morsin’s wake, but risked one further look at the deadly weapons.

  ‘One day soon, you will fly for the Rodina!’

  He followed on quickly, leaving the silent V2s behind him.

  1400 hrs, Monday 17th June 1946, Camp Rose, on the Meer van Echternach, Luxembourg.

  Camp Rose was, as far as any enquiry would reveal, a medical staging facility, through which wounded men were returned to active units after additional training.

  That was, in fact, its main job, and explained the comings and goings of experienced soldiers.

  The camp spread itself down the west side of the lake, seemingly clinging to every open space from the forest’s edge to the waterside.

  However, there was another part, a secret part, that dwelt inside the woods and occupied a clearing that could not be observed by accident, and that clearing held the men destined to serve as members of Operational Group Steel, a joint US Army/OSS project.

  The concept was to reinstate the ability of the US Army to project force behind enemy lines, and therefore train a unit of battalion size that could operate by itself, in conditions of low supply and support, and trained in stealth warfare and all that entailed.

  To that end, the instructors were the very best, or worst, depending on who you asked, drawn from the SAS, Commandos, and US Rangers.

  The group was so secret that it had not called for volunteers, but had quietly cherry-picked men from units across the spectrum of the US forces. Resistance from some unit commanders had met with secret and unimpeachable orders, supported by assurances of an unhealthy interest in their career progression, interest of a type not necessarily conducive to advancement.

  One group of men recently arrived at Camp Steel was on parade, ready to be given some sort of idea what hellhole they had landed in.

  The veteran soldiers, ranked from private to lieutenant, understood enough to know that, whatever it was, it would result in going in harm’s way.

  The array of divisional badges was impressive, with very few of the experienced European divisions being unrepresented amongst the one hundred and thirty men in the group.

  As the murmuring rose, the paraded men were brought to attention by a sharp barked command, issued by a Commando RSM who clearly would not have their best intentions at heart.

  The four lines came crisply to the correct position and all eyes followed the prowling RSM, whose moustache was waxed to points that almost reached his ears.

  Having given
piercing eye contact to as many of the ‘yanks’ as his time allowed, the martinet returned to the main office building and came to attention, throwing up the most immaculate of immaculate salutes to the emerging officers, who returned the honour as best they could.

  The three men marched forward in easy style, coming to a halt in a triangle in front of the group.

  The full colonel nodded to the RSM, who brought the men to the parade rest position, or ‘stand at ease’, as he shouted it.

  “Men, thank you for coming here today. I know you’re here blind, and had no choice. We were the ones with choice, and we chose each of you.”

  The colonel relaxed into his speech and put his hands on his hips.

  “You ain’t here to polish your boots or do rifle drill. You’re here to learn how to soldier in a special operations unit. We ain’t being put together for fun… we’ll be used… and we’ll be ready for anything the generals ask of us. Keep your noses clean… no old soldier tricks… the instructors know them all and probably invented most of them… work hard, train hard, fight hard. We’ll ask no more of you.”

  He smiled disarmingly.

  “Now, if any of you don’t wanna stay after you’ve been here two weeks, then you’ll be able to go back to your own units… no questions… but you won’t be able to talk about this place or the men you leave behind. That’s the deal and it ain’t negotiable.”

  Coming back to a less relaxed position, he continued.

  “Your platoon officers will now detail you to your new units, thirty-two men each, and then you will be assigned to a barracks. As of now, you are men of Zebra Company, and the last company to be established in this battalion. Today, you’ll settle in. Chow is at 1800. Your platoon officers will brief you on camp rules. There will be no infractions.”

  He smiled, the face suddenly becoming less friendly and welcoming.

  “Reveille will be at 0530. That is all.”

  He nodded to the Commando NCO, whose voice literally made some of the combat veterans jump.

  “ATTEN-SHUN!”

  The colonel nodded in satisfaction and saluted the group, turning to his 2IC, who, in turn, saluted and took over.

  “Right men. The following officers will come and stand in front of me. Lieutenants Garrimore, Hässler, and Fernetti.”

  The three selected officers doubled to the front and took up station as directed, each separate from the other by a dozen paces.

  As further directed, they raised their hands and shouted a number.

  “One!”

  “Two!”

  “Three!”

  “Right men, when your name is called, fall in in column of your marker at the attention.”

  The Major consulted his clipboard and made a mark each time a man answered his name and fell in.

  “Acron one… Ambrose three … Barry three… Berconi two…”

  The colonel watched through his office window, satisfied with the ongoing process, as he shared a coffee with the commander of Zebra Company, a man who he knew little of, but whose reputation had preceded him, a reputation much enhanced by the Medal of Honor that the Captain had earned in the early days of the new European War.

  A handful of men remained to be called forward and the company commander took his leave, ready to go round each barracks and introduce himself.

  “Rideout one… Rosenberg two… Ulliman one… Vernon one … White two… Yalla three… Stalin two… fucking Stalin? You gotta be kidding me!”

  A tough looking corporal doubled to the end of the second platoon line, his face set, having undoubtedly heard it all before.

  The Major let it drop.

  “1st Platoon,” he extended his arm, pointing at an empty barracks, “That’s your new home.”

  He repeated the exercise for the two other platoons and watched as they doubled away.

  Hässler, as befitted his rank, pulled one of the two single rooms available.

  After a short ‘discussion’, a senior sergeant from the Big Red One ceded the other single bunk to Master Sergeant Rosenberg, leaving a trail of bloody spots behind, his nose leaking the red fluid after receiving an argument-winning tap from Rosenberg forehead.

  Having stowed his kit swiftly, Rosenberg made the short trip to the other room, stopping briefly to observe the men in the main bunk area, noting that they had sorted themselves and their kit out with the swiftness of veterans.

  He entered without knocking.

  “So, what does the First Lieutenant think about this fucking outfit, eh?”

  Hässler shrugged and rolled onto the bed, testing the mattress.

  “Beds comfy enough, accommodation is sound… lovely view, Rosie” he smiled mischievously and pointed at the window, through which green forest could be seen in all directions.

  “If the bacon’s good, I’d say we’ll be fine here. It’s what the bastards decide to do with us, or where they send us, that worries me.”

  “Same old shtick. Why always with the bacon, eh?”

  Outside came a call they could not ignore.

  “ATTEN-SHUN!”

  They both went for the door and ran straight into the British RSM, whose unblinking eyes carved through them like a red-hot poker through butter.

  “Get fallen in, Sergeant… you too, Sir.”

  The barracks was at attention, lined down each side, and the two friends joined the formation, every man’s eyes fixed straight ahead and focussed on something a million miles away.

  A slow but measured step broke the silence and, through their peripheral vision, they were aware that a shadow had entered through the end door, a shadow of some considerable size, for the light was all but removed as it came closer.

  It was the company commander, in his best uniform, the Medal of Honor ribbon plain for all to see, giving him authority well over his rank of Captain.

  In any case, the man was built like a mountain and was solid rippling muscle, and, as such, any confrontation was to be avoided.

  “Ben Zona!”

  The RSM was straight in Rosenberg’s face.

  “Did you say something, Sergeant?”

  “No… err… well… yes, I did, Sarge… I mean…”

  “You will call me Sarnt-Major. Call me sarge once more and I’ll rip whatever bits the rabbi left you clear off… do I make myself clear, Sergeant?”

  “Yes, Sergeant Major.”

  The RSM moved to one side, only to be replaced by the towering form of the company commander.

  Hässler now caught the officer’s eye and nearly followed Rosenberg onto the RSM’s shit list.

  The smile was wide and the teeth were white.

  “Well, what we have here then? Don’t I know you from somewhere?”

  They knew better than to answer, and in any case, no answer was required by the man in front of them.

  Tsali Sagonegi Yona of the Aniyunwiya Tribe, named as Cherokee by the Creek Indians, named as Captain Charley Bluebear by the US Army, and known, both jokingly and seriously, as Moose, was that man.

  He had pleaded for a return to combat and, by dint of his award, had been heeded, and given a position in the new unit.

  Bluebear had personally asked for Hässler and Rosenberg in his company, something that, again, he was not denied.

  The pair of them had seen the things before but, as the Captain moved up and down the lines, the tomahawk and battle knife were in prominent positions on the webbing belt, and had the desired effect, the veterans who had heard of the combats at Rottenbauer and Barnstorf shivered involuntarily, as the man of legend walked up and down.

  Charlie Bluebear had changed, the two could see that. It remained to see if it was into something they would like as much as the man who had boarded the aircraft all those months ago.

  “Men, we have plenty time to get to know each other. There is much to do. Little time to do it. Weapons inspection at 1700. Sargeant Majah.”

  The RSM had long since stopped cringing at the Cherokee’s efforts to say his rank
, and simply saluted the departing officer.

  “Right… you heard the man. Weapons inspection parade will be outside this barracks at 1700 sharp. Full kit. Any infringements will result in loss of privileges…”

  RSM Ferdinand Sunday stopped and stooped, placing his face level with Corporal Zorba.

  “Loss of privileges, in this instance, means forfeiture of access to the mess hall which, in your case, might mean you lose more fucking height, soldier!”

  Zorba’s eyes blazed but he kept his own counsel.

  Sunday marched smartly to the entrance and turned, slamming his feet down like cannon fire.

  “Dis-miss!”

  The men set to cleaning their weapons, amidst chatter ranging from going AWOL, through to murdering the fucking British bastard.

  Sixteen men missed their meal that evening, some for the tiniest infractions, but their comrades found enough space in their pockets to smuggle food back into barracks, something that did not escape the sharp eyes of either Bluebear or Sunday.

  It was expected and desirable, the comradeship in adversity already pulling them together into a tight unit.

  They would need every ounce of togetherness to get them through the rigorous training ahead.

  1800 hrs, Monday 17th June 1946, CP, 71st Infantry Brigade, Lohmühlenstrasse U-Bahn station, Hamburg, Germany.

  Brigadier Haugh was grim-faced.

  There was no way he could wrap this attack up in pretty ribbons and pass it off as a cakewalk.

  None of his experienced officers would buy it for a moment.

  It would be a total nightmare.

  71st Brigade had already taken a heavy hit, hammering through the Soviet defences as they strove to destroy the Soviet pocket and permit the port to begin resupplying the Allied armies.

  In Wandsbek, they had ground to a halt, until Allied air forces took a hand, reducing the area in an attack of great ferocity.

  Fig # 185 - Opposing forces at Hamburg 17th June 1946.