Agent of the Reich

by Seb Spence

  “What the blazes are you two doing up here?” he demanded, clearly displeased. “You should have stayed back with the other lorries.”

  Barton ignored the reprimand. “Any sign of Miss Harrison yet?”

  “No, nor of Vivian Adair. You heard what General Cunningham said? The Germans have dug themselves in on that headland down the loch. I assume the women are with them. We’re going to try attacking the position from two directions simultaneously.”

  “But surely, then, there will be a risk of harming Miss Harrison? Why don’t we parley with them instead and try to persuade them to surrender? That way we could minimise the body count all round.”

  “I understand your concern, Barton, but we’re up against a determined enemy. They must have realised by now that they’re vastly outnumbered and that they can’t win in the end. But even though they know the odds are stacked against them, they’re continuing to stand their ground. I’m certain they have no intention of giving in without a fight.”

  “Is there anything Moncur and I can do?”

  “Just stay out of the way and don’t get yourselves killed. I’ll let you know if we get a sighting of Miss Harrison.” With that, he turned and darted back across the gap, to where Cunningham was.

  Barton looked about him restlessly, hoping to see some way of coming to Grace’s aid, but it was no good: he soon realised there was nothing effective he could do.

  Moncur sensed his frustration: “Take it easy, Barton. We’ll make a move when the time comes.”

  “Well, let’s hope it’s not too late by then,” Barton replied despondently. He sat down with his back against the front wheel of the lorry and resigned himself to watching the Morays deploy as they put Cunningham’s plan into action.

  Running parallel with the road at the head of the loch was a dry-stone wall. It was about thirty yards back from the road and separated the reedy scrubland round the edge of the loch from the cultivated land beyond. A platoon of Simmons men, screened by the lorries, was now making its way stealthily over to the wall. Simmons himself was leading them. Once at the wall, they slipped over it and then, concealed from the enemy, began to move along behind it towards the end of the hill. From that point, they would be able to skirt around to its rear and begin climbing up to the summit.

  Barton noted that the German machine-gunner was only firing in sporadic bursts now, presumably to conserve ammunition. The man was still managing to inflict casualties, though, picking off the occasional careless Moray who made himself visible for too long. Not far from where Barton and Moncur were sheltering, a corporal in the ditch was hit when he stood up to get a clearer shot at his target.

  Barton laid himself face down on the ground and looked out beneath the lorry. To his right, he saw that the north shore of the loch had a thin copse of trees and bushes extending along its length. At one place, he could see figures running through this wooded area. They were heading down the loch side, and he guessed they were the platoon that was going to the far end of the loch to cut off the Germans’ exit route. As he scanned across to his left, he became aware of movement in the long grass in front of the lorries and realised that some of the Morays were crawling out towards the river. Cunningham’s plan seemed to be proceeding methodically on all sides.

  Barton focussed his attention on this last group and watched as they now ran, crouching low, across the river, its far bank protecting them from the deadly gunfire emanating from the promontory. Having forded the river, they crawled through the grassy area at the opposite side until they reached the causeway. There they flattened themselves against the ground and began to inch along beside the raised track in single file, making use of its meagre protection.

  The tricky part came when they reached the apex of the bend, where the ambush had taken place, for there they had to cross the track to get to the safety of the bank that ran along the top edge of the beach. The first group to reach this point tried to dash across but were mown down by the machine gun. The ones coming after had a slightly easier task, for by this time there were so many bodies on the roadway that the rest of the platoon were able to crawl across using them for cover. Once across the causeway, they linked up with the few survivors from the earlier ambush, and together they began to crawl along behind the bank towards the promontory.

  Further along the beach, there were several gaps in the bank where it had been breached by the waters of the loch when it was in flood. As the Morays tried to dash or crawl rapidly across these exposed regions, they came under fire from the machine gun, and not all of them made it. Just as Simmons had predicted, losses were high. The bodies of the unlucky ones lay in the gaps and, as on the roadway, provided makeshift cover for the men following behind. To make matters worse, the Germans began to fire the occasional rifle-grenade down onto the beach at places were they thought their attackers might be sheltering.

  For ten minutes, Barton watched as this horror unfolded, until eventually about thirty men, he estimated, reached the far end of the beach. There they lay in readiness to rise up and charge the promontory as soon as Red Section reached the summit.

  At this point, the radio operator Cunningham had asked for came running along the ditch. He was bent double under the weight of his wireless transceiver, which was in a canvas pack strapped to his back. Sweating with the exertion, he scrambled up the side of the ditch to the cover of the staff car. Barton listened in as the man, out of breath, reported to the general: “A message has just come in from Blue Section, sir, going down the far side of the loch. They say they can see personnel on the south side, beyond the promontory: three men in uniform are running towards the end of the loch and there are two women waiting near a jetty about half way down.”

  This news galvanised Barton. Now he knew what he had to do: go along the beach and somehow get round the promontory. He realised he needed to get rid of Moncur first, though.

  Moncur was leaning against the lorry with his arms folded, watching the last of the Morays in Red Section disappear over the wall. Barton stood up beside him. “Did you get that, Bronx?” he said, speaking softly, so that Minton would not overhear him. “It looks as if they’ve spotted Grace. Do me a favour – go down the other side of the loch and catch up with the platoon that’s making its way along there. Make sure they know not to fire on Grace.”

  “Count on me, Barton – I’ll run like the wind.” He was about to charge off when Barton grabbed him by the arm.

  “Take care, Bronx. Don’t stop any stray bullets.”

  As soon as Moncur was out of sight, Barton lay down again and discreetly glanced over to Minton and Cunningham: they were examining a map laid out on the ground behind the staff car and were engrossed in conversation. They both had their backs to him. Seeing his chance to slip away unobserved, Barton pressed himself flat on the ground, slithered under the lorry and began to crawl through the grass towards the river. He had barely gone ten yards when he heard Minton yell out behind him: “Barton! What the Devil! Get back here immediately.” But he ignored the command.

  On reaching the river, he slid down the bank and ran crouching through the shallow, icy torrent. He observed to himself that this was the second time in twenty-four hours that he had got water in his boots. Gaining the opposite side, he climbed up and began to crawl cautiously along the route taken by the Morays. First, he inched forward alongside the causeway until he reached the point where the ambush had taken place. Here, bodies lay all around, and the ground was strewn with weapons, caps and equipment dropped by the men as they were cut down. Next, using the bodies lying on the track as cover, he crawled very carefully across its rough surface to the beach. As he slid headfirst down behind the bank at the top of the beach, he must have revealed himself slightly, for the German machine gunner opened up and began to lay down fire in his vicinity. Barton was showered with grit as the bursts kicked up fountains of earth and shingle all around where he was sheltering, the bullets just missing him by inches. It was a narrow escape. He realised that th
is was not a good development: the Germans now knew where he was and would be looking out for him.

  Moving in the lee of the bank, he pulled himself along on his elbows for a further twenty yards or so but then had to stop, for he had reached a large breach in the bank. It must have been five or six yards wide. The Morays had suffered heavy casualties at this point, and there were half-a-dozen bodies lying in and around the gap. He saw that he would be completely exposed if he tried to crawl to the far side of the breach. He could try to dash across it, he thought, but the chances were that the German machine gunner would have his sights trained on the opening, for he would have guessed that his mark would be moving forward along the bank; the Fritz was probably just waiting for his prey to try crossing the gap.

  One of the bodies at this spot was lying face down in the shingle and at right angles to the bank, so that it lay across Barton’s path. Peering cautiously over the victim’s back, he tried to assess the chances of safely traversing the gap. As he surveyed the terrain in front of him, he noticed there was a pair of field glasses lying on the beach a couple of feet beyond the body. He could also see that the Morays who had survived the passage along the loch side were just thirty or forty yards ahead of him. He considered whether it was worth risking trying to run the gap and join them, or if he should wait until they made their charge.

  As he glanced along the beach towards the khaki-clad troops sheltering behind the bank at the far end, he suddenly became aware that out on the loch, away in the distance, a rowing boat with three figures in it had just become visible beyond the tip of the promontory. It appeared to be heading across the loch. Narrowing his eyes, he tried to get a better look at who was in the boat, but due to his poor sight, he could not distinguish them.

  It occurred to him that he should make use of the field glasses lying on the shingle a few feet away. Without hesitation, he lunged across the dead man’s back, grabbed the strap of the glasses and then recoiled behind the body, pulling them after him. Immediately, the machine gun began firing, sending up an arc of dust and stone fragments from side to side of the gap. Barton winced and pressed his face into the shingle, hoping that none of him was visible to the gun crew. He guessed the gunner had lined up his sights on the end of the gap nearest to the promontory, expecting his target to go all the way across: he had not planned for Barton to spring back. Trembling slightly, Barton realised that if he had attempted to reach the far side, he would probably have been a goner by now.

  And there was a further shock for him. In the process of drawing himself back across the body, he had pulled it over, and as he raised his head gingerly in preparation to use the binoculars, he now saw the face. It was MacGregor. He was clearly dead: his chest was covered in blood, and Barton figured he must have taken several hits. The shock of this discovery immobilised Barton. As he stared at the boyish face, he remembered the lines MacGregor had recited back at Callander:

  Soldier, rest! thy warfare o'er,

  Sleep the sleep that knows not breaking

  It was as if the man had had an inkling of what was going to befall him.

  Suddenly, Barton recalled the rowing boat and began to fight against the paralysis that seemed to have gripped him. Warily, he lifted his head a little so that he could peer over MacGregor’s body and trained the binoculars on the three figures in the boat. He now saw clearly that Grace and Vivian Adair were sitting side-by-side at the back, and a man in camouflage uniform, presumably one of the Germans, was rowing it. They seemed to be heading diagonally across the loch.

  As he followed their passage with the binoculars, something else came into his field of view: a boathouse at the far end of the loch. He wondered if they might be heading for it. The thought had no sooner entered his head than the large double doors at the front of the boathouse slid open, first one side and then the other. Barton discerned something in the dark interior but could not quite make out what it was. Abruptly, there came from the far end of the loch a new sound, a sound like a buzz saw, and the object in the boathouse slowly emerged into the daylight: it was a seaplane.

  #

  Colonel Minton heard the new sound floating across the loch at the same time as Barton. At that moment, he had been looking through his own field glasses at the summit of the hill above the German positions, searching for a sign that Red Section had arrived there. He had not yet seen the rowing boat slip into view beyond the promontory. He swung the glasses round and scanned the loch to locate the source of the noise.

  “Christ!” he exclaimed to Cunningham. “They’ve got a seaplane! And there’s a boat heading out to it.”

  Cunningham immediately gave an order to the radio operator: “Tell Blue Section going down the far side of the loch to open fire on the plane and boat as soon as they come in range.”

  Hardly had the man transmitted this order when his set crackled back into life and he listened to an incoming message. “That’s Red Section, sir – they’re in position.”

  “Tell them to open fire immediately and instruct White Section to advance from the beach as soon as firing commences.”

  Minton heard this exchange but did not take it in. His mind was going over the events that had led them to the loch. Slowly, the truth dawned on him. “This is where they were heading for all the time,” he suddenly declared to Cunningham. “They didn’t just duck down here to throw us off their trail. The boathouse was their destination – they’re flying out to the submarine.”

  Cunningham was stunned momentarily as he absorbed this information, but he recovered quickly: “Minton, go back to the radio truck and contact the Stirling operations centre – tell them to scramble every available fighter in the area. If Cobalt manages to take off from the loch, the pilots are to be told to shoot down any seaplane matching the description. That aircraft must be stopped.”

  10.

  10.29 – 10.47 hrs: On Loch Carran

  As Hahn began to row them away from the jetty, Grace wondered if Vivian Adair would make a move against him, now that he was suspected of carrying the missing documents. Vivian still had the Walther in her coat pocket, and Hahn would make an easy target while he was sitting before her engaged in rowing. She glanced sideways at Vivian, who was seated on her left in the stern of the boat, but saw no indication she was preparing to take action. Instead, she was just staring down at the water beside the boat and once again seemed preoccupied. Grace figured she was perhaps going to wait until he had rowed them to wherever it was they were going. This thought triggered another in her mind: where were they going? She had assumed they would head along the shore towards the end, but Hahn seemed to be taking them out to the middle of the loch.

  Turning to Vivian, she asked quietly: “Where are we making for?”

  Vivian Adair replied without looking up from the water: “Don’t worry, everything’s under control.”

  After a while, they were far enough out into the bay that they could see beyond the promontory where Drechsler’s men were holding out. Grace could now make out the line of army lorries at the eastern end of the loch and saw the burning vehicles back at the old bridge they had crossed over. For no apparent reason, she thought of Barton and wondered where he was now: what had happened to him at Kielder after he had run off into the forest? She recalled the first time they had met in the village hall in Bramlington. It seemed a very long time ago.

  This train of thought was jarringly interrupted by a new noise that suddenly started up at the opposite end of the loch. It was an insistent buzzing noise and dominated the sound of sporadic gunfire that was still coming from the promontory. She turned and looked down the loch in the opposite direction, trying to see where the noise was emanating from. At first, she could not locate the source, but then a grey-green shape emerging from the boathouse caught her eye. As the realisation dawned on her that she was hearing the engine of a seaplane, a feeling of panic began to sweep through her. Suddenly, everything clicked into place. She remembered how Vivian had told her at the farmhouse tha
t Lukasz had gone north in advance to “arrange our transport”. Undoubtedly, this seaplane was the transport to which she had been referring.

  “Is that where we were heading in the lorry – the boathouse?” she asked, looking at Vivian. “You’re going to fly out to the submarine?”

  “Yes, that’s the plan.”

  Grace understood that, in view of this development, there was only one course of action she could take: it was clear that it was now up to her to stop Vivian Adair from getting away. Grace had hoped it would not end this way – she had hoped the army would track them down in the hills before Vivian could reach the coast. But, plainly, that was no longer a possibility.

  There was a change in the pitch of the engine noise, and Grace looked towards the seaplane again: it had started to accelerate up the loch in their direction. Realising she had only a few minutes in which to act, she began to feel a queasy sensation in her stomach, and her heart began to pound. She bit her lip and looked around anxiously. She noticed there were dozens of figures running down through the trees that lined the far side of the loch and guessed they were troops from the lorries. Too late, she thought: there was little they could do now.

  Hahn laboured continuously to propel the boat forward; they were, at that point, almost half way across the loch. Suddenly, there was a marked increase in the level of gunfire coming from the vicinity of the promontory. The engagement there seemed to be intensifying. Grace looked round towards the eastern end of the loch to see what was happening, but it was too far away to make anything out. She turned back to watch the approach of the seaplane, which was now just a few hundred yards away and had begun to slow down. It was a small, high-wing monoplane with room, she reckoned, for three or four including the pilot. A single figure was visible in the cabin, and as the aircraft drew nearer, she recognised it was Lukasz. Vaughan, she guessed, must have stayed behind at the boathouse.