by Seb Spence
All of a sudden, there was the sound of more rifle fire, but this time it was louder and therefore, she reasoned, nearer. As she looked around to see where it was coming from, she noticed there were occasional splashes in the water within twenty or thirty yards of the boat and realised that the troops among the trees at the far side of the loch had started to fire at them. However, they were shooting at the limit of their effective range and as a result the fire was inaccurate.
“Get down in the bottom of the boat!” Hahn ordered.
The two women slid onto the floor, though Grace kept her head sufficiently raised so that she could see over the gunnels and monitor what was going on. The seaplane was now only twenty yards away and Lukasz had started to swing it round slightly towards the south shore to make its door accessible to them. Suddenly, Grace felt wetness on her face, as a shot narrowly missed the boat and sent a fine spray of water over its side. The Morays had got their eye in now and their shots were getting closer.
When the boat was just half a dozen yards from the plane, Hahn threw back his head without warning and let go of the oars. Grace wondered what he was doing, but it soon became clear what had happened when he slumped forward and fell on top of her: there was a large red bloodstain in the middle of his back between his shoulder blades. He had been fatally shot.
Immediately, Vivian Adair leapt up, rocking the boat violently, and made a grab for the oar on her side. She pulled it out of the water but did not manage to get to the other one before it had drifted out of reach. Kneeling down in the prow, she started to paddle the boat like a canoe, first on one side and then on the other, in an attempt to propel it the final few yards to the plane.
Grace squirmed out from underneath Hahn and, keeping low, slid across to the other side of the boat. They were passing beneath the wing of the seaplane now, and Lukasz had got up from the pilot’s seat and had swung open the door.
From time to time, Grace heard bullets buzz by close to the boat, and she could see that splashes were now erupting all about the plane. Not far from where she was lying, a round penetrated the side of the boat, splintering the wood. She noticed that the fuselage of the seaplane had been holed in a couple of places.
With the single oar, Vivian Adair was having trouble manoeuvring the boat, and it started to swing round at right angles to the plane. Lukasz, standing at the door, shouted across to them: “Quick, throw me your line and I’ll pull you in.”
Vivian Adair slung the oar down in the bottom of the boat, grabbed the rope lying in the bow and pitched it across to him. He began to heave the boat towards the plane. They were just a few feet away when suddenly he stopped and began to sway. Blood started to run down from a red mark that had appeared in the centre of his forehead. His knees buckled and he fell head first out of the door, bounced off the bow of the boat, sending it bobbing up and down, and disappeared into the dark waters of the loch. Vivian Adair lunged forward and, grabbing the doorsill, pulled the boat up to the plane. She stood up and made to climb in.
It was now or never, Grace thought, and pushing herself up quickly, she stepped down the boat as rapidly as her twisted ankle would allow and stood at Vivian Adair’s back. Then, with a trembling hand, Grace pulled the paring knife from the pocket of her dress.
11.
10.38 -10.50 hrs: South shore of Loch Carran
Suddenly, there seemed to be a sharp increase in the amount of gunfire nearby, and Barton realised that Cunningham’s Red Section had started firing down on the German positions. A few seconds later, the Morays ahead of him on the beach sprang up and dashed forward towards the base of the promontory. Miraculously, the machine gun had fallen silent; Barton guessed the gunner must have been hit in the first volley of shots from above. He saw that this was his chance. Clutching the field glasses, he jumped up and ran for all he was worth along the beach. In less than a minute, he had rounded the promontory and was sprinting down the track that skirted the bay, all the time keeping his eyes on the rowing boat. He noticed that the seaplane in the distance had started to move up the loch, and it became clear to him that it was heading towards the boat, presumably to pick up Vivian Adair. It was equally clear that there was little he could do to prevent this.
He was half way to the jetty when he heard the crack of rifle shots start up on the opposite shore and figured that the platoon that Cunningham had sent down the far side of the loch had commenced firing on the plane. He prayed that Moncur had reached them in time to warn them about Grace.
Gradually, he began to recognise that there was probably little point in going on much further: he was powerless to assist Grace in the desperate situation she was in. He was just a bystander in this drama, and there was nothing he could do except watch the events on the loch unfold.
He turned off the track when he reached the jetty and ran along its warped and rotting boards. By the time he reached its end and raised the field glasses to his eyes, the rowing boat was almost at the seaplane. He was in time to witness the man in the camouflage uniform fall victim to the rifle fire from the opposite bank. Barton saw him slump forward, releasing the oars, and watched as Vivian Adair grabbed one of them, moved up to the prow of the boat and began to move it forward using the single oar.
As the boat neared the plane, Barton could see the pilot rise up from the controls and move to the side of the cabin. The plane had turned in his direction, so Barton was able to get an unobstructed view of the boat coming up alongside the fuselage. The door of the plane swung open, and he was able to see the pilot clearly. Even at that distance, Barton recognised the face that appeared at the door: it was the demonic face he had seen in his nightmares at the hospital, the face behind the wheel of the van that had knocked him down in the side street near Green Park.
Transfixed, Barton continued to observe the scene through the binoculars. He watched as Vivian Adair tossed the pilot a line, and seconds later he saw the man fall forward into the loch. Barton guessed he had been shot by one of the Morays on the far side of the loch and realised the plane was now coming under heavy fire. He looked on as Vivian Adair reached out, grabbed the doorsill and pulled the boat towards the plane. As she stood up to climb in, Grace stood up too and moved awkwardly down the boat until she stood behind her. She raised her right arm up as if to strike Vivian Adair but then seemed to freeze.
Vivian Adair climbed through the doorway while behind her, Grace staggered forwards and collapsed against the fuselage. She appeared to be clutching the sides of the doorframe in an attempt to steady herself, but as the boat began to drift away, she was forced to step over the prow and onto the seaplane’s portside float. Barton gasped as she lost her footing and dropped down into the loch, nearly going under. She just managed to stop herself from falling in completely by holding on to the doorsill. He watched anxiously as she clung on, immersed from the waist down in the waters of the loch. Gradually, her strength seemed to ebb from her, and she began to sink further into the water. For a moment, Barton thought she was going to go under, but then Vivian Adair appeared at the door. She bent down, grabbed Grace by the arms and hauled her in over the doorsill. As he watched Grace being pulled into the seaplane, Barton was horrified to see that there was a huge crimson stain running down the back of her dress – she had been hit by one of the Moray’s rounds.
#
At the head of the loch, Colonel Minton also had his field glasses focussed on the plane. He watched the two women get aboard and now saw that Vivian Adair was at its controls.
“It looks as if they’ve made it on to the aircraft,” he announced to Cunningham. No sooner had he said this than the seaplane swung round in their direction and began to accelerate down the loch towards them. “They’re taking off!” Minton called out and lowered his field glasses.
The seaplane lifted into the air about half a mile down the loch, climbed steeply and then banked round to the north. In desperation, Cunningham yelled to the troops behind the lorries: “Fire at the plane! Fire at the plane!” They ra
ised their sights towards it and began to fire, but it was pointless: there was little chance of hitting it at that range. It just cleared the summit of the long chain of hills that formed the opposite side of the glen and was soon hidden from view beyond them.
12.
10.50 – 11.50 hrs : Around Loch Carran
After passing on Barton’s message to the sergeant leading Blue Section, Moncur had stayed with the platoon. They made slow progress down the side of the loch as the old bridle path they were taking was rough and overgrown in places. When the order came through on the radio to open fire on the plane and the boat, he had watched as they began firing at the fugitives on the loch. Without binoculars, he had not been able to make out much of what was going on in the middle of the loch and was unaware that the Morays rounds were landing fairly haphazardly around the boat and the plane, for the men were firing at extreme range. Although they were not aiming at Grace Harrison directly, there was a high probability of hitting her by accident.
Soon after the seaplane was airborne, the gunfire at the eastern end of the loch began to subside and then stopped altogether, for once Red Section had deployed on the heights overlooking the promontory, the German position became indefensible. Firing down on Drechsler’s men from the summit of the hill, Simmons’ platoon had managed to pick them off relatively easily. Nevertheless, despite their now hopeless situation, the Brandenburgers fought on to the end, which was not long in coming. Drechsler was one of the last to fall and died believing his men had achieved their objective.
Just after the seaplane disappeared from view, Blue Section received orders to continue down the loch and check the boathouse. Moncur, however, decided not to accompany them but to head back to the lorries instead. He realised that Barton would be alarmed now that Grace had been taken away in the plane, and anyway, it looked to him as if the show was pretty much over.
On returning to the head of the loch, he made for the spot where he had left Barton. As he walked down the line of lorries near the bridge, he happened upon Colonel Minton standing at the back of the radio truck.
“Is Barton around?” Moncur asked.
“Your friend Barton is a very foolhardy young man,” Minton replied somewhat testily. “In the middle of the engagement he set off by himself towards the promontory. I hope he hasn’t got himself killed. If you want to look for him, you should go down the track at the side of the loch. The shooting’s over, so it’s safe enough.”
“Thanks, I’ll do that.”
“One other thing, Moncur,” Minton continued, lowering his voice, his manner softening a little, “things aren’t looking good for Miss Harrison. I think she may have been hit by a stray bullet – how badly, I don’t know. As if that’s not bad enough, two squadron’s of fighter aircraft have been scrambled and ordered to attack the seaplane as soon as they locate it. Barton needs to be prepared for the worst.”
This was disturbing news. Moncur set off straightaway. He forded the river at the recently demolished bridge and ran down the track towards the promontory. At one place, he noticed there were numerous bodies on the narrow beach that lay between the track and the waters of the loch. He half expected to discover Barton among them and slowed down at this point so that he could walk along the edge of the bank that bordered the beach and check there was no one in a blue-grey uniform. Though relieved not to find Barton there, he was shocked to recognise MacGregor among the fatalities and stopped.
Their work now done, the survivors from White Section, which had assaulted the promontory from the beach, had started to head back towards the lorries. Walking wearily down the track with their rifles slung over their shoulders, they passed by Moncur in small groups, many of them carrying or supporting wounded men. Barton was not among them. Moncur asked a corporal bringing up the rear if he had seen another RAF officer.
He looked blankly at Moncur and jerked a thumb back down the track: “Someone went round the headland – could’ve been him.”
Moncur ran on down the track to the end of the promontory and paused. From there, he scanned the shore of the broad bay that lay beyond the headland and eventually spotted a figure sitting on a jetty at the far side of the bay. Guessing it was Barton, he set off down the track once more and ten minutes later was walking down the uneven boards of the ancient wooden structure.
Barton was sitting at the end of the jetty, with his legs dangling over the edge and his gaze fixed on the hills facing him across the loch, the hills beyond which the seaplane had disappeared. Now that the gunfire had ceased, tranquility had returned to the glen and were it not for his uniform, Barton might have been mistaken for a sightseer taking in the view on a fine spring morning.
“You had me worried, Barton. Minton told me you’d made a run for it down the beach. When you didn’t come back, I thought you’d maybe bought it. Do you know MacGregor’s dead?”
Barton replied absently, without taking his eyes off the hills: “Yes, I saw his body on the beach.”
“Come on, we’d better get back to the lorries. They’re packing up the show now. It’s safe to go by the promontory.”
Barton made no move to get up but lowered his gaze to the waters of the loch. “Grace was hit by a bullet.”
“Yes, Minton told me. Sorry to hear that, Barton. I passed on your message to the platoon commander, but I suppose at the range they were firing at, it was difficult to make out friend from foe. Still, she can’t have been hit too badly or the Adair woman would have just left her.”
“Even if that’s true, what’s going to happen to her now? Cunningham has probably got every fighter aircraft north of the border searching for the seaplane with orders to destroy it.”
It seemed to Moncur that Barton had already prepared himself for the worst. However, he felt there was no point in being overly pessimistic: “The squadrons up here are just reserves – they’re piloted by RAF types who are only marginally more competent than you and me, which means that seaplane has a fighting chance of getting through.”
“And what if it does? If they get to the sub and get away – what then?”
“Have faith, Barton, have faith!” he said, placing a hand on his friend’s shoulder. “Grace is a survivor, I’m sure she’ll pull through whatever happens. Come on now, let’s get back to the lorries. Uncle Minton will be wondering what’s happened to us.”
As he stood up, Barton noticed that Moncur was holding a leather briefcase. “What’s that you’ve got?”
Moncur looked down at it. “This? Dunno – found it on the track near the jetty. I thought it might have been dropped by Vivian Adair and her pals. It’s empty though. Thought I’d hand it over to Minton anyway.” With that, they began to walk back down the jetty together.
13.
11.50 – 12.02 hrs: Head of Loch Carran
When Barton and Moncur finally got back to the head of the loch, they found much activity going on near the bridge. Running repairs were being made to the vehicles damaged by the machine-gun fire during the engagement, and the wounded – of whom there were many – were being put onto two lorries from the Callander convoy that were to depart immediately for Stirling. In addition, the bodies of those who had fallen, including the Germans, had been carried back and laid out at the side of the road prior to being loaded into other lorries.
Walking by the radio truck, they came across Minton and Cunningham, waiting for news of the seaplane. Cunningham looked irate, but there was a look of sadness on Minton’s face as he addressed Barton: “Nothing to report, yet – not even a sighting.”
“It’s up to Fighter Command now,” Cunningham added. “They’re our last hope.”
Barton regarded him stonily and did not respond. Evidently, the man had no compassion. Minton, on the other hand, was clearly sensitive to the difficulties of the situation. Whichever way things went, it would be bad news for him: if the plane were shot down, Grace Harrison would be lost; if it managed to rendezvous with the submarine, ultra-sensitive intelligence information wou
ld fall into German hands.
Nodding towards the bodies laid out on the verge, Cunningham addressed the two RAF men without emotion: “I suppose you’ve seen the casualties. The statistics aren’t very good: 59 wounded and 37 dead on our side; 16 Germans dead, including the one on the loch; plus one of the spies.” He sounded to Barton as if he were relaying a test match score.
“Did none of the Germans survive?” Moncur asked.
“No – it seems the few who weren’t killed in the engagement swallowed cyanide pills after the plane took off.” Cunningham turned and walked round to the rear of the radio truck to speak with the signals personnel in the back. After a brief exchange, he climbed up into it, presumably to use the radio.
Moncur took this opportunity to hand the briefcase he had found over to Minton. “I came across this down the side of the loch, sir. It’s empty, I’m afraid. I’m guessing Cobalt and her chums dumped it in the rush to get away.”
Minton opened it up and checked for himself that there was nothing within. He then examined the outside and noted that on the flap were the initials ‘R.M.’ in faded gold lettering. “Any ideas what ‘R.M.’ stands for?” he asked, looking from Moncur to Barton.
“‘Royal Marines’?” Moncur ventured.
“May I see it, sir?” Barton asked.
Minton handed him the case. First, Barton looked inside to confirm it was empty, and then he shook it. “If I’m not mistaken, ‘R.M.’ stands for ‘Roy Miller’, and I don’t think the case is empty,” he said, turning it over in his hands and inspecting it. “I’m guessing this is a prop from his magic act, and if I’m right, there should be a concealed lever or something somewhere…ah, here it is.” He pushed across a small metal lever that was hidden near one end of the base and looked inside again. “There,” he announced, passing the case back to Minton.
