Commando
Book 1 in the
Combined Operations Series
By
Griff Hosker
Published by Sword Books Ltd 2015
Copyright © Griff Hosker First Edition
Smashwords Edition
The author has asserted their moral right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work.
All Rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, copied, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior written consent of the copyright holder, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.
Cover by Design for Writers
Dedicated to my little sister, Barb, and in memory of my dad who served in Combined Operations from 1941-1945
Part 1- Prelude to War
Chapter 1
My father was a war hero. I had grown up in awe of the British Ace who had both a Victoria and a Military Cross. He was my hero. Wing Commander Bill Harsker was famous. Mum and Auntie Alice both had many cuttings and clippings from newspapers. My Gran and Grandad still spoke of the pride in their son having been given his medals by the King himself. Even more remarkable was the fact that he came from humble beginnings; he had been born the son of a groom and, until the Great War, had been destined to end his life as a servant. The war had changed all that.
As a senior officer in the new Royal Air Force we had travelled around in the early twenties. My childhood had been spent on various airfields and postings but each one had something in common, apart from the uniforms, the barracks and the food; my father was revered by the men in every one of them. Unusually it was not just the officers who held him in high regard, the warrant officers and lower ranks all seemed to view him as something special. His fame was always there; like his medals it was part of him. He had never sought the fame and he handled it well but it hung over his shoulders like an albatross.
They had called it the Great War but I knew that it was anything but great. When my Uncles, Gordy and Ted, came to visit and I would ask them about it they told me of great deeds and heroism but there was bitterness in their words for they had all lost close friends. They told me of the slaughter they had witnessed from the air and the futile fight for a few feet of land. Neither of them had stayed in the Royal Air Force after the war had ended but each year they made a pilgrimage to meet my father and to remember those who had fallen. The annual event was both joyous and sad. No matter where we were in the world we always came together for that anniversary. I grew up watching the three of them grow old and, on that one day, look so sad it always brought my mother to tears. My favourite Aunt, Alice, also came on that day and she too always shed tears. She would ruffle my hair and hug me with tears coursing down her cheeks. She was a successful dress designer but my mother always said she would have traded all of her success for the love of her life, Charlie, to be alive. Victory had been bought at a high price. It was not just been the soldiers, sailors and airmen who had paid. That day was always a sad one.
The rest of my life, as I grew up, was a joyous one. My father and my mother were great fun to be around. They enjoyed life and they enjoyed being together. Our family holidays to France were the highlight of my time growing up. Before we had been born Dad had gone to France and bought a dilapidated farmhouse not far from the Belgian border. By the time I was old enough to understand such things and, after my sister, Mary, was born, I discovered that he had been rebuilding it. He had been helped by my Uncle Lumpy as well as Uncle Gordy and Ted. Uncle Lumpy was another of my dad's former comrades and of all of them he was the most fun. He had lost a hand in the war but it did not deter him. He did not simply enjoy life he loved it. He lived in the north east where he had married the widow of a former comrade and they had a houseful of children. By the time I was five the house had almost been rebuilt. Uncle Lumpy was there the year we finished it off. They named the house 'Albert' for some reason. At first I thought it was named after my dad's brother, Bert, who had died in the war but Uncle Lumpy told me, when I became older and was able to comprehend the complexities of war, how a farmer called Albert had saved their lives and died in the farmhouse which had once stood there. It was Dad's tribute to an old comrade. He was loyal to all those with whom he had served.
We spent every summer there. Sometimes dad would not be with us. He was often kept busy in some part of the world. In those days he had just been a squadron leader. Often he would be called away and disappear for weeks at a time. Now that I am older I think I had a better idea of what he was involved in but back then I just missed my dad. Mum told us not to question him when he returned. She would have to be mum and dad for us. We would go, the three of us, mum, me and my sister, Mary, on holiday for the summer. Just getting there was an adventure. We would travel by train, then ferry, a train again and then a wonderful country bus filled with chickens and ducks going to market and Frenchmen smoking Gauloise and Citanes. We never minded the smoke of the French who always made a great fuss of us. I suspect it was because of my pretty mother but I may be doing the French a disservice.
As the farm had fields, woods and streams nearby Mary and I thoroughly enjoyed ourselves just exploring. The woods were our hunting ground where we would build dens and play cowboys and Indians. We would be Wendy and Peter Pan! The farm was so isolated that we had complete freedom to play where we wanted. It was during those holidays that Mary and I became totally fluent in French. Mum got better but we took to it like ducks to water and could speak it better than she could. On shopping trips to the local villages we were encouraged to mix with the French children. There was no point in speaking English for they understood not a word. It helped us learn the words that they do not teach you in school. I remember how we were always treated with great respect; we were English and had helped their fathers fight the Boche. When it slipped out who my father was then we became almost celebrities. Eggs and milk would miraculously appear on our doorstep. When we went into the local village to shop men would doff their hats to my mother and we would be given generous measures of cheese and the local hams. The French and the Belgians remembered the sacrifices that had been made. It was an idyllic time to be young and carfefree.
Dad would come whenever he could. Sometimes we would travel to France at Easter, if his leave coincided with the school holidays. I loved it when he was with us. I would sit, in the bars and cafes and listen to the stories that would be told. It was never dad who told the stories it was the locals. They all knew of the British Ace who had flown the Sopwith Camel and had even fought the Red Baron. Dad rarely talked about the war to us; I gathered my information from my uncles, Lumpy, Ted and Gordy. For some reason dad seemed happy talking to the French and the Belgians.
School was less fun. Dad soon realised that I did not like academic studies although I was constantly in the top end of my classes. I don't know if it was his idea or mum's but when they suggested flying lessons from dad if I improved my attitude I jumped at the chance. I learned in an old Sopwith Dolphin. There were plenty of old Great War aeroplanes and Dad liked the Sopwith. By the time I was thirteen I could fly solo. My friends were green with envy and I loved it. My marks did improve. I always kept my word. I had said I would improve and I had. I pushed my luck and asked for an aeroplane of my own but dad was too clever for that. He told me that when I achieved a place at University then I could have an aeroplane. It worked- as I did!
I never found school work hard, rather the opposite, it was easy but I did not like it. I preferred being off with Uncle
Ted when he came to see us. He was single and seemed to regard me as the son he never had. He taught me to hunt and to fish. Uncle Gordy taught me about engines. He was a wizard with engines and I could strip an engine and reassemble it by the time I was sixteen. I had learned to drive just after I flew solo. They were the kinds of thing I enjoyed. I read books but I preferred working with my hands and building things. I knew that I wanted to be an Engineer.
With dad being away so much I found myself with mum and Mary quite a lot. Most boys had a dad around, even on the air fields where we were stationed. Mum was aware of that and she took to giving the two of us adventures with her. When we weren't in France she would take us sailing and canoeing. She loved both activities. I found I enjoyed sailing. It was not the same as flying or as driving. It was too slow. But I was competent. Dad told me how he and Uncle Lumpy had once escaped from France in a sailing boat and he had nearly drowned the two of them. The two other things mum taught us were first aid; she had been a nurse, and cooking. Just because I was a boy didn't mean I couldn't learn how to cook. When I went hunting with Uncle Ted I combined the two. I shot the rabbits, skinned and gutted them and then cooked them. Those were wonderful days.
It was 1937 when our lives were touched by tragedy. Grandad died in the January. He had been ill for some time but he always managed to recover by the time we had been summoned to his bedside. I liked dad's dad. He was my only Grandad as Mum's dad had died before I was born. I loved the smell of his pipe and the fact that he always smelled of horses. He always had a mint in his pocket for me. We didn't see him often; just two or three times a year but I loved going up to his house. That would be when I saw my Auntie Sarah and my cousins. My eldest, Billy, had been named after my dad. I loved the Big House, as they called it. Lady Mary was a kind lady and she was always good to me. Burscough was always somewhere I loved: I would be given a mint from my Grandad and Lady Mary would slip a sixpence into my hand when I saw her. We saw more of them in the last year of his life for mum took us whenever Auntie Sarah wrote to tell us he was ill again.
When we went for my Grandad's funeral I was sixteen years old. Mother Harsker, my grandmother, couldn't stop crying and wringing her hands. They had been married for almost sixty years. I hadn't cried when I had heard my Grandad had died, it had been expected, but I did cry when my grandmother threw her arms around my dad and wept, uncontrollably, "Billy, our Billy! Whatever will I do without him?"
Everyone cried and I did not feel foolish when I wept too. One highlight of the funeral was meeting up with John again. John had been my father's batman during the war. He was a lovely gentle man and he had been fond of my grandparents. He was as upset as any but he was a dignified man and he did not weep. He had confided in me, "I shall mourn in my own way and my own time Master Thomas. Both of you grandparents were kind to me and welcomed me into their home. Your grandfather was a good man." John now managed a fine hotel in London. Dad said he was born for such a job. My father was very close to his old servant who, he said, had made him into a gentleman.
When John saw me he appraised me and tutted. He walked over and touched the hair over my ears. "Master Thomas, you need a haircut. You are a gentleman and there are standards."
"Sorry John. If I had known you were coming for the funeral I would have visited the barbers!"
He laughed, "We will let it go for today. And as for being here for the funeral; wild horses would not have kept me from it. Your grandfather and grandmother made me part of their family and I will be eternally grateful to them. You come from good stock, you know. Never let anyone tell you different. And I am pleased to see that you are growing into a fine young gentleman."
I saw him again all too soon. Poor Mother Harsker outlived my Grandad by only a month. My Auntie Sarah said that she had just faded away after the death of her husband. She gave up on life. When we buried her, in the graveyard near the estate in the village, it was a change in our lives. We would come to Burscough no longer. Our world had changed.
When we had the Munich crisis, the next year, and we only saw Dad for a few weeks in total it seemed that the whole world was changing. After Mr Chamberlain returned to tell us that we had peace in our time so did my dad and he opened the whisky when he did. That was not like him. He drank but not until late in the evening. While mum and Mary did the dishes he sat with me and smoked his pipe. I liked the smell for it reminded me of Grandad. That was the night he put a glass of whisky in my hand for the first time.
It was not my first drink. I had been out, with some of the other children of the officers, and enjoyed a couple of illegal pints in a local pub. I know the landlady had known our age but we had not pushed our luck and we had behaved. That night was, however, the first time I had drunk spirits. Dad had downed his in one and filled it up again before I had even sniffed mine.
"Tom, there are some dozy buggers running this country! Everyone can see this Hitler chap wants to rule the world. We need a man with backbone to stand up to him!"
I did not know what to say. I was being treated like a man and it felt strange. "Perhaps it will turn out for the best," was the best that I could manage. It sounded empty and vacuous to me. I covered my embarrassment by knocking back the whisky as my dad had done.
He laughed as I coughed and spluttered, "Steady on old son! Old Archie would have a fit if he saw you wasting Laguvalin like that. Sip it."
"Sorry, dad."
He shook his head, "You have nothing to be sorry about. I am just sorry that war is coming again." He poured me another whisky and cocked an eyebrow as I sipped it. Then he nodded and smiled.
"But I thought Mr Chamberlain said we would have peace in our time."
"Mr Chamberlain doesn't know his… well let us just say that I didn't vote for him. We need someone like that Winston Churchill. He is a good chap. I know he made a mess of Gallipoli but I like what he is saying."
"If there is a war then we can do what we did in the Great War, we can send the Germans packing."
"I am afraid, son, that we are not prepared. We don't have enough fighters and our bombers are… well the Germans are streets ahead of us there. They have been practising the art of war in Spain. We have been drilling and looking smart for royal weddings. There is a world of difference. We had the best aeroplanes and the best tanks in nineteen eighteen. That is true no longer. The Spitfire is a fine aeroplane but the Germans have ten times the number of ME 109's. I am afraid we would lose the war in the air if the Germans attacked us now."
"We have the Navy."
"Yes, you are right there. We have the Navy but I fear the modern war will be fought by tanks and aeroplanes. The Germans have better ones than we have."
I was enjoying the conversation but the reappearance of mum and Mary ended it. She glared at the whisky in my hand. Dad shrugged, "It's about time he learned how to drink. Next year he will be going to University and he will be away from our control."
"Dad, University is too expensive. I can just get a job. That would be fine."
He leaned forward, "Tom, too many bright and clever officers died fighting alongside me in the Great War. Your mother watched a lot more die in hospital. We owe it to the next generation to have the brightest and best minds running this country. That will be you. We can afford it can't we Beattie?"
Mum smiled and put her hand on mine, "I will be as pleased as can be when you get to go to University. None of my family or your father's ever went to University. You will love it."
In the end they were wrong. I hated it. But it did one thing, it changed my life forever.
My schools had been those schools which were close to the airfields where dad had worked. For a while he had been based in London and there I managed to go to a fine old grammar school. Most boys paid fees but the head had served with my father and I had my education there free for a year. That was my best school. The problem was I only knew the children of the airmen and officers of my father's squadrons. They weren't always posted to the same field. The res
ult was that I had no close friends. Mum told me that dad had had the same problem but for different reasons. It did not make me lonely but excluded me from the close friendships of children who had grown up together.
I passed the entrance examinations for Manchester University. It specialised in Science and Engineering and those were the subjects which appealed to me. I was due to go there at the end of September but I had enrolled in the Officer Training Corps at the University and I would be there in July of 1939 for a month long indoctrination and training session. The peace of 1938 was a distant memory. The Germans had annexed Austria and taken over Czechoslovakia. It was rumoured that Poland was next. Certainly there was an air of tension throughout the country. The ranks of the Territorials were being filled. dad had thought the OTC was a good idea.
At the end of June I came home from school and found him packing. "Off again, dad?"
He stopped packing and pulled out his pipe. It was always a sure sign that he wanted to speak with me. "I have been seconded to the Air Ministry. Between you and me, Tom, Herr Hitler looks like he is planning to invade Poland. Even Chamberlain can't allow that to happen. There will be a war." He got the pipe going. "So you work hard at University. I am even happier now that you are going to be involved in the OTC programme. I was promoted from the ranks and it wasn't easy. When you have your degree then you can join up." He smiled, "The Air Force eh?"
I grinned, "Rather. But shouldn't I join up now? I can always continue my education when the war is over."
He shook his head, "When it does start we have no idea how long it will last. They thought the last one would be over by Christmas that first year and look what happened there."
I nodded. "Still I will find it hard to study knowing that others, like you, will be fighting."
Commando Page 1
