Midnight Raid

by Richard Townsend Bickers

  “They evidently pressed on, but they’ve just had such a hell of a mauling that they must have abandoned the raid: those who survived.”

  He watched the badly holed S boat creep back to her moorings, and, through night glasses, scanned the prisoners gathered on her deck, under armed guard.

  *

  Hofstein, dashing around his Flak sites on a motorcycle, was enjoying the dramatic interruption of his sleep, the sounds of battle, the glow of searchlights far down the fjord, the flickering of muzzle flames, the glitter of tracer. He was very glad not to be out there on an S boat or among the garrison of the western island, which, he had been told, was already in enemy hands; but he was thrilled by the spectacle.

  He felt as safe as it was possible to be, far back from the waterfront and its factory and harbour. He was eager to see and hear his guns in action, to see star shells bursting high above and bathing the whole of the harbourside and its approaches in their white effulgence. He hoped the enemy would attempt a landing, so that he could surprise both them and the plodding Scherer by hurling his anti-aircraft shells down from the eminence of the ledge onto the attackers.

  He had a grandstand view of the brisk fight between the second S boat and the Colonel’s assault boat; and although it was all dim and confused, except while the searchlight was on, he had a sudden fit of nausea at the realisation that men were dying violently down there, and among them were certainly some who were well known to him. He knew all the naval officers and it had been a shock when he was told that it was Kneipe whose boat had been sunk. Now he wondered who commanded this other boat.

  When one of the minesweepers chugged out of the harbour, Hoftsein wondered if this portended a whole fleet of enemy assault boats coming up the fjord. He decided that his place was up here, on the shelf where the power station stood.

  *

  Hauptmann Scherer, grumbling at being called from his bed, made a perfunctory round of his guns, sitting morosely behind the driver of his scout car between sites and torturing himself with uncertainty about the way he had placed the guns, each time the car stopped and he made his usual nit-picking inspection.

  “Remember,” he told each gun crew, “it is imperative to prevent the enemy from getting a foothold ashore. If they can get ashore, it will be the devil’s own job to drive them back. Every gun site will be cut off. The infantry will be too busy to bother about us. We’ve lost two guns already, and their crews, on the outer island. Don’t let’s lose any more. The safety of this town, and our own lives, depends on blowing these damned Englishmen out of the water before they can set foot here. The Navy don’t seem to have done very well, so it is up to us.”

  It was hardly a heartening exhortation, but he spoke with feeling. He feared Redlich’s bitter sarcasm if his guns did not repulse the enemy. He feared for his own skin if the attack developed into house-to-house fighting through the streets: he had set up his fire control centre next door to Redlich’s H.Q. Operations Room, which must be a prime target.

  *

  Hauptmann Weitz hoped that at last his chance to win a medal had come. His job, if the enemy landed, would not be to direct his four companies of infantry from the safety of the Operations Room, but to lead them in the field.

  His command post was a sandbagged enclosure on the quay, roofed with sheets of steel and covered with camouflage netting. There, he would be very much at the sharp end of any fighting, for the enemy would surely be bent on destroying the factory.

  He would pin them down along the seafront, with mortars and machine-guns. When they showed signs of giving up and reimbarking – if some of their boats were still afloat – he would lead his infantry in a counterattack that would sweep the enemy into the water. There would be a great slaughter and a great rounding up of prisoners.

  He had no doubts about the preparations he had made. The bulk of his troops were concentrated in the centre of their front. He did not believe that young Zimmer’s flashy sharp practice, which had appeared to show up a weakness in his defence plan, could possibly work in reality. Anyway, Zimmer had got what he deserved as the result of his fanciful ploy: the job of establishing and taking charge of the two redoubts.

  Redlich, in his view, was being impractical in providing for flank attacks: how could they possibly develop without scaling the cliffs? And that was simply not possible.

  *

  There were two Intelligence officers on Redlich’s staff. The prisoners, dripping wet and shivering with cold, were herded into a wooden hut furnished with bare tables and benches. The Adjutant of No 100 Commando was the only officer. He was led away. The senior N.C.O.s, two of them, were also separated. The interrogations began. No one, from the adjutant down to the youngest private, would divulge anything but his rank, name and number.

  *

  Redlich, waiting and hoping for some morsel of information that would give a clue to the size of the attacking force, thought suddenly of Kirsten. He left the Operations Room and went to his office, where he asked for a line and dialled her number.

  He would warn her not to stand at a window to watch the battle that must surely be imminent. Even if enemy bullets did not strike her house, the detonation of the guns and mortars could shatter the very panes – all the houses were double glazed – behind which she was standing.

  Her telephone rang for two minutes but there was no anwer.

  He concluded that she had been sensible enough to go down to her cellar already.

  *

  Taggart heaved himself over the lip of the clifftop with a final lungful of air and flung his body forward onto the stony, stubbly grass. He wriggled and crawled a few yards before standing up. Udall followed him, and, a moment later, Gowland, Dempster and Sergeant Major Duff.

  Taggart turned to Udall. “Report we’re here.” He peered into the surrounding darkness. “Where’s the guide, I wonder?”

  The two section commanders and Duff ranged themselves beside him, staring into the gloom.

  Udall’s voice addressed him urgently. “Sir, will you speak to Major Abberly.”

  Hugh? Why not the Colonel?

  Taggart grabbed the microphone and headphones. “What’s up, Hugh?”

  “You saw the schemozzle a few minutes ago, Rodney?”

  “Yes.”

  “That was the Colonel. One of D’s boats had engine trouble. Jerry sank it. The Colonel went for the E boat… I’m afraid we’ve lost him and his whole boatload.”

  “God! Any change of plan?”

  “No. Carry on as planned. Keep listening watch.”

  Taggart quietly passed on the message to his officers and sergeant major. There was a momentary glum and troubled silence. He walked a few paces along the cliff top, trying to see more than five or six yards in front of him.

  He stopped and called quietly, through cupped hands: “Pine tree… pine tree…”

  He listened, knowing that the others were as intent on some sound that would break the eerie stillness as he was.

  It came, low but clear: “Fir cone… fir cone… wait, I will come to you.”

  A boulder dimly seen appeared to move… to shed a piece of itself. The piece approached and resolved itself into a slim figure, darkly clad, wearing a knitted cap.

  Taggart’s scalp had prickled when he heard the answering countersign: that voice! A boy? Sending a boy on an errand like this? He had expected some tough, gnarled fisherman or mountaineer…

  The figure stopped an arm’s length away.

  Taggart could just see the features. A boy? No! by God…

  A hand reached out in friendship. Before he could take it, he heard the same light voice again, but firm and challenging this time, no hesitation in its confidence.

  “Welcome to Norway. I am Kirsten, I have come to guide you. There is a minefield…”

  They were interrupted by the roar of an aeroplane overhead. They turned to listen as it flew down the fjord.

  A moment later they all saw star shells bursting over where they kne
w Island One to be, and then they had an unobstructed view of the Me 109’s cannons hurling tracer as its 20 mm shells ripped across the blaze of light, slanting down towards the island, which lay starkly lit.

  They saw the minesweeper, and even at that distance they could see the 20 mm cannon on her foredeck and the two machine guns amidships.

  “Thank God they haven’t any bombers,” Taggart said. Then, to Kirsten: “A minefield?”

  “Yes. It means we have to climb higher up the mountain, to avoid it.”

  “We haven’t any time in hand, now that the balloon has gone up long before we intended.”

  She wrinkled her brows. “What balloon?”

  “Sorry: that’s a colloquialism. It means when something starts…”

  “And tonight the fighting started before you were ready.”

  “Long before. We’ve lost too many men already, as well as the advantage of surprise.”

  “I’ll lead the way.”

  There had been a lot of muttering and some laughter among the troops while this conversation was going on. The shock of being met and guided by a girl had a particularly sharp effect on men whose nerves were already under heavy stress.

  Tagart, keeping pace with Kirsten, had little breath to spare for further talk, but there was something he had to say. “It’s brave of you… must have been enormously difficult… to help us… aren’t there any…”

  “Men? Of course: but a woman is less conspicuous… and I am not under suspicion… I have taken good care…”

  “Are you armed?”

  “No. No use: where could I practise, even if I had a pistol?”

  “I suppose not.”

  Her breath was laboured now. They were hauling themselves up bare slippery rock inclined at a steep angle. “I must tell you… now… I intend to leave with you… I cannot stay here… I have a rucksack packed, ready…”

  Please don’t ask me why: the thought pounded in her head. If the Germans found her absent, or by some other means found out what she was doing, they – Redlich himself, if he were still alive – would shoot her out of hand. If she escaped that fate, there were few among her compatriots who knew that she was active in the Resistance: to stay in Olafsund was to invite a terrible mauling, perhaps death, the minute the enemy was driven out; as surely must happen, eventually.

  But Taggart took what she had said without comment. “Of course, if that’s what you want.”

  “I have no choice. And in England I can join the Norwegian Army and perhaps I can come back… by parachute… to some part where I am not known… and carry on.”

  “You’re a brave girl, Kirsten. Incidentally, I’m Rodney Taggart.”

  “What is your rank?”

  “Captain.”

  “You call me brave, Captain Taggart… but… I think all of you are very brave men… I am Norwegian… you have risked your lives to help Norway… you didn’t have to…”

  “We’re helping the whole Allied war effort… by blowing up the fish meal and oil factory.”

  “And the power station?”

  “That has to go, too.”

  “I must warn you… the Flak guns… if there is no air attack, they will use them to shoot down on your comrades.”

  “No, there’s no air support.” He quietly ordered a halt and the word was whispered back. “Udall, call the major.”

  When Abberly came on the air, Taggart briefly reported what Kirsten had told him, and added: “We’ll knock out the guns up here, for you.”

  “Remind me to stand you a drink, Rodney.”

  Kirsten, an interested listener, her head pressed close to one earphone while Taggart used the other, chuckled. “He is very cool, your Major… like you, I think.”

  There was no amusement in Taggart’s reply, but a sudden grimness. “Our Colonel was killed when an E boat rammed his assault boat… you must have seen it.”

  “E boat? That was an S boat… Schnellboot… Fast boat.”

  “We call them E boats… don’t ask me why.”

  Her voice became suddenly hard. “I am sorry about your Colonel… last week, one of my girlfriends was tortured and shot for having a special radio… she was spying for you… and ten men and ten women… all innocent… were also shot.”

  “And you? If your friend was caught… you said you were not under suspicion?”

  “The Gestapo questioned me… for two hours. They let me go.”

  The sound of an aeroplane diving down the fjord again snatched at their attention. They paused, clinging to the mountainside, and turned their heads. Once more, star shells lit the scene and another Me 109 was going in to strafe.

  There came an echoing boom and a spurt of vermilion muzzle flash from one of the 10.5s, and they saw water rise where a shell had fallen near the minesweeper. Two more shells followed quickly, the Commandos at the gun undeterred by the fighter’s attack. Then another muzzle flash was smeared across the background of bright light; and this time there was no shell splash in the water: flames and smoke erupted from amidships aboard the minesweeper. Fire raced towards her stern, driven by the westerly wind. A second shell burst on the ship, which was already half-concealed in a bank of smoke.

  There were no more star shells. Darkness settled over the fjord and its islands, lit only by the crimson glow of the burning, sinking minesweeper.

  Taggart said “We must hurry. How much will this add to the time it will take to reach the power station?”

  “Half an hour.”

  “What are the flank defences?”

  “Flank defences?”

  “Have the Germans got any men guarding this end of the shelf where the power station is?”

  “There is a minefield at each end of that shelf, and behind each one there is a barrier of rocks and sandbags, where there is a small party of soldiers: only fifteen men are on duty at a time; but they have two machine-guns. The intention is that if you tried to attack, you would be trapped in the minefield, and fifteen men with two machine-guns would be enough to stop you.”

  They had reached the level at which they could safely begin to traverse the flank of the mountain and leave the minefield below them. Taggart called a halt and reported to Abberly. He passed on what Kirsten had told him. They still had a hard march of two miles before they reached the shelf.

  *

  Abberly, his two remaining H.Q. Troop boats, with those of Heavy Weapons and E Troops, barely making way with their engines throttled back to give about one knot, had Islands Two and Three in sight. There was no sound of activity on either or in the town. A threatening silence hung over the whole scene; worse, in a way than the fury and blaze of action.

  Static crackled in the headphones of his radio-telephone set. A voice penetrated it: Island One reporting casualties from the air strafe, but the minesweeper sunk. C Troop could spare no one to move further up the fjord and join the reserve section of D Troop.

  There was no longer any No 2 Section in D troop: the second S boat had seen to that.

  All that was left for D Troop to do was for its No 1 Section to storm Island Two. Abberly hoped to God in whom he maintained a respectful, although not worshipping, upper-class Anglican belief – that the section’s boat would not be spotted while it lurked in the shadow of the cliffs on the opposite shore.

  He felt bitter and ashamed that he had not engaged the S boat with his Bren while it was charging down on the Colonel’s boat or picking up the survivors: but to do so would have given away the presence of more boats. He was struggling to convince himself that he had been justified. As it was, there were barely enough of 100 Commando left to carry out a successful raid. If he had yielded to his first impulse and opened fire, it was virtually certain that all the boats on the southern side of the fjord would have been heavily attacked.

  His thoughts were constantly on B Troop, wondering how much longer it would be before Taggart called to say he was in position. Then, the simultaneous landings on Islands Two and Three and A Troop’s diversion w
ould be attempted.

  He was tempted to call Taggart and was on the point of doing so when the street lights in the lower town came on. The upper part, the shelf and the power station, still lay in darkness.

  The Garrison Commander must be expecting a landing in the harbour area and along the seafront: and had decided that, although darkness was useful for the concealment of his own force, it would be more useful to illuminate the shore and streets immediately behind it, to embarrass the attackers.

  *

  B Troop had reached the northern end of the shelf above the town. Taggart had been startled when the street lights came on. He was relieved now to find that the upper town remained blacked out.

  With his night glasses, he could make out the small hump of the barricade behind which waited 15 of the enemy; with two machine-guns. Kirsten had been unable to tell him what their lookout routine was. It was unlikely that the whole squad would remain on guard all night. Suppose, then, that they kept three watches, with five men on sentry at a time. The whole lot would be easy meat for one of his sections.

  He had already reported to Abberly. Now he kept looking at the second hand of his watch.

  At the precise moment that Gowland’s section began to move silently towards the barrier, there was a splutter of Sten gun fire from the far side of the fjord, followed by spurts of flame from bursting grenades, and their dull thuds.

  Immediately, the Germans in the redoubt on that side reacted to A Troop’s diversionary attack. A searchlight on the seafront licked out over the rocks beyond and above the redoubt. The enemy, snug behind their encircling sangar, hosed Spandau bullets into the rocks and the lower part of the cliff, where Zimmer had made his practice attack.

  Taggart could see Commandos scrambling among the rocks, ducking out of sight, loosing off a few rounds of sub-machinegun fire at the sangar.

  A series of vivid explosions lit the south cliff with long flames, red and yellow against the black rocks. The thunderclap of each successive detonation came separately. The rumble of falling cliff was added to the din. Redlich’s explosive charges, drilled into the cliff face, were bringing a heavy rockfall down on the attackers.