Midnight Raid

by Richard Townsend Bickers

  Should he range on that other mortar, then? But Taggart wanted it intact.

  Should he risk mortaring the third Flak gun, and perhaps hitting his comrades? But if the mortar that was still in enemy hands was plastering the whole area around the last two Flak guns, Taggart’s lot must be lying doggo or making a wide circuit.

  He called his runner. “Double over to Corporal Fysshe-Smith and tell him to range onto the ground between the power station and the third Flak position.”

  That would shake those bloody Jerries who had nearly run into him a couple of minutes ago, by God!

  He fired a green Verey light to signal that he had taken his objectives to Taggart; wherever he was at this moment.

  A few seconds later he heard the captured mortar open fire. He hoped Taggart would appreciate the gesture.

  *

  Abberly, hard pressed by the unexpected attack from the sea, directed a Bren gunner onto the two boats’ searchlights. He watched the tracer flitting towards the S boat. At once, the minesweeper’s machine-gun began probing for the Bren.

  The S boat’s light went out. The Bren stopped firing, its gunner hit. Another Bren extinguished the minesweeper’s light.

  The S boat was shooting blindly, both cannons raking the darkness at random, shells exploding along the quay face, on the wharves and along the sand.

  The minesweeper also maintained its fire. Its two machine-guns swept the whole length of the quayside, their wild, unaimed barrage worse, in a way, than if the gunners could aim with precision: nobody knew where the cannon shells and machine-gun bullets would fall next, and the whole attacking force was pinned down.

  The Brens had to conserve their ammunition. The constantly moving boats were a difficult target. The only way to deal with them was with a big gun; and Abberly could not afford to risk a charge on either the field gun or the flak gun on the quay through the murderous fire from the boats.

  Meanwhile, the enemy must be moving closer, waiting to rush when the boats stopped firing. Abberly radioed Taggart in desperation.

  “Can you give us any kind of artillery support? These two boats have got to be knocked out.”

  “Three minutes more, Major.”

  “Have you got through to the power station yet?”

  “Any moment now.”

  Abberly looked across to the northern end of the waterfront, wondering if any more boats would leave the harbour. There were two trawlers in there, converted to minesweeping and armed with machine-guns. Did they have searchlights? How many casualties had his men taken already?

  He looked at his watch: they must make a move in the next five minutes, even if the boats’ fire hadn’t slackened.

  Come on, Taggart… come on, man… what’s holding you up? The thought filled Abberly’s mind to the exclusion of his other anxieties.

  His urgency swelled into alarm when he heard the roar of an aircraft overhead and once again star shells, fired this time by the Flak gun and the 10.5 on the waterfront, flooded the lower town and fjord with bright light.

  He heard the Me 109 diving to strafe.

  *

  Taggart saw shells from the 10.5 bursting against the power station and in the vivid flash from each explosion he could see rubble and dust and the hole it gouged in the thick wall. But this building was reinforced concrete and not to be battered down by shells of this calibre. He and Udall would have to reach it somehow, and soon, to plant their explosives at its base.

  After half a dozen rounds the gun ceased fire: Dempster had recognised the hopelessness of the task he had set himself.

  The gun was useless for giving Abberly the supporting fire for which he had asked: it was blanketed by the power station. Taggart had left men in the second Flak gunpit, and from there the waterfront was visible. Taggart sent a runner to order it to sink the S boat and the minesweeper: if they could shoot accurately enough, with only the muzzle flashes and tracer to give them aiming points.

  The third Flak gun was a ruin, smashed by the shells fired at it from the second gun. There remained only the last gun and the last mortar.

  Rifle, Schmeisser and Spandau fire from somewhere near the power station jerked Taggart’s attention away from these final objectives; or, rather the last before he could tackle the power station itself.

  He had wondered how long it would be before the troops who had been rushed up here by lorry showed themselves at this end of the shelf. He directed two Brens onto them, their ammunition scanty by now, and hoped that the mortar bombs that were raining down from both mortars would check the enemy long enough to let him reach the Flak emplacement. From there, he could quickly take the mortar; and with both weapons in their hands the Commandos could play havoc with the lorried infantry.

  Taggart peered round the gunpit of the third Flak weapon, where his H.Q. group and Gowland’s section were crouching. With a shock, he saw Kirsten.

  “What the devil are you doing here?”

  She lifted a Schmeisser she had taken from a dead German. “I have this and some extra magazines. I am staying with you.”

  “You stay here, in this gunpit, until you see me fire a green flare.”

  “Don’t worry about me.”

  “Come on, Bill.” Taggart moved to the far side of the emplacement. He leaped to the top of the wall and down onto the ground outside. The Commandos pounded across the 100 yards that separated them from their penultimate target. Rifle and submachine-gun bullets zipped and crackled past. The blast and fragments from mortar bombs buffetted them and clanged on their steel helmets.

  A few strides from the emplacement, Taggart saw a man’s shape above the wall, a Schmeisser at his shoulder. Bullets cracked past him and the man threw up his arms and fell back. Taggart glanced round: Kirsten was a yard behind him and shooting as she ran.

  The wall of sandbags, concrete and rocks loomed up. The Commandos plunged over. The two surviving gunners raised their hands and howled “Kamerad!”

  Taggart heard Kirsten cry “Zu spät!” Too late. Her machine pistol juddered, she traversed it across the few feet that separated the German soldiers. They tumbled, writhing, at her feet in a welter of blood and brains and splintered bone.

  Half a minute later the gun was firing down at the two boats that were harassing the thee Commando troops waiting along the quays to make their final assault.

  Now for the mortar. But before they made that last charge there was the rolling boom of an explosion far below and the glow of flames where a shell from their captured gun had hit the S boat.

  Then they were out of the gunpit and running towards the mortar.

  But Zimmer, and the remnants of two platoons whom he had kept with him – the rest he had sent back, in another change of plan, to cut off any attempt of the Commandos to retreat – were waiting for them.

  The Germans came surging out of the gloom on the far side of the mortar pit, Zimmer at their head.

  He was shouting “Surrender… you are outnumbered… throw down your weapons…” when Gowland put three bullets through him with his revolver.

  With the mortar in their hands, and sheltered by the rampart around its pit, the Commandos beat off the by now dispirited enemy. Their comrades at the Flak gun 100 yards away fired a few shells at the Germans, which hastened their retreat.

  Taggart looked for Udall. “Come on, we’ve got to go and blow up the power station.”

  They climbed out and hurried away.

  They did not see the form that shadowed them and stayed a few paces behind.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Redlich made his first tactical blunder. When he went outside his Headquarters for a moment and saw both the S boat and minesweeper burning, he hurried back and ordered Weitz to launch all his uncommitted troops in a counter attack on the waterfront. To give them support from the flank, he ordered the half-platoon in the northern sangar to open fire.

  After Zirkenbach had strafed the Commandos, his No 2 had followed him and both had returned to the airfield to rear
m. Redlich called for another air strike. As the machine-guns in the redoubt opened up to enfilade the Commandos, two more Messerschmitts attacked, one at a time, by the light of flares fired from the ground.

  As soon as the men in the redoubt betrayed their presence, Abberly ordered two of his mortars to fire on them.

  Bissinger, in the Operations Room, answered a call from the redoubt. He told the sergeant there to wait while he told Major Redlich what had happened.

  “He says the enemy mortars are on target, sir, and his casualties are heavy.”

  “Tell him to cease fire.” Redlich swore silently, recognising his mistake. He felt frustrated, immured here, although he was in supreme command. The impulse to hand over to Bissinger and hurry to the infantry Command Post, then lead the troops in action, almost overwhelmed him. He belonged in the fighting line, amid the cordite fumes and flames, the bullets and shells and mortar bombs, the bayonet charges, the flighting grenades. But he reminded himself that he had to prove himself in overall command, as a tactician and strategist, on the road to the field marshal’s baton that he coveted.

  *

  Abberly took the three troops assembled along the wharf, and still almost at full strength, towards the factory. Their heavy machine-guns and mortars covered their advance. The captured gun on Island Two rained shells onto the German positions among the wharfside buildings. Some of the buildings were burning and the smoke rolled across the quays, screening the Commandos’ movements.

  A shell from Island Two burst on one of the Flak guns. A sub-section of E Troop stormed another. The mortars knocked out the other two.

  Slowly, the Commandos were closing on the enemy positions, forcing their way closer to the factory. But the defenders were regrouping behind the first line of buildings and the smoke, and the mortar in the central square was incessantly bombarding the waterside; the machine-guns in the northern redoubt had been ordered to resume firing, and there was still one in action on the opposite side of the fjord.

  This last weapon fell silent. A voice on the radio reported that what was left of A Troop had taken the redoubt. “No prisoners”, the voice said.

  Progress towards the factory was too slow. The power station still stood. Abberly was faced with a change of plan. He swiftly reviewed his options; they were, in fact, only two: slog slowly on, on a narrowing front, while the enemy consolidated; or attack more fiercely. He did not need to hold the islands any longer to cover the withdrawal: he would have to call the Navy in to fetch them. What he did need was to knock out the northern sangar.

  A familiar roar obtruded on his thoughts. Here came those damned aeroplanes again, to strafe the area where they knew the Commandos must be. The sooner they pushed ahead and got to close quarters with the enemy, the sooner the aircraft would be called off.

  Abberly radioed the same message to all three of the islands “Spike the guns and get up here as fast as you can. I’m sending a party round to knock out the northern sangar. All three sections R.V. below the cliffs there. You’ll find the sangar in our hands. As soon as you’ve grouped there, put in an attack on the harbour and the H.

  It was all very well to speak of “all three sections”: he wondered what in fact their combined strength would be by now. There would be enough of them to put up a spirited diversion from the main attack, anyway; and he would take his own troop around towards the enemy H.Q. from the other side, to join up with them.

  And, of course, there was still Tarrant’s troop up there on the shelf to take the main enemy force in the rear.

  *

  Taggart and Udall scuttled like land crabs towards the huge concrete structure, against which shells were no longer bursting. Dempster and Fysshe-Smith’s guns were now fully engaged in blasting at the lorried infantry over open sights and at point blank range.

  The two men paused and dropped flat 50 yards from their objective, to survey the ground. They could hear nothing from that direction, above the din of the fighting that was going on around them; but still they waited. When they had adjusted their vision to the distance and to the background of white concrete, they saw the silhouettes of helmeted men and a parked lorry.

  “They’re expecting us,” Taggart breathed. “Must have moved in when the shelling stopped.”

  They crawled on. They did not look behind, and the shadow that followed them moved with them, unseen.

  They were only 20 yards from the western side of the power station when lorry headlights blazed on and caught them. At once there were shouts and a fusillade of shots from rifles and machine pistols. They fired back and shattered the headlamps, but saw men rushing at them.

  A stream of Schmeisser bullets ripped overhead. Two of the enemy screamed and pitched forward.

  “What the bloody hell…” Taggart glanced back. He saw a kneeling figure shooting past him and Udall. Udall was still firing and when Taggart looked to his front again there were only two of the enemy shooting at them: both now lying prone, only their helmets showing where they were. He threw a grenade. When its smoke had cleared and there was no movement from the enemy, he looked over his shoulder once more.

  Kirsten was panting as she lay full length beside him. “Get away from here, girl.”

  “Where are your manners, Captain? Weren’t you taught to say ‘thank you’?”

  “Thank you… blast you… now go away.”

  “I am not one of your soldiers. I am not even using a British gun. I am staying to help you.”

  Taggart did not reply. He and Udall ran forward and began to place the demolition charges and set the fuses to detonate in five minutes.

  They had three more to lay when they heard the grinding of gears and the sound of a lorry’s engine; and again headlights shone towards them.

  They heard Kirsten’s bursts of fire. They heard the hoarse voice of someone shouting orders. They heard the enemy shooting.

  They ran back to where she lay, sheltering behind the six dead bodies, pinned down. Bullets flicked by them and they threw themselves down at her side.

  “We’ve got to run for it,” Taggart said, “or we’ll be caught in the blast and debris when the charges blow.”

  But they could not shoot. Kirsten had shot out the lorry’s lights, but their muzzle flashes would give away where they were lying.

  “We’ll surprise them,” Taggart said. “They’ll expect us to run for it. We’ll charge them. Kirsten, you stop here and give us covering fire. Come on Udall. Go!”

  They had barely over-run the astonished Germans and leaped into the lorry, and raced in it to pick up Kirsten, and driven another 30 yards, when there was a blinding blaze of light, a blast of roasting air and a deafening noise. The lorry was lifted two feet off the ground, it skidded and swerved when it landed again, it tipped onto two wheels, then righted itself, and all three of them were thrown from side to side of the cab.

  There was a long-drawn rumbling roar as the power station disintegrated and collapsed.

  All the lights in the town went out.

  “Now we can get down there and give a hand,” Taggart said, “take Jerry in the rear.”

  *

  The C Troop party from Island One, comprising 40 unwounded men, had the wind behind their boats and used both engines. They raced up the fjord at nine knots and it took them only 12 minutes to reach the town. The 21 fit survivors of D Troop and A Troop’s 18 were awaiting them. The northern sangar was still in enemy hands.

  The section that Abberly had sent to attack it had had to work their way across the harbour entrance and land 200 yards further down the fjord than their objective. The boat had had a rough passage and the landing had been difficult. They clambered up the rocks and slowly covered the slippery distance between them and the redoubt. When they were within 30 yards of it they halted to gather themselves for the final rush.

  They were at the disadvantage of having to attack on a narrow front with the sea on their right and steeply sloping rocks and a cliff on their left. Spaced an arm’s length apar
t, there was room for only six men abreast. They crept towards the strongly built rampart that faced them, when they would have preferred to charge; had the terrain been dry and flatter.

  A rock dislodged by someone’s foot caught the attention of a sharp-eared defender and in an instant the beam of a signalling lamp, improvising as a searchlight, came on and flicked across the ground. Rifle shots followed first; and, before a burst from a Sten could smash the light, automatic fire began as well. Two of the attackers went down, but the rest, regardless of their precarious foothold, broke into a charge, hurling grenades and shooting their Stens: they had used very little ammunition in their assault on the islands.

  The waiting reinforcements heard shouting from the charging Commandos and the bellowed orders among the enemy. They heard the crunch of gun butts on bone, the cries of the dying, the stertorous breathing of men in close combat.

  The noise of battle died. A green Verey light flared. The remnants of A, C and D Troops raced across the short space that separated them from the shore below the sangar and leaped out of their boats. Under the orders of A Troop’s commander, they began, with the men who had taken the sangar, to make their way along the northern wall of the harbour.

  Abberly heard automatic fire and the thud of exploding grenades, he saw the muzzle flashes and the explosions, as the attackers joined battle with the enemy who were posted around the harbour.

  Redlich, emerging from his H.Q. to survey the whole battlefield, saw that the Commandos had thrust to within 200 metres of where he stood. A company of infantry doubled past him on their way to try to check the Commandos’ advance.

  *

  The survivors of B Troop, who had lost 7 killed and 9 too badly wounded to be able to continue fighting, assembled around Taggart in response to his Verey signal.