Marine L SBS

by Ian Blake

  ‘I could hardly do that, sir,’ said Pountney gently.

  The Army man shook his head sadly. ‘No. No, of course you couldn’t.’

  He brightened. ‘Well, you certainly shook the Wops up last week. No casualties, I hope.’

  ‘Unfortunately, sir, the Salmon, the submarine carrying the other SBS team, was sunk soon after she reached her billet. So they never got ashore.’

  The General shook his head again. ‘I’m sorry to hear that, very sorry. Such highly trained men, too. We can’t afford such losses.’

  There was a moment’s pause before the General continued. ‘And what was the final score with Angelo?’

  ‘As you know, sir, we sent out six patrols in total. Two weren’t able to be landed for operational reasons, but the other four reached their targets, and all returned.’

  ‘Splendid. Splendid. And the damage?’

  ‘Air reconnaissance reported a number of wrecked aircraft at both Maritsa and Lombardo, sir. And then there was the ammunition train we managed to bag on Sicily last week.’

  The General’s eyes gleamed. ‘Excellent, Pountney, excellent.’ He slapped his thigh enthusiastically before the realities of the situation closed in on him again. He sat down heavily behind his large teak desk. This time he wiped his moustache. His eyes, a light, watery blue, bulged unnaturally under his bushy eyebrows.

  ‘Well, what are we going to do with you, Pountney? After your successes I can’t possibly disband you, or Mr Churchill will be sending the Commander-in-Chief one of his memos.’

  Pountney nodded sympathetically. He had heard about the Prime Minister’s memos. They usually began: ‘Pray let me know this day, on one side of a sheet of paper, why . . .’ The Great Man didn’t like desk-bound generals any more than Pountney did – though, to be fair, Pountney thought, the one he was now talking to obviously loathed that fate himself.

  ‘Let us get on with it, sir,’ Pountney said immediately. ‘The Navy likes us and we like the Navy.’

  The General shook his head doubtfully. ‘But the War Office thinks it’s all so irregular, Pountney. We simply can’t have a dozen men wandering around on their own. Not attached to any formation, not responsible to any hierarchy.’

  ‘I do report directly to General Laycock, sir,’ Pountney reminded him.

  ‘Yes, yes, I know all that, but you’re not on any proper Army establishment. You don’t even have your own cap badge or insignia.’

  ‘We have our own motto, sir.’

  ‘You have? And what is that?’

  ‘Excreta Tauri Astutos Frustrantur.’

  ‘Eh?’

  ‘Latin, sir.’

  The General snorted. ‘I gathered that, Pountney.’

  ‘A classics don at Oxford composed it for me, sir. It means “Bullshit Baffles Brains".’

  The General’s eyebrows beetled together, and for a moment Pountney thought his motto would not be well received.

  But the General roared with laughter. ‘Very good, Pountney. Very good indeed. So that’s what you think of us desk-bound warriors.’

  He leant back in his chair and the smile slowly faded from his face. ‘Well, I’ll tell you what I’ll do. I’m being posted in a couple of weeks. They don’t want old fogies like me at the sharp end any longer. I’m going to put the War Office’s query at the bottom of my pending tray, where it can pend until my successor gets round to it. God knows when that will be.’

  ‘Thank you, sir.’

  ‘Anyway, if this chap Rommel continues to advance in the desert at the rate he’s doing he’ll be here by the end of next month. That will solve your problem, as they’ll burn all the records before he arrives.’

  He got up to indicate that the interview was over. Pountney jumped from his chair, came to attention and gave as smart a salute as he had mustered in years.

  As Pountney turned to go, the General said: ‘Good luck to you, Pountney. You’re going to need it.’

  As he shut the door behind him, the SBS man knew that the General had been wishing him luck with fighting Whitehall and its red tape – not the enemy.

  7

  Pountney felt his tread lighten as he left the GHQ building where the General had his office. Somehow he had got away with it; quite how, he was not sure. He made his way through the crowded, clamouring streets of Cairo to the coolness of the bar at Shepheard’s Hotel, where Ayton was waiting for him.

  ‘Whisky and soda,’ Pountney said in answer to Ayton’s question, and added unnecessarily: ‘a very large one.’

  ‘Well?’ queried Ayton when he had given the order to the waiter.

  ‘We’re all right for the moment,’ said Pountney. ‘The old codger wasn’t a bad sort for a pen-pusher. He promised to “lose" the file. He thinks Rommel will be here by the end of next month anyway, which will make everything pretty irrelevant.’

  ‘Jesus,’ said Ayton, although the news didn’t come as that much of a surprise: there was already an air of unease about Cairo.

  They fell silent as the waiter approached, balancing a tray: no one talked shop in front of the waiters. He arranged a coaster before each of them, placed a bowl of nuts between them and then, with the flourish of a conjuror producing a rabbit, put two large glasses of whisky and a soda siphon on the table. Ayton gave him a note and waved away the change.

  ‘Jesus,’ he said again when the waiter had gone. ‘How serious is it, do you think?’

  Pountney shrugged. He couldn’t see what all the fuss was about himself. ‘Haven’t a clue. But I have a feeling that’s what Bob Laycock wants to see us about.’

  Laycock, besides being a charismatic commando leader, was a man who knew how to make himself comfortable – always the sign of a veteran campaigner. He had installed himself in a luxury villa a stone’s throw from the hotel, and after draining their glasses Ayton and Pountney walked round to it.

  The commando guards snapped to attention as the SBS men passed through the gate. Laycock’s aide, a young lieutenant in the Household Cavalry, greeted them at the front door, and led the way to Laycock’s office.

  The General waved them into two chairs in front of his desk and offered them his silver cigarette box. ‘Egyptian on the right, Virginia on the left. A dicky-bird tells me you had a positive interview with General Marker,’ he said to Pountney, ‘and that you’ve managed to maintain your independence for the moment.’

  As an officer in the Royal Horse Guards, part of the Household Cavalry, Laycock knew everything and everyone. The rumour was that those waiters who declined to spy for the Germans worked for him instead. Pountney related what had been said at the interview.

  ‘Doesn’t surprise me,’ Laycock commented when Pountney had finished. ‘The War Office loathes the word “commando". Smacks of irregular warfare. Blimps in Whitehall don’t like that. If it wasn’t for the Prime Minister we would have all been disbanded long ago.’

  Laycock shook his head in wonderment at the vagaries of officialdom. As part of the political wrangling in high places his force had been transmuted first into lettered battalions and then into something called the Middle East Commando – all part of the military bureaucracy’s attempt to try to gain control of Laycock’s group before dismembering it.

  Stubbing out his cigarette with a brusqueness which showed his disgust, Laycock added: ‘Well, I didn’t disturb your few days’ well-deserved leave to talk about my problems when there are rather larger ones in the offing.’

  ‘Then it’s true what they’re saying about Rommel, sir?’ Pountney asked.

  Laycock nodded. ‘He’s just captured Sollum and now has forward units at the Halfaya Pass. These could cross the Egyptian border any day now.’

  Pountney and Ayton looked at each other. Both whiffed the scent of action to come.

  ‘His lines of supply and communications must be stretched to the limit, then,’ Pountney said.

  ‘Exactly,’ agreed Laycock. ‘You see the bright side of everything, don’t you, Roger? Every mile he advances is a m
ile more for his transport to travel to keep him supplied with fuel and ammunition.’

  ‘Vulnerable, that coastal road,’ Pountney mused.

  ‘Exceptionally so.’

  Ayton watched his superiors in silence. He could see that both men were savouring the possibilities spread out before them. The poor old regular infantry and armour might be getting a bashing in the desert, but for the elite such as them it represented an exceptional opportunity for raiding.

  ‘So,’ said Pountney, leaning forward eagerly, ‘a series of raids from the sea. Is that the idea, sir?’

  Laycock chuckled. ‘It certainly is. Cut Rommel off from his supplies and it’s like choking a man to death.’

  Pountney sprang from his chair and strode over to a large-scale map pinned to the wall behind Laycock.

  ‘I’d suggest here and here, sir.’

  Laycock swung round in his chair.

  ‘The coastal road runs next to the sea at both points,’ Pountney remarked, ‘and we’d bag God knows how much transport in the loop of road between them.’

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘We’d need some support, sir.’

  ‘We, Roger?’

  Pountney’s brow furrowed. ‘I assumed you would be asking the SBS to mount these raids, sir.’

  Laycock shook his head. ‘Then you’ve assumed wrongly, I’m afraid. The Middle East Commando will be mounting them. It will be in support of a general offensive by our troops to stop Rommel in his tracks.’

  Pountney looked crestfallen. ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘I honestly don’t think the SBS has the capability to undertake such large-scale operations, do you?’

  Laycock was right, of course. Pountney nodded and returned to his seat, knowing now that he and Ayton had just been called in to be kept briefed and perhaps to tender some advice if it was solicited. But with luck they might be given a minor role to play.

  ‘However,’ said Laycock, ‘I have something much more interesting for you two to consider.’ He leant forward. ‘You well know the Italians were on the run in Libya until Rommel showed up in February. They’d all be in the bag by now if it hadn’t been for him.’

  ‘And his Afrika Korps, sir,’ Pountney added.

  ‘Ah, but our intelligence people say that, though the Afrika Korps have first-class troops, there aren’t that many of them. Not enough to have made such a huge difference to the situation.’

  ‘You’re saying that’s down to Rommel, sir?’

  Laycock nodded. ‘I am. The man’s a genius, in my opinion. Quite brilliant. He runs rings round us. So much so that it’s getting harder to convince the ordinary Tommy that he can be beaten.’

  That was the Cairo gossip. Rommel was unstoppable. Nonsense, of course, but even the Egyptians in the street had begun to sense the growing sense of panic and were becoming openly hostile to the British military in their midst.

  ‘And that, gentlemen, is a very serious situation indeed.’

  Laycock paused, grim-faced.

  Pountney immediately saw what he was driving at. ‘So Rommel’s the crux of it, sir? Get rid of him and we solve the problem?’

  ‘Exactly, Roger.’

  Ayton now spoke for the first time. ‘Do we know where Rommel is, sir?’

  Laycock unlocked a drawer of his desk and withdrew a map, which he unfurled and spread out on his desk. The SBS men could see that it was a large-scale map of part of the Libyan coastline.

  ‘Luckily, we do,’ Laycock said. ‘We have had a man working on the problem for some time. He speaks Arabic and Italian fluently and has the confidence of the local people. He was infiltrated into the area by submarine a month ago and the Long Range Desert Group picked him up last week. He says Rommel’s HQ is here, at Beda Littoria, some fifteen miles inland from the coast on the Via Balbia – the main road we’ll be cutting further east.’

  The SBS men studied the map in silence. From its contours it looked like wild and hilly countryside.

  ‘Where is Beda Littoria exactly, sir?’ Ayton asked.

  ‘Between Benghazi and Tobruk. It’s about two hundred miles behind enemy lines, though it might be three hundred by tomorrow at the rate Rommel is advancing.’

  Pountney felt a pulse of excitement run through him. This was exactly what he had envisaged to be the purpose of the SBS: small-scale raiding from the sea of vital targets behind enemy lines.

  ‘When do we move, sir?’ he asked.

  ‘As soon as possible. Unfortunately, we’re hamstrung to a certain extent by the lack of available submarines. However, with some arm-twisting the Admiral has let us have two.’

  ‘Two folbot teams to a submarine,’ Pountney mused. ‘That’s eight men.’

  ‘If you can’t do it with eight men I don’t suppose you could do it with eighteen or eighty.’

  ‘No problem, sir.’

  Ayton was wondering how they would return – no use expecting precious submarines to be deployed in an area thoroughly alerted by the assassination of the Germans’ top general – when Laycock answered his query by saying: ‘The LRDG will bring you back. They know every inch of the desert. Drive around it as if it was Piccadilly Circus.’

  He drew out another, smaller-scale, map and spread it over the large-scale one, and with a pencil traced a route which led straight inland from Beda Littoria into the desert. When he reached a small circle marked ‘Gialo Oasis’ he tapped it and said: ‘That’ll be your rendezvous with the Group.’

  Pountney looked at the scale of the map, then measured the distance between Beda Littoria and the oasis with his eye. Laycock grinned at him when he heard his sharp, involuntary intake of breath. ‘Nice little walk for you, Roger.’

  Pountney’s expression remained unchanged, however, and he answered: ‘Well, at least Jerry won’t bother to chase us out there, sir.’

  ‘Don’t worry,’ said Laycock reassuringly. ‘We’re not expecting you to walk it. Our man is being delivered back into the area soon. He’ll meet you on the beach, and after the operation he’ll be waiting for you with a truck. His name’s Tommy, by the way. Don’t bother to ask him what his real name is. All I can tell you is that he is one of our most trusted and valuable agents.’

  ‘Who would you pick to come with us, Phil?’ Pountney said as they left the villa.

  ‘Daly and Bob Harmon, for certain,’ Ayton replied briskly. ‘They proved themselves at Lombardo. Kelly and Davidson had bad luck, but Davidson certainly deserves another go.’

  Pountney nodded. Kelly was still recovering from a bullet in the shoulder, so another partner would have to be found for Davidson. ‘I agree. Who else?’

  ‘Bailey and Tim Robertson perhaps?’ said Ayton with less certainty.

  ‘Not Maitland?’

  Maitland was their latest recruit, a raw-boned Glaswegian who rarely spoke.

  ‘He’s a first-rate canoeist,’ Ayton conceded, ‘but he’s not really had time to prove himself, has he?’

  On the train back to Alexandria they continued to argue about who to pick. By the time they had boarded the depot ship they had decided to allow Maitland his chance in partnership with the experienced and reliable Lieutenant Tim Robertson. This meant that Bailey, a cheerful cockney corporal with nerves of steel, would partner the quieter, more introverted Davidson.

  Davidson was a sergeant in the Royal Marines who, since his parents had been killed in an air raid on Liverpool, seemed to regard the war as a personal vendetta against the Axis forces in general and the Germans in particular. Such fanaticism had its drawbacks, but Pountney knew Davidson also happened to be a crack shot. Watching him handle a weapon was like seeing an art connoisseur inspect some rare treasure. If he didn’t get carried away by his personal hatreds, Davidson was going to be an invaluable member of the unit and was potentially officer material.

  The chosen party had only a few days in which to train and be briefed. Then one morning Laycock came on board and the officers chosen for the raid were summoned to the final briefing. He explained a
gain what had to be done and why, then wished them luck. When he had left, Pountney spread out, alongside the large-scale map of the area, the air reconnaissance photographs of Beda Littoria that Laycock had brought with him.

  The beach on which they would land looked straightforward. They could tell from the way the waves broke at regular intervals that its gradient was neither too shallow nor too steep. The Mediterranean was virtually tideless, but that did not prevent quite strong local currents and eddies forming close to the shore.

  However, from the angle at which the wave pattern approached the shore, there appeared to be no rip tide or inshore current of any great strength. The reason why the pattern did not run parallel with the shore was simply that the prevailing wind at that time of year, the Levanter, was blowing from the east and set the waves at a slight angle to the coastline. The coastal area itself looked flat and bare, and devoid of any easy landmarks, either natural or man-made, so the navigators of the submarines might find it difficult to pinpoint the landing area exactly.

  Next the raiders examined the route inland to Beda Littoria. From the map contours it was clear that most of the hills were to the west and east, and Pountney surmised that the area through which they would have to pass would be mostly gently undulating sand-dunes. The map indicated that there was a track of some sort to Beda Littoria from the coastal area, but on the reconnaissance photographs it seemed to peter out before reaching the coast.

  Well, that was Tommy’s problem, whoever Tommy was, and Pountney just hoped that the mysterious agent knew what he was doing. Trudging over dunes would be tiring and slow, and even the most knowledgeable guides got lost in the desert. But in any case, he told himself, there was nothing he could do about that. He had other matters to worry about. Nevertheless, experience told him that such imponderables as he had already found meant a generous time factor would have to be built into the operation.

  Lastly there was Beda Littoria itself. The photo reconnaissance unit had done a fine job by taking not only verticals of Rommel’s headquarters, and the compound around it, but also a number of low-level obliques, before, doubtless, anti-aircraft fire had driven off the fast-flying Mosquito fighter-bombers which flew these missions.