Marine L SBS

by Ian Blake

  ‘I know your interesting little jaunts,’ Bob Harmon laughed. ‘The last one involved a tour of the desert.’

  At sundown General Clark, Captain Wright and one of the American Army officers arrived and settled into the tiny wardroom, and after dusk the submarine sailed. It ran on the surface across calm water illuminated by a three-quarter moon that almost turned night into day.

  Below, Jewall and the three SBS men crammed around the wardroom table with the Americans to study the large-scale map of the Algerian coast which the General had spread out. He pointed to a cross on the map. ‘This is our destination. You can see it’s an isolated part of the coast. You’ve had it surveyed?’ he said to Jewall, who nodded and handed over Eden’s sketch.

  Clark studied it intently. ‘Yeah, that’s the one – white walls and a red-tiled roof. Apparently it sits on top of a large sand-dune about halfway between the beach and this coastal road here. A path leads up to it from the beach through a small olive grove which sounds a good place to hide the canoes.’

  Jewall looked at the sketch, then at the map. ‘With respect, that sounds like all Algerian coastal scenery, sir. The whole coastline is covered with holiday villas like that. Are there any additional landmarks?’

  Clark pointed with his forefinger. ‘They told me this hill here to the left of the house is shaped like a sugar loaf. Very distinctive. As you can see, a small wadi empties into the sea from that area. There should be no trouble identifying it.’

  Neither Jewall nor Pountney commented. They had heard that casual remark from senior officers before.

  Clark sensed their doubts and added: ‘The people in the house will have a powerful light shining seawards from the first floor if it’s all right for us to land, and there will be a reception committee on the beach to meet us.’

  The eyes of the two British officers met briefly and each knew the other had the same nagging doubt. Americans, they had heard, tended to be naive, though Clark certainly didn’t look or behave that way.

  ‘May we know who owns the house, sir?’ Pountney asked gingerly.

  ‘It’s the weekend retreat of one of General Mast’s friends, who is a member of the French Resistance,’ said the other Army officer. He wore gold-rimmed spectacles and the eagle insignia of a full colonel, and spoke with an inflection that overlaid his American twang. At the conference the General had introduced him as Walt Meredith, his interpreter and an expert on the French Army and French foreign policy, adding: ‘He’s completely trustworthy.’

  Pountney had heard that one before too, and asked: ‘Is there going to be any way we can identify the reception committee before we land, sir?’

  Clark shook his head and looked hard at all three SBS officers: ‘You guys are worried we might be walking into a trap, aren’t you?’

  ‘There’s always that possibility,’ said Pountney, glad that it had come out into the open.

  ‘Well, it’s something we’re going to have to risk,’ said Clark briskly. ‘We’ll have to play it by ear. I’m going in whatever the consequences. We’re playing for big chips, gentlemen, very big chips.’

  It was now the turn of the SBS men to exchange glances. They knew how vulnerable a folbot was approaching the shore; it was obvious that the General did not.

  The impromptu conference broke up and Jewall returned to the bridge. The SBS officers dragged one of the folbots along the narrow passageway and into the wardroom and laid it on the floor, so that the three Americans could practise entering its rear cockpit from the table.

  Ayton showed them how. ‘You sit on the edge of the deck like this and then you lower your leg, placing your foot just there. Then straighten up very carefully, balancing on one leg. Good . . . Now place the other leg here and grip with both hands on the side. Lower yourself gently . . . That’s it.’

  Once the Americans had got the hang of it, Pountney requested permission to go on the bridge to speak to Jewall. The bearded lieutenant did not lower his binoculars when Pountney appeared, but kept studying the horizon. He disliked being on the surface when visibility was so good, but the battery had to be charged – there was no escaping that.

  ‘Yes, Jumbo. What can I do for you?’

  ‘We’ve had a trial run in the wardroom, but I want to put them through real boat drill now. Could you stop this battleship for a moment?’

  Jewall lowered his binoculars as he turned in amazement. ‘You’re asking me to stop my ship? Here? Now?’

  "Fraid so, old boy. Won’t take long.’

  ‘You know bloody well that would contravene all the accepted rules governing submarines at sea in wartime.’

  ‘Of course,’ said Pountney cheerfully. ‘But I assume you want to deliver and pick up our passengers without losing any of them.’

  Jewall groaned. It went against his well-developed instinct for survival, but he saw the sense in what Pountney was saying. He gave the necessary orders and a folbot was quickly delivered on to the submarine’s forecasing as the submarine came to a halt. It wallowed awkwardly in the swell, which had been hardly noticeable when the submarine had been under way.

  Under such conditions the Americans found it difficult to apply the lessons they had learnt in the wardroom, but eventually they all managed the difficult manoeuvre of dropping into the folbot’s rear cockpit as the tiny canvas craft bobbed in the water, and of then climbing out again. Satisfied, teachers and pupils went below, the folbot was returned to the torpedo compartment and the submarine resumed its course and speed.

  At dawn Jewall ordered the submarine to run at eighty feet and shortly afterwards he ordered it up to periscope depth. He carefully examined the coastline ahead, then asked for Mark Clark to come to the control room. In moments the General was beside him, and Jewall handed over the periscope.

  ‘That must be the villa,’ said Clark after a moment. ‘It has a red roof. And, yes, there’s the olive grove and the sugar loaf on the left. That must be it.’

  Clark stood back from the telescope and thrust out his hand to Jewall. ‘Thanks, son. By getting us here you’ve almost certainly saved hundreds if not thousands of lives. Now, I guess, it’s down to me.’

  The young lieutenant took the American’s hand and saw the emotion in the elder man’s eyes. ‘The Royal Navy, sir,’ he said gravely, ‘never lets anyone down.’ Then he gestured at the three SBS officers standing behind him. ‘And the Royal Navy includes these cutthroats here, as they are Royal Marines.’

  ‘Don’t count me in with that mob yet,’ Pountney grumbled good-naturedly. ‘It’ll take more than a few sweet words to convert me into a bloody bootneck.’

  14

  The Seraph spent the day two miles off the Algerian coast, one hundred feet below the calm surface of the Mediterranean. At dusk Jewall started to close with the coast and surfaced half a mile from the landing area. The moon was not yet up; the stars glittered brightly in the night sky. Immediately Jewall focused the periscope on the villa he saw a white light shining from its first floor: the signal that it was all clear for Clark to go ashore.

  The folbots were brought up through the torpedo hatch and launched on to a swell which was more pronounced than it had been the previous night, so that the three canvas craft bobbed and weaved in the water. The three SBS officers agreed that one of the folbots would land first and its occupants would signal the other two to come ashore if the reception committee was a friendly one.

  Pountney and Jewall took some time to devise a simple, unambiguous code when using their walkie-talkies to contact one another. Eventually Jewall produced a pin-up photograph of a scantily dressed, dark-haired starlet Pountney immediately recognized as Jane Russell.

  ‘I’ll prefix any message by describing her top half,’ Jewall suggested, ‘and you can answer by telling me about her lower half. A different description each time in case anyone overhears what we say the first time round.’

  ‘Suits me,’ Pountney replied. ‘But keep it brief.’

  They both laughed.


  All three men were armed with coshes and with Welrods. Bob Harmon was assigned the task of reconnoitring the beach first to ensure that their reception was a friendly one. He took Colonel Meredith with him, as the American had done some canoeing and knew how to handle a paddle. Ayton and Pountney watched them go, their blades throwing up glowing streaks of phosphorescence as they headed for the shore. Ayton, with the naval captain, Jerry Wright, went next. Finally Clark and Pountney pushed off from the submarine, which began to back off into deeper water so that it could crash-dive if it had to.

  The last two folbots held back from the beach, their occupants straining to see what was happening ashore. Shadowy figures approached the water’s edge and they could see Harmon and Wright pulling the folbot up the sand. The moments passed and no signal came. Pountney could hear Clark sitting behind him muttering under his breath and was amused to know that even generals got edgy when things didn’t go right. The minutes ticked by.

  Pountney peered ahead of him at the moving figures on the beach. It seemed inconceivable that Bob had allowed himself to be captured without firing a shot. Then at last Harmon’s torch flicked on and off, signalling the dot . . . dot . . . dash . . . dot of ‘F’, to indicate that the reception had been friendly. At once Pountney drove his paddle blade deep into the water.

  They soon reached the surf, which the folbot took in its stride, and seconds later they were borne by it on to the sand. They scrambled out as willing hands clutched the folbot.

  ‘What the fuck happened?’ Pountney asked irritably when Harmon came up to him.

  ‘Dropped the bloody torch in the water,’ Harmon said apologetically. ‘Someone had to go up to the house to get another.’

  The moment passed. Later Pountney reprimanded himself for allowing the tension to get to him, but then reasoned that it wasn’t every day that he had the responsibility of landing an Allied general on a potentially hostile beach.

  Clark reacted by slapping everyone on the back and shaking hands with the reception committee: three rather mysterious individuals in berets who spoke to Meredith in rapid French.

  Pountney dug out his walkie-talkie from a pocket in the folbot, slid up the aerial and turned it on.

  ‘Hello, Seraph, how do you hear me? She’s got thighs as soft as butter.’

  ‘I hear you loud and clear,’ Jewall replied. ‘She has the most gorgeous tits. Over.’

  ‘All safe and sound,’ said Pountney. ‘We’re going up to the villa now. Over.’

  ‘We’ll get the hell out of it,’ said Jewall, and even over the walkie-talkie Pountney could hear the relief in his voice. ‘See you as arranged. Over and out.’

  Two of the Frenchmen led the way up to the villa while the third obliterated any traces of the landing. They dumped the folbots in the olive grove, covered them with a camouflage net and scattered leaves and loose grass over them.

  The signal light had been turned off and the villa was so heavily blacked out that even when they were right up to its walls not a chink of light showed. But inside, its large rooms with marble floors were brightly lit. The landing party was shown into the main sitting room, where they were greeted by a group of French officers and an American in a civilian suit who was introduced as Dave Murphy.

  The conference began immediately and the three SBS men were taken to another sitting room, where they gratefully accepted coffee and brandy before settling down to sleep on the sofas with which the room was liberally equipped. It was morning when one of the reception committee shook Pountney’s shoulder roughly and told him in broken English that the conference was over, that General Mast and his advisers had departed, but that they were now expecting new visitors. ‘Les flics,’ the man said. ‘Police. You must ‘ide.’

  Pountney grabbed his tommy-gun, woke the other two and followed the man down into the cellar, where the SBS men found their three charges and the American civilian. Clark and the other two seemed worried by this turn of events, but Dave Murphy looked quite unconcerned. A single bare bulb lit the large room, which was lined with row upon row of wine racks. Most of them were empty, the SBS men immediately noted, but not all.

  ‘They sent the servants away several nights ago,’ said Meredith in a low voice. ‘One of them had been fired. This guy, to get his own back, reported to the police that there might be smuggling going on.’

  ‘If they find us we’re in deep shit,’ murmured Clark.

  After a short while they heard the measured footsteps of the police above them as they searched the villa’s ground floor. Everything went quiet for a while, then near the entrance to the cellar they heard raised voices, a scuffle and a single shot.

  Clark pulled his Colt automatic pistol from a canvas holster he was wearing on his belt, but Pountney put a restraining hand on his arm. ‘Allow us, sir,’ he whispered.

  Nodding, Clark slid the weapon back into its holster.

  Pountney gestured to Ayton and Harmon to stand to one side of the door while he stood at the other, then indicated to the Americans that they should move farther away, which they did immediately.

  ‘How many?’ Pountney mouthed at Meredith, who stuck up four fingers.

  There was more scuffling above them, then footsteps on the cellar steps.

  For the three SBS men it was routine work. Pountney and Ayton drew their coshes from inside their shirts while Harmon, acting as the backstop, carefully and quietly drew back the hammer of his .22 Welrod and balanced the integral silencer on his raised forearm.

  The door handle turned and rattled, and the gendarme on the other side shouted an order. They heard the jangle of keys and the lock being turned, then the door was flung open.

  A torch beam stabbed the dark corners of the cellar and Pountney noted that they were dealing with a cautious customer. But not seeing anything unusual, the policeman stepped into the cellar.

  Harmon covered him carefully with his Welrod while Ayton hit him behind the right ear with one well-directed stroke of his cosh. The man’s peaked cap flew off and his cape furled round him as he pitched forward. Pountney caught him neatly and pulled him, as quietly as he could, over to where the Americans were standing. Pountney gestured that they should bind and gag the unconscious gendarme.

  Then he put up four fingers and drew one down. Three to go.

  He went back to the door, tossed the gendarme’s cap in the direction of the Americans and resumed his position beside the open door. When the first gendarme did not return Pountney knew that two of them would come next time, or perhaps all three, because that was the way the police the world over worked, whether it was the local constabulary back home or the German Gestapo.

  Nothing happened for some minutes, then someone above began shouting what must have been the gendarme’s name. Silence again, then heavy footsteps on the cellar stairs. Was it two or all three? It was impossible to tell.

  A shadow fell on the shaft of light coming through the door.

  ‘Gaston?’ The door creaked wider open. ‘Gaston?’

  Pountney smoothed his hand over his cosh and raised it above his head. Ayton did the same.

  The second gendarme was taller than the first and had drawn his revolver from the highly polished leather holster at his waist.

  The SBS men let him come farther into the cellar than they had the first one, but when the second gendarme didn’t follow directly behind him, Pountney hit the first one hard with his cosh.

  At the same instant Bob Harmon stepped into the gap and shot the second policeman who was still hovering on the cellar steps. In the confined space the sound of the silenced Welrod, like a bottle being uncorked, seemed louder than normal.

  As the second gendarme pitched forward there was a frantic scrambling of boots on the stone stairs. Harmon moved quickly through the cellar door, stepping sideways to avoid him as he fell. ‘Plop’ went the Welrod again.

  ‘Shit!’ Harmon snarled. ‘Missed the bastard.’

  He ran up the steps and flung himself at the door the third gendar
me had just slammed in his face. He wrenched it open and went down on one knee, holding the pistol steady in both hands.

  Plop.

  The third policeman staggered slightly, but kept running. Moments later he was out of the house and staggering down the path towards the coastal road, his cloak billowing out behind him.

  ‘Shoot him!’ Harmon yelled at one of the beret-wearing Frenchmen who was guarding the back entrance with a Sten gun. The Frenchman raised the Sten and fired at the policeman’s legs, and the man rolled over like a shot rabbit.

  Harmon raced down the path past the writhing figure of the wounded gendarme. Parked to one side of the coastal road was the policemen’s car, an old blue Buick. Harmon, who thought another one of them might have remained with the car, was relieved to see it was empty. The keys were still in the ignition and Harmon started it up and drove it down the path, then off the path and into some undergrowth where it would be hidden from both the road and the air.

  When he returned to the villa he found Pountney and Ayton bent over another beret-wearing Frenchman, who was sprawled in the sitting room. He had been shot at close range by one of the gendarmes and died as Pountney tried to stem the flow of blood from the bullet hole in his neck.

  The two gendarmes who had been shot were having their wounds bound by Ayton. Both of them, he said, would survive. The Americans had come out of the cellar and were conferring.

  ‘We think Dave should beat it,’ Clark said to Pountney, ‘and we should get the hell out of here, too. Can you signal the Seraph?’

  Pountney stood up and shook his head. ‘She’ll be seven miles out and a hundred feet down, sir. She won’t surface until dusk.’

  Clark turned to Murphy. ‘You know the set-up here, Dave. How long do you reckon it will be before they start searching for these guys?’

  Murphy shrugged. He seemed quite unconcerned by what had happened. ‘Two hours, maybe three. We’re a long way from anywhere and they won’t come looking yet.’

  He said his farewells and walked off along the path on his own. His car, he said, was concealed half a mile down the road.