Ungentlemanly Warfare

by Howard Linskey

‘Probably the same thing,’ Walsh admitted, ‘doesn’t mean I have to like it.’

  Cooper nodded as if conceding he had a point. ‘And are we going to have a problem working together – that’s all I need to know? If you prefer to work with somebody else on this one then you should tell me now.’

  Walsh sighed, ‘No, Sam, we are not going to have a problem, as long as you consider me not trusting you as far as I could throw you to not be a problem.’

  Cooper smiled, ‘Thank you for your candour, Harry.’

  ‘I’ve got to be going,’ said Walsh, ‘remember to meet me on the early train tomorrow.’

  ‘I haven’t forgotten. Where are you taking us or is that something else we’re not permitted to know?’

  Walsh had almost reached the motorbike but he turned to answer the American, ‘I’m taking you to the Thatched Barn.’

  ‘What’s that,’ Cooper called after him suspiciously, ‘one of your pubs?’ But Walsh was already astride the Norton. He kicked it into life and roared away.

  There was no consistency in the trees. They were a patchwork of bronze, gold and green, as if they couldn’t decide between them when summer should end and autumn begin.

  Opposite Walsh sat Valvert, staring unblinkingly out of the window as he had done from the moment the train left the station, his face a mask, showing no emotion. He might be on a day trip or visiting his grandmother. Walsh had noted Valvert’s ability to disappear quietly within himself with satisfaction, his flat almost featureless face granting him an anonymity that would serve them well amid the hostile occupied streets of his homeland. In another life, it might be considered a handicap to possess what could honestly be described as dull, unmemorable looks but here his inherently conventional appearance was a distinct advantage.

  Walsh offered Valvert a cigarette, which the Frenchman gratefully accepted, acknowledging it with a little dip of his head. Cooper meanwhile used the time on the train to doze.

  Colonel Elder Wills was waiting for them inside Station XV, an anomalous building known to all as the ‘Thatched Barn’. The large white-brick, thatched-roof dwelling had three chimneys, numerous out-of-proportion windows and a flag pole by its entrance way, which bore an ever present Union Jack. For a reason no one could readily explain a number of ornate bird tables were lined up like sentries in front of its walls. The whole muddled construction would have seemed more at home in the middle of an alpine ski resort than a quiet corner off the Barnet bypass. This former film studio near Elstree provided SOE with its ‘props’ as Colonel Wills liked to refer to them.

  Despite his rank, Elder greeted Walsh like an old friend, for he was still a civilian at heart. ‘Harry! Come in you scoundrel.’

  The Colonel conceded to his early forties, weighed at least 18 stones, walked with a limp thanks to a wound received at Dunkirk and was deaf in one ear. To compensate for this condition, he had a tendency to issue instructions at little short of a bellow, which merely added to his larger than life demeanour.

  ‘And who are these fine fellows with you?’

  Walsh made the introductions and was amused when Cooper seemed taken aback by the ebullient Colonel Wills. The former film director was certainly no shrinking violet but Walsh was long used to him. Walsh produced the letter of authorisation from Gubbins. Elder read it intently then looked up, alarmed.

  ‘Good God, Harry, what are you planning?’ he declaimed with an almost Shakespearian grandeur. ‘Starting the second front all on your own?’ and he turned to Cooper, ‘I wouldn’t put it past him.’

  ‘Never you mind, Colonel.’

  ‘Need to know, eh? Yes, all right,’ it was enunciated sadly, as if Walsh had spoilt his fun, ‘well, at least you have a letter.’ Men had tried to take items from the Thatched Barn before without completing the necessary paperwork but none had succeeded. Instead they were reprimanded sternly and at length while Elder stood over them like an aggrieved headmaster.

  Elder reached into his pocket and withdrew a small leather-bound notepad and a worn pencil. ‘So what exactly do you need, Harry?’

  ‘Tyre bursters,’ Harry began while Elder scribbled on the pad, sticking out his bottom lip as he wrote, ‘and Gammon bombs. Also clam charges, with time pencils. The ones with the half pound of plastic explosive.’

  ‘That sounds like some major firework display, Harry,’ said Cooper, ‘though I haven’t heard of any of this stuff before.’

  ‘It’s all been specially developed for our kind of work,’ explained Walsh, ‘there’s no point sending pieces of artillery, bazookas or rifles over to France when they are wholly unsuited to the task and easy to find during searches. Colonel, would you be good enough to show Captain Cooper around?’

  ‘Delighted, dear boy, as long as he’s authorised of course. You are authorised, aren’t you, Captain Cooper?’

  ‘Of course,’ replied the American.

  ‘I can vouch for that,’ confirmed Walsh.

  Elder took them to a large wooden trestle table set aside from the main part of the room and picked up a pen. ‘This is quite useful. It’s a basic, working fountain pen but inside there’s a .38 calibre ampoule of tear gas. All our ‘Joes’ take them into the field now. If you’re stopped or arrested you trigger it like so,’ and he pressed his finger lightly against the catch to show them without actually activating the weapon, ‘there’s enough gas in here to seriously inconvenience any annoying German.’

  Elder took them further down the table and Cooper recoiled at what appeared to be a large pile of decaying rodents.

  ‘My God,’ exclaimed the American.

  ‘Don’t be alarmed, Captain, they are perfectly safe and entirely disease free.’

  ‘But they are… rats. Aren’t they?’

  ‘Yes, well sort of. Dried and cured rat skins to be exact, stuffed with plastic explosives until they have regained their original shape then sewn back up, neat as you like. Insert a standard primer and it’s an explosive device that looks to any casual observer like, well, a dead rat,’ and Elder smiled at the seeming absurdity of it all. ‘The device can be triggered with a simple time delay fuse or by the flames from any boiler; though you’d better not hang around once you’ve chucked it in. Unusual I’ll grant you but highly effective,’ and he beamed proudly. ‘We do exploding coal as well you know,’ he mused, ‘and turds; camel turds so far, for the North African campaign. Not much use in France though, camel turds,’ he ruminated.

  ‘No, not much,’ agreed Cooper.

  ‘What have we got these days in the way of silent killing?’ asked Walsh.

  ‘Silent killing?’ mused Elder.

  He was already striding over to another part of the workshop. The American followed dumbly and Walsh found himself enjoying his perplexity. Cooper had seen a lot in a short, quite spectacular career with the OSS but he had never come across anything like the Thatched Barn before.

  ‘It’s like something created by a demented Walt Disney,’ he spoke softly to Walsh as they walked, shaking his head at the Thatched Barn, ‘and here are all the elves.’ They passed two dozen workbenches, each one manned by an industrious craftsman intent on welding, sawing or hammering some unconventional weapon into shape. The din was akin to that of a much larger factory floor producing a rush order for armaments. Walsh wondered which of these creations would ever see operational use and how many would be rejected because they were deemed more dangerous to the user than his target.

  Elder turned abruptly back to face Walsh, ‘Do you think he could handle the Welrod?’ He was referring to Cooper as if the American were not in the room.

  ‘Absolutely,’ replied Walsh.

  ‘Good. Then follow me, Captain Cooper, and we will see what you are made of.’

  12

  'Three may keep a secret,if two of them are dead.'

  Benjamin Franklin

  Elder led the way down a dark
and curving metal staircase into the bowels of the building. As they reached the bottom the air turned stale. They walked through large windowless rooms with low curved ceilings made of brickwork that resembled the underside of railway arches. Temporary lights had been rigged up and every surface dusted and scrubbed – in a manner beloved of the British army – until years of grime had been removed, though the distinctive smell of age and musty dampness still remained. Once used to house unwanted furniture and a generous stock of wine, the huge cellar had been cleared for a new purpose.

  They finally reached their destination, a low room, which housed a shooting gallery. A long trellis table supported half a dozen weapons, along with ammunition of various calibres. Man-sized paper targets were pinned to large planks secured against sandbags against the far wall. Spent cartridges littered the floor. The room was filled with the smoky aroma of spent gunpowder. Elder issued instructions and two men removed the debris from a morning of weapons testing. A new box of 9mm ammunition and fresh paper targets were provided. Finally, something resembling a violin case was set down on the table.

  Cooper watched as Elder opened the box and removed a weapon with a distinctly unorthodox appearance. It seemed nothing more than a long, bulbous length of steel tubing with a rudimentary trigger guard attached to its underside. Elder took a short, squat magazine, loaded six of the 9mm rounds then slotted the magazine up into the barrel behind the trigger guard. He handed the weapon to Cooper, who took it gingerly.

  ‘The Welrod, Captain Cooper. What do you think?’

  ‘Looks like a piece of drain pipe with a trigger,’ said Cooper flatly.

  ‘Yes, well, appearances can be deceptive,’ answered Elder. ‘This is a fine example of British engineering. Possibly the most effective example of suppressed weaponry in the world.’

  ‘Suppressed,’ asked Cooper, ‘you mean silenced?’

  ‘Indeed I do. Almost inaudible in fact.’

  Cooper regarded the weapon in a new light. Elder leaned forward to point out the gun’s features. ‘It’s a remarkably simple device. You have a fourteen-inch steel cylinder for the barrel. The weapon is bolt action, with the bolt in the rear and the expansion chamber for the suppressor housed in here,’ he tapped the middle of the barrel. ‘The baffles and wipes are at the front which causes the suppression of sound. The magazine doubles as the pistol grip.’

  Cooper raised the weapon and aimed it towards the sandbags, ‘Range?’

  ‘Theoretically, thirty to forty feet but I wouldn’t actually recommend using it unless you are quite close to the target.’

  Cooper lined up the two basic sights on the barrel of the gun, balanced its two and a half pounds in loaded weight carefully in his hand, allowed for the drag of its protruding barrel, took a breath, held it then fired. A slight popping of air signalled the discharge of the weapon. Cooper lowered the Welrod and placed it on the table. A technician retrieved the paper target and the group gathered round.

  ‘Right in the throat,’ noted Valvert.

  ‘Good shooting, Captain Cooper,’ said Elder as they surveyed the bullet-sized tear in the paper.

  ‘Nice weapon, Major Wills,’ acknowledged the American.

  ‘And quieter than a nun’s confession,’ said Walsh.

  They each took a turn with the Welrod; Walsh reacquainting himself with a weapon he had used to good effect on enemy sentries, though never before to murder a civilian in cold blood. Like Elder Wills, Gaerte spent his time in laboratories and factories with clipboard and pencil. Unlike Elder, he had probably never fired a gun in anger in his life but if his work was allowed to continue, many thousands of Allied soldiers would perish. That was justification enough to see him removed him from the world.

  It was time for Valvert to take his turn. They soon realised that, whatever military background he had, he was unlikely ever to have been lauded for his marksmanship.

  ‘High, wide and handsome,’ said Elder dryly when they surveyed his blank target, ‘you’re a danger to low flying aircraft, Monsieur Valvert. Whatever it is you are good at, I suggest you stick to it. Leave the shooting to these two, eh?’

  ‘It’s too damn long,’ said Valvert, as he frowned at the barrel and swore in French.

  ‘Come on, I’ll escort you from the premises,’ Elder’s abrupt announcement signalled the end of their tour, ‘to make sure you don’t steal the family silver.’

  ‘Are you certain you have everything we need?’ asked Walsh.

  ‘It’s all here, Harry,’ said Elder and he tapped the notebook confidently.

  On his way out he turned to Cooper, ‘Being an American I expect you are partial to films, or should that be “movies”?’

  Cooper seemed keen to avoid offending his host, ‘On occasion, yes.’

  Walsh found it hard to picture the straight-laced Cooper enjoying a Hollywood melodrama. He wouldn’t be able to sit still for long enough.

  ‘Then perhaps you have seen some of my work. I was a director before the war you know. Familiar with Song of Freedom at all? That was one of mine?’

  ‘Er… I’m afraid I don’t think I know it.’

  ‘Really? Quite a big hit that one, back in ’35, starred Paul Robeson as a matter of fact.’

  ‘I may have been posted abroad around then.’ Walsh knew Cooper would still have been studying at his Ivy League university in 1935 but decided against pointing this out.

  ‘Oh, well what about Tiger Bay? I wrote and directed that one.’

  Cooper looked as if he did not know what to say.

  ‘Mmm, don’t remember it either,’ Elder said a little sulkily. ‘It seems I may not achieve immortality through the big screen.’ He appeared genuinely sad about that for a moment. ‘Still, my little inventions might end up in a glass case somewhere one day.’

  ‘They are one of a kind, Colonel, just like you.’

  ‘Thank you, Harry, although I must say I wouldn’t have the stomach to use a single one of them up close. I don’t envy you that task. My war seemed more gentlemanly somehow. I was in the Royal Flying Corps during the last show, Captain Cooper. We shot at each other from our planes and it was terrifying and bloody but at least there were rules, a code you could understand. Damned Nazis certainly put an end to that, which is why we have to fight fire with fire. I know that, of course, but I don’t think I’d be able to do it myself. No,’ he nodded emphatically, ‘I’ll leave all that dirty fighting to you chaps.’

  Having made his point Elder strode magisterially ahead of them, having spotted something else to divert his short span of attention.

  ‘Your Colonel Wills is quite a character,’ announced Cooper with classic understatement.

  ‘He is,’ agreed Walsh, ‘but his props can save your life when you are in a tight spot. There’s many a Joe returned from a mission thanks to one of Elder’s little gadgets working just the way he said it would.’

  ‘I wonder how many did not return,’ mused Valvert, ‘because one of them did not work the way he said it would.’

  ‘That, Valvert, we will never know,’ conceded Walsh.

  Elder was walking back to them now, in animated conversation with a stranger. He was a tall blond athletic-looking man in his mid-thirties with a distinctly rakish look, dressed in the uniform of a naval commander. There’s a man who looks as if he knows how to enjoy life, thought Walsh.

  ‘Harry, Captain Cooper, Monsieur Valvert, there’s someone here I would like you all to meet,’ announced Elder with genuine enthusiasm, ‘he’s another of you cloak and dagger boys down for the day to examine my wares; from Naval Intelligence; right-hand man to Admiral Godfrey no less. I rather think you two would get along, Harry. He comes down here all the time to look at my little gadgets.’

  The stranger stretched out a hand to Walsh. They shook hands firmly and the naval commander said, ‘The name’s Fleming. Ian Fleming.’

 
Save for themselves, the railway carriage was empty on the return journey. The English countryside rolled passively by outside.

  ‘Of course we will need clothes, equipment, documents…’ observed Valvert.

  ‘You can leave all that to me,’ assured Walsh, ‘I know some people,’

  ‘Aren’t we coming along?’ asked Cooper.

  ‘Not this time, Sam. My contacts are a little shy. They deal only with me.’

  ‘Meaning we have to trust you on this one, right?’ Cooper sounded distinctly uncomfortable at the prospect.

  ‘That’s right,’ said Walsh, enjoying the American’s unease.

  ‘And what will we be doing while you are meeting these nervous individuals?’ asked Valvert.

  ‘Completing your education. I’ve arranged some time at Beaulieu.’

  ‘And what is Beaulieu?’ asked Valvert suspiciously.

  ‘A beautiful, old English country house.’

  ‘Sounds nice,’ said Cooper, ‘so why are you smiling?’

  ‘Because it’s an experience you are unlikely ever to forget, Sam.’

  13

  ‘This is war not sport. Your aim is to kill your opponent

  as quickly as possible. So forget the Queensberry Rules.’

  Major William Fairbairn, SOE expert on silent killing.

  Sam Cooper faced his assailant resolutely and attempted to rein in his anger. He had come off worse so far and his body throbbed from the punishment it had taken but Cooper was a determined man and he would never give in lightly. He climbed slowly to his feet then suddenly launched himself straight at Fairbairn, feinting with a right hand to the torso then checking it and bringing a crashing left fist into the other man’s solar plexus. Fairbairn simply stepped lightly away from the blow, caught his assailant off-balance on the follow-through, and then grabbed Cooper’s arm, twisted it and somehow pulled Cooper further off his feet, before succeeding in his principal aim of lifting the American right off the ground and propelling him through the air.