by David Black
The next day was spent lounging around at sixty feet, with a big Windass dinner followed by a few tunes in the forward torpedo room provided by Probert on his harmonica and Boxall’s squeezebox. The succeeding watches in the Asdic cubby made sure nobody was sneaking up to hear them. Then Harry ordered Scourge surfaced, and up went Dickie Bird with his infra-red gizmos into an altogether calmer night. Bird was flashing away for less than twenty minutes when the first response came back.
‘Question and response tally, sir,’ said Bird. ‘It’s them all right. They want to know if Sergeant Probert’s still got ‘that damn mouth organ’ or whether we’ve… err… can’t repeat that last bit, sir.’
Probert was practically dancing to get going. But Farrar, who was on the bridge with Harry this time, intervened. ‘I have an idea, sir, I’d like to try,’ he said. Farrar, with an idea? thought Harry, who was suddenly all ears. His staid Jimmy wasn’t usually one for innovations.
Probert, eager to get the folbot assembled and on his way, was furious and curious in equal measure.
Harry listened patiently then said yes, and Scourge, very slowly began to nose towards the beach, with Harding and his chart on the bridge, taking bearing after bearing until Scourge’s bow was little more than thirty yards off the rising beach, when it was as if she suddenly stumbled, and Farrar ordered, ‘Stop together!’ and then a few more squirts of seawater into the already partly flooded number one ballast tank, to settle her on the sandy bottom. They were now aground, just.
‘All we have to do now is rig the grass rope to the shore,’ said Farrar, trying to hide a certain feeling of triumph that his idea had worked without wrecking the boat, ‘then when V-Force come rolling up, we can daisy-chain them from the shore and have them stowed in minutes. No rowing and paddling to and fro.’
‘You’re in charge, Number One,’ said Harry, all stern-faced for effect. ‘Make it so.’
And even Sgt Probert was left standing, quietly rubbing his chin in admiration before he managed to gee himself and get off, paddling the few short yards to the beach to meet up with his pals, now coming out of the scrubbery to see what was happening.
*
At that moment, on the other side of the island, two goatherds were crashing through shrubbery, trying to look like they were scrambling to herd their goats and not actually chasing them. Watching, from behind double-height rolls of barbed wire was a lowly Luftwaffe Gefreiter in khaki shorts and a sleeve-rolled shirt, with a rifle slung on his shoulder, peeking out from under his oversized coal-scuttle helmet. He wasn’t quite convinced.
In the warm, balmy night, the amount of starshine from the clear vault of the heavens was quite remarkable and easily illuminated the two scrappily dressed locals’ antics. The German shouted at them to clear off – in German, which wouldn’t have been much use if both of the stumbling, cussing men had been local. But one of them wasn’t.
In fact, Lt Col Oliver Verney – Irish Guards, and latterly founder and officer commanding V-Force – could, courtesy of his previous diplomatic career, actually speak German.
‘He’s really pissed off and telling us to get away from the wire,’ he hissed to his Greek guide. ‘Yell something Greek at him.’
Dimitrios, the local dentist, who was proud of his amateur dramatics ability to get them both costumed-up as peasants, yelled, ‘How much for your sister!’ twice, in Greek. The goats, obediently, continued to scamper up to the wire.
The German produced a torch and fumbled to shine it at them. Verney scrunched his eyes shut. He didn’t want his night vision blasted. Dimitrios shielded his eyes and pointed at his goats, who were now scampering along the line of the wire fence. Vernay stumbled away from the German and up a little rise, as if moving to head the goats off. The German un-slung his rifle and holding it with the torch shining, began pointing it at both men, one after the other while continuing to curse them, loud and furious. Dimitrios had two of the goats now by their horns and was pulling them away, all the while shouting back, in Greek, accusations as to the nocturnal philanderings of the German’s wife, none of which, needless to say, he even remotely understood.
But it kept the German occupied long enough for Verney to get a look at the airfield down the reverse side of the slight slope. He’d been expecting only to see a scatter of dark mounds to give him a sense of where the aircraft lay… but there were lights! Dim, down-pointing, floodlights, dotted across the field. He could make out the fuel dump, the bomb dump, and he could see every single aircraft, in lines, not dispersed at all. Two Fieseler Storch recce kites, then up close to what must be the control tower, a row of three Junkers 88s, and across the dispersal pan, twelve Ju 87 Stukas. Clearly, Jerry wasn’t expecting any Allied air attack. Why should they – the nearest RAF base was a good 1,200-mile round trip away.
He immediately grabbed at a couple of goats himself and succeeded in chasing several others away from the wire. The German audibly calmed down. The two goats, Verney sent off with his boot in their rumps, and then he began theatrically halloo-ing the rest away and down the rise. Dimitrios and the German shared a few more parting volleys of abuse, and as suddenly as they had arrived, the two goatherds were away and stumbling back into the night.
‘Bugger me,’ whispered Verney to his comrade. ‘They must think we don’t have any aircraft with the range to strike this far up into the Aegean. Otherwise, there’d be no Blackpool illuminations like that lot back there. That is useful to know.’
Because the RAF did now have aircraft capable – a couple of squadrons of B24 Liberators were now operating from airfields ‘somewhere in the desert’. A trip up to Kos would’ve been a milk run for them.
Verney fumbled out his notebook while what he saw was fresh, and began to scribble a rough map. But it was what else he’d noticed that was mainly on his mind. There had been the stick shadow of a guard, sometimes two, at each aircraft and two searchlight towers which probably held MG 42 machine guns as well. But also there were the huge patches of shadow the sparse lighting created, like oil slicks. It put a grim smile on his face; they’d be able to use those.
*
‘They’re doing the close-target recce tonight,’ said a breathless Probert, sitting hunched over his mug of coffee in Scourge’s wardroom. ‘Then they’ll go in tomorrow night.’
Probert was newly back from the beach, where he’d been doing his liaising with V-Force’s rear TacHQ – which amounted to two corporals with their own infra-red signalling kit, a spirit stove and large quantities of tea, tins of bully beef, hard tack and two large bottles of arak.
‘So, how many are we to expect when they return?’ asked Harry.
Meanwhile, on the bridge, Farrar, on watch, was conning them back out to sea after their brief sojourn in-shore to establish contact. Getting away had been even easier than he’d envisaged in his plan. Scourge hadn’t even needed to go full astern together to shake herself free. Farrar had merely ordered number-one ballast tank blown, and she’d just floated off.
‘Ten, altogether, including the TacHQ,’ said Probert.
Harry’s brow furrowed. What was going on with these clowns? A TacHQ – Tactical Headquarters – made up of two corporals and a mini Naafi. And V-Force – a motley gang of scruffy hooligans that couldn’t even muster half a platoon. Somebody was taking the piss here. And he said so to Probert.
‘Sorry, sir,’ said Probert, half embarrassed and yet still half amused himself. ‘It’s the lieutenant colonel, sir…’
‘A lieutenant colonel? V-Force, all ten of them, is commanded by a lieutenant colonel?’ said Harry, eyes rolling as if you expect me to believe any of this?
‘He’s a bit of a flash Harry, sir… the boss,’ said Probert, more serious now. ‘Likes his mickey-take, sir. It’s all one big hoot for him, sir.’
*
Lt Col Verney picked two of the team to remain at the rally point, about half a mile from the airfield perimeter, atop a gully that eventually led to the tracks that led south to the beach. The rest of V-Force
was split into two teams of three, each with a local Greek guide to steer them over the goat tracks through the scrubby hillside to their points of ingress.
Each man was equipped to fight light, armed only with a Browning 9mm automatic pistol or a Webley .45 navy revolver and an F-S commando knife. But in their webbing satchels were four Mills bombs each and a clutch of Lewes bombs – home-made-looking explosives made up from a pound of Nobel 808 plastique, mixed with a quarter pound of thermite and a couple of squirts of diesel oil and steel filings. The devices were each primed with a two-ounce wad of dry gun cotton to act as a booster and a detonator with a thirty-second fuse. The whole sticky mass would cling to virtually any surface and had to come wrapped in greaseproof paper, which could be awkward in tense, close-quarters situations because of the scrunchy sound it made when you peeled it off. Each had a canteen of water on their hips.
The teams set off shortly before ten p.m., going at a fair clip over the rough terrain, the guides keeping them away from gullies, sudden drops and skylines. It was dead quiet. Not an insect chirrup. Close and warm, with a high haze gauzing over the stars and cocooning them in the dark. Each man closely followed the moving lump of shadow in front of him, keeping up the steady pace. They had their plan; Olly Verney always believed in keeping it simple. Team Two would go in at the main gate end and deal with the fuel and bomb dumps. Anything left over, and they could take a pot at any Stukas close at hand. Team One, Verney’s own, would go through the wire halfway along the southern perimeter and make straight for the Ju 88s. They’d tackle the Stukas next. Two searchlight towers were in their path – any spare Lewes bombs, they could slap them on their legs as a parting gift.
The teams had been lying up all day and were hot, sweaty and eager to get at it. A dishevelled bunch in a fashion catastrophe of gear, loose fatigues and local garb, the odd beret, mostly bareheaded and all blacked-up like West End minstrels – a regimental sergeant major’s vision of the seventh circle. If, as was often said, the British Army was nothing more than organised hooliganism, then these were its poster boys.
Team Two was led by a callow youth, Second Lieutenant Boyd. Nicko, his guide, brought them just beyond the corner, where the paved road turned into the main gate and a perimeter track continued on round the wire. They could see the guardhouse clearly, nestling beneath its little clutch of down-lamps. The weak wash of their light had created deep shadow all around, and Team Two lay secure in its spill, watching. The guardhouse was little more than a shack, and its door was flung wide so you could see several Luftwaffe ground crew on guard duty sitting inside smoking. The noise of their talk and the crackle of a sentimental song on the radio were the only sounds around.
Boyd shrugged at Nicko, smiled, shook his hand and stood up. His two comrades followed, patting Nicko as they went, and they walked slowly, so as not to scrunch the gravely surface, up to the wire. Nobody bothered crouching or crawling; what was the point? Jerry was decidedly not paying attention tonight. The soldier behind Boyd knelt, produced his wirecutters and began to attack the wire just as Lilly Marlene came on the radio and the Jerries in the shack began to sing along, their maudlin caterwauling drowning every single snip. Nicko watched as the last of Team Two disappeared through the hole they’d cut and then he withdrew back up the track he’d brought them down and further into the dark.
After the guardhouse, sitting in its little puddle of light, the next buildings were much further into the airfield; a long barracks, and what looked like a small office structure beneath the control tower, which only rose about two stories, but enough to lift it above the pools of surrounding light, giving anyone up there perfect vision of what was moving below. And it being up in the gloom, Boyd couldn’t make out if anyone was actually up there, looking down.
Stretching in a line away from these buildings was a row of bell tents. On the other side of the perimeter road from them was some kind of motor pool with lorries and a petrol bowser, and beyond all of that, rising like some kind of Greek Ayers’ Rock, all in shadow, a hanger.
Those weren’t his prime targets, his prime targets were much closer to hand, behind earth berms that sat squat and massive either side of the road leading into the base, shadows too like they were the Greek Ayers’ Rock’s stunted offspring. The first one was right in front of them and the other on the opposite side of the road. That was the bomb dump; you could see the sandbag piles and the protruding ends of stacked lumpen cylinders through the open entrance gap in the berm. So the one dead ahead must be where they kept the aviation fuel.
Boyd waved the other two towards him for a quick brief. He was going to take the fuel dump, and Sgt Rabbett and L Cpl Miller could do the bomb dump. Boyd peeled away round the corner and in through the entrance gap to the fuel dump.
Rabbett and Miller peered into the dark like sprinters on the blocks, ready to dash across the road to their target. They hesitated too long, or maybe their hesitation saved their lives, because almost as if on cue, round the far end of the bomb dump’s berm, came the figure of a Jerry sentry, being led by an Alsatian guard dog into the edge of the guardhouse light, obviously completing his round. Rabbett and Miller reverse crawled further into the shadows, so the rise of the fuel dump berm swallowed them.
‘Shite and abortion,’ whispered Rabbett. The two waited… and waited. Then a shout from round the end of their berm and into the light, from their side of the road, walked another guard, led by his dog. The guard opposite was already getting his ciggies out; it was obviously going to be chatty time. Did these thick square-head bastards not know you shouldn’t smoke near fuel dumps! Let alone effing bomb ones!
Miller whispered, ‘I thought they were supposed to be the fucking master race.’
‘Any more brains,’ whispered Rabbett, ‘and they could be British officers.’
They were going nowhere.
Meanwhile, Boyd was into the fuel dump and running. He heard the voices but thought nothing, it was as if he was a kid in a sweet shop. Stack upon stack of fifty-gal oil drums, three high. He kept running until he was in the middle of the rows and then dropped to one knee and broke out the first Lewes bomb. He leaned as far into the nearest stack, peeled the paper off, stuck it to the lowest drum and snapped the fuse.
All but two of Boyd’s Lewes bombs had been fitted with longer, two-minute fuses, same for the rest of his team, given that the bang they were supposed to set off was going to take a lot more running away from than a thirty-second fuse would allow.
Within fifteen seconds, he’d placed all his bombs and was sprinting towards the entrance gap. He heard the voices just in time before he blundered into the open, the two guards, diagonally across the road, chatting… and smoking?! Boyd dropped to his knees and peeked again. The dogs were grizzling. Did they sense him there, even among all the vague fuel stink?
One Jerry shushed his dog, then so did the other. Jesus Christ! When were they going to move? Boyd had a vision of himself in the second before immolation and wondered what he’d be thinking. He slipped out his Webley. Maybe in all the confusion after he’d shot these two arseholes, he might just make it to the hole in the fence. He refused to think about where Rabbett and Miller were, not because he didn’t care but because he was completely helpless to do anything for them. He was about to cock his gun when the guards slapped each other’s arms and went on with their patrolling. He felt himself breathe as if for the first time in hours. And then he was up and moving, and just as his run was gaining momentum, he cannoned into Miller, lying face down in the dirt.
A stifled grunt from the heap he’d just hit, then a ‘Fuck’s sake… is that you… Boydie?’ It was Rabbett. V-Force didn’t ever use the word ‘sir’ or salute officers, the lieutenant colonel – Olly to his men – insisted on that. Nicknames or first names only. You never knew who was listening or looking when you were in the field, so best just get into the habit before you got there.
It was obvious to Boyd that the two troopers hadn’t made it onto the bomb dump. W
ell, it was too late now. He was about to say so when they heard the first crack of a pistol shot from way deep in the airfield. Nobody was in any doubt it must be Olly’s lot, come to grief.
Behind and off to the side of where they lay, the guardhouse was emptying. There was the pounding of running boots… and, of course, the yelling. Searchlights snapped on all across the field, near and far. Boyd raised his head; he could see all the Jerries from the guardhouse were running up the road towards the main buildings. Only one was left, standing, holding onto the door, jiving about like he had ants in his pants, craning to see what was happening. They’d obviously left him to hold the fort. Boyd had an idea. ‘Up!’ he hissed, and Rabbett and Miller followed him.
*
‘Once through the wire, keep moving,’ Verney had told them. ‘The only reason you stop is if a searchlight pans your way. Then you freeze. Don’t even think about dropping to the deck. It’s movement that catches the eye. So freeze.’
So that was what he was doing, following his own advice.
The searchlight from one of the central towers between the runway and airfield’s hard pan was slowly creeping across the field. Verney and his two chums, Sgts Dickerson and Meikle, had fanned out for their run across the field to the parked aircraft – Verney for the Ju 88s and the other two for the Stukas. Verney was first in line to be hit by the beam. He kept his face tucked down and eyes tight shut, and he stopped breathing lest even the rise of his chest catch a Jerry eye. The light bathed him… and moved slowly on. He breathed again. His eyes flicked to his right, to see whether the other two were going to get caught in the open as he had, and he froze again. The light was panning over a figure in shorts and a Jerry helmet with a slung rifle, walking the line of a taxiway. The light stopped on the figure, which was less than ten yards away and walking towards him, and the figure raised his arms.
It was one of those moments when time collapses, when you know what you have to do, even as you know you really don’t want to do it, and you know there is no time to debate the difference. The memory of the last time he’d killed a Jerry with an F-S knife rose up in his mind, and just as quickly in his mind, he killed the thought. The knife was in his hand, and he was running.
