by Thomas Wood
They were coming in just over to my left, maybe a hundred metres or so away, and I let them disappear into the dunes before I made my next move.
Picking up my weapon I slowly got to my feet for the first time in three or four hours, and I quickly realised that in a moment or two the tingling pains of pins and needles would begin to attack my legs. I would simply have to negotiate around that and so, bringing my pistol up so that it was within my line of sight, I began slowly padding my way over to the dune that I had seen them disappear into.
The sand was loose, and my feet slid around as great cliffs turned into landslides as it tumbled down to the ground. The noise that I was generating seemed tremendous and I was convinced that I sounded like a platoon of troops, rather than just the one, and it wouldn’t be long before I was executed by my own soldiers.
Upon reaching the peak of one sand dune, I began to hear a series of rustlings and hisses down the other side of the cliff. Lying on my stomach once again, I pulled myself right up to the precipice and tried to look down. I could make out movement, but I couldn’t quite work out where each of the men were stood or whether they had their pistols drawn or not; I assumed that they had.
I pushed my body away from the dune for a moment, quietly clearing my throat as I prepared to speak for the first time in hours.
“Liber,” I whispered harshly, so that, if it was in fact a German trap they may have mistaken it for a whistle of wind or a rustle of grass.
I waited for some sort of reply, the one that I received however was nothing more than a perfect silence. The rustling and hisses had ceased which meant that they had heard something and were now waiting to see if it was repeated.
“Liber,” I said again, this time slightly more forcefully and with more conviction in my tone.
“Luna,” came the reply, which invoked the desire to suddenly stand up, tuck my pistol away and run down the dune and embrace every one of them. It had been a while since I had felt like I was in the company of a group of British soldiers. I resisted, instead opting to pull my head over the cliff and peer down at them.
They were all resting on one knee, pistols up and in the aim position, pointing in all the directions that seemed it possible for a man to come.
I counted eight of them, each one with a blackened face and woollen hat pulled over their hair, which was good for one bloke as his shockingly blonde hair was almost white, which would have made him more like a lighthouse than a soldier, had the Germans seen it.
I slid my way down the dune coming to rest like a child at the end of a play slide.
“Who comes up with these stupid names?” I said, trying to bring an air of confidence and relaxation to the atmosphere that was so tense I could almost taste it. I got a few chuckles and nods in greeting but no real acknowledgement of the joke that I had tried to make. I knew exactly who had come up with the codewords, Jimmy’s penchant for the ancient Roman gods giving him no headache in coming up with appropriate identifiers for a mission such as this.
“Where’s the best place to put these?” One of them motioned with his head towards the kayaks.
“Here’s a good a place as any, the ground up further is frozen solid, so you’d spend more time digging than you would want to be.”
He nodded, and immediately began digging with an entrenching tool, as did the others as they prepared to submerge their kayaks as much as they could in the short time that we had.
“This is for you,” said the blonde figure, handing me a pistol and a few spare magazines, “it’s American. We figured it would be better than the rubbish the Frenchies were able to give you.”
“You’re not wrong,” I said as I picked up the heavy, solid weight of the pistol, “thanks.” I tucked the French pistol back into my trousers, opting to use the American one as my primary, as the others all went about digging and scraping as they made their kayak graves.
Once they had finished, we all stopped to listen as one, to make sure that we hadn’t missed the German battalion that had been deployed to find the mysterious men that had emerged from the sea.
There was nothing. It was time to move.
Picking up their satchels stuffed with everything that they might need for the operation, we began to slowly make our way out of the labyrinth of sand dunes, towards the country paths that divvied up the fields, and the one that I had selected to take us back into the belly of the forest.
It took us longer than it normally would do to walk the mile and a half back to the forest, on the account of the heavy kit that the boys had, but also as a result of us being especially cautious that we were not seen or heard by another living creature. I, more than anyone was particularly wary of being found out. Even if the Germans didn’t capture us, but knew that we were in the area, then there was a chance that my SS Standartenführer would be warned that he was a potential target and may be evacuated to somewhere where we wouldn’t be able to get to him.
Why the intelligence service wanted him dead was not known to me and I had no real way of confirming why that was the case, apart from a radio transmission that was likely to have been ignored or even lead to my own capture. It was not my job to question the orders that I had been given, I never had done before, so I wouldn’t be vocalising my doubts now either. The fact was that I had a job to do and once I had done it, then I would be justified in asking some questions later on, if I survived.
Once I had managed to retrieve my own kit, we began to confer with one another about the planning of the operation. I was CO of the Op and as such, it would be my call on most things, from how we attacked, to the day that we went in, but I would take in as many of their concerns and experience as I possibly could in my planning.
“Right then, Sir, what’s the plan?” I had a Scot on my team, something that I was quite pleased with. I had always held them in a very high esteem as a result of my father’s experiences during the Great War. He had served alongside them in the trenches, leading to the claim that they were the “toughest and most courageous bunch of loonies” that he had ever fought with. This guy didn’t seem like a loony just yet, but he came across as headstrong and motivated to get the job done that they were here for, and get out as quickly as possible.
“We’ll make for the airfield tonight. Once there, we will recon the target as best as possible before making back here for first light. I know it’s not ideal to base a plan on what we see in the dark, but we don’t have too much choice. I assume you chaps would rather get home as quickly as possible?” I got a few mutters in the affirmative before I continued.
“In that case, I would suggest that you leave your kit here, anything that is not essential is to be left behind. We’re about two miles from the airfield so we need to move quick if we want to get there, observe and back here before sunrise. Understood?”
“Any questions?” There were none, which I was always grateful for, I always felt that that it would be my biggest stumbling block if someone had thought of something that I hadn’t already thought of, as if it undermined me as a leader somehow.
We all dug out our weapons and ammunition from our bags and left pretty much everything else behind, including explosives and incendiary devices. If we were needing those while on a reconnoitre, then we weren’t good enough soldiers to be doing the raid anyway.
We moved a lot quicker on our journey to the airfield, not caring so much about people hearing twigs snapping in the woods. There were far more nocturnal beasts that would be moving about in a forest than coming up and out of the sea and into the dunes.
Within about half an hour, we could see the first tell-tale signs that we were nearing the airfield. The dogs that occasionally barked were the most obvious sign, yanking and tugging on their leashes to go out on a perimeter check of the airfield or to sniff out the new smells that they could sense out in the forest.
There were a few lights on around the airfield, a lot of men clearly neglecting the importance of a blackout and deeming themselves far too impor
tant to have to sit through the night in a darkness. But, then again, maybe there was a man in there who was too important for a blackout. I was sincerely hoping that Standartenführer Schröder was in there somewhere, probably sleeping, but no doubt he would have a sentry or two to keep an eye on him through the night.
As we got closer we noticed that this wasn’t just any old airfield. Most of the airfields that I had seen back in Britain were marked out with a small picket fence or through thick vegetation and trees, but not this place. They had built a wall right the way around the perimeter of the airfield, which was only broken up by a series of guard posts and fences the closer you got to the main entrance of the airfield itself.
We wandered around it, pondering how we were going to manage to get up and over the wall without anyone seeing us, especially with their lack of light discipline and apparent desire to keep everything lit up as if it was daylight. It was then that I caught the sound of a low hum, like the motorbike that had rumbled away in the distance while I was laying outside of the church, except this one seemed to stay miles away. Never getting any closer but not getting further away either.
“What’s that noise?” queried one of the voices, that was either Tommy or Walter, I didn’t really know, in fact I’d hardly paid attention to any of their names to make it easier for me to simply forget about them if and when the time came to sacrifice them.
I realised how cold I had become and began to worry that these men were thinking of me in the same way that I thought of Joseph, an evil man who showed no compassion for others and only cared about himself. I needed to change that perception as a matter of urgency, more for myself than for these men.
“Do you know what,” spoke one of the other voices, “that sounds like a high-voltage cable. Runs just around the inside of the perimeter. As soon as we jump over, we’ll hit it and it’ll fry us.”
“Great,” said the Scotsman, “that’s all we need.”
“How do we get around it?” I asked, directed at the man who seemed to have some sort of special knowledge in life-shortening electrics.
“There’ll be a generator somewhere. We find that then we can get a grenade over to knock it out. Then we’ll be fine.”
“No, we can’t risk noise like that that early on. We need to maintain cover for as long as possible. Can we get over if we went carefully?”
“We could try sir, but I wouldn’t recommend trying to get us all over and our kit. The chances of us just catching it would be very high.”
“Let’s find the generator, then re-evaluate.”
It didn’t take us long to find it, the low humming of the wire slowly growing louder and louder as we got closer to it, eventually becoming so noisy that we could practically speak freely.
“I reckon I could get over here, sir. I can shut down the gennie, which would allow the rest of you to get over freely.”
“Very well. That’s our entry sorted then.”
“Just have to pray that that generator isn’t hooked up to all the electrics for the rest of the camp sir, or they’ll have a team out to fix it in a matter of minutes.”
“That’s a risk we’ll have to take.”
There was going to be a lot of them once we got to the night of our attack. It was a major risk going in in the first place, especially if I didn’t know whether or not the Standartenführer was even in there. But it was my job not to question, it was my job to lead these men into battle, towards their deaths if needs be, and that was exactly what I intended to do.
Just as quickly as we made for the airfield, we retreated again silently, without the Germans even knowing that we had ever been there.
16
“First things first,” I said, speaking confidently now that we were back in the depths of the forest, “we need to acquire some weapons. We can’t risk going noisy with them if all we’ve got is our pistols. We need to stay together until we’ve built up a decent arsenal of kit and then we’ll be able to start properly. Agreed?”
We were all in agreement, I knew there would be no reservations in trying to build up as much firepower as we possibly could before attacking in earnest. No one would be able to survive more than five minutes with a handgun against a fully automatic submachine gun, and all the other more comprehensive defences that they would have all around the airfield.
“Unfortunately, we’re not going to be able to plan an awful lot because of the wall. Most of it will be improvised. But I know you gentlemen will be used to that.”
They all muttered in agreement once again, nudging each other jovially as I lavished praise on them and their kind.
“Walter?” I let the Corporal take over the briefing momentarily, allowing him to let us know about his phase of the operation, but also so that he could reiterate in his mind exactly what his responsibilities would be when I gave the go signal.
“I will get a foot up from you lot and attempt to scale the wall, being careful to avoid hitting the high voltage wire that will be just inside the wall itself. From there, I will get to the generator and shut it off. Hopefully, it doesn’t shut down all the electrics in the rest of the airfield, otherwise we’re in for a bumpy ride. Once I have shut it off, Tommy will throw the rope ladder over the wall and I’ll anchor it in place. We’ll scale the wall one by one, then reconvene on the other side and evaluate the situation.”
“Right gents, our targets. Primary is the aircraft that are out on standing points. Secondary are the aircraft in the main hangar on the far side of the airfield. I’ll be going in with Ray here to the officer’s quarters, if possible, to collect as much intelligence as I possibly can. We will then exfil hopefully without a single shot having been fired. Understood?”
“Yes, Sir,” replied the Scot, who then commenced his small speech. “Charges are to be set at ten minutes. Incendiaries are to be reserved for any fuel or other flammables that you see laying about. If we are still inside the perimeter when the charges go off, we let them have absolutely everything that we possibly can. Throw a stick at them if you have to, just do as much damage as possible.”
We began running through as many different scenarios as we possibly could, including if we couldn’t find any weapons, or if we alerted the Germans to our presence before we even managed to make it inside the perimeter. We were ready for any eventuality, but all of them allowed for me to be inside the airfield for a considerable amount of time, so that I could try and locate my target.
I felt bad not revealing to them the true nature of the operation, but I wondered if they had an inkling or two as to the cover up that I was playing a large part in. They thought this was an espionage and intelligence gathering operation when in actual fact, it was a tactical assassination, something that I was growing increasingly uncomfortable with the closer it got to the time we had set to leave.
“So, sir,” asked Gordon, the Scotsman, just as we began painting our faces in paint and dirt, “how comes you were already here? What’s your story?”
“Oh, I don’t think we really have time for that Gordon,” I chuckled, “but I was sent here for another job, then I was suddenly reassigned. That’s when I met you maniacs. How about you?”
“Well, we’re all volunteers, sir. We joined up before the war began, so you don’t need to worry about our intentions or commitment, sir. We’re here for our country, no other reason.”
“Speak for yourself Gord, I’m here for the medals!” Piped up Arthur Milward, one of the cockier soldiers that I now had under my command.
I was glad that they were all volunteers, not that I had anything against the conscripted lads, but it meant that they were more likely to have already had some sort of experience in war and weren’t likely to cower away at the first machine gun round that they heard heading in their direction. That would help massively when everything went wrong on the other side of that wall.
We chatted politely for another couple of hours, about our upbringings and war experiences so far, and I was glad to discover that I had a
real mixture of men sitting around me. I had sons of butchers and dockers and one was even the son of a vicar, which I hoped would bring some sort of divine justification down on our side of the fence later on that night.
We ate our rations together and were soon packing our various bits and pieces away, making sure magazines were full of rounds and that charges hadn’t become damp during the day. I was passed a knife by Walter and I double checked that my own kit was packed correctly as I hurried about burying it in the ferns once again.
The wintry sun did not need too much of an invitation to disappear behind the horizon and within a few moments, the forest was in a near complete darkness which, by the time we had exited its leafy fortress, would have extended to the open air.
We began our trek towards the airfield, making good time so that we could be in and out under the cover of darkness. The French countryside was, as ever, eerily black, with nothing seeming to move a muscle and not a single bird or fox venturing out in to the arctic chill of the night. We were the only thing that moved, the slow swish of boots as they passed through grass the only audible noise over the sound of my thumping heart.
I began running through in my own mind about what I was to do. Ray and I were to locate the officer’s quarters as quickly as we possibly could and burst in there to find my target. The only thing that I could do was hope and pray that he was in there that night, and that he hadn’t taken himself off to a local hotel to seek a greater comfort elsewhere. I would have to hope that he was an eternally professional soldier, not refusing to abandon his post no matter how poor the accommodation was.
Once in there, I would send Ray off into another room, I needed to be able to deal with the officer without anyone seeing and get him to gather up as much intelligence as possible. Log books, maps, personal files and records, anything that would make it look like this was a standard intelligence gathering raid, and not one that had been carefully planned around a high-ranking officer’s arrival there. If they worked that out, then Jimmy’s source would probably be found out and shut down and he wouldn’t be thanking me for that.