I also wanted to write a story with stronger ties to some of the great classic WWII action-adventure films, particularly The Guns of Navarone and Where Eagles Dare, both based on stories by master storyteller Alistair MacLean. Both stories are great tales of hard-bitten British operatives skulking about under the noses of the enemy, impersonating Germans, getting captured and making clever escapes, beating the odds time and time again and surviving by the skin of their teeth. While these sorts of stories usually have no direct ties to the history of WWII itself, they make for great adventures nonetheless. If I can approximate even a small fraction of those stories’ entertainment value, I’ll be a happy writer.
Well, enough talking about this novel. It’s time to begin planning the next mission for Lynch, Price, McTeague, Bowen, and the rest of the team. Operation Cannibal is already on the drawing board, but since it’s classified Top Secret, all I can say is, hope you don’t mind a little sand in your tea...
Part 3
Operation Cannibal
Operation Cannibal
Kindle Edition
© Copyright 2019 (as revised) Jack Badelaire
Wolfpack Publishing
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All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced by any means without the prior written consent of the publisher, other than brief quotes for reviews.
Chapter 1
150 Miles South Of Sollum, Egypt
October 23Rd, 1941, 0900 Hours
Lieutenant James Lewis of the 11th Hussars stood in the turret of his Morris armoured car and peered through a pair of binoculars. About a mile to the south, he discerned the shape of a large vehicle sitting in the middle of the road, or what passed for a road in the middle of the Egyptian desert. Turning the focusing wheel of his binoculars, Lewis decided the vehicle was a transport of indeterminate make and model. This side of “The Wire” - the border between Egypt and Libya - Lewis imagined it was British, but he’d been in the desert long enough to know that vehicles often changed hands and moved across the relatively unsecured border, so the vehicle might belong to anyone.
Lewis looked down into the turret and caught the eye of his gunner. “Freddy, make sure the guns are loaded, and pass me the Thompson.”
Lewis’ gunner, Frederick Kent, reached down into the belly of the armoured car and picked up the Thompson submachine gun tucked into the corner of the crew compartment. He handed the weapon to Lewis, and followed it up a moment later with a satchel of 20-round magazines. Lewis hung the satchel from a hook on the inside of the car’s open turret, then loaded the Thompson. Kent checked the magazine seating on the Bren and drew back the bolt, then he checked the magazine on the Boys anti-tank rifle, finally working the weapon’s bolt action and chambering one of the rifle’s massive .55 calibre armour-piercing cartridges.
“Both weapons ready for action, sir,” Kent announced.
Lewis nodded and glanced back behind him. Sitting with their engines running, a half dozen lorries formed a supply convoy, bound for the Jerabub oasis, where the British had kept a garrison for the last seven months. Lewis’ armoured car was the escort for the convoy, although considering the vehicle’s thin armour and paltry weapons, he knew his presence was more for show than for any real protection. He was easily outclassed by any of the German armoured cars fielded by the Afrika Korps, and even the Italian cars were superior to his Morris. If they encountered any stiff resistance, Lewis’ orders were to engage the enemy long enough for the convoy to break contact and escape, but Lewis didn’t think his car’s firepower was capable of slowing down, much less stopping, any enemy force strong enough to go hunting this side of The Wire.
Unfortunately for Lewis, just such a force had been encountered in this area several times in the last few months. Patrols and supply convoys had been attacked, either through ambush or in long-range firefights, by a force of Italian armoured cars prowling the deep desert like marauding pirates seeking to plunder heavily-laden merchant ships. Considering the cargo of food, fuel, medical supplies, and other consumables loaded into the Bedfords trailing behind him, Lewis knew his convoy would be a real prize for that Italian patrol.
Lewis glanced over at the turret’s weapons. The Bren gun was all fine and dandy in the hands of the poor bloody infantry, much better than trying to drag around a water-cooled, belt-fed machine gun, but it made a poor weapon on an armoured vehicle. Likewise, the Boys rifle was, well...it was better than nothing if you were a footslogger in the mud trying to knock out a Jerry armoured car from the flank, but compared to an enemy car’s 20-millimetre autocannon, it was a child’s pea-shooter. The Boys was cumbersome, its bolt action was slow, and at the distances found here in the North African desert, Lewis’ car would be torn apart like a tin can blasted with a fowling piece long before he got close enough for the Boys’ armour-piercing rounds to have any effect.
The object of his scrutiny at that moment, however, was not an armoured car, German or Italian. Within a thousand yards, the Boys would be more than capable of penetrating the body of a lorry, and within seven hundred, the Bren would be similarly lethal. Lewis brought up his binoculars for another few seconds, and fine-tuning the focus a bit more, he thought he saw at least one man-sized figure moving near the vehicle.
He made a decision. Climbing out of the Morris’ open turret, Lewis walked back to the first vehicle in the convoy and approached the driver’s window. The man behind the wheel, a red-faced fellow with a kerchief wrapped around his nose and mouth to block out the worst of the dust, looked down at him.
“Well, what is it, sir?” he asked.
“There’s a vehicle in the road, about a mile ahead. We’ll approach within seven hundred yards, and then we’ll move forward and make contact. You’ve got field glasses?” he asked the driver.
The man bent out of sight for a moment, then came up again holding a leather case.
“All right, keep an eye on me when we approach,” Lewis continued. “If I think there’s no trouble, I’ll give you the signal flag left to right three times. If I want you to leg it, I’ll only give you the flag left to right once. Pull back two miles and wait ten minutes. If you don’t see me approaching with flag in hand, make for Fort Maddalena. Understood?”
The driver nodded. “Yes, Lieutenant.”
“Alright, cheers then,” Lewis replied, then walked back to his car.
Lewis climbed back into the car’s turret, then thumped the body of the car with his hand three times.
“Forward nice and easy, let’s stop about seven hundred yards away, let the hens sort themselves out, and then we’ll advance to one hundred yards,” Lewis hollered down into the car’s interior.
Lewis heard the muffled reply from the driver and the Morris lurched forward, rolling easily at twenty miles an hour. Lewis turned to his gunner.
“Freddy, get on that Bren. If there’s any trouble, give them a full magazine to keep their heads down, then follow it with the Boys.”
Freddy nodded and hunkered down behind the light machine gun, tucking the Bren’s stock into his shoulder and peering through the weapon’s sights.
Lewis brought the binoculars up to his eyes again, and with the proficiency of a man who’d spent several years in the turret of an armoured car, he kept his eyes on the vehicle ahead of them, even as the car lurched and bumped along. Although they were following a well-traveled path, the definition of “road” in the Egyptian desert was, to say the least, malleable. The road was little more than a track of hard-packed sand and gravel, straight as an arrow for dozens of miles at a stretch. Lewis had made this trip to Jerabub three times already, and by now he felt he knew nearly every feature along the route, sparse though they were. As they approached the mystery vehicle, Lewis knew there was no defile or other ambush site in the vicinity. If this was a means to make his convoy stop and present themselves for a surprise attack, Lewis didn’t think there was anywher
e the attackers could conceal themselves.
Still, he kept the Thompson close at hand.
The Morris reached a distance of seven hundred yards, and Lewis glanced back and saw the lorries forming up behind him, spacing themselves out at a distance of twenty yards apiece to help protect them from air attack. Lewis ordered the car forward once more, leaving the rest of the convoy behind.
“Easy now, Danny,” Lewis cautioned the driver. “Be ready to throw the old girl into reverse at the first whiff of trouble.”
“Got me hand on her knee, Lieutenant,” the driver replied.
As they drew closer, Lewis saw that the vehicle was a Bedford lorry, pointed in their direction and angled slightly off the road. The bonnet was raised, and two men were standing in front of the lorry. One of the men was looking back at them with a set of binoculars, while the other was holding a rifle over his head with both hands.
The Morris car rolled to a stop, and Lewis let his binoculars hang around his neck while he cupped his hands to his mouth.
“Hello there! Lewis, Eleventh Hussars!” he shouted.
The man with the binoculars took a few steps forward and cupped his own mouth. “Stinson, Royal Army Service Corps, glad you chaps dropped by! Spot of trouble under the bonnet!”
Lewis let out a breath he didn’t realize he was holding. Reaching down, he gave his gunner a pat on the shoulder.
“Keep them covered, but ease off the trigger, Freddy. Don’t want to ruin the fellow’s uniform,” Lewis advised.
Lewis tapped on the roof of the car, and his driver rolled forward slowly, the loudest sound the tyres crunching over sand and gravel. The man who’d hailed them took a few more steps forward, his hands clearly visible away from his sides. When the Morris was only ten yards away, the man raised his hand and gave them a casual salute. The fellow was dressed in the standard British desert uniform, with a wet kerchief tied across his forehead and a corporal’s insignia on his shoulder. Tall and lanky, with a strong, wiry build, and well-tanned from months in the desert, Lewis guessed the man to be somewhere in his late twenties. His sandy brown hair was bleached by the desert sun, and his handsome, friendly face was split at the moment by a toothsome grin.
“Bloody glad to see you chaps! It was getting a bit lonely out here,” Stinson said.
Lewis took a closer look at the Bedford. The lorry had a canvas-covered cargo bed, and he saw daylight streaming through a handful of holes in the raised bonnet. There were also several bullet holes in the windscreen.
“I say, Corporal, were you strafed?” Lewis asked.
Stinson shook his head. “That’s from a few weeks ago. Never got around to patching up the old sow. Turned out a bit of bullet frag damaged the radiator. Finally gave way, it seems, and we bled out on the way from Jerabub.”
“That’s quite a bit of bad luck,” Lewis agreed. “A good thing we found you instead of Jerry or an Eyetie patrol over The Wire.”
Stinson nodded and craned his head, looking past the Morris car and down the road. “Looks like your flock is waiting patiently, Lieutenant.”
Lewis turned in his seat and looked behind him at the convoy some seven hundred yards away. He pulled up a signal flag from inside the turret and waved it left to right three times. Almost immediately he saw the lorries behind him advancing up the road.
“Can never be too careful, old bean,” Lewis said. “Jerry can be a clever fellow when he puts his mind to it.”
“No doubt,” Stinson said. “I say, what are you carrying to Jerabub? The usual cargo?”
Lewis nodded. “No different than your run, I’m sure. Food, petrol, some medical supplies and other sundries. I say, I almost forgot! What happened to the rest of the lads who were with you? Surely they didn’t leave you behind.”
Stinson shrugged and looked past the Morris again towards the approaching convoy. “Archie and I figured it would be a quick patch and on we go. But whatever we try, just can’t seem to keep it from pissing out like a bloke after a night at the pub.”
Lewis frowned. “How long ago did they leave you? We haven’t seen anyone about all day. Nothing but a clear horizon far as the eye can see.”
“They were going to make for Fort Maddalena, pass along word that we’re stuck out here.” Stinson shrugged. “Archie and I figured we’d be taking turns between having a bit of a kip and standing watch at least until tomorrow.”
“But didn’t your escort have a wireless? Bloody long time to let you two sit and crisp out here,” Lewis replied.
Stinson didn’t immediately reply, instead leaning out again to look back behind Lewis’ car. Lewis turned and saw the convoy roll to a halt behind him. Suddenly, a terrible thought struck him, and the hairs along the back of Lewis’ neck stood on end. Moving slowly, he reached down and touched the foregrip of the Thompson next to him in the turret.
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you, Lieutenant.”
Lewis brought both his hands up to his shoulders. “Freddy...”
“Look to our flanks, Lieutenant,” Lewis’ gunner muttered.
Slowly, Lewis turned his head, looking left and right. As if by magic, eight men pointing rifles and machine pistols had appeared out of the desert sand, hunkered down in one-man foxholes. Each of the men had their weapons trained on the armoured car or one of the lorries in the convoy. Lewis saw they’d covered themselves over with sand-colored canvases, and Stinson had no doubt completed their camouflage.
Lewis slowly turned around in the turret and saw Stinson standing to the side of the Morris car, a Walther automatic in his hand pointed directly at Lewis’ face. Archie stood behind the Bedford’s engine block, rifle raised, his elbows resting on the body, the weapon’s muzzle also covering Lewis. In the back of the Bedford, a corner of canvas near the cab had been pulled away. Inside, Lewis saw the muzzle of an MG-34 machine gun, and the deadly serious faces of the weapon’s gunner and loader.
“Bloody hell,” Lewis cursed.
Stinson pointed towards a foxhole to his left. “Take note of the plunger just visible above the lip of that man’s fighting position, Lieutenant.”
Lewis looked and saw that one of the men held his machine pistol one-handed, the magazine resting on the lip of his foxhole, while the other hand rested on the handle of what Lewis recognized to be some kind of detonator.
“We’ve planted a dozen five-kilogram charges underneath the road bed, going back a hundred metres. One wrong move, and I’m sure at least a few of those charges will be close enough to annihilate a fair portion of your convoy,” Stinson explained.
“You rotten Jerry bastard,” Lewis fumed.
Stinson shook his head. “I could have killed you and most of the men in the convoy within seconds, Lieutenant. But I abhor the unnecessary loss of life, and so I’m offering you the chance to surrender yourselves.”
Lewis glanced down at his gunner, who still crouched at his position, Bren at the ready. Lewis saw lines of sweat running down Freddy’s face, but the man’s hands were steady.
“Well, Freddy?” Lewis asked.
“Sir, you drop into the turret, and we’ll give ‘em a fight, sure enough,” Freddy answered.
Lewis nodded. “But then we condemn the poor bastards in the lorries to a messy end. Our job’s to keep those lads alive, Frederick, not get them killed.”
“I’m with you, Lieutenant, no matter what,” his gunner replied.
Lewis sighed, and moving slowly, he climbed out of the Morris’ turret and down onto the roadbed. Stinson lowered his pistol, but kept the muzzle pointed in Lewis’ general direction. With his off-hand, Lewis unbuttoned the flap of his holster and, with deliberate slowness, drew his Enfield revolver, offering it to his captor butt-first.
“All right, Stinson. You win.”
Stinson nodded and took the proffered revolver, tucking it into his waistband. He then extended his open hand and offered it to Lewis, who shook it after a moment’s hesitation.
“As you may have surmised, my name isn’
t Stinson,” the German said. “I am Hauptmann Karl Steiner, of the Wehrmacht Regiment Brandenburg.”
Chapter 2
Largs, Scotland
October 23rd, 0930 Hours
Corporal Thomas Lynch of His Majesty’s 3 Commando leapt over the low rock wall, one hand braced against the ancient stones, the other clutching the pistol grip of his Thompson submachine gun. He landed with a grunt and kept running, both hands on his weapon now, holding the Thompson’s ten-pound weight close to his body and keeping it from throwing off the rhythm of his stride.
Lynch’s breath steamed in the cool morning air, trailing behind him as he ran as hard as his legs could carry him, hunched forward under the weight of his pack and other gear. In his two large ammunition pouches Lynch carried a dozen twenty-round magazines for the Thompson, with a pair of Mills bombs clipped to the webbing at his shoulders. Around his waist, the web belt bore a holstered .45 calibre automatic hanging at his right hip, while a pair of spare magazines and Lynch’s Fairbairn-Sykes commando knife hung at his left. In his pack, Lynch carried his gas cape, rations, canteen, two magazines for the squad’s Bren light machine gun, six spare magazines for the Thompson, a hundred feet of climbing rope, two spare pairs of socks, an emergency survival kit, a signal torch, and two one-pound blocks of demolitions explosive.
If he'd belonged to any other squad, the magazines and explosives might be fakes - dummy practice munitions of a similar weight and feel. But Lynch’s squad spent much of its time training apart from the other Commandos bivouacked at Castle Largs, and Lynch’s commanding officer, Lieutenant Price, insisted his men always train with live munitions and loaded weapons. Price always told Lynch and the others “If a man trains with false equipment, he picks up bad habits. And bad habits get men killed”. In the last six months, on two separate missions, Price’s twelve-man squad had lost a total of seven Commandos. Lynch knew Price refused to leave another dead soldier behind in enemy-occupied territory because of a bad habit.
Commando- The Complete World War II Action Collection Volume I Page 30