Commando- The Complete World War II Action Collection Volume I

by Jack Badelaire

  Lewis turned his head and saw three lumbering shapes - a pair of familiar Morris cars and a larger Autoblinda, its 8mm machine gun tearing long bursts at the Italians. The lumpy, irregular profiles of the overburdened Desert Group vehicles were right behind the armoured cars, their Lewis and Vickers guns spraying tracers towards the northern arm of the crescent hill, trading fire with the stubborn defenders. Scattered among the vehicles was a skirmish line of Commandos, weapons raised and firing on any target that presented itself.

  As Lewis watched, an Italian machine gun raked a line of tracers across several Commandos and one of the Chevrolets. The men dropped like puppets with their strings cut, and the truck lurched to a halt and began to burn fiercely, its petrol tank ripped open by bullets, the tracers igniting the fuel as it spilled. In the firelight, Lewis didn’t see anyone get up off the ground or climb out of the burning vehicle.

  Off to his left, one of the Autoblindas began firing its 20mm cannon, hammering a stream of shells towards the attacking British. Several rounds hit one of the Morris cars, sparks flying as the armour failed to stop the heavy calibre shells. The Morris slewed back and forth for a moment before coming to a stop, the Boys rifle in its turret still firing every few seconds. Before the defenders’ Autoblinda could fire another twelve-round clip from its autocannon, there was a terrible impact on the armoured car’s front hull. A moment later, a loud report came from the east, out in the desert. When a second shot crashed home, tearing through the car’s turret, Lewis guessed the weapon was a light anti-tank gun - no match for the Autoblinda, which now sat silent, the crew either dead, wounded, or cowering in terror.

  But the fight wasn’t over yet. The Bersaglieri were organizing, NCOs ordering their men into firing lines behind any available cover. Disciplined rifle fire began to pepper the British vehicles and the advancing Commandos, many of whom moved to place the armoured cars between them and the defender’s rifle fire. The Italians seemed to rally, shouting insults at the British and encouragement to each other, but their elation was short-lived. The two mobile armoured cars and the LRDG trucks closed quickly, and more than a dozen machine guns ripped into the Italian lines, hundreds of bullets hammering into vehicles, supply crates, stone, sand, and flesh. With the Bersaglieri pinned down, the Commandos were able to move out from behind the armoured cars, and they quickly added their rifles, Thompsons, and Bren guns to the onslaught.

  Vastly outgunned, outnumbered, and all too quickly surrounded, the defenders finally accepted their fate. Surviving NCOs blew whistles and shouted to their men, and the rifle fire ceased. The British gunfire quickly died out as well, and for the first time in what seemed to Lewis like hours, there was silence.

  Lewis turned to Freddy with a broad grin across his face. “Looks like we’ll finally get a proper cup of morning tea, old bean.”

  Chapter 27

  The Outpost

  November 1st, 0600 Hours

  As dawn rose over the captured outpost, the full scale of the battle was evident. The ground along the ridgeline to the south of the fort was a horror-show, even after the larger remnants of the Italian dead had been dragged to the side of the path and covered with bedrolls taken from the fortress’ barracks. Some of the dead had to be shoveled out of the sangars hit by anti-tank shells or mortar bombs. Men killed by grenade blasts or gunfire seemed almost peaceful in comparison to those who’d been pulverized by the heavier weapons, but even those largely intact corpses were quickly gathering flies and other curious, hungry, crawling investigators.

  Lynch bent over a crumpled body and slowly rolled the man over. The Italian’s sightless eyes were covered in grains of sand, and flies were already exploring the corners of his mouth and nose. Reaching down, Lynch grasped the handle of his Fairbairn-Sykes knife and put his boot against the corpse’s belly. With a heave, he dragged his weapon free, wiping the bloody blade clean with a corner of the dead man’s jacket. The knife’s hilt was tacky with dried blood, and the flies wouldn’t leave it alone. Lynch slipped the blade back into its scabbard until he could clean it better, then rolled the corpse back into his original position, face towards the sheer rock wall of the hillside.

  “Found it?” Nelson asked as he approached.

  “Aye. A wee bit messy to be sure, but it’ll clean up just fine,” Lynch replied.

  “That’s good, you know they’d probably take it out of your bloody pay otherwise.”

  Lynch nodded absently, his gaze lifting from the body at his feet. His eyes swept across the rest of the destroyed outpost. Smoke still curled up into the morning sky from the burning vehicles, and further off he saw Donovan and Peabody leading their men as they policed the remaining enemy dead, collected weapons, searched pockets for any intelligence to give the officers or valuables to take as souvenirs.

  Fifty feet away, Lynch saw Herring bending over a German corpse. With practiced movements, Herring frisked the body and took several items, including a Luger he tucked into the back of his waistband. As if sensing he was being watched, Herring turned and looked at Lynch, staring for a few seconds before he gave a mocking salute and moved on to another body.

  “Bit of a queer one, ain’t he?” Nelson remarked, also watching Herring go about his grisly business.

  “Aye, so he is. I’m sure now we don’t know of the half of it.”

  Lynch turned and began walking with Nelson towards the rest of their squad, gathered near the Italian prisoners. Along with Brooks, four of Eldred’s Commandos and three New Zealanders had been killed in the final assault, with five other men wounded. Of the nearly fifty Bersaglieri who’d garrisoned the outpost, almost three dozen had been killed in the fighting. The remainder surrendered when the outcome of the battle was inevitable, half of them taken prisoner by Price’s squad. Only one of the Germans was taken alive, knocked senseless by flying debris when the petrol tanker blew up. Four other Germans were killed, all while leading small bands of Bersaglieri like those who’d ambushed Lynch and the others inside the fortress.

  Of Hauptmann Steiner and the remaining Germans, there was no sign. While rounding up the Italians, Lynch had found a knotted rope tied to a large steel pin driven into the stone at the edge of the western slope near the northwest corner of the fortress wall. He’d pointed it out to Price, who surmised that the Germans had used it as a last-ditch escape route, choosing to flee across miles of trackless desert rather than face death or capture. Where Steiner and his men were going, however, Lynch couldn’t imagine.

  “I can’t tell you how good it is to have a properly prepared cup of char. Those Italians never could get it right.”

  Lynch turned, and saw the Hussars lieutenant standing behind him, holding two mugs of tea laden with sweetened milk. Lewis handed one to Lynch and the other to Nelson, who bobbed his head and offered a brief “Thank you, sir”.

  “Much appreciated, sir,” Lynch said. “Glad to be of service. It couldn’t have been easy sitting out here for days. I was in the bag once, meself. Wasn’t a very pleasant experience.”

  Lewis nodded. “I hate to admit it, but although they were the enemy, they weren’t a right pack of jackals, either. Steiner would have me up to the fortress for a nightcap most evenings, if you can believe it.”

  “I do, actually,” Lynch replied. As Lewis walked away to join the other officers, Lynch looked over at the Bersaglieri, now confined in the same barbed wire fencing Lewis’ men had occupied only hours ago. Most of the Italians looked ragged and bloody, and several of them were swaddled with field dressings. They all had the dazed, blasted look of men who hadn’t yet come to terms with how quickly their situation had changed.

  Fortune in war is a fickle thing, Lynch mused. He took a sip from his mug of tea.

  It was perfect.

  Chapter 28

  The Libyan Desert

  November 1st, 0700 Hours

  Hauptmann Karl Steiner pulled back the canvas tarpaulin and exposed the front bumper of a Kübelwagen. It’d taken half an hour of digging with r
ifle butts and bare hands to expose the front of the car, but as Steiner continued to pull away the protective cover he saw the cars appeared to be in good condition. Months ago, he’d tucked them close against the leeward side of a small, sheer-sided rock formation and covered them with camouflage netting and canvas dust covers. However, he hadn’t predicted the cars being buried by a sand storm.

  “Alright boys,” he said. “Almost there. Grab shovels, and let’s uncover the other two before we take a water break.”

  One of the remaining Brandenburgers unclipped a shovel from the side of the exposed Kübelwagen, and another man pulled a second tool from the passenger seat. Taking turns, the six men remaining in his command set about unburying all three cars.

  Feldwebel Bauer had thought Steiner was being foolish and perhaps even a bit cowardly hiding “getaway cars” miles away from their base of operations. But Bauer wasn’t here, he was back with the Italians, either dead or captured, and Steiner was defeated, but alive and free to fight another day. According to Steiner’s worldview, that was all that mattered.

  Finally, one of the cars was freed from enough sand that Steiner could climb into the driver’s seat. He worked the starter, and after a couple of worrying sputters, the engine finally caught and steadied. He reached behind him and pulled a canteen out of a haversack, then unscrewed the top and took a long swig of tepid, metallic water. Looking over, he saw his men finish unearthing the other two vehicles. Steiner raised his canteen in a salute.

  “Macht schnell, boys!” Steiner ordered. “We’ve got almost three hundred kilometers to drive, and I’m buying the first round!”

  Author’s Note

  Some have called the North African campaign of World War Two “the last gentleman’s war”. I imagine that sentiment is cold comfort for the souls of all the dead men lying in forgotten graves scattered across the desert landscape. When compared to the brutal, merciless slaughter of the Normandy beach landings and the Falaise Pocket, the horrors of the Stalingrad and Leningrad sieges, or the wanton barbarity of the Red Army’s advance into Germany, the North African battles might be considered almost civilized.

  Almost.

  The desert is a terrible place to make war. Scorching hot during the day and freezing cold at night, with little water and poor lines of resupply. No cover or concealment to speak of, except for whatever trenches or sangars you could fashion with your hands and an entrenching tool. Infantry would bake in the sun when they weren’t being shelled or shot at, while tankers would bake in their rolling ovens when they weren’t being torn to pieces by armour-piercing shells and hull fragments, or burning alive inside their own vehicles. I vividly recall reading one account of a tank battle in North Africa where a dismounted tanker watched in horror as liquefied fat from burning men dribbled through the burst seams of a shattered tank a few feet from his position. Gentlemen’s war or no, burning to death trapped inside a tank is not a good way to die.

  After barely surviving their mission in Calais, I decided it was time to even the odds a little for our heroes, making them a part of a larger, more formidable unit. It also gave me the chance to move the story from northern France, where very little was actually happening, to someplace where Britain was at the time holding its own against the Axis. North Africa was also the place where a lot of new irregular units – such as the Long Range Desert Group and the Special Air Service – were created. The lack of strong, defensible borders, the need for intelligence gathered far behind enemy lines, and the vulnerability of supply routes and depots made the desert battlefield the perfect place to incubate special operations tactics. The lessons learned during the battles for North Africa are still studied and applied by Special Forces here in the 21st century.

  So, what is next for Lynch and his companions? Well, Operation Crusader takes place seventeen days after the end of this story, and a few dozen heavily-armed Commandos might come in handy.

  Acknowledgments

  I want to take the opportunity to thank everyone who has bought books in my Commando series. When I first finished Operation Arrowhead and ideas were bouncing around in my mind as to what my next project should be, my good friend Dan Eldredge said, “Be a good general. Never reinforce failure, and always exploit breakthroughs.” Since Operation Arrowhead had begun outselling all my other works almost overnight, it was clear I needed to exploit its success and write a sequel before I moved on to any other project.

  I also want to thank everyone who has written reviews of my book, or sent me an email, Facebook post, or Tweet. Overall, the reactions have been mostly positive, and even the more critical reviews have helped me think about my writing and ensure I don’t take my readers for granted. Although I love the stories I write, these aren’t desk drawer novels, written and then tucked away where no one can see them again. They’re stories I’m asking people to buy and enjoy, and I want to make sure my readers get their money’s worth of entertainment.

  I especially want to thank my Beta readers: Mark Allan, Dan Eldredge, David Foster, Matthew Higgins, Sean McLachlan, and John Pritchard. From catching typos and grammatical errors, to offering advice regarding English and Irish idioms and sayings, to highlighting what works and offering ways to improve what doesn’t, I couldn’t have written this without you guys. Many thanks, and if the occasion ever arises, the pints are on me.

  Thanks also to Dr. Roy Grundmann of the Boston University College of Communication for his assistance in proofing the German dialogue in this book. Any mistakes are without a doubt my own.

  I also want to thank Ander Plana, who illustrated the original Commando covers. A picture might be worth a thousand words, but a good book cover is also worth every penny you invest, because that one picture, more than a catchy title or product description, is what draws in potential readers.

  Finally, I want to thank my friends and family, who’ve shown nothing but support and interest in my writing. Several of them have also taken the first steps towards writing and publishing their own works, and I would like to think my positive experiences have helped encourage them along this path. It isn’t easy, but it’s definitely worth it.

  A Look at Commando: WWII Action Collection, Volume II

  By Jack Badelaire

  THE COMMANDO SERIES FEATURES ADVENTURE NOVELS WRITTEN IN THE SPIRIT OF CLASSIC WAR MOVIES AND WARTIME ADVENTURE PULP FICTION.

  A select team of highly-skilled professional soldiers, Commandos, must infiltrate enemy territory and complete a military objective, then survive to escape and attack again in the next adventure.

  A military unit is only as strong as the bonds of brotherhood between the men, and sometimes those bonds are sorely tested.

  “The "Commando" series is one of the best WWII action-adventure series going today, and that's because Jack is one of the best of the new crop of action authors writing today.” – Mark Allen, author of the Team Reaper Series

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  Jack Badelaire

  About the Author

  Jack Badelaire first began writing online in 2005, moderating a message board dedicated to Men’s Adventure paperbacks of the ‘60s through the ‘80s. He created The Post Modern Pulp blog in 2007 and the fantasy, science-fiction, and wargaming blog Tankards & Broadswords in 2008. In 2011, Badelaire published his first fictional work, the horror short story “Rivalry”, through Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing. In 2012, he published his first novel, KILLER INSTINCTS, followed shortly thereafter by OPERATION ARROWHEAD, the first in his successful WW2 British Commando serie
s. Badelaire has since written seven other novels, three novellas, and multiple short stories, mostly in the field of historical adventure fiction.

  Jack Badelaire has a bachelor’s degree in Film and Television Production with a minor in Classical Studies, and a master’s degree in Computer Information Systems and IT Project Management. He currently works full-time as an IT support services manager at a large university in Boston. For the last several years, Badelaire has taught part-time through a local adult and community education program. There, he focuses on teaching blogging and self-publishing, with the goal of helping new authors navigate through the process of digital and print-on-demand book production and distribution.

  Jack Badelaire has a passion for history, particularly the ancient and medieval periods, as well as the history of warfare and the evolution of military weapons and technologies. He’s been a role-playing games enthusiast since 1993, and also enjoys tabletop miniature wargaming. An avid reader all his life, Badelaire collects vintage paperback novels, and his favorite authors include Robert E. Howard, Edward Abbey, Bernard Cornwell, Dan Abnett, Craig Thomas, Brian Garfield, and Alistair MacLean.