Most of that type of deep thinking regarding Donelson and Hindsight in general had occurred during the first half of the run while he was still relatively fresh. At that moment, as Kransky followed Eileen’s steady pace along the line of the fence and the gates neared once more, all he could think about was a clean change of clothes, a shower and (truth be told) a bit of a lie down.
It was close to midday as Kransky made his way down to where he had earlier passed the Australian troopers setting up inside the perimeter fence, about halfway along the runway. He was refreshed and somewhat rested, but still felt some faint pain in his feet and legs, and knew it’d be a few days before some of the aches completely dissipated. He quickly forgot about his discomfort however as he drew nearer the area and his attention was drawn to what was going on there already.
Two long, foldable trestle tables were set up with several weapons lying upon them, along with a large spotting scope on a small tripod. Roughly three hundred metres away, a pair of man-shaped targets were positioned in front of a stack of straw bales. Beside the targets and also supported by the straw stood a piece of thick armour plate about a metre and a half square that someone had scrounged up from the main naval base.
Much further away, also parallel with the concrete strip, another set of bales and targets awaited, although Kransky thought that at a distance of what appeared to be a kilometre or more, they were well out of effective range of most riflemen or rifles. He knew even his own talents, capable as they were, wouldn’t be enough to confidently make an effective ‘kill’ at what appeared to be close to a thousand yards in anything other than perfect conditions. The situation had at the very least piqued his curiosity.
The group already clustered there at the tables comprised Max Thorne, Eileen Donelson, the Australian SAS captain, Green, two of his troopers, and another man he’d never seen before. As he drew closer, the stance and the body language suggested that at least one of the SAS troopers, toting an automatic rifle, was keeping the unidentified newcomer under some kind of guard.
“Glad to see you pulled up all right, Richard,” Eileen observed cheerily as he drew near, just the barest hint of mischief in her eyes. “Not a bad work out this morning, eh?”
“Yeah – it was sure a workout, all right,” the American admitted, forcing a grin of his own.
“Bit of advice, mate,” Thorne began, stepping forward and smiling broadly. “Don’t take the lady for granted.”
“Oh, I figured that out pretty early, Mister Thorne,” he admitted, the grin genuine this time, and he shook his head as he gave a self-deprecating chuckle. “The commander sure showed me up this morning… I’ll need to get a good deal fitter, and that’s the truth!”
“One man you won’t know,” Thorne changed the subject quickly, getting down to business. He stood aside, allowing the Irishman to take his obvious cue, and Kelly stepped forward with a hand extended.
“Major Richard Kransky,” Kransky offered, accepting the handshake and meeting the new man’s friendly but neutral gaze.
“Volunteer Eoin Kelly,” Kelly returned just as quickly, and he considered the name as they parted hands once more. “That wouldn’t be the Kransky who’s been causin’ the Japs so much trouble the last few years, would it now?”
“Yeah, it might well be the same,” the American answered with a little hesitation, unnerved that his reputation had again obviously preceded him. “What might that be to you?”
“Oh, nothin’ at all, except that one of my ‘colleagues’ tried to get hold of you in Spain a few years ago with the hope of maybe teaching us a few tricks here an’ there.”
“Yeah, I remember… that mad ‘Mick’ from the Republican Army. Didn’t think he was gonna take no for an answer for a while, there.”
“That’s a kinder description of Frank Ryan than some would give y’,” Kelly laughed genuinely. “Last I heard, the fella was still in Spain and takin’ little a ‘holiday’ in a Nationalist prison.”
“Poor bastard,” Kransky said simply with a solemn nod: he’d spent enough time in Spain during the civil war there to know the Nationalist’s prisons were a far cry indeed from any kind of holiday. He turned his attention back to Thorne, deciding there would be an explanation of the man’s presence at the appropriate moment, and that moment could be some other time. “What do we have going on here today?”
“I’ll give you over to Eileen for the answer to that, Richard,” Thorne returned, casting a hand out toward to the nearby commander.
“I see you brought along your hardware, as I asked,” Eileen observed, smiling as she stepped up to the trestle tables. “We had a discussion this morning while you were… ‘recovering’… and thought that perhaps instead of just improving on what you already had, we might instead replace some of it with something a bit more impressive…” She crouched down in front of one of the tables and opened the lid of a long wooden crate lying beneath it on the ground. From it, she lifted an impossibly-large rifle, somewhat awkwardly holding it in her right hand as her left extended a pair of bipod legs beneath its fore-end. Having done that, she lowered it carefully to the table and looked up at the man once more.
“We thought perhaps you might have a use for this,” she began as Kransky moved to stand beside her, mesmerised by the weapon. With a nod from her, he reached out and lifted the rifle, momentarily surprised by the weight of it – nearly thirteen kilograms. It seemed to be almost entirely constructed of steel, the main body a single, octagonal length of receiver and breech that ended in a fixed, skeleton stock. There was a pistol grip trigger assembly and a large, ribbed box-magazine mounted beneath the weapon about halfway along, and just ahead of the bipod projected a heavy, fluted barrel with a multi-baffled muzzle brake. All up the rifle seemed to be about 150 centimetres long – close to half as long again as the scoped German weapon he carried on his back.
“It’s called a Barrett M107,” Donelson explained as he set the rifle down on the table once more, then shrugged his own weapon from his back and also laid it on the table further along. She reached out and pulled the magazine from beneath the large rifle, handing it to him for examination. “The clip holds ten rounds. It fires the Browning fifty-calibre machine gun round that we’ve discovered the German’s are also using a direct copy of – although they classify it as a ‘nominal’ calibre of thirteen-millimetres.”
“Which makes the supply of ammunition no problem, regardless of where I might be,” Kransky observed without emotion, turning the heavy magazine loaded with cartridges over in his hands. “How’s the recoil?”
“Heavy, but the muzzle brake helps a lot. I can fire one or two rounds well enough without too much discomfort, so someone of your size should have no trouble.” She lifted a long, black telescopic sight from the table that also seemed quite large. “The scope we have fitted is a Trijicon AccuPoint telescopic sight with a variable zoom of five- to twenty-times. It has an illuminated reticle that requires no battery power and is clearly visible in all light conditions.” She showed him how the scope attached to the weapon’s receiver with just a simple snap catch, making sure he was clear on the procedure. “The sight attaches to the rifle with what’s called a ‘Quick-Detachable’ mount that doesn’t lose zero. We’ll also have a night-vision scope for to you that has an effective range of at least five hundred metres in almost complete darkness.”
“Sounds impressive, that’s for sure,” Kransky conceded, very interested. “I’m assuming the further of the targets are for this?”
“You’d assume correctly,” she confirmed. “The weapon’s already zeroed – give it a try.”
He needed no further urging. As the rest of them looked on, he lifted the weapon once more and slotted the magazine back in under the receiver, jamming it home with the butt of his palm.
“The action is semi-automatic, recoil-operated,” Donelson continued to explain, pointing to relevant parts of the rifle. “Cocking handle is here… safety here… and that’s about all there is to i
t.”
He hauled back on the cocking handle and allowed it to spring forward, the bolt face collecting a .50-calibre round on the way and loading it into the breech, after which he engaged the safety as she’d demonstrated. He found a cleared space on the bench near the spotting scope, dropped slowly to one knee, and lifted the Barrett to his right shoulder, resting it’s bipod on the table before him. Closing one eye, he squinted through the scope with the other and was impressed with the high-power magnification.
“What’s she zeroed at?” He asked with cold professionalism, the distant targets appearing remarkably close as he stared through the scope.
“Five hundred metres,” Donelson stated softly, and he gave an imperceptible nod as he estimated the range by eye alone and made adjustments in elevation, lifting the cross hairs slightly above his desired point of aim as the others around him covered their ears in anticipation. Inhaling naturally, he disengaged the safety and paused halfway through a released breath before squeezing gently on the trigger.
The M107 bucked heavily against his shoulder, the report painfully loud as the muzzle brake spewed smoke and propellant gas in large clouds on either side of the barrel. As the bright red flash of tracer hurtled away downrange, Kransky noted that the recoil was probably no worse than a 10-bore shotgun, although that was by no means comfortable all the same.
He leaned over and checked the spotting scope, which was already sighted on the targets he’d aimed for, and a smile instantly spread across his face. The shot was a little low – there was a sizeable bullet hole in the centre of the ‘neck’ area of the target rather than the head – but considering he wasn’t accustomed to the weapon, he was still quite pleased.
He’d have been hard pressed to get anywhere near that kind of accuracy at such a range with the German sniper rifle he carried, even in perfect conditions. Although the muzzle velocity of the .50-calibre rifle probably wasn’t much greater than that of his own weapon, if at all, an approximate threefold increase in bullet weight meant that initial velocity would drop off far more slowly, allowing a far greater effective range. The extra bullet weight also meant the weapon’s accuracy would be less at the mercy of prevailing winds and conditions.
Sighting through the scope once more, he repeated the action three more time, leaving the air around them was filled with the smell of cordite, and three large bullet holes now showed in a surprisingly tight group near the head of the first of the further targets.
“Degree of accuracy…?” He inquired.
“Roughly minute-of-angle in ‘out-of-the-box’ condition,” Eileen shrugged, “but we’ve fine tuned the thing a little, and it shoots better than that now by a fair margin. With a bit of practice and the right conditions, you should almost be able to shoot groups as small as ten or twelve inches at a thousand yards.”
“Damn! Good enough to take out a man, that’s for sure!” Kransky did a little mental arithmetic. “Also good enough to use on material targets out to a mile or more, I’d reckon.”
“Correct,” she nodded, “and we have some very effective armour-piercing ammunition to take advantage of that. It won’t penetrate the armour of a tank, although you could certainly break a track, but they’ll take on just about anything short of that at medium ranges.”
“This is all very interesting, Mister Thorne,” Kelly observed with only partial sarcasm, “but does all this actually have anything to do with me?” The irreverent query drew a disapproving glare from Donelson, which he noticed but purposefully ignored. She was in her technical element and didn’t appreciate interruptions from anyone, let alone people she didn’t like.
“Oh, it certainly does have something to do with you, Mister Kelly!” Thorne stated emphatically, although he refused to go on and explain exactly how at that point, instead choosing to step up to the trestle tables beside Donelson. “May I cut in, major…?” He inquired as Kransky looked up from the Barrett’s scope. The American stood and returned the weapon to the table, engaging the safety once more, and Thorne lifted an automatic rifle from the second table and held it up for all to see clearly. It was identical to the weapons the guards had been carrying in that area of the base.
“This is a Kalashnikov AKM assault rifle, Mister Kelly,” Thorne explained slowly as he stepped clear of the table once more. “The British now call it the ‘Number Seven Rifle’, I believe.” He turned the weapon slightly on its side so the Irishman could see what he was doing as he drew back the AKM’s cocking handle. “This rifle weighs about a pound less than the Thompson submachine gun your boys in the IRA are so fond of, and it fires a ‘short’ rifle round that’s far more powerful than the Thompson’s .45ACP pistol cartridge.” He shrugged. “It’s also a damn sight easier to make, not that that’s as much of an issue.” Stepping clear into open ground, he lifted the weapon to his shoulder and sighted down the barrel at the closer targets just three hundred metres away. He fired off five quick, carefully-aimed shots in semi-automatic mode, not one missing the target’s main ‘body’ area.
“The weapon has an effective range of about three hundred yards,” he continued, lowering the rifle once more. “Again, that’s much better than the Thompson, and certainly good enough for ninety percent of all combat situations. It also has one other very handy feature…” He moved a large lever on the weapon’s side and lifted the rifle to his shoulder once more. He held the trigger down longer this time, and the weapon bucked and rattled as it fired off the remaining 25 rounds in its magazine in several loud bursts of automatic fire that caught Kelly – and Kransky, for that matter – completely by surprise.
Although the fire was markedly less accurate, at least a third of the rounds still struck the target Thorne had aimed for and had almost cut it in half. He held the weapon up once more, the muzzle safely pointing skyward as smoke coiled in the air around him.
“The weapon fires at a rate of six hundred rounds per minute, which is extremely effective in infantry assaults and adds immensely to any combat unit’s collective firepower.”
“I’ll grant y’ we could use a few o’ them and no mistake,” Kelly conceded, trying to appear aloof but mostly sounding a little shaken, and Thorne could clearly see the gleam in the man’s eyes at the thought what the IRA could do if equipped with Kalashnikovs.
“Well, Mister Kelly, this afternoon we’re going to have a chat about that…” and with those words, Thorne’s eyes positively glowed with anticipation and the spectacle of the event.
Later that afternoon, as Kransky and Eileen continued to go over improved weaponry and practice out on their makeshift firing range, Kelly and Thorne sat alone around one of the tables in the Officers Mess with scotch in their glasses. He’d borrowed a pack of Camels from Bob Green and offered them to the Irishman, who’d eagerly accepted, not having been allowed cigarettes while interned at The Curragh or in prison.
“Is this the point where you tell me what you want in exchange for my freedom?” Kelly asked with relaxed confidence, puffing luxuriously on the smoke and sipping at the whiskey.
“You’re assuming what I’m going to ask is beyond you before I’ve even requested it,” Thorne pointed out, noting the tone in the man’s voice. “Surely you could at least hear me out first?”
“Well, what could you ask me, other than to betray my brothers or The Republic in some way?” Kelly shrugged, reasoning logically with what little information he had at his disposal. “You came looking for me in particular at The Castle, sure enough, but if you know me then you should also know I’ll never betray me own people.”
“Actually, I only wanted to speak to you about the Germans to begin with,” Thorne stated without emotion, the unexpected remark surprising Kelly somewhat.
“Now what do I have to do with the bloody Germans?”
“Not a lot personally, but I do know the IRA’s been trying to get financial and material aid from Germany for some time now, particularly since the war began.”
“No idea what yer talkin’ about,” Ke
lly denied flatly.
“Really…?” Thorne’s asked with a faint smile. “So you wouldn’t know anything about an Oskar Pfaus, who arrived in Ireland around February of 1939 and, at the behest of whom, Seamus O’Donovan ended up going to Germany in return to try and secure aid?” That remark unsettled Kelly a great deal: although Thorne could have come by that information by normal means, the conviction with which he spoke suggested otherwise. “I suppose you wouldn’t know much then, about Hermann Goertz either… dropped into Ireland in May of this year to follow up on the IRA’s Plan Kathleen – the German/IRA invasion of Northern Ireland – and still on the run from authorities, at one point actually hiding at O’Donovan’s house in Shankill, in South Dublin?” He gave the stunned volunteer a lopsided grin. “If you haven’t heard about either of them then I must have the wrong man here. You are the Eoin Kelly who held a position under Seán O’Brien, the Army Council’s Intelligence Officer at the time you were arrested… under the then Chief of Staff, Michael Fitzpatrick?” He didn’t worry about giving Kelly a chance to speak.
“Commander Donelson really doesn’t like you, or the IRA, Eoin. When she was a little girl, her father was stationed with the British Paras in Northern Ireland. The men who kidnapped him weren’t your average volunteers – they really went to town on him – and by the time his troop rescued him, there wasn’t a lot left of the father she’d known. Almost would’ve been better to not have found him at all, although I doubt she’d see it that way…” He went silent for a moment before continuing. “So don’t condemn her if she’s less than sympathetic to you or ‘The Cause’.” He paused and took a breath. “And me…?” He shrugged. “Well I’m a different story altogether. You see, Eoin, I don’t really care about the IRA one way or the other, per se. I could give the British Government – or Leinster House, for that matter – all sorts of really useful information regarding high-placed IRA volunteers… or ammo dumps around the country – those that are actually left around the country – but that’d be no help to me at all or, ultimately, any help to anyone else, including you and the IRA.” He took a breath. “You saw the capabilities of the weapons we showed you out there today. I can see to it you get hundreds of them – maybe thousands – and ammunition aplenty to go with them… maybe.”
England Expects (Empires Lost) Page 37