Enemy In Sight (A Commander Steadfast Naval Thriller)

by Richard Freeman

  ‘Kouvakis! Where’s the launch?’ shouted Friedländer.

  ‘They said it would be here. Perhaps they tricked me!’

  ‘Perhaps you’ve tricked us, scum,’ said Friedländer as he shoved the butt of his gun into Kouvakis’ stomach. Kouvakis, doubled-up in pain, cried out ‘I swear…’

  ‘Lieutenant! The launch is outside!’ called a soldier.

  Friedländer rushed forward to take a look, but stopped short before he reached the entrance. He came back.

  ‘Kouvakis, you first.’

  Friedländer used his gun to push the indignant Greek to the front and then butted him in the back. ‘Forward. Let’s see what your friends think of you now!’

  Outside, Gunner Robert Cooper tensed as he heard voices coming from the cave. He tightened his grip on the handles of his gun and trained the sight once more on the black hole low on the cliff face.

  ‘They’re coming, sir!’ he shouted to Montague.

  ‘Everyone down,’ called out Montague.

  ‘Got you!’ cried Cooper as he let off a first burst of fire at the head that poked out from the cave. The head retreated.

  ‘My God, Cooper, that was Kouvakis!’ called out Montague. ‘Now we’re in a fix.’

  Back inside the cave Friedländer grabbed Kouvakis’ shoulder and yanked him away from the opening.

  ‘Keep out of the way, filth! You might be useful later.’

  Friedländer ordered two men up to the front of the cave. Kneeling just inside the entrance they opened fire on the launch. Cooper returned the fire but his target was a black hole. What was inside he could not see.

  ‘Let’s get out of here,’ shouted Montague. ‘Hard to starboard! Full ahead port!’

  The launch leapt into life and spun round. As it departed Montague ordered a few rounds from the three-pounder. Jimmy Price could see his target: the top of the cave entrance. A few well-placed shots brought down several tons of the cliff face. The cave entrance was no more.

  *

  Back at the transmitter Duckworth was still counting the minutes.

  ‘Five minutes to go!’ he called out.

  ‘Good. It’s time we got out of here,’ responded Steadfast.

  The next sound that the two men should have heard was the almighty explosion of the generous quantity of plastic laid by the sappers. But it wasn’t. What they heard was a strange tinkling as something was thrown onto the ground in front of them.

  ‘Detonators?’ yelled Duckworth.

  ‘Ja, Herren, detonators,’ came a German voice from behind them.

  The two men turned round to see a German soldier pointing an MG42 at them.

  ‘So, Engländers, I’ve spoilt your little explosion? You thought you had drawn off all the men in with your little trick? But not me. I was off collecting water so they left me behind. I saw you as I was coming back. And here I am, just in time to pull out your pretty little detonators.’

  While the self-satisfied German was gloating over his catch, Duckworth, who was lying on the ground, had been fiddling with his hand that was out of the German’s sight. Suddenly he whipped his hand out and flung a grenade in the direction of the German. Without pausing to see the outcome, he raced downhill before the German could recover his senses. Steadfast, less ready to move was caught off guard. He got to his feet but before he could move further a spatter of bullets showered the ground ahead of him.

  ‘Hands up, Engländer!’

  *

  Steadfast had told Elliston and Montague to keep out of sight behind the headland until 1.00 pm. Unless they had heard anything to the contrary, they were then to proceed to stand off the beach, ready to take the sappers back on board to return to Alexandria.

  Behind the headland Elliston and his men had spent an idle morning with no other task than to keep well out of sight of the Germans on the island. That was easy enough, but there was no way that he could hide his launch from the sea. He was relieved that they had seen no more than a small fishing boat, apparently returning towards harbour with its night’s catch. A trail of seagulls repeatedly dived down to the boat’s wake in search of pieces of discarded catch. For once they had found a fishing boat that really was a fishing boat.

  The launch rocked gently on the waves. A rare bearded vulture circled the cliff top while the sea smashed against the rock face below. It was hard for the men to take the war seriously in their hide-out. But Elliston reminded them of the voyage ahead back to Alexandria.

  ‘Leach, have you checked everything? Fuel lines? Pumps? Lubrication? Electrics? Reynolds, guns all cleaned and ammo ready?’

  All was ready, they said.

  The hours ticked by until just before 1.00 pm Elliston ordered the launch to move off to the beach, ready to take the raiding part on board.

  8. In the hands of the enemy

  Just before the appearance of the soldier, Steadfast had been indulging in romantic thoughts of a future in which he and Virginia were sailing round the Mediterranean on a day like that day. He had gazed over the wild rocky hills towards the deep blue of the Mediterranean with the cyan blue of the sky above. This idyll had ended abruptly when he heard that German voice.

  The morning had seemed to go so well with the Germans securely lured away to the sea cave. That had left Duckworth and his men free to safely collect their precious booty. A few seconds more and the transmitter would have been blown sky high and the job would have been done. Now Steadfast stood alone, his Sten gun on the ground, kicked to one side by the German soldier, and with the butt of an MG42 in his ribs. How foolish he and Duckworth had been when they assumed that an empty campsite meant that all the soldiers had been drawn off. If only they reconnoitred more carefully. Or, better still, left a guard over the camp. But it was too late now.

  The soldier pushed and shoved Steadfast onto the path that led down to the campsite. He was short, very young and rather tubby. The straining seams of his jacket and trousers gave him the appearance of a balloon fit to pop. Each button down his front was struggling to burst from its hole. (Not one of Hitler’s hardened troops, thought Steadfast.) Indeed the young soldier was ill at ease. His eyes were darting from side to side, not with the alertness of an experienced warrior, but with the alarm of a novice. He was clearly terrified that Steadfast would regain control of the situation, or that one of Steadfast’s men would leap upon him from behind a rock.

  ‘Schnell! Schnell!’ he called in a tremulous voice.

  With such a weak escort Steadfast rated his chances of escape as high. As the two men tramped and slithered down the hillside, he earnestly searched from side to side for a gorge to plunge into or a rock formation to dash behind. But, convoluted as the terrain was, it offered no chance of escape. Nor could Steadfast catch the least glimpse of where Duckworth might be. Perhaps, Steadfast hoped, he was behind a rock from where he could smash a shot or two into the young German. These hopes were still occupying Steadfast’s thoughts when he and his captor arrived back at the German camp.

  The camp was still deserted. The soldier used his gun to prod Steadfast to sit down against the woodpile. He took up watch a few yards away with his gun trained on his prisoner. It was some hours before the sea cave party returned.

  ‘Well done, Schultz!’ said a triumphant Friedländer, as he advanced to tie Steadfast’s hands behind his back. ‘You’ve got the trouble maker!’

  Steadfast was not quite sure what this meant. How could this officer know anything about him? But, more to the point, he was desperate to know what had happened at the sea cave. For the moment, he kept quiet as he tried to assess how much the Germans knew about his mission. Schultz was less circumspect.

  ‘I found him and another officer up at the transmitter, Herr Friedländer. They were trying to demolish it. The other one got away.’

  ‘So, you fell for our little scheme, did you, Commander Steadfast.’

  Steadfast was about to ask Friedländer how he knew his name when he realised that this might be a trick to get him to c
onfirm a guess. He replied in a casual manner which suggested that he attached no importance to the proceedings: ‘I don’t know what you are talking about.’

  ‘Don’t you?’ sneered Friedländer. ‘We know all about you.’

  ‘You damned well don’t,’ Steadfast responded rather more heatedly than he intended. ‘You and your petty little camping party. Not exactly war is it, stuck on this heap of useless rock?’

  ‘I suggest you drop that tone, commander,’ said Friedländer with that false mollifying voice of a deceitfully friendly prosecutor. ‘A bit less insolence and a bit more listening. Does the name Wendorff mean anything to you?’

  ‘Never heard of him?’

  ‘What about Raymond?’

  ‘Don’t know anyone of that name,’ said Steadfast in a clearly rattled voice.

  ‘Tut, tut, commander. Come now, you’re not going to deny your own dead brother, are you?’

  ‘You leave my brother out of this!’ shouted Steadfast, angrily.

  ‘Ah,’ said Friedländer in triumph, ‘so now you do remember your brother!’

  ‘Well?’

  ‘Shall I help you a little bit?’ continued Friedländer in a mocking voice. ‘Nineteen forty-one, when Raymond was a naval gunner on the merchant ship Hampshire Star? She was torpedoed by an E-boat. Commanded by Korvettenkapitän Johannes Wendorff. Remember?’

  ‘Where’s all this leading, Friedländer?’ responded Steadfast, his face betraying his growing anger.

  ‘But it was you who made it lead somewhere. We read clippings from your papers at home, you know. They said that you had sworn revenge on the man who killed your brother. Or don’t you remember?’

  ‘Stop this crap! I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

  ‘But you do, commander,’ sneered Friedländer. ‘And since that day you’ve been a bit too much of a nuisance to us: two E-boats sunk, a plane downed, at least five MAS boats sent to the bottom in the Balkans. We can’t allow your type to rampage over the seas.’

  ‘I’m not rampaging anywhere at the moment,’ retorted Steadfast.

  ‘And you won’t rampage anymore. Not now you’ve taken our bait.’

  ‘What bait?’

  ‘The messages about Platos. Once we heard you were back in Alex, we knew your bosses would send you on an operation like this. The last message about the Italians abandoning the island was clever, wasn’t it. They haven’t been here for years, but your bosses jumped at the news. And here you are.’

  ‘You mean… all those messages were… just to get me here?’

  ‘Exactly!’

  Steadfast was secretly flattered at the importance that the Germans attached to his head. It was a nice change from the derision that he received from the arrogant Cunningham and the condescending Moresby back in Alexandria. But he was perplexed by what Friedländer had said. If the whole plan had been concocted solely to catch him, where did the transmitter come in? Was the story about a new type of radar just a cover? Or could it be that it was so secret that Friedländer and his pals had no idea what was up there on the hill top? At least the precious boxes were safe with the sappers. For the moment, thought Steadfast, all he could do was to play dumb.

  His situation looked black, but Friedländer’s next remark inadvertently gave him hope.

  ‘We’ve got your launch, Steadfast. ‘That’s handy. We’ve no boat of our own at the moment. We can take you over to Crete this afternoon.’

  When Steadfast heard the words “your launch” he realised that Friedländer had no idea that there were two launches down on the coast. It sounded as if the Germans had taken Montague’s launch at the sea cave. If so, at least the boat with the more able commander was still at large. For the moment, he had to be careful to say nothing that would give away the presence of the second launch.

  ‘Why the hell do you want to take me to Crete?’

  ‘Just a stop-over, commander. You’re going back to Germany. You’ve got a reputation there and we want to show our people that we’ve put an end to your meddlesome activities.’

  Steadfast did not reply, but he began to think of ways that, between them, Duckworth, Elliston and Montague might thwart Friedländer’s scheme. Clearly Friedländer had little idea of how many men were on the island. There was one other worry on his mind: Kouvakis. There was nothing to be gained from pretending that he did not know about him:

  ‘What about the Greek?’ Steadfast asked Friedländer.

  ‘That scoundrel. He’s no use to us anymore. We’ll drop him over the side on the way to Crete. No one will miss him. He’s no one to go back to anyway.’

  ‘You’ve killed his family?’ screamed Steadfast.

  ‘What else? They were helping to conceal a radio. They knew the risk.’

  ‘But you told Kouvakis…’ protested Steadfast.

  ‘This is war, Steadfast. I didn’t expect to find you so fastidious.’

  ‘Damn you, Friedländer. You’re why we fighting this war. There’s such a thing as honour, or have you forgotten?’

  Friedländer did not rise to this challenge.

  ‘That’s enough debate, commander. We’re going to the launch now.’

  *

  The party of four – Friedländer, corporal Schultz, a private and Steadfast – set off down the hillside to the sandy beach. As soon as he glimpsed the launch, Steadfast realised that it was Elliston’s and not Montague’s as he had assumed from what Friedländer had said. He could see that it was empty but two German privates were standing guard over Mechanic Albert Leach and Seaman Jason Peabody on the beach. The demeanour of the two sailors showed how ashamed they were to have been caught when the others got away. Clearly Elliston and the rest of his men were elsewhere. Presumably Duckworth and his sappers were there too.

  ‘You two as well?’ Steadfast remarked on seeing the seamen. ‘Don’t worry. We’ve got friends, haven’t we?’ Their reply of ‘Yes, sir,’ said with no sign of conviction, suggested that they had not understood Steadfast’s allusion to Montague and Duckworth.

  ‘What happened?’ whispered Steadfast.

  ‘The commander let us stretch our legs on the beach while we were waiting for you and the captain to come back,’ Leach explained, ‘But Jerry turned up. We hadn’t a weapon between us. Most of the men scarpered but us two weren’t nippy enough.’

  Friedländer got Schultz and the private to row him with Steadfast, Leach and Peabody out to Elliston’s launch. One of the soldiers already on the launch covered the party as they boarded. Friedländer followed him and then dismissed Schultz and the private, who returned to the beach.

  ‘To your posts,’ ordered Friedländer to Leach and Peabody. Leach went below to the engine, followed by his minder, and Peabody took the wheel with his minder at his side.

  ‘Sorry to have to borrow some of your crew, commander, but my men can’t manage much more than a dinghy. Start the engines,’ ordered Friedländer.

  ‘You’re mad, sergeant,’ yelled Steadfast. ‘They’re good men those two, but they can’t handle this launch by themselves. Anyway, they know nothing about navigation and Leach is injured.’

  ‘Shut up, commander, or I’ll have you gagged. I’m captain of this boat now. And you can do the navigation.’

  ‘Do your own fucking navigation!’

  ‘Take him below,’ screamed Friedländer.

  Whatever Leach’s limitations were, he had no trouble in starting the engines, even if he needed a few jabs in the ribs from an MG42 before he did so. Peabody, at the wheel was similarly positioned.

  ‘Let’s go!’ cried Friedländer.

  ‘We won’t go anywhere if you don’t take up the bleeding anchor,’ muttered Peabody.

  ‘Of course,’ said Friedländer, annoyed that he had so betrayed his ignorance of the most basic aspects of seamanship. ‘You haul it in. But no tricks. We’ve got you covered.’ Leach went forward, hauled up the anchor from the shallow water and returned to the wheel.

  ‘Get us to Crete, fast!’ y
elled Friedländer.

  As the launch shot off from the beach in a south-westerly direction Montague’s launch appeared, speeding round the headland.

  *

  ‘Sir,’ cried a lookout on 178M, ‘the Germans have got Elliston’s launch!’

  ‘Christ!’ yelled Montague. ‘And where’s Steadfast?’ He turned to the beach. It was empty. He put his glasses to his eyes and minutely inspected 375E. Not a sign of Steadfast, but there appeared to be a Royal Navy rating at the wheel.

  Montague’s mind raced. He imagined that his duty was to chase after the launch, but what if it were a trap? Was he being lured away from the island to be picked off by some German forces at sea? No one would ever know what had happened to him. More than anything else, he feared ending up ‘missing, presumed dead’. He would do his duty, but he wanted his friends and family to know that he had done it. The easy thing would be to sink 375E right now. Her guns were unmanned. His three-pounder would do it in a flash. But what would he tell Steadfast when he returned to report to him on the beach? He made his decision: he had to try and get the boat back. He had never gone head to head with an enemy boat before. A shiver of fear ran through him.

  ‘Full ahead both, chief,’ he called in a tentative manner. ‘Coxswain, take us alongside her. Four cables off for a good view.’

  The massive engines of 178M raced into life and the boat bumped and jolted through the sea. But gaining on 375E was no easy business since the two boats were identical. It was Friedländer’s carelessness that gave Montague’s launch the advantage. On hearing the roar of 178M’s engines Friedländer had cried out ‘Mein Gott! Another English boat!’ Leach heard this down below and realised just which boat it was. As chief, he normally used his skills to coach the very best out of 375E. Now it was time to use those same skills to hinder her performance. It was not long before the boat was going distinctly slower than her pursuer. Friedländer stormed down from the bridge.