Operation XD

by James Barrington as Max Adams

  ‘It is, and I do. Who’s going to stop it happening? The Yanks will probably get involved, but not any time soon, and my guess is that with the British Expeditionary Force destroyed on the beaches of France and Belgium, the war will be over within six months, so by the time the Americans decide to do anything, the whole of Western Europe will be under German control, and it’ll be too late.’

  Wilhoughby stopped talking and glanced at both men, looking very slightly embarrassed.

  ‘Anyway, that was me standing on my soapbox, so now I’ll climb off it. The bottom line is that the first German troops will be here in Amsterdam today or tomorrow at the latest, and I think Holland will surrender within a week, more likely in two or three days. That’s why we’re packing up and leaving the consulate, and it’s why you don’t need to wait any longer for specific orders from The Hague or the new commandant.’

  ‘You mean we can blow the tanks immediately we get back to the depots?’ Michaels asked. ‘On your authority?’

  The consul shook his head.

  ‘Not on my authority exactly. I still want you to wait for some sign that the Germans are right on our doorstep. If you start the demolition when it’s still relatively quiet and peaceful there’ll probably be a riot, and a pretty good chance that the locals would blame you and your men for the damage. Which would obviously be the reality of the situation. No, what I’m telling you is that the moment you are aware of any kind of activity that suggests an attack on the city is imminent, you can blow the tanks and then get you and your men out of Amsterdam. Do not wait for orders from anyone in authority, and forget the password the commandant wanted you to wait for. Just use your own judgement, and then act accordingly.’

  Wilhoughby nodded encouragingly.

  ‘Is that clear?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’ Michaels replied.

  ‘Good. How did you get here?’

  ‘We had a lift for part of the journey from a van making a run from the Shell tank farm into the city. It’s about 3 miles total distance, and we walked the last bit. We had a bit of trouble along the way.’

  Michaels explained about the sniper, which Wilhoughby didn’t seem either surprised, or particularly concerned, to hear about.

  ‘You were lucky you heard the man open the shutters,’ he said. ‘Now, don’t worry about any repercussions. I’ll have a word with the head of the local police force and tell him what happened. That should be the end of it. It’s not, by the way, the first sniper attack we’ve heard about. Presumably it’s fifth columnists or locals who’ve got real sympathy for the Germans. But whoever these men are, they seem to be targeting anyone in uniform – Dutch or from any other nation. We’ve even had a couple of local policemen shot, one of them fatally.

  ‘As you’ve probably noticed, this city is in the grip of a kind of madness at the moment. Most of the population have accepted that the Germans are going to overrun Holland, irrespective of what the Allied forces try to do. They also know that there’s nowhere they can go to escape. They can’t cross the North Sea, or even escape north into Scandinavia, because there are nothing like enough boats to carry them. They can’t go south into Belgium or on to France, because they know the German forces are there as well. So they’re stuck here, and I think some of them are trying to settle old scores, getting even with people they think have wronged them in the past, so the police are inevitably going to be near the top of those sorts of lists. And some of them probably think that life really will be better under the Jerries, so maybe they’re trying to do their bit to try to eliminate the opposition before they get here. Whatever the reasons, there are some very strange things happening out there, so just be careful.’

  Wilhoughby nodded at Michaels, then glanced at Dawson.

  ‘Mind you,’ he added, ‘with the man-mountain Dawson beside you as a bullet-catcher cum bodyguard, you’re probably safer than most. Now, you can’t walk all the way back to Petroleum Haven or one of the other two tank farms, so you can use one of our cars. I’ll have to send a driver with you, because we’ll need the vehicle back here so that we can use it for our own evacuation, which we’ll probably start tomorrow morning.’

  * * *

  Back at the Petroleum Haven depot, nothing had changed. Captain Rochester had received no further telephone calls from the commander or anyone else. The men were fully briefed and ready to start the demolition the moment the order was given, but there still seemed to be little prospect of that happening in the near future. None of the patrols had detected any sign of hostile activity in or around the depot, and the streets in the vicinity were almost deserted.

  ‘Nothing to report?’ Michaels asked.

  ‘Nothing at all,’ Rochester confirmed, staring around and above them at the darkening skies. ‘It’s almost as if the Germans have forgotten all about Amsterdam and gone somewhere else.’

  ‘The one thing you can be quite sure of is that this city is very firmly in Adolf’s sights. If the first of the German land forces don’t arrive this evening, you can be pretty certain that they’ll be here tomorrow.’

  Dawson had eaten a plate of food before he and Michaels had left the depot, but as there was a hot meal still available he helped himself to a plate of anonymous and somewhat greyish stew from the makeshift kitchen, taking a couple of slices of bread to help mask the taste. Tea would have washed it down better, but the only hot drink available was coffee, so he found a tin mug and half filled it with the dark and bitter liquid.

  ‘What the bloody hell is this meat?’ he said, as he tasted the first mouthful.

  ‘There was no label on the tin,’ one of the KFRE soldiers said helpfully. ‘One of the lads reckoned it was buffalo, but some of the other contenders are crocodile, kangaroo, rat, cat and warthog. Nobody thought it was beef or lamb, if that’s any help. Should have run a book on it, really.’

  Though its origins were in doubt, at least the slightly suspect stew was hot and filling, and Dawson even wiped up the last of the gravy with one of his slices of bread before he tackled the coffee.

  A few minutes after he’d finished his meal, Dawson heard the unmistakable sound of aircraft engines. Along with almost everyone else, he stood up and stared out to the east, which was where the sound seemed to be coming from.

  Moments later, and some distance away, he spotted a German bomber aircraft of some sort, escorted by two tiny grey crosses, a pair of fighters, that were much higher up. Then a second and a third bomber lumbered into view, again with fighter escorts visible in the sky above them. Around them in the city, air raid sirens began to howl, and a couple of ack-ack guns, probably t3 or 4 miles away, began peppering the air around the German aircraft with deceptively innocent-looking puffs of dark grey flak.

  But what nobody heard was the sound of bombs detonating, and a few moments later Dawson and everyone else understood the reason for that.

  Captain Michaels walked briskly over to where most of the men were standing and watching the impromptu aerial display.

  ‘They’re not hitting us this evening,’ a KFRE soldier said. ‘So they must be going to a different target.’

  ‘Those bombers aren’t dropping bombs,’ Michaels said, ‘because they’re not bombers. They’re transport aircraft, and it looks to me as if they’re turning back the way they came. And that’s not good news. We can’t see anything because it’s getting dark, but the chances are that a few dozen Jerry paratroopers are on their way down to the ground right now, and these oil tanks are bound to be right at the top of the target list. So we have to work quickly. I’m going to make a couple of phone calls. In the meantime, get those charges placed on all the tanks as quickly as you can.’

  ‘What about the code word?’ Rochester asked.

  ‘Sod the code word,’ Michaels snapped. ‘That’s old news. I’m in charge of this party, and I think it’s time we got started.’

  And with that Michaels continued across the yard to the administration office, while behind him his men began carrying the gun co
tton demolition charges over to the tanks they had been assigned.

  ‘Remember,’ Captain Rochester said, ‘we have to fire the heavy oil tanks first, and don’t forget to put plenty of blankets inside the bunds below the kerosene tanks to soak up the stuff once it leaks out, because we’ll need them to cook off the heavy oil.’

  ‘At last,’ Dawson muttered. ‘Let’s get this done, and then let’s get out of here.’

  Chapter 11

  14 May 1940

  Amsterdam, Holland

  Michaels emerged from the administration building about ten minutes later and almost jogged over to where his men were now waiting, having already placed their charges.

  ‘Do we have a go?’ Captain Rochester asked.

  ‘We do and we don’t, really,’ Michaels replied. ‘George Wilhoughby, the British consul, told me I could act independently, but I thought at least trying to get some kind of official sanction might be a good idea. So I talked to the new local commandant and he ordered me not to proceed. Then I rang The Hague and talked to the duty officer there. He told me to go ahead, as soon as possible. As a matter of courtesy, I rang the commandant again. He said he didn’t believe me, then apparently got confirmation on another line from The Hague. But he’s still wobbling, so I also talked to the commander, and the plan now is that we do the job and get out of here as fast as we can. I’ve told the Dutch staff here what our real mission is and why it’s vital that we complete it. They’re not happy about it, obviously, but they’ve promised not to interfere, and they’ll all be leaving the depot over the next few minutes.’

  Michaels glanced around and saw that most of his team of men were standing close to him.

  ‘What are you all doing?’ he asked. ‘What are you waiting for? Get those charges placed, right now.’

  ‘They are placed,’ Rochester said. ‘We were only waiting for you to give the order to fire them.’

  ‘Heavy oil tanks first?’

  ‘All the tanks are ready to blow, but the men know the sequence we need.’

  ‘Good. Fire the charges.’

  ‘What about the other two sites?’

  ‘I’ve already sorted them,’ Michaels replied. ‘I used the telephone system that links the oil depots together, and just told the senior man at each of them to get the demo started.’

  The first part of the detonation sequence was remarkably unimpressive, just a handful of sharp cracks, because the stopcocks and valves and pipes were fabricated from comparatively thin metal and only small charges had been necessary.

  Dawson stood a few yards away from the first of the heavy oil tanks to be attacked, watching it with critical eyes. The charge blew with a muffled crack and a simultaneous cloud of smoke that dissipated quickly. When he could see the tank clearly again, the damage was obvious: a length of feeder pipe had been blown off near the bottom of the tank, and heavy oil was pouring steadily out of the rupture, a shimmering dark mass that started slowly spreading across the base of the bund.

  Satisfied with what he saw, Dawson nodded and then strode away, deeper into the tank farm, towards the tanks holding the lighter and more flammable products. When he reached the first of the kerosene tanks, the difference in flow rate was quite obvious, the volatile liquid was pouring out of the ruptured pipe in a steady stream and splashing in all directions. In the bund, Michaels’ men had placed half a dozen woollen blankets, which were already soaking up the inflammable liquid.

  Then it was really a matter of timing. The area within the bund was large, but the high flow rate from the ruptured tank meant that it would fill with kerosene fairly quickly. They had to get the liquid alight before the kerosene started leaking over the side walls of each of the bunds, because that would be the only way to contain the fire. And before that happened, they had to pull the sodden blankets out of the kerosene and shift them over to the tanks that contained heavy oil.

  ‘You know more about this than anyone else here, Dawson,’ Captain Michaels said, walking over to the corporal. ‘So just tell the men what you want them to do, and when you want them to do it.’

  Dawson nodded, but didn’t take his eyes off the tank in front of him.

  About half a minute later, he gestured to two of the KFRE soldiers who had been positioned nearby.

  ‘Pull the blankets out now,’ he ordered, ‘but carry them between you and don’t get the kerosene on your clothes, otherwise you might go up with the tank farm.’

  Dawson strode across to the second kerosene tank and, assisted by another KFRE soldier, pulled out each of the six blankets from the bund. They held them stretched out between them, so that each man was holding the ends of the blankets, to avoid the fabric touching their uniforms, which would have soaked them in kerosene and turned each of the men into a walking fire hazard.

  When they got to the line of heavy oil tanks, they lowered the blankets to the ground, and then Dawson and the soldier carried one of them over to the closest tank and lowered it onto the surface of the oil, which was rising slowly up the inner surface of the bund. The blanket floated, which was just what Dawson had hoped.

  Among the other preparations they had made for the demolition were dozens of igniters, simply fashioned from rags wrapped around short lengths of wood and then soaked in petrol. Dawson took one of these, used a match to set the rags alight, then walked over to the edge of the bund and tossed the igniter onto the floating, kerosene-soaked blanket. As soon as the burning rags touched the blanket, the kerosene ignited as well, an oblong sheet of flame in the bund, but for a couple of minutes that was all that happened: the heavy oil on which it was floating did not start to burn.

  ‘Do the same for all the other heavy oil tanks,’ Dawson instructed, then turned away to see Captain Michaels watching the blanket burning a few yards away.

  ‘Is this going to work, Dawson?’ he asked.

  ‘Frankly, sir, I don’t know, because I’ve never done it before. But I know that the technique does work. You start with the lightest and most flammable liquids, and use the heat generated by those to ignite the heavier stuff. All we’ve got here, really, are kerosene and petrol tanks, which will ignite really easily, and the heavy oil tanks, that we’re trying to cook off now. But even if this oil never sparks up, the Germans still won’t get their hands on it if the tanks are empty.’

  ‘True enough, but burning it is still the best option. What about the kerosene?’

  ‘There’s no problem about getting that particular fire started,’ Dawson said, gesturing to a Verey pistol slung around his neck on a lanyard. ‘And now’s probably about the right time.’

  He walked through the oil depot to the kerosene tank that was furthest away, made sure that nobody was anywhere near it, then aimed the Verey pistol at the side of the tank and pulled the trigger.

  The flare shot out of the barrel of the stubby pistol, fire trailing behind it, and slammed into the tank in a cloud of sparks. At the same instant there was a roar like a truck engine running at full power and a column of fire shot into the air from the pool of kerosene that surrounded the tank.

  ‘Well, that certainly seemed to do the trick,’ Michaels said approvingly as Dawson ejected the empty cartridge from the pistol and reloaded it while the two men walked towards the next tank.

  The captain glanced back at the conflagration a few seconds later and noticed something a bit odd about it.

  ‘That’s funny,’ he said. ‘It doesn’t look as if the kerosene itself is burning. The flames are about 50 feet up in the air, not down at ground level.’

  Dawson looked back as well.

  ‘I think it’s probably the vapour from the fuel that’s burning at the moment,’ he agreed, ‘but I don’t think it matters. It’s well alight and there’s nothing around here that can put it out now. And the chances are that the tank itself will eventually explode, because the flames are burning all round it.’

  He was right. The paint on the side of the steel tank was already visibly bubbling and burning off due to the
intense heat of the blazing kerosene that entirely surrounded it, and there was little doubt that when the flashpoint was reached the fuel inside the tank would detonate.

  When they reached the second tank, Dawson repeated the process, and once again the pool of kerosene ignited with a roar.

  ‘If there are any German paratroopers on their way into Amsterdam,’ Michaels observed, looking at the flames and smoke rising into the air, ‘this will be a pretty good beacon for them to follow.’

  Once all the kerosene tanks were alight, they strode back to the heavy oil tanks to check what was happening with them. The blankets Dawson had decided to use as igniters were still burning well, but the appearance of the oil itself had not changed, or that was the way it appeared at first glance.

  Then Captain Michaels noticed some wisps of smoke rising from the fuel oil.

  ‘Look at that,’ he said, ‘just over there. Something is happening to it.’

  ‘The oil’s starting to vaporize, sir,’ Dawson confirmed. ‘That’s what I was hoping would happen. As the surface layer warms up because of the igniter, a vapour should start to form, and that’s what will catch light. Once it does that, the whole lot will go up.’

  The sound of a sudden and massive explosion assaulted them, the noise almost physically painful as they felt themselves battered by the shockwave. Instinctively, they turned towards the source.

  The first kerosene tank that Dawson had ignited minutes earlier appeared for the briefest of instants to be hanging in the air, and then with another sudden crashing thunderous noise it fell back to the ground and tumbled onto its side, the fireball caused by the kerosene leaping ever higher into the sky. Less than a minute later, the second tank detonated in an identical fashion, a sudden spurt of flames and smoke rising above the oil depot.

  The remainder of the kerosene tanks cooked off at intervals, the explosions echoing through the oil depot, but it wasn’t until a few minutes later that the first of the heavy oil tanks also ignited. Predictably, this was much less spectacular than the explosions caused by the lighter and more flammable kerosene.