The corporal whom Taggart had been given was the one whose immersion in freezing water and near escape from pneumonia Private Macintosh had occasioned. Corporal Owen was a dark, intense demonstrator in chemistry at a Welsh university, in his middle twenties. He was impatient, sarcastic when ruffled, but dedicated to his work and a wizard with every type of explosive.
One of the runners was Macintosh, and Taggart grinned when he saw the name. Macintosh had been conscripted into the Militia in early 1939 at the age of 18. He had been working in a jute mill and harboured the ambition, like many of his compatriots, to find his way one day to a mill in Bengal; where the pay was high. He had at least one qualification for this exotic and notoriously hard-drinking community; but held his drink well. Paradoxically, he was a good footballer; which had developed his short legs to a conspicuous and muscular girth. He had a disproportionately long body, was slightly above middle height, and as spare above the hips as the Brigadier. In a rough and ready way, he was something of a pugilist, always willing to have a go in any inter-unit match; before which he invariably tossed back a tot of whisky. With his carroty hair and crooked-toothed grin, he was not without a certain wayward charm.
Taggart made one of his swift decisions: he would detail MacIntosh to be his batman. He would probably make a clumsy job of it, but at least he was plucky and cheerful and would try his best; provided it was made clear that the post did not entail any degree of servility.
The other runner was Private Jorrocks, who was well named: a fox-hunting farmer from Huntingdonshire; in his mid-twenties, a former member of the Yeomanry, lithe and light-boned, a fair amateur rider over the sticks. He was a bit of a thruster, Jorrocks, and it was much in his favour that he had sacrificed a corporal's stripes in his Yeomanry regiment to join the Commandos.
There were two rifle sub-sections that were led by sergeants. Of these, Randall was almost a caricature of the long-service senior N.C.O. He had emerged from a coalpit in Durham, aged 16, down which he had gone at 14, to join the infantry as a boy soldier. He had served four years in Egypt and Iraq, then seven in India. His speech was enriched by Army slang which had originated in Arabic and Hindustani. He was slim, dapper and looked like a ferret. His turnout was always immaculate. He was a devil with the women and had had clap twice and crabs more times than he could number. He had won the Conspicuous Gallantry Medal on the North-West Frontier and the Military Medal in France. He had taken part in one of the earliest Commando raids.
Sergeant Quested was a former Territorial from Gloucestershire; burly, tall, an ex-artilleryman who had been a bank clerk and played in two English rugger trials at second-row forward. Weighing some sixteen stone, he was the epitome of solid, God-fearing worth, and a sidesman at his parish church.
Under each lieutenant commanding a section, and his sergeant, was a corporal in charge of a machine-gun sub-section. These were equipped usually with Bren or drum-fed Vickers K guns. In X Troop, it was the Bren.
Corporal Nolan, who was Sergeant Randall's junior N.C.O., under Gosland, came from Ulster, where he had left a boring job as a linen factory salesman to volunteer for the Royal Corps of Signals at the time of the Munich crisis. He was another veteran of the French collapse. To Taggart, his most conspicuous feature was his total lack of conspicuousness. Nolan was the perfectly camouflaged or insignificant human being who could merge into any company. He was of medium height, build and colouring; quietly spoken, never ruffled, never noticeably energetic nor indolent; a good listener, amiable and unassuming. He did not need to make the overt display of authority often expected from a good disciplinarian. Men obeyed him without hesitation; probably because he was so obviously decent.
Corporal Lewis was of a different ilk: a Londoner from Tottenham, with a Jewish father and an Italian mother who had been a Soho waitress. His hair and eyes were black, he was arrestingly handsome and had been making a good living in the second-hand car trade before, as a Territorial, he was embodied at the outbreak of war. He had, like so many Jewish lads in London, been a keen member of a boxing club. He idolised the two Jewish Champions of Britain; Kid Berg, the Lighweight, and Jock MacAvoy, the Middleweight. He was a dazzling ballroom dancer and a dandy, who had his issue uniforms tailored until they fitted as well as an officer's. He had been chosen for Operation Wolf largely for his command of Italian.
In addition to Lewis and Lieutenant Stuart, there were two other linguists. Lance Corporal Kulick, whose English father had married an Iraqi girl and owned an import agency in Beirut, was a French-and Arabic-speaker. He was built like a tugboat, moustached, and so hirsute that his chin turned blue four hours after he had shaved. He usually wore a dour look and was reputed among his immediate comrades to be the best knife fighter and most colourful junior N.C.O. in the Commandos. He had been educated partly in Lebanon and partly in England, but spoke English with a strong Arab accent. When the war began, he had made his way to England through Greece, Italy, Switzerland, France and Belgium to join the Intelligence Corps. Finding that this offered no opportunity for killing Germans, he had come to the Commandos.
Private Cassola was of pure Italian descent, his grandparents having emigrated from Naples, but had been born and brought up in Manchester, so spoke English with a Lancashire accent. His family were importers of Continental food, and he had travelled for three years on the Continent, before, to demonstrate his loyalty to the British Crown, he joined the infantry. Frequent visits to his ancestral country had preserved his native Italian speech, and his work had given him French and German. He was a squat man in his twenties, as hirsute as Lance Corporal Kulick, but gifted with a fine tenor voice, long eyelashes and a strong allure for the opposite sex. Had his grandparents gone to America, he would probably have become a gangster. Even his instructors were amazed by the ferocity of his unarmed combat. As it was, he was a glorified grocer and the Commandos were a good outlet for his male vanity, which demanded a more virile declaration.
Each rifle section consisted of an officer and 22 other ranks. There was also a separate heavy weapons section, commanded by a corporal and comprising eight privates.
Corporal Irwin was a young Regular; not of Troop Sergeant Major Vowden's stature, but a valuable member of any unit, nonetheless. He hailed from Hampshire and looked what he was: an easy-going countryman with sound commonsense and independence, backed by a courage which he took for granted as the essential quality in any self-respecting man. He had fought his way to Dunkirk in the Royal Tank Corps and won a Military Medal. He had two three-inch mortars and a Vickers belt-fed machine-gun in his charge. He was also responsible for a quantity of explosives, which were at the disposal of Corporal Owen and himself.
Half the rifle sub-sections were armed with Tommy guns. Every officer and senior N.C.O. carried one, and all ranks were armed with a fighting knife and .45 Colt pistol in addition to their other weapon. There was a liberal distribution of hand grenades throughout the troop. Two men in each rifle section had been trained as medical orderlies, but were fully combatant riflemen or machine-gunners and did not wear red cross armbands.
Taggart approved of his troops’ fighting equipment, but wished there were more than one radio pack set. He accepted the small size of the force for its large task. It had to be put ashore and taken off again swiftly. It had to be inconspicuous. Control had to be very close and within the span of its commanding officer's attention, without intermediaries.
He was worried by the fact that everyone would be very heavily laden; and, without time to acclimatise to North African heat, even fit men could succumb to exhaustion. They were to carry only enough rations for four days; and on a scanty scale, at that. Food would be monotonous as well as barely enough: always a threat to morale.
He was proud to be chosen to lead the raid: but, seen from a distance of 2000 miles and a totally different terrain and climate, and with no personal knowledge of the battle zone, its topography or weather, Operation Wolf looked to him to have the indications of another of those rosily
optimistic and eccentric enterprises which almost invariably turned out to be misadventures rather than adventures. It gave him the impression that it was a dangerous and probably futile concept which had originated in the fevered minds of zealots like Brigadier Weatherhead, who would fling himself into any fight with zest and disregard, and — much more dangerous, even — theorists who sat safely at Staff desks far from the Front, craving promotion.
It was the sort of plan which occurred in every war and sent good men to wasteful death in hopeless endeavour.
The foolhardiness, however, he saw as dash. He approved of the daring involved. He believed that there must be a few sporting exceptions to the many failures on this kind of enterprise, and felt himself capable of leading this one to success.
He expected heavy casualties.
He was not at all sanguine of his own chances of surviving Operation Wolf.
He was highly sceptical about the part that Brigadier Weatherhead really intended to play. If it came to the crunch, and the Brigadier stuck his oar in too often and with too much power behind the stroke, Taggart was determined to confront him and demand freedom of action.
He was a polite and well disciplined young officer; but the whole point of being a Commando was aggression: and the Brigadier might annoy Taggart, but did not intimidate him.
Despite all his confidence in his own ability, Taggart still wished he could have had power of veto over X Troop's composition; particularly of its officers. He also had reservations about Sergeant Quested and one or two others.
***
On parade, X Troop reassured him. He told them to stand easy and tried to read their thoughts by scanning their faces before beginning to speak: but fighting men have a natural inscrutability on such occasions; especially, he told himself, when their Commanding Officer is a stranger. None of them, of any rank, knew each other well: except those who had come to the Raiding School from the same unit. They had been together for only a few weeks as instructors and pupils. To him and the rest of them, X Troop seemed a haphazard assembly of skills, perforce drawn from the best material immediately available: there was no time to scour the entire Commando force in Britain; which meant that those selected were not necessarily the very best.
‘We're leaving here tomorrow, immediately after lunch, for the R.A.F. airfield from which we'll be flown south. We'll have a couple of hours there to wait for full darkness, be briefed and have a meal. We'll take off again tonight, and tomorrow morning we shall be landing again; somewhere where it's a damn sight warmer than it is here.’ He paused while the attentive, expressionless faces gave signs of pleasure and speculation. ‘We'll spend several hours on the ground, to clean up, eat and rest. Tomorrow night, we'll fly on, with one landing en route to refuel and feed. Then we'll continue to our destination; where we should arrive the following morning: that is to say, about forty-eight hours from now.
‘Any special kit we need will be issued there. We shall spend a few days training for the operation on which we're going, and then we'll carry it out. I'm sorry I can't tell you any more for the time being. We are being entrusted with a vital task and it's an honour to be selected for it. Secrecy is essential, and that is why you are now being segregated from the rest of the personnel here and will have no contact with anyone at our stopovers.
‘Most of us haven't soldiered together before, but we all wear the same badge and we have all had the same special training: so I have no doubts at all that we are an entirely effective fighting force and will achieve what we are being sent to do.’
Walking back to the mess, Stuart said ‘You reminded me of my house captain at Uppingfield, before the final when we won the Cock House rugger cup. I'm sure you're right to take the operation in this spirit: from what I've seen of the Italian Army in Libya, they're only second fifteen material. If Mussolini has any decent troops at all, they're on the other side of Africa, in Eritrea.’
Taggart had no interest in Stuart's house captain or any sporting trophy he might have taken part in winning. He ignored what Stuart had said. Least of all was he interested in whether or not he had Stuart's approval; for anything.
‘Between now and getting to Cairo, I want you to tell me as much as you can about Libya, Egypt, the Western Desert and everything in any way connected with this operation. I've got a hell of a lot of questions to ask you.’
‘Delighted to help. And I'll be only too pleased to introduce you to the right clubs in Cairo.’
This received no comment from Taggart either, who turned to Gosland.
‘What d'you make of Sergeant Quested, Ted? And Cassola: he's from your Commando, I see.’
Stuart spoke before Gosland could. ‘Quested's a good bloke: damn fine rugger player.’
Taggart ignored him.
Gosland looked dubious. ‘I should think he takes a bit of working up. To use the kind of simile that Angus seems to understand best,’ it was said with a grin and perceptible malice, ‘I imagine Quested needed someone to rile him in a game of rugby before he really got stuck in. I don't see much fire in him.’
‘Exactly. And Cassola? He strikes me as being the sort of chap we all like to make out doesn't exist in the Commandos: you know, the gangster-type thug; a touch of the sadist.’
‘Again, I think you're probably right. He's twice been on a charge for beating up people in pubs and dance halls: a sailor, the first time and a bloody big guardsman the second time.’
‘But probably not so hot when the bullets are flying. We'll have to find out about him in training. Kulick's from my own unit: he's all right. He looks a worse thug than the other chap, but he's got a clean crime sheet.’
‘Overt displays of toughness are always suspect.’ Stuart was evidently determined to put in his word.
All overt displays are suspect, thought Taggart, and I've got my eye on you for a start.
Three Bristol Bombay troop-carriers took X Troop to an R.A.F. station in south-west England, where they arrived in the darkness of a winter evening. Here, they were given hot food in an emptied dining hall, officers and other ranks together. They awaited the briefing on the next stage of their journey with expectancy that was disappointed by its brevity.
A flight lieutenant, the senior of the three aircraft captains, presumably not wishing to give the dangers any emphasis in such company — tough assault troops —sounded apologetic as he stood beside a large map.
‘We're going to Gibraltar tonight.’ He paused for the ripple of interest and pleasure to abate. ‘This is our route: down to Land's End, then to Bishop's Rock lighthouse, and out towards the Atlantic. The traffic is pretty thick, because Coastal Command follow the same route day and night on their anti-U-boat patrols in the Atlantic and the Bay of Biscay. This inevitably attracts Jerry's interest, and his fighters on the Brest Peninsula are apt to roam quite far afield. We'll be giving it a wide berth.
‘We'll go quite far out to sea before we turn south. Then we'll follow the coasts of Spain and Portugal, turn east at the bottom left hand corner of the Iberian Peninsula, and lob in at Gib in time for brekker tomorrow morning.
‘There's nothing to worry about. Once we start chugging down the Spanish coast we'll be well out of range of any Jerry fighters.’ He did not mention the dreaded Condors, bristling with guns and capable of 18 hours' endurance, which ranged deep into the Atlantic looking for Allied convoys and were as great a menace as any fighter. ‘If, for any reason, we have to ditch, we'll be close enough to land to be picked up very smartly. We're now going to show you how to put on your Mae Wests, and rehearse the aircraft evacuation and dinghy drill. By the way, you'll be glad to know that we carry containers of tea on board and bully beef sandwiches. Sorry we can't lay on any pretty Waafs to dish them out, though.’
In darkness, they filed aboard again and saw nothing of the blacked-out landscape beneath. At sea, they flew above cloud and it was cold. Each man had a blanket, which was inadequate, but weariness and boredom brought sleep.
The sun's early ray
s roused them two hours before the Rock of Gibraltar came in sight. When they went ashore they were disappointed to see everyone in the same winter-weight uniforms as themselves. They had expected greater heat, and everyone in khaki drill shorts.
They had showers and shaved, fed well and idled in the sun; chafing because they were not allowed into the town. They ate lunch and dozed in the sun. They had already seen the three Vickers Valentia biplanes which had come from Egypt to fetch them, and made them the subject of ribald speculation about their ability to make the return journey.
The briefing this time was equally undramatic, but gave everyone an unexpected realisation that it was not only the venerability of the Valentias that could end the flight before its due time.
The senior captain was a sunburned flying officer; who looked, some of his listeners thought, alarmingly young. But this apprehension was quickly dispelled when people recalled that the Battle of Britain, which had ended only five months ago, had been fought and won by pilots no older than he.
‘You've probably read in the papers that Jerry has been giving Malta a bit of a pasting since earlier this month. That is so, and it's not only his bombers that we have to keep a look out for: he's operating fighters as well. Our destination from here is Malta, and Jerry is using airfields on Sicily: which, as you can see, is not very far from there. We don't expect any trouble, as we've timed take-off for a landing after dark, and he isn't sending up any night fighters.
‘We'll be on the deck for about an hour, to refuel. You'll get a hot meal. There'll be a change of crew, you'll be relieved to hear.’ He waited while they laughed. ‘Our trade union doesn't allow us to fly more than ten hours.’ More amusement. ‘So a fresh lot of bods will take you on, overnight, to Cairo. You'll be out of enemy fighter range soon after leaving Malta; and it'll be dark anyway.’
This was followed by the dinghy drill for a Valentia.
Taggart felt his excitement at the prospect of action growing. He was almost disappointed that they would not glimpse an enemy aircraft on the way. The sight of anything German roused his fighting spirit. He wanted to see the enemy, German or Italian, at the earliest possible moment, really to feel that he was on the threshold of getting at them again.
Seize and Ravage Page 2