Common sense prevailed and gradually the numbers crept up. Once a man was accepted he was issued with a coloured lanyard to denote his battalion, and after introductory training at Hardwick Hall he was packed off to Ringway to learn how to be a parachutist. At one point Frost noticed an abundance of Scotsmen applying from various Highland regiments, and, being a Cameronian himself, decided to form one of 2nd Battalion’s three companies as entirely Scottish. Cheekily pencilling his own name as possible company commander, the legendary C Company, 2nd Battalion was born. Unknown to him, in less than six months he would be leading it on one of the most daring raids of the war.
*
He sat back, examining his lists and absently rubbing his ankle. A knock came and a young man appeared, a private, unkempt, wearing rumpled battledress, shabby boots, and with his hair too long.
‘Selection’s over,’ Frost said irritably, ‘you might as well go back to the station.’
The youth didn’t move, merely stood there holding his cap and looking vaguely around. He had parachute wings sewn on his shoulder, Frost then noticed, the old version too, as issued to the very first Ringway graduates. Yet he looked young, with a continental complexion as if tanned from a good holiday, clear blue eyes, and fair hair with full lips and an unperturbed expression. Which all looked familiar.
‘Wait a minute!’ He delved into a drawer. ‘Yes, look!’ He pulled out a sheet. ‘You’re him! You’re Trickey, Theodor Victor Trickey.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘From 2 Commando – I mean, 11 Special Air… Christ, you’re from X Troop!’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Well, for heaven’s sake.’ Frost struggled to his feet. ‘Let me shake your hand!’
Minutes later the two were seated across from one another, Frost listening intently as the youth recounted his story. He did so dispassionately and concisely, Frost noted, in a clear if accented voice, and without emotion or embellishment, as though filing a report.
‘And that’s all, sir,’ he said at the end.
‘Nobody else got away.’
‘I don’t believe so, although Captain Daly’s party never—’
‘No, I’m telling you, Private. Nobody else got away. We heard via the Italian Red Cross. Daly’s team got picked up, Harry Boulter too, after mounting a grand defence of his position, so everyone in X Troop is in captivity. Except the other interpreter, poor what-was-his-name…’
‘Picchi, sir. Fortunato Picchi.’
‘Picchi, yes. Bad business, that.’
‘Sir. May I ask… how, um, do you know these things? And also, why am I here?’
Frost smiled. ‘We know about them because X Troop are our people now. Even if they’re in captivity. And you’re here, I presume, because your, ah, special ops officer in London sent you here. After he debriefed you. Correct?’
‘Yes, sir, that’s true, but why?’
Frost spread his hands. ‘Because this is your home.’
‘Home?’
‘Yes. You see, your old unit, 2 Commando, which then became 11 Special Air Service, is now part of 1st Parachute Brigade, which is based here. You’re on our payroll!’ He waved a sheet. ‘In fact we’ve been expecting you since we heard from special ops that you’d made it back to England.’
Trickey looked uncomfortable. ‘I um, I had to visit my mother, sir – that is, my parents. Sorry, it’s complicated, it took longer than—’
‘Good God, don’t worry about that! You’ve earned weeks of leave.’
‘Thank you, sir.’
‘No, thank you, Trickey.’ Frost studied the sheet. ‘Your mother’s situation is, er, improved, I gather.’
‘Yes, sir. Well, she’s been released from the internment camp.’
‘Excellent.’ Frost tossed the sheet aside. ‘So all we have to do is decide what to do with you.’
‘Sir?’
‘Well, strictly speaking you’re in 1st Battalion, because that’s where the rest of your old unit ended up. How do you feel about that?’
‘All right, sir, I suppose. Only might it not be, um, a bit odd, being the only one there from X Troop?’
‘My thinking precisely. So tell me, have you ever worked with Scotsmen?’
‘Yes I have. With the 51st Highland Division in France last year.’
‘What d’you make of them?’
‘I like them, sir. Wonderful soldiers, very brave. And, unusually, humorous.’
‘Indeed. So the thing is, I’m just putting the finishing touches to 2nd Battalion’s roll. And C Company is all Scots, and could definitely use a young officer with your skills and experience on the staff.’
‘I, um, I never actually finished OCTU.’
‘We can look into that.’ He opened his drawer, withdrew three items and placed them carefully on his desk. ‘See these?’
‘Sir?’
‘This’ – he gestured grandly at the first item – ‘is the new shoulder patch for all British airborne forces. It depicts the mythical hero Bellerophon astride Pegasus the winged horse. Rather beautiful, don’t you think? Next, we have this beret, also for the airborne forces. General Browning’s wife chose the colour; she’s the novelist Daphne du Maurier, you know, and apparently very fond of maroon. Fetching, no? Finally this’ – he picked up a slender lanyard – ‘this denotes our battalion, 2nd Battalion, which I would be delighted if you’d consider joining.’
Trickey fingered the lanyard. ‘Why yellow?’
‘Stands out better! Everyone will know who we are, even the enemy!’
‘I see. Good idea.’
‘Precisely. Care to join us?’
Trickey smiled. ‘I’d be honoured.’
‘Then it’s all settled. Welcome to the Parachute Regiment.’
We hope you enjoyed this book.
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Keep reading for a preview of
FREEFALL
BOOK II
in the
AIRBORNE TRILOGY
CHAPTER 1
At six pm Lieutenant Charteris appeared round the door of the hut.
‘It’s on boys,’ he said breathlessly, ‘get your stuff together.’
Heads shook knowingly, wry smiles were exchanged. ‘Aye aye sir,’ someone sighed, ‘soon as I finish my newspaper.’
‘Yes and I’ve darned my socks.’
‘I mean it!’ Charteris protested, ‘it’s really happening. Tonight!’
‘That’s what they said last night.’
‘And the night before, and the one before that.’
‘Yes but this time it’s true. Listen!’ He opened the door wider, beyond it the moonlit field lay motionless.
‘Listen to what? I cannae hear a thing!’
Charteris grinned. ‘Precisely!’
‘So …’
‘The wind,’ Theo sat forward. ‘It’s gone.’
‘So it has.’
‘Christ boys it’s on!’
Fifteen minutes later the one hundred and twenty Scotsmen of C Company, the 2nd Parachute Battalion, were crammed aboard army buses, singing lustily as they lurched along narrow Wiltshire roads to the aerodrome at Thruxton. There they disembarked to find twelve black-painted Whitley bombers dispersed around the perimeter being prepared for flight. Fuel bowsers hurried to and fro, engineers kicked tyres and screwed down cowlings, flight crews checked maps, radios, signal flares and code books, while gunners loaded and tested their weapons. Meanwhile beneath each bomber, ground crews carefully manhandled equipment canisters into the Whitleys’ bomb bays, and attached their parachute lines ready for release over the target.
A wan-looking airman in RAF great
coat was watching proceedings to one side.
Theo rubbed his hands against the cold. ‘All right, Charlie?’ he asked him, although it came out as a-reet.
‘Yes thanks. Looks like we’re really going, doesn’t it?’
‘It does rather.’
‘Can’t quite believe it. All that running around on cliffs and messing about in boats, I think I persuaded myself it wasn’t actually, you know, real.’
‘I know what you mean.’
‘Now I’m scared stiff I’ll mess everything up. For everyone.’
‘You won’t, you’ll be fine.’ Theo regarded the airman. Inserted late into the team as a ‘technical expert’, Charlie Cox was the typical boffin, intense, nervy, bespectacled, and slight – childlike in size compared to the huge Scotsmen noisily disembarking the buses around them. Theo had been told to stay close to Cox. A few minutes later he finally learned why.
‘Well good evening everyone!’ Major Frost, standing on a chair, grinned broadly at his men, ranged in an attentive semi-circle before him. They were assembled in one of Thruxton’s cavernous hangars, no-one outside C Company had been allowed in, and Company Sergeant-Major Strachan had locked the door shut behind them. Up to that moment, only Frost and his officers knew details of the assignment they were tasked with, now it was time to tell the men who would carry it out.
‘Thank you for your patience this week, I know how difficult it has been, especially having trained so hard.’ Frost checked his watch, ‘But in two hours from now we will be embarked upon a mission of great importance. Its codename is Operation Biting, and its aim is to seize a radar facility belonging to the enemy. This facility sits on a cliff on the coast of Normandy, our job is to secure it and the area around it, so that our RAF radio technician, Sergeant Cox here, can dismantle it and bring key components back home for analysis.’ A hundred pairs of eyes turned on Cox who forced a wan grin. ‘Now, we need not trouble ourselves with the technicalities, our role is to deal with the enemy, but let me assure you that success will save thousands of Allied lives. Also may I remind you, this is the first operation ever assigned to our battalion, and therefore a great honour and responsibility.’
Theo glanced at the men around him, listening to their leader in rapt silence. Almost all were Scotsmen, many still wearing their Highland insignia, in defiance of regulation. Bobble hats, Glengarry caps, Tam o’Shanters, some displaying the coloured ‘hackles’ of their regiment; he saw Black Watch, Seaforths, Camerons, Argylls, Gordons, and was reminded of an insane attack against tanks in France, four boys charging down a lane to their deaths, and an entire division desperately fighting for its life. At home in Scotland these men would squabble like feral cats, but in battle he’d seen them die gladly for one another. It’s what made them so special.
‘We go in by RAF and we come out by Royal Navy.’ Frost was saying, ‘We operate in four groups, exactly as trained, and deploy according to known enemy disposition.’ He stepped off the chair to pull a sheet from a blackboard, revealing a chalk-drawn map. ‘This is our target, the radar unit, close to the cliff edge here. It’s manned by Luftwaffe technicians who may be armed. Lieutenant Vernon’s team, which includes Sergeant Cox and our German speaker Trickey, will take it. Oh, and there’s a three-hundred foot drop over the edge so watch your step! A quarter mile north is the radar-receiving building and guard house, which is where the main enemy concentration is expected, so Lieutenant Timothy and his group will deploy there to stop anyone approaching. Leading south from the radar unit is our exit route, which is a steep footpath down to the beach area. Intelligence suggests this is guarded by a second enemy detachment located in this blockhouse down on the shore, with more enemy garrisoned in the village of Bruneval just inland from the blockhouse. So Captain Ross and Lieutenant Charteris will bring their teams there and secure the beach for the Navy landing craft to pick us up. Meanwhile my team will oversee operations, help with the radar unit and mop up as required. The DZ is a quarter mile inland from the radar station, here behind these trees, after the drop we all assemble there, then take up our positions as stealthily as possible. The signal to commence attack will be four blasts on my whistle. We must be off the beach by 0300 hours latest. Our drop time is midnight, so we emplane at 2100.’
Frost concluded with a goodwill message from their divisional commander, General Browning, then everyone was told to disperse to their groups for more detailed instructions. Theo waited with Cox until they were summoned forward.
‘All set Sergeant?’ Frost asked Cox.
‘Yes, sir, I … I think so.’
‘Trolley ready, tool kit packed?’
‘Yes, sir. Checked everything myself.’
‘Good man.’ Frost glanced at Cox’s uniform, a lone patch of blue amid a sea of khaki. ‘I’m sorry we couldn’t fix you up as a temporary Para, Cox. I tried, you know, but it’s RAF regulations apparently.’
‘It’s all right sir, I don’t mind.’
Frost dismissed him then turned to Theo.
‘Will he be all right, Trickey, he looks like a rabbit caught in headlights.’
‘It’s just nerves sir, I think he’ll be fine.’
‘He’d better. Everything depends on him.’
‘It’s the jump. That and the responsibility. He’ll be better once he lands and starts work.’
‘Let’s hope so. Now listen. Stick to him like glue. Your interpreting services will be needed at the radar unit, sorting out the Jerry technicians and so on, ideally we’d like to nab a couple if possible. But I can’t emphasise enough the importance of speed, for we must get off that cliff before they call up reinforcements. Boffin types like Cox get bogged down at the slightest thing, so just make sure he gets the guts out of the blasted apparatus quickly, then get it and him down to the beach, you got that?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Good.’ Frost paused and passed a hand over his face. His eyes were bloodshot, his face fatigued, he looked weary and old beyond his twenty-nine years. Five consecutive days and nights this ordeal had been going on. And many weeks of training before that. To cap it all the final dress rehearsal, which had involved scrambling over a Dorset cliff in pitch darkness to be picked up by Navy landing craft, had been absolute chaos, with men getting lost in the dark, several falling and injuring themselves, and the Navy landing at the wrong beach. Now this. Five times the mission had been set then cancelled, five days of careful preparation and nail-biting anticipation, only to receive the ‘cancelled-due-weather’ phonecall at the last moment. Then today he’d been told the window had finally closed, that the February tides were now wrong and the moon too weak to mount the operation. After all the effort it was heartbreaking, and yet secretly a relief, and he’d begun preparing to stand everyone down, even allowing himself the notion of a weekend’s quiet leave to recover. Then suddenly a higher authority intervened, possibly Churchill himself, the telephone rang and he was told one final go might be attempted, if the weather cleared. All afternoon he waited, and slowly, impossibly, the winter clouds parted, the mist melted and the wind dropped to a zephyr. ‘Fancy a crack at it Johnny?’ General Browning quipped over the phone at tea-time. ‘Good luck, and make sure you’re home for breakfast!’
‘The RAF uniform, Theo,’ Frost said, ‘I wanted Cox added as an extra, you know with false name and Para uniform and everything. In case it all went wrong and we got captured. At least he’d have a chance if he looked like one of us.’
‘Yes sir.’
‘But the point is, if it does all go wrong, the War Office is adamant.’
‘About what sir?’
‘He has too much technical knowledge. About our radar, our countermeasures, our research and development.’
‘Sir?’
‘So he can’t be taken alive, Theo. Under any circumstances. Do you understand?’
***
FREEFALL
will be published in 2018
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About Robert Radcliffe
ROBERT RADCLIFFE was born and educated in London. A journalist and advertising copywriter, he also spent ten years flying as a commercial pilot.
His first novel, A Ship Called Hope, was published in 1994. In 1997 he sold his house and business and moved to a cottage in France to write. The result was The Lazarus Child, a book that sold more than a million copies worldwide.
In 2002 he published Under An English Heaven which was a Sunday Times top ten bestseller. This was followed by Upon Dark Waters (2004), Across the Blood-Red Skies (2009), Dambuster (2011) and Beneath Another Sun (2012). Other works include theatre drama and a BBC radio play. Airborne (2017) is his eighth novel. Robert and his wife Kate, a teacher, live in Suffolk.
Also by Robert Radcliffe
A Ship Called Hope
The Lazarus Child
Under An English Heaven
Upon Dark Waters
Across the Blood Red Skies
Dambuster
Beneath Another Sun
An Invitation from the Publisher
We hope you enjoyed this book. We are an independent publisher dedicated to discovering brilliant books, new authors and great storytelling. Please join us at www.headofzeus.com and become part of our community of book-lovers.
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