Following directly behind Joe Anstey and giving his Beaufighter hard right rudder to hold it straight against the powerful torque, Middleton thought wryly of the joys that awaited them at Bardoc, when they had only a narrow strip of p.s.p. under their wheels: if they swerved off that it would be bumpy on the grass, and at a hundred miles an hour any abrupt change in surface could cause an accident. With one wheel on the steel plating and one on grass, the aircraft might yaw violently and pitch right over. Good luck!
They formed up on the far side of the hill on which the camp stood, Hew low over the tents and huts, dived over the airfield in farewell salute, then headed for Bardoc at an altitude of fifty feet to escape observation by enemy radar or curious eyes on any of the islands near which they had to pass.
It was a long way from Somerset and he knew where he would rather be. He used not to have thoughts like that: never during the first two years of war when he had been stationed in England and very seldom during the desert campaign in North Africa. Why did his thoughts keep turning that way so often lately? Perhaps it was because he was in Europe again and fighting his way closer to home: England was tugging at him because it was only a thousand miles away now. He didn't want to think about it for the present. He didn't much want to think about the next week or two, either. He'd think about Fay instead, and what was in store for them. Necking in parked cars wasn't for them she had said, and when he had asked her what was she had replied that she didn't know. "Let's wait and see." He'd wait, but only until he came back from Bardoc. Then he would have to take control of the rather too busy social life of that popular young nursing sister and ask her outright to declare herself
He heard Anstey on the radio telephone presently, talking to the Operations tent at Bardoc: "We're coming straight in. No circuits." That had been part of their briefing but the Service never left anything to chance: check and double check. It was a good lesson for life. Anstey gave them their orders now: line astern and loosen it up, two hundred yards intervals. He told them the airspeed at which he would fly until they had spread themselves behind him, then took them in. One after the other, spaced out so as to give each aircraft plenty of time to get out of the way of the one following it, they put their wheels down on Bardoc.
Middleton, seeing how pleased the advance party were to see them, how obviously delighted they were with the work they had done to make everything ready, suddenly felt glad to be here. He hardly knew the doctor, but Grummit at this moment looked to him like a long lost friend as he stood smiling and waving. Hargreaves bustled about like a benevolent maiden aunt, directing them to their tents, proudly pointing out the latrines, the mess tents, the cookhouse. Flight Lieutenant Dunn, the operations controller, wandered out from the ops. tent and quietly asked if they were satisfied with the landing drill. Foster, carrying a sten gun, had his section lined up and brought them to attention as the four crews walked past together.
Anstey returned his salute and said "Stand at ease, please. Carry on, in fact; fall them out."
"Shot any Gerries yet, Fearless?" Asked Tindall. And from that moment the name Fearless Foster was adopted by one and all. The eight morose airmen broke into broad grins.
"I thought I'd wait till after breakfast." Foster, apparently, was equal to some mild ragging.
Corporal Bodgener, the senior cook, announced "Breakfast's ready, sir," which seemed to Middleton and the rest of them a promising welcome to exile.
*
At ten-o'clock Grimes landed, with two other Beaufighters.
The approach to the landing strip at Bardoc was from the west, and aircraft coming and going at low level could not be seen from Sprot. There was no German aerial photography or reconnaissance of the area, for it was German-held and all shipping in the archipelago and in the eastern Adriatic was theirs. Also, the R.A.F. and U.S.A.F. dominated the air. The presence of the R.A.F. on Bardoc could thus remain undiscovered for days or weeks.
The British did not yet know that radar had been sited on Mojat, but even so the Beaufighters using Bardoc would not be detected as long as they kept very low; for the airstrip was masked from Sprot by a low hill and there were scattered islets between Bardoc and Mojat which would interfere with the very short wavelength of centimetric equipment.
At eleven, Grimes led an attack on Taf. He did not want to alert the defences fully, so took only the two aircraft which had accompanied him, and Middleton's to make up the box. They flew in a diamond, with this fourth one at the rear. "So that one of your crews can see what it's like," Grimes explained to Anstey.
"I'd like to come, myself."
"You can go with the wingco. this afternoon."
"That's what I mean!” Flying with Beale was no joke.
Grimes took his point. "Courage, mon ami. And don't stick too close to him." It was poor comfort or encouragement.
The four Beaufighters swept round Bardoc to the east before turning towards Taf. They kept well clear of Sprot. Their course took them through a chain of five small islands where the enemy were caught by surprise and began firing only as they passed the last two. Even Wrk and Rojn did not respond with their usual ferocity.
"Bit of a joy ride," Tindall commented.
"Hope they aren't leading us up the garden," replied Middleton.
But it was no deliberate deception. They had surprised Taf also, and the guns did not open up on them until the last minute. The harbour was disappointingly empty. A tug and some barges were moored along one quay and a small steamer lay at anchor. Not an E-boat in sight. Two of the aircraft put their rockets into and around the steamer and the other two attacked the tug and barges. The steamer went up in a cloud of steam and smoke. The tug took on a list. Some of the barges sank. The flak had quickly intensified and chased them as they pulled up and away over the town and back out to sea.
"Happy days are here again," sang Tommy Tindall.
Middleton sounded relieved too: "Ianto's prayers must have been heard, boyo. I'll persuade Ken Hargreaves to let him loose with the rum bottle when he turns up at Bardoc. It's the least he deserves."
The sortie had lasted less than a quarter of an hour from take-off to landing.
There being no spare rations to entertain visitors, Grimes took his section back to Afrona. In the early afternoon, Wing Commander Beale swept in.
"Cracking good show: I hear you clobbered Taf this morning and caught Gerry with his pants well and truly down. Come on, Joe, let's you and I go and have a shufti for ourselves. See if we can cut a bit off the time."
They discussed tactics for a while, then set off. Anstey admired Beale as much as anyone on the wing, but wished he were following a different leader: he knew he was in for an unnerving experience, however short.
The Wrack and Ruin gunners were not so torpid this time, and Anstey was buffeted nastily by a succession of uncomfortably close explosions. Beale was making straight for the small island which blocked the main harbour entrance to Taf, and Anstey had tucked himself close to his starboard wing. With a brief warning call on the R/T, Beale swung right-handed and Anstey had to bank steeply to stay with him and avoid a collision. They thundered round the island, flak hammering at them, the gunners no doubt delighted to have this rare opportunity; for the usual route straight over the top would have been much shorter.
Round the flank of the island and into the port. Flak now forming a dizzying pattern on all sides. A small tug towing eight barges, in pairs, caught right in the middle of the main harbour.
Beale on the R/T: "Take the barges. I'll go for the tug."
They dived, and guns on two of the barges, in the front and rear pairs, began shooting. Their rockets slammed in, the tug began to settle at the stern, the leading flak barge capsized and three others were foundering.
Beale led him straight towards a pair of tall wireless masts. The space between was narrower than their wingspan. They had to bank to get through and the gunners must have been as astonished as Anstey, for the volume of fire suddenly diminished. Then h
ead-on for a clump of trees, up and over, a hill straight ahead, sharp turn to port and there was the sea under them; and with it an intense relief that they had survived.
On the ground, Beale looked at his watch and said cheerfully "We knocked a good minute-and-a-half off, there."
"And I knocked off about half a stone, in sweat."
"We could go back in ten minutes."
Anstey hoped Beale did not intend to demonstrate this.
*
Von Trampel was giving Scheusal a hard time, talking to him on the radio telephone. "Didn't you see them? Twice, in the space of four hours, and not a word of warning from you. "
"We haven't finished calibrating the equipment yet, sir."
"If I posted men on every islet and rock with telescopes, and gave them carrier pigeons to bring me messages, I'd get better early warning than your scientific marvels appear able to provide."
"We shall be fully operational by 1800 hours, sir."
"That will be very useful if the enemy makes a night attack. As he has never done so yet, I suppose I shall have to wait until tomorrow to find out whether your equipment is going to be of any use. Call me at 1800." He switched off without waiting for a reply.
Scheusal shrugged. He was pessimistic about the prospects of picking up useful early warning from Mojat: centimetric radar was sensitive to any object which could produce an echo. On this site it would work well only on a forty-degree arc to the east, two fifteen-degree arcs to the north-east and north-west, a forty-five degree arc to the south and a fifty-five degree arc to the west. von Trampel had asked his opinion of the effectiveness of the site and Scheusal had slightly exaggerated: too little to incur future recriminations but enough to get him away from his superiors at Taf and give him more time with Zdenka. I'll be banging her night and day, he told himself with relish. So far, he had been disappointed. He was living on the radar site and she was lodging with a family. They had been working ceaselessly since their arrival and not only had there been no opportunity to get his hands on Zdenka, but also they had both been dog-tired when they were finally able to get some sleep; apart.
Scheusal decided to take an early opportunity to make another visit to Sprat, with her.
Von Trampel, meanwhile, was puzzled by the swift return of the Beaufighters; and not once, but twice in the same day. After the punishment they had given Taf and received in return a few days previously, he had expected them to keep away for at least ten days and probably two weeks. They must have known from photographic sorties that there was little of interest in the harbour at present.
He took the two visitations as a good omen. The British were well known to be sly: their spies were everywhere. He had little brief for Hitler and would have been delighted if the common little upstart had been blown up in the Munich plot; and was convinced that the whole thing had been engineered by British Intelligence. If the R.A.F. thought it worth having another go, two in fact, at Taf so soon after the last bloody affray, it must mean that they knew something about its immediate future that he as yet did not. Obviously, considerable redevelopment of Taf was about to be carried out. He sat back and had a rosy daydream in which three or four U-boats were tied up at his jetties, real fighting seamen were to be seen on the quays, and their officers in the mess ashore and in his house. An increased establishment for the number of E-boats and crews in his inshore squadron. Marry more guns to defend it all. And a fourth ring for himself.
His first loyalty was to the Navy. But a man had to take care of himself. I've taken pretty good care of myself, he thought; there are even times when I can get as much as five hours pain-free sleep a night: and look at all those good years when I actually had two legs, two whole hands and two good ears. He got up and paced his office, thumping the floor with his Harrods shooting stick. My country owes me something. And, by God! I owe the British something for my mutilations. I hope they do come back again and again: I'll get more than two out of twelve the next time.
If the British wanted revenge for the works of the mad excorporal house-painter, they had only to look at himself, von Trampel felt, and they would see their revenge. Meanwhile der Führer surveyed the world intact, with his lunatic visions. Even the Pope didn't rap out his assured and instant replies to every question more swiftly and certainly than Adolf Schickelgruber. Not that von Trampel had any time for His Holiness either. Well, let him come here and find a remedy for the wild shooting of that oaf Holzkop's artillerymen. If things go on like this, von Trampel told himself, with the R.A.F. coming over all the time and my gunners missing them, I'm going to lose my other leg, dammit. I'm damned if I want to give it for the Führer, but I don't mind sacrificing it for Germany; so please God let's be a worthwhile target: some U-boats, more E-boats, and myself a four-ring captain in command.
He looked at his watch. He'd stay in his office until 6 p.m. and wait for Scheusal's call to confirm that his equipment was fully operational. Then he'd take a stroll round, dropping in here and there as he pleased on snap inspections. By seven he'd be back in his quarters for a glass of slivovic before dinner; and the pleasant prospect of an hour with one of his P.G. Wodehouse books over a large cognac after dinner. Wodehouse may not be strictly a classical writer, but he was worth a place in any civilised person's travelling library. In his lighter moments von Trampel fancied that he would have enjoyed being a member of the Drones' Club. He had been taken to White's and the United Services ("The Senior'') and rather cared for both. It only needed a few duelling scars on the members to make them really quite decently masculine.
Humming a few bars from Lohengrin he dipped into his in tray.
*
The first night on Bardoc gave them a feeling of being on a pleasantly relaxed, Bohemian adventure. "A sort of fete champêtre" Aziz suggested.
"Is that anything to do with mushrooms?" asked Charlie Teoh.
"Those, my dear Confucian, are champignons."
Charlie giggled. He had been baptised, when three months old, in the Anglican cathedral in Hong Kong and educated at the Diocesan Boys' School, but felt flattered at being associated with the wisdom of the great pagan philosopher.
The detachment was living with the minimum of formality. The senior N.C.Os shared a dining and recreational tent with the rest of the Other Ranks, but were permitted a ration of spirits from the Sergeants' mess at Afrona, of which to partake in their sleeping tent, decently away from their inferiors in rank. The officers had a mess tent of their own, but ate exactly the same food as the others.
There was no enemy night flying in the area, but lights could be seen from several miles at sea or from any of the nearest islands. Although there was no inhabited place closer than Mojat, eleven miles away, only the dimmest oil lights and candles were permitted and these were kept to a minimum.
Some of the troops had been fishing from the rocks and brought back a big enough catch to supplement the dinner rations handsomely. The officers were sitting outside their mess tent, in the starlight, enjoying that pleasant drowsiness which follows a hard day's work and the awareness of accomplishment. To these were added the illusion of freedom, which created almost a holiday atmosphere.
Aziz, taking his pipe from his mouth, said lazily "All we need is Teresa to do the cooking..."
"And provide other home comforts," suggested Truscott.
''Absolutely. We should have brought Clara and her chums, too."
"We’d better do a recce. of the nearest islands and see if there's any local talent," Grummit said. "1 ought to offer medical services, if there are."
Foster pointed eagerly to sea, where they could discern a dark hump of land six miles away. "I thought of taking a small party there, actually, to see if we can find a good spot for an observation post."
"What are you going to observe, then?" asked Tunks.
"Well, if Gerry does decide to come and have a look at us, that's the direction he’ll come from. One Bren gunner on Sprot could sink a small boat before it even came in sight from here."
"Good idea," Anstey said. "Go and have a look at Sprot as soon as you can. But take it easy. If you do happen to see anyone there, don't let them see you."
Fearless Foster plainly did not approve of such pussyfoot tactics. "If they're Gerries, I ought to shoot them up."
"And make such a row that we'll give ourselves away? Don't be a clot.''
In the pale light, Foster's face showed disappointment. "I ought to take them prisoner, then."
"We haven't got enough rations," Anstey told him. "Do as you're told: have a quick swan around Sprot and make damn sure you're not seen. Not that there's anyone there, anyway."
"Famous last words," Tindall murmured.
*
If the detachment at Bardoc was the explosive charge in the weapon aimed at Taf, the fuse would be lit at Afrona, Middleton thought as he lay abed that night. Light the blue touchpaper and retire rapidly. Tomorrow, he was certain, would bring the figurative spark sizzling across the Adriatic to launch them into the first operation in full force. With the destiny of the Bardoc detachment in the hands of schizoids, it was an easy enough prediction to make.
He thought of Gp. Capt. Mason, always conscious of his facial disfigurement, resentful and impulsive. Wg. Cdr. Beale, with his air of thwarted dementia, never satisfied with any operation, however successful; always pressing on to the next and the one after that. Sqd. Ldr. Grimes, over ambitious, educated beyond his intellectual capacity and made fretful by the rich academic diet on which he had been forcefed all his life: impatient, contemptuous of the mental ability of his superiors, intent on compensating for the fact that he was not an eldest son. Rev. Parry-Jones, the Mad Mullah of Protestantism, convinced that God if not Welsh was at least British; always ready with a blessing for any dubiously Christian undertaking which would result in heavy loss of life by the enemy. With so much incandescent power to ignite the fuse, the prospects for the four crews whom the explosive charge would blast off were daunting.
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