A Share of Honour: The Nicholas Everard World War II Saga Book 4

by Alexander Fullerton

  Northeast of the avant-port was the Old Town. From its east side protruded the Old Mole. North of the Old Mole lay the warehouse area, and on the northern edge of that was the Old Entrance. Close to the primary target and at a sharp angle to it, this Old Entrance led directly into the large inner basin: and here again, lock gates and a swing bridge were to be demolished.

  In all, there were twenty-four targets, which explained why the demolition parties would be carrying so much explosive. Some individuals would be loaded with as much as ninety pounds of it. And this of course was why those engaged on demolition would be armed only with Colt automatics, and accompanied by protection parties who’d have Tommy guns, Brens and grenades.

  The bridge between those two inner basins also connected the whole dock area to the mainland. When it was blown, enemy troop reinforcements would be prevented from entering the target area. Similarly, on completion of the operation—all troops would withdraw to the Old Mole for re-embarkation—blowing the bridges over the Old Entrance and Main Entrance would have a further isolating effect. And—while on that subject—destruction of the dock gates at those points would make the large inner basin become tidal. It was used by U-boats, and destroying those locks should at least interfere with their use of it. But this brought one full-circle, back to the job that was to be done by the Naval Task Unit.

  Jack Everard had it fairly clear in his mind after he left the briefing. The inner basin with its two entrances and its link to the northern basin: and on its western quay, his own team’s target. Very large, new, bombproof, reinforced concrete U-boat pens. Some of it was still under construction, but two-thirds of the shelter was complete and now in use by U-boats resting between Atlantic patrols. And more or less opposite it—actually a bit farther north on the near side of the same basin—was where the Germans were making a habit of berthing one or sometimes two E-boats. Escorts for departing or returning U-boats, perhaps. He had to get his party to that quayside, seize one boat, move it out into a position where its torpedoes could be fired directly into the completed part of the U-boat shelter. While the building was designed to resist attack from the air, it was believed that internal explosions might be very effective: you’d hope simultaneously to wreck or damage severely the shelter itself and sink a U-boat or two inside the pens.

  Think only of using one E-boat, he told himself. You’d be damn lucky to get away with that much, let alone with repeating the trick. And his small party certainly wouldn’t be able to handle two E-boats at once.

  What he had to work out now was where his team would fit into the scheme as a whole: where they’d go ashore, for instance, and at which stage, and so on. Listening to the briefing, he’d considered various possibilities as the commando operation was sketched out. There were five commando assault parties: Captain Birney’s and Captain Hodgson’s landing at the Old Mole, Lieutenant Roderick’s and Captain Roy’s from the Campbeltown, and Captain Burns’ at the Old Entrance. He’d thought about where he’d fit in with them or behind them while the picture as a whole had been filled in piece by piece. The commandos were organized as assault parties—those five—and demolition parties and protection parties: the first category interested him most, since they’d be faster-moving—if his NTU could, so to speak, travel with one of them. Because they wouldn’t be stopping to blow things up—except guns, since it was their job to knock out the defences as they moved in … Move in behind one of them?

  His choice of landing place was obvious: from a glance at that map, he’d seen that the place to take his people ashore would be the Old Entrance. From there, there’d be considerably less distance to cover than the way they’d practised it. And if he had an assault party moving ahead to clear the way for him—or at least part of the way, until they reached that frighteningly exposed quayside …

  Captain Roy’s assault party, he’d heard then, who’d land over the Campbeltown’s bow, were to take care of some guns on the roof of the pumping station and then push on through to hold an area on the north side of the bridge over the Old Entrance. So they’d be on that same quayside and within about a hundred yards of where the E-boat was supposed to be. They’d draw at least some of the fire from across the water: if they made enough of a shindy they might even take all—or most—of those guns’ attention. Take it away from the NTU. At least until—well, if the E-boat could be taken charge of quickly and unobtrusively? Once its torpedoes had been fired in the right direction, it didn’t matter a damn what— Don’t be bloody silly. Of course it mattered. But that party—Captain Roy’s—would be the crowd to fall back on afterwards. From them, then, the NTU could retire to the Old Mole for re-embarkation.

  Wishful thinking?

  Yes, of course it was. You didn’t have to be a commando to know what action was like, how everything changed, how nothing looked as it had been planned to look or worked quite as it had been expected to work …

  He’d gone on thinking about his own options while the briefing continued with a filling-in of all sorts of items to complete the general picture. Signals for withdrawal: two stages of withdrawal, one to be ordered with a red-rain rocket and the second with a green-rain one. All commandos to wear whitened webbing equipment as an aid to recognition in the dark. They’d carry blue flashlamps too, fixed to their automatic weapons. Rubber-soled boots would be worn by everyone: so if boots scrunched through the dark towards you, you could safely shoot whoever was occupying them. Then passwords: the challenge was to be War Weapons Week, and the reply Weymouth. If a German tried to pronounce those words, you’d know it.

  There’d been laughter, at that point. Jack made a mental note to tell Tubby Sharp about it, as soon as he was allowed to do so. Tubby would love it.

  There would be separate briefings for each commando party. That was when detail would come into it: the military commander would conduct these sessions himself, and each party would be rehearsed until no individual would be capable of putting a foot in the wrong place. But first—tomorrow—there’d be a briefing for other ranks.

  One other, memorable point had been made.

  Mountbatten had told the military commander, “We’re writing you off. I’m confident you can get in and do the job, but we can’t hold out much hope that you’ll get out again … I want you to tell all those who have family responsibilities, or think they should stand down for any other reason, that they’re free to do so. Nobody’ll think any the worse of them.”

  Nobody had moved or spoken. Or would tomorrow either, Jack guessed. Nor had they—he remembered Nick telling him, years ago—in 1918, when Roger Keyes had delivered an almost identical message before the raid on Zeebrugge. Nick had been in that raid—and, come to think of it, at exactly the same age that Jack was now. Twenty-three: and he’d come out of that one. Wounded, but he’d come out of it …

  He lunched aboard the minesweeper. The E-boat was still at sea: probably hadn’t yet sunk all the oil drums that Sharp had taken along for floating targets. Only Gourock’s engineer and first lieutenant were on board the sweeper; the other officers were on leave, and boiler-cleaning was in progress. She’d been a coal-burner, the engineer told him, and they’d converted her to oil just before the war. He went into a lot of detail and gloom about her mechanical condition, while Jack ate lunch and thought about Operation Chariot.

  He wondered if the port they were to attack might be Lorient. He had no idea whether it had a dry dock of that size, but the fact they were building U-boat shelters made him think of Lorient, which was, after all, Admiral Dönitz’s submarine command headquarters. And the distance from Falmouth would be about right, justifying the auxiliary fuel tanks on the MLs.

  Correction: explaining, not justifying. Nothing, he thought, justified that feature. It could be explained, by the fact that motor launches were the only craft available and that it wouldn’t have been possible to find space for the extra fuel storage below decks. Even those facts didn’t seem to him to warrant carrying petrol on the decks of timber-hulled boats t
hat were going to be shot at, though. He thought, Thank God for Sauerkraut …

  After lunch he walked round to the naval HQ to keep an appointment with someone called Hawkins, one of the planning team, in order to discuss the details of the NTU’s part in the landing. They knew he’d have had the military briefing by now, and his proposals for where and when his team would land had to be fitted into the naval plan as well. Or, if they didn’t fit, he’d be told to think again. But this would be his first insight into the Navy’s side of it.

  Hawkins was an RNVR lieutenant-commander. He walked with a limp: Jack heard afterwards that he’d been shot up in an MTB action in the Channel a year ago. He did notice that he sported the ribbon of the DSC, when they met at the reception desk in the ex-hotel’s foyer.

  Hawkins asked him, bowing and rubbing his hands together, “A double room, sir, was it?”

  Jack thought, I’ve got another Tubby Sharp, here … He told him, “Unfortunately she’s in London.”

  “What dashed bad luck.” Hawkins straightened. “Take it you’re Everard?”

  “Yes, sir.”They shook hands. The lieutenant-commander said, “Come along to the conservatory. That’s where we’ve got all the gubbins.”

  The hotel’s conservatory had been turned into an Operations Room. Charts, maps, desks loaded with paperwork, and a clutter of stores and navigational equipment. The chart most noticeably on display, stuck to pegboard on an easel, was of the West African coast at Sierra Leone, with a blue crayon ring around the port of Freetown. Hawkins murmured, “Nerve centre of the 10th A/S Striking Force. Pretty terrifying, isn’t it? But sit down, anyway. The big white chief’s away again today, I regret to say. All in a good cause, though—he’s over at Devonport, where Campbeltown is supposed to be ready for us. He’s gone to cast an eye over her. You know all about Campbeltown by now, I suppose?”

  “All I know—”

  “Smoke if you want to.” Hawkins stopped, rummaging in a cupboard. Getting up again, as Jack pulled out his cigarette-case, he had some large flag bundled in his arms. “How about this, now?”

  Draping it around himself: a big German naval Ensign …

  “Do we fly that thing?”

  “Not on your E-boat.” Hawkins was rolling it up again. “Might be a little too realistic … What were we saying about Campbeltown?”

  “Well, all I know about her is she was once the USS Buchanan and she’s having an explosive bow fitted.”

  “A bit more than that, actually.” Hawkins sat down. “She had four funnels, for instance, and two of ‘em have been removed, and the other two have had their tops sliced off, raked, you know, to make her look like a Hun. They’ve taken out all her guns, tubes, depthcharge throwers and suchlike, too, to lighten her so she’ll make it up the river without grounding. We hope … Then, as you say, there’s the fireworks for’ard. Colossal. Two dozen full-sized depthcharges—that’s getting on for five tons of high explosive—fitted in a special tank they’ve built for it in the seamen’s messdeck just abaft the for’ard gun support. That’ll protect it when she rams the dock, you see—they reckon her bow’ll crumple to that point and no further, so the explosive will end up just where it’s wanted—stuck in or right up against the lock gate … They’ve given her some extra armour too, around the bridge and the steering position, and armoured screens on deck for pongo-protection purposes. What else … Oh, some extra weapons—Oerlikons. And it’s all been done in ten days.

  Not bad, eh?”

  “Terrific.”

  Hawkins was studying him. Serious, behind the jocularity. “What d’you make of it, Everard?”

  “Campbeltown?”

  “The whole scheme.”

  “Well.” What to say … It was going to happen, anyway. And he, Jack Everard, was as much a part of it as one of those depthcharges. He nodded. “It’s a job worth doing, obviously, and I don’t know how else we’d tackle it … I think it’ll work, all right. One thing that does worry me is the MLs having all that petrol on their upper decks.”

  “Worries us all, old horse.”

  “No alternative?”

  “The only possible one would have been one additional destroyer instead of all the Fairmiles. But there isn’t a destroyer available and expendable. Well, you know that—destroyers are like gold to us … But also—and this is a valid argument—we’d be putting all those separate eggs in one basket.” He shook his head. He was greying at the temples … “We have to live with it, anyway. Effectively, there’s no alternative. And now, my lad, brass tacks. Did you form any ideas this morning for your own deployment?”

  “Yes. I believe it’s fairly straightforward, actually.” There’d been a question in his mind, but for the moment he had to leave it. “May I use that map?”

  “Be my guest.”

  It was a hand-drawn outline, like the one the military commander had displayed at the briefing. With no names on those locks and basins, no clues therefore to the geographical location.

  “Campbeltown rams the dock gate here. Commandos on board her then land to the right and to the left. The party to the left—an assault party—is No. 5 Troop, under a Cameron Highlander by the name of Donald Roy. They go ashore here, over the caisson, and their first job is to knock out some guns that are on top of this object here. It’s a pumping station, and after Roy’s chaps move on the demolition team nips in and blows up everything inside it. But sticking to the assault party—when they’ve fixed those guns they break through to this quayside here, and hold a defensive perimeter around the bridge over the Old Entrance. Well, the location of my own action, the moored E-boat I’ve got to make use of, is just along this same quayside, about a hundred yards along this way. So I’d propose landing fairly promptly after Campbeltown hits the caisson. I’d envisage getting ashore either just to port of where she hits, or in the approach to the Old Entrance itself, and then moving up behind the commando assault party. So we’d have our way cleared for us as far as that quayside, and all we’d have to do is sprint along it until we come to the E-boat. Then when we’ve finished, back the same way into No. 5 Troop’s perimeter.”

  “Sounds reasonable.” Hawkins reached for a buff-coloured folder, and turned its pages. Cruising diagrams, Jack saw. The third one he came to showed a formation of ships in two line-astern columns, with a small ship and a larger one placed centrally between the leading ships of those columns.

  “This is the disposition for the attack, the approach to the target. There are two cruising formations as well, a daylight and a night one, but this is the one that counts. That little dodger in front is the motor gunboat, and by the time you’re in this formation she’ll have the force commanders in her. Astern of the MGB, this bigger lozenge is Campbeltown. The two columns flanking her are of course the MLs, with the torpedo-carriers at the front and back of each line. One at each corner, in fact.”

  “And this?”

  A tail-end Charlie, right astern and between the tails of the ML columns.

  “That’s MTB 74. Have you seen her around?” Jack had, of course: the boat with tubes mounted right for’ard. Hawkins told him, “Those fish have delayed-action pistols in their warheads. She was fixed up like that originally for an attack on Scharnhorst in the harbour at Brest. The plan was that Wynn would shove his boat’s stem right against the anti-torpedo nets they had surrounding her, so the fish would be fired over it and then explode later on the seabed under the target, with obvious advantages in terms of destructive blast.”

  “Not bad thinking.”

  “Right. Not at all a bad idea. But unfortunately, as you know, Scharnhorst and bloody Gneisenau scarpered before we could get a crack at them. So MTB 74’s job now is to act as a reserve to Campbeltown. If she doesn’t manage the ramming, then Wynn will put his two fish into the caisson instead. If Campbeltown does her stuff, though—which, touch wood, she will—then the naval force commander will direct him to use them elsewhere. But now look here. Here’s the attack formation. Where do we put your E
-boat?”

  “In the centre, astern of Campbeltown?”

  Hawkins stared at the plan, frowning. The suggestion seemed to have surprised him.

  “I suppose it’s—not altogether out of the question … You see, the MGB will be leading almost right up to the lock gate, then swerving off to let Campbeltown push on in … And if at about the same time Sharp turned off as well—without getting across the bows of those MLs, mind you … Well, they’ll have peeled off themselves, of course, by then. The MLs have two landing places for their troops, by the way—some at the Old Mole, and some at the Old Entrance. At both those spots there’s bound to be a certain amount of congestion, so—”

  “What if we went ashore over Campbeltown? Run alongside her after she’s rammed the caisson, then board her and go over her bow right behind the commandos … Alternatively, directly on to the caisson, after she’s crashed into it?”

  “The caisson would be too high to get on to, from that craft of yours.” Hawkins tapped the plan with a finger that lacked its top joint. “But to land over Campbeltown—I think that might be rather a good idea. You’d be right out of everyone else’s way, and there’d be nobody in your way, either.” He thought about it, staring at the plan. “Of course, if Campbeltown bungled it and went adrift, you could plug on into the Old Entrance and take pot luck.”

  “Yes.”

  “You’d have the guns on that pumping station shooting at you, of course. I mean if Campbeltown didn’t reach her target, nor would the assault parties that are landing from her.”

  “We have to assume, I imagine, that she will hit her target?”

  “True.” Hawkins nodded. “One has to make a fair number of assumptions, on a lark like this. But in fact that’s a reasonable one to make, I think. Anyway”—he sat back—”I’ll put these ideas to Commander Ryder. Then we’ll have you along here again, Everard. And we’re having a dress rehearsal, in a few days’ time—attacking the dockyard at Devonport. Operation Vivid, it’s to be called. If it’s all agreed we’ll test your scheme then, see how it goes.”