Night Action (Commander Cochrane Smith series)

by Alan Evans

  *

  Rudi Haider told Bruno, “Stop engines.” The boom of the diesels died and there was only the wash of the sea alongside as the last of the way came off the three E-boats, until they stopped. The other two boats had manoeuvred to close on Rudi so they lay together in line abreast. The two captains, Hans Petersen and Ernst Fischer, waved to Rudi from their respective bridges.

  There was a general mutter of conversation, a stirring of movement running through the three low craft as gunners eased and stretched. Bruno said, “So now we listen —”

  He broke off as Rudi snapped, “Silence!” The command cracked like a whip and the men froze, voices stilled. Rudi and Bruno stood with heads lifted, turning, and they heard the distant rumble of engines.

  Rudi said softly, “Astern of us; north of us.”

  Bruno nodded, “Between here and St. Jean. Tommis. Has to be. There’s only us and Gunther’s lot out tonight and the area his boats are patrolling is twenty kilometres or more north of St. Jean.” Then: “They’ve stopped!”

  The rumble had faded and died. Rudi could hear Bruno’s breathing in the silence and saw the dark face turned towards him with an unspoken question.

  Rudi answered it, “We know about them. They don’t know about us. We wait.”

  *

  Suzanne ran around the edge of a field, found a gate and rolled over it into another lane beyond. Now she knew where she was and set off up the lane. She had slipped the pursuit, left the troopers shouting and searching the ground around the old house. She ran on, panting, until she came to the cottage and fell against its door.

  The doctor came to answer her hammering, an old man, gaunt, in a shapeless old cardigan and felt slippers. He peered at her over pince-nez set crookedly on his nose and recognised her despite the darkness; because of the black-out he had switched off the light in the passage behind him before opening the door. He held it wide for her and she slipped in quickly and gasped, “The telephone. Please?”

  “Of course.” The old man gestured. “You know where it is.”

  Suzanne went on to the room at the end of the passage where the telephone stood on the desk. She spoke to Albert: “There’s been an accident. I’m going to tell Papa, if I can find him, and I’ll meet you at our place later tonight.”

  Albert’s voice croaked fearfully over the wire: “A serious accident?”

  “Very.” Suzanne took a shuddering breath. “I’ll explain when I see you.” She put down the instrument and saw the old man staring at her from the door, realised her raincoat hung soaking wet, her shoes were smeared with mud and she had carried it into this room, leaving a trail from the door. She said, “I have to go. I’m sorry about the mud. Please make sure you clean it up in case anyone comes here looking for me. If they do, then you haven’t seen me, don’t know me.”

  The doctor nodded, “That is understood.”

  “Thank you.” Suzanne kissed him on the cheek then hurried to the door.

  He called after her, “God bless you!”

  *

  Albert had taken the call standing at the end of the wooden bar in his darkened café. He had returned from St. Jean on the seat of the farm cart, a bandage of vinegar and cold water wrapped around the injured wrist. Then he spent a long hour drinking with the two men from the barge tied up in the river for the night. He was friendly with all the men who worked the barges, had often crewed for them when they needed an extra hand. He knew the shoals and currents as well as they did, could talk of the river and their work on equal terms. But tonight his conversation was forced, his thoughts with Suzanne and Louis. When the bargemen left he locked the door, put out the light and sat by the old black stove. The pain in his wrist had eased until it was only a dull ache, and he could use the hand.

  When the call came he listened to Suzanne’s voice, breathless, hurried and stumbling over phrases in the rough code they used. “I’m going to tell Papa” meant she was going to try to meet the boat as planned. “Our place”: she intended to be put ashore on the beach she and Albert had marked for landings — if she could. And the “accident” was serious. Albert knew he had sent his nephew to his death and was heartsore, could have wept.

  Now he stood with heart thumping in the gloom of this place that had been his home for over twenty years. He had marched into the carnage of the battle for Verdun in 1917 when he was not quite forty, a man in the prime of his life. He had staggered out of it prematurely grey and when he was demobilised he came back here. Now he was to leave again and he was an old man. This time he would not return. He took one last, long look around and sniffed the familiar smell of tobacco, spirits, cheese and ham, then moved.

  The old Lebel pistol he had from the last war lay by his hand on the bar and he groped for and found the torch that rested on a shelf under it. He tested the torch to see that it worked then put that and the pistol into his jacket pockets. He broke a fist-sized chunk of bread from a long loaf, picked up a wedge of cheese and a flat bottle holding a half-litre of cognac. He stuffed these into the bag that held the tools he would need and grabbed his old raincoat from its hook by the back door. He shrugged into it, swung the bag over his shoulder and let himself out.

  He made straight for the trees and undergrowth standing thirty yards from the back of the café. When he was in their shelter he worked around the little hamlet of a dozen houses until he reached the track that led down to the river. He paused there as he heard the growl of a car’s engine on the road. Seconds later it swung around the bend and the engine was cut. The headlights, dimmed because of the black-out, still glowed but the car rolled silently down the slope into the hamlet and halted with a soft squeal of brakes. Four men spilled out of the doors and two waited at the front of the café while the other two ran round to the back. There was the shrill of a whistle and the men at the front kicked the door open and charged in.

  Albert turned away and walked down the track for five minutes until he came to the river. When he reached its bank he could see the black rectangle of the wharf. It stood two hundred metres upriver on the opposite bank, with the low, flat shape of the barge moored alongside it. His own small boat was tied up where he stood. He stepped down into it and sculled across the river that flowed swiftly and gleamed like basalt. On the other side he set out on the kilometre-long walk to the coast.

  *

  The night was dark but Suzanne would not use the torch. She could just make out the path snaking through the scrub that grew low and thick on the cliff-top. The fear nagged at her: had the S.S. known about this landing place, too, and laid another ambush here, hidden from the eyes of the old doctor? Were they waiting for her now?

  The scrub tore at her legs that shook with fatigue and she had a searing pain in her side. She had run a long way but she dared not stop to rest. Then the scrub ended and she stood on the edge of the cliff, the chalk face showing pale in the night and falling sheer to the beach below. Away to her right the headland with its solitary tree lifted against the night sky. The track ran on, angling steeply and narrowly down the face of the cliff. Suzanne paused just long enough to take off the low-heeled shoes then started the descent. She thought she heard, above the low rumble and suck of the sea on the shingle, the sound of voices calling a long way behind her. She did not wait to listen.

  The path tilted not only downward but outward and it was greasy from the rain that still drizzled fitfully. Her bare feet gripped a little better than the shoes would have done but she still slid at every other stride. She went with one hand always grabbing at the side of the cliff to steady her — and ready to fall on the path rather than from it.

  The last few feet were easier and she ran down them to the shingle then out to where the sea broke in a line of foam and phosphorescence. Her feet crunched on the shingle and she winced as the sharper stones cut her skin but she did not slacken speed until she stood in the surf. Now she finally reached for the torch in the pocket of her trenchcoat, flashed a signal out to sea and waited. She could see no cr
aft out there.

  *

  David Brent leaned on the coaming of the bridge as the motor torpedo boat crept along the line of the shore, marked by a silver line of breaking surf. No light showed aboard her except the faint glow from the compass binnacle. It was barely enough to illumine the intent face of Grundy, the coxswain, hanging above it.

  The coast was visible now, the grey loom of the cliff standing out of the darkness of the night. Bill Emmett, the navigator, was on the bridge, binoculars at his eyes and his lips moving but making no sound. Brent thought: Praying? He lifted his own glasses again, searching for the landing place as he and Emmett had done for the past five minutes, casting northward along the shore. But now, slowly sweeping the line of the cliff, he checked, swung fractionally back, stopped. He said softly, “There it is, off the starboard bow: headland with a lone tree.”

  Emmett said quickly, “Right! Got it.”

  David lowered his binoculars, “Congratulations, Pilot, you’ve made a near-perfect landfall. I’ll stand you a drink when we get home.”

  Emmett blew out his cheeks in a puffing breath of relief, “Could do with it now, sir. But thank you.” He ducked below, going back to his chart.

  David thought: When we get home? He remembered closing this coast once before, but a long way farther north. He remembered how the guns had torn open the night with long tongues of yellow flame. One of the two boats had caught fire and burned like a torch. The other had been blown apart, nothing left of it but a shattered, stranded hulk. And on the shore the soldiers waited to be taken off. He shuddered and Tallon muttered sardonically behind him, “Somebody walking over your grave?”

  “Something like that.” Brent glanced over his shoulder at Tallon. The soldier’s face was no more than a grey smudge in the night but Brent knew he was restless — or nervous?

  Tallon stared past David at the shore. “We’ve done this before.”

  “Once.” With other boats and other men. “Going the other way.”

  “This way might not be so bad, but once is more than enough.” Tallon knew a guide was supposed to lead him and his men to the railway but it would be a night march of a kilometre or so through enemy-held country. He did not know how many wagons or coaches would make up the train, nor how many escorts would be aboard it. There could be a dozen heavily-armed men, or a platoon, a company — a thousand of the bastards! He wondered if David Brent knew how frightened he was.

  Jimmy Nash said urgently, “There’s our signal!”

  A light flashed briefly from the shore. David used his torch to send the reply then ordered, “Starboard. Take her in, Cox’n.”

  “Starboard ‘n’ take her in, sir.” Grundy’s hands on the wheel turned the bow to point at the shore and they crept in towards it.

  When it was barely a hundred yards away Brent shoved past Tallon to reach the engine controls set on the panel to the left of the cox’n. He ordered Grundy, “Hard aport.” The cox’n spun the wheel and as the boat came around Brent rang down the engine-room telegraph. The way came off the boat and she stopped with her stern pointed towards the shore. “Send away the dinghy.” Brent turned and watched it lowered over the stern then it pulled away rapidly, Cullen and another seaman tugging at the oars.

  The engine still muttered softly but the boat lay without forward motion, rocking gently as the sea rolled her seventy-foot length. Tallon said, “I’ll bring my chaps up, ready to go.” He turned to leave the bridge.

  Brent told him, “No. Leave them below for now. Wait till we’ve confirmed the guide is there and the other boats have come in with the rest of your blokes.” Tallon halted and shifted restlessly from one foot to the other. Brent watched the shore. He could make out a figure standing on the line of the surf and the dinghy was close, would ground in a second or two —

  The firing came from the top of the cliff, a staccato, ripping burst of flickering flame. Brent shouted, “Engage that fire!” The figure still stood in the surf, but now was bowing, blending into the greater, lower black outline of the dinghy that had grounded. Another burst came from the cliff but then the gunner in his turret aft of the bridge, ready and waiting for action, brought his sights on and opened fire with the twin .5-inch machine-guns. The lines of red tracer curved up to the cliff-top and the muzzle flame up there was snuffed out. The gunner continued firing, in bursts of two or three seconds, sweeping left and right across the face of the cliff. There were some answering shots — Brent saw the flashes from the weapons in several places along the cliff — but none came near the boat and he could see the dinghy on its way back, the men at the oars pulling strongly. Brent thought: Who wouldn’t?

  He called, “Hoist that dinghy in!”

  There was a lull in the firing and Tallon said savagely, bad-temperedly, “That’s scuppered my little jaunt!” Brent thought he could understand the soldier’s anger, primed and ready to go — and now anti-climax. Because the raid could not go in now, with the coast defences alerted. But was there also a hint of relief, satisfaction, in that statement? Was Brent himself relieved?

  Jimmy Nash thought he detected that relief in both of them and his confidence was shaken, but then he said, “Here’s the agent — Lord, it’s a girl!”

  David Brent was working the telegraph, calling for a crash start on the main engines, and as they roared into life, shoving the throttle levers forward to full ahead, but he swung around now. The girl had been brought up to the bridge and stood close to him. He stared at her, disbelieving. Suzanne’s face, pale and wide-eyed, was the last he wanted to see yet he felt a flare of exhilaration. And she knew him, despite the gloom, the sharp jerk of her head told him that. But she only said, “You were sent for by — Michel.” Brent marked that hesitation but Suzanne went on: “I wasn’t supposed to come aboard; I was the guide.”

  Brent said, “Michel? That’s the name of an agent?”

  “It’s the name I know him by, but he uses others. He has been captured by the S.S. and another man was killed. I got away.”

  Their voices were lifted now to make themselves heard above the bellow of the three big engines. Brent stared at Suzanne, thinking: Why her? And that this night’s operation, for which he was responsible, was washed out. The raid could not be made, the bridge would not be blown, the railway not cut. But worse, far worse than that, was the failure to rescue the prisoner aboard the train: “More important than the commandos or your flotilla! Bring him!”

  Tallon and Jimmy Nash — and the girl — were watching him, waiting for his decision, his orders.

  He thought she had not changed, was as he remembered her. His memory had been true.

  Chapter Five - “...A damn fine action!”

  Brent’s boat was roaring out to sea at better than thirty knots now, bow riding high out of the water and stern tucked down, spray flying past the bridge. He wondered what the hell he could do? Tallon could not even reach the prisoner on the train, let alone Brent carry him back across the Channel. The situation would have defeated a Nelson while Brent and Tallon were only the “second team”.

  Then there had been that reaction of relief when he knew the raid was aborted. Was it some instinct warning him that it was doomed? Or just fear? Probably that. He was no stranger to fear, lived with it. He snatched off his cap, ran his fingers through his hair and clapped it on again. The girl: they had to talk about themselves, but not now. At the same time he needed to know all that had happened ashore.

  He turned to Jimmy Nash and told him, “You’ve got her for a minute. I’m going down to the wheel-house. Pick up the other boats and hold this course.” He glanced at the girl and jerked his head, a summons, then edged past Tallon where he stood with shoulders hunched in bad temper. Brent dropped down the short ladder to the wheel-house below the bridge and the girl followed him.

  The wheel-house was a cramped box and they stooped under the low deckhead. The chart-table took up a lot of the room and they perforce stood close. Once inside, the hatch shut and the light on, he said,
“Tell me about it.” Suzanne hesitated, again, and that irritated him. He snapped, “I know you Secret Service people are a close-mouthed lot and I can understand that. One careless word could give away a friend, kill him. But I was ordered to bring this prisoner out whatever the cost, so you can tell me what happened.”

  Suzanne’s shoulders lifted then fell in a shrug. Her hands were dug deep in the pockets of the trenchcoat, one holding the torch, the other curled around the butt of the pistol. The already wet coat glistened afresh with the spray that had flown over the bridge. She said, “That raid would have had to be cancelled anyway. Michel had got the timings of the train all along the route and gave them to me, but this morning he found it had been put back by more than three hours because the S.S. are rounding up more deportees. Then when I went to the bridge this afternoon I found a first-line battalion of infantry bivouacked there for the night. They are entraining tomorrow on their way north.”

  David thought bitterly that everything had gone wrong with this operation, but he did not speak and the girl continued: “After checking on the bridge I went on to meet Michel at a rendezvous and I took another man with me as an escort.” She told him of the ambush, the shooting, the capture of Michel and her escape. “I ran. Away from them and heading towards the sea, praying you — the boats — would be there.”

  Now she looked at David Brent. “I want you to put me ashore again, ten kilometres north of St. Jean.”

  “What!” Brent was shaking his head.

  Suzanne insisted, “You must! I have to warn another agent, tell him to run for it.” She was talking of Paul. She was supposed to meet him tomorrow. Michel knew where the wireless operator had been staying and the S.S. would soon trace his movements after leaving there. They had only to question taxi-drivers. She did not know that Paul was already in the cells below S.S. headquarters in St. Jean. She explained, “Michel’s orders are to hold out for twenty-four hours before talking, to give others time to get away, but whether he can, when they start ‘interrogating’ him…” She left that unfinished and went on: “A friend will be expecting me, waiting on the beach. It is a place we’d chosen as good for landings. I managed to telephone him —”