by James R Benn
Several crewmen came up bringing two Bren guns and a box of ammo. They made their way to the stern, past the 20mm Oerlikons mounted amidships, and settled into each corner above the engines with their machine guns.
“We like to discourage pursuit as much as possible,” said Harry. “You’d better get ready, Billy. There may not be much time if things heat up.”
He didn’t need to tell me twice. I went below and put on the winter parka I’d been issued at Southwold. I got my gear and the Thompson and then headed back above deck. With the life jacket on over the parka, I could barely move through the narrow passageway. But I was relying on the life jacket to keep me afloat if it came to that.
Back on deck, it was a lot brighter still. I put a clip into the Thompson and worked the bolt. I didn’t know if the Jerries would get close enough for me to use it. It was probably useless, but I didn’t have much else to offer.
“If I’m right,” said Harry, “we’ve about fifteen minutes more cruising time. Then we turn due east and head in for Tomma. That will keep the island between the mainland and us. We’ll have to slow down to muffle the motors. When we get close enough, we’ll launch one of the surfboats, and two of the lads will paddle you in. You may have to get your feet wet. I’ve told them to toss you over as soon as they see bottom.” He was smiling, but he wasn’t kidding. I looked up and didn’t blame him. The sky was blue.
“OK.”
Fog was still rising off the water. Maybe we wouldn’t be visible from the air, maybe we would. Anyway, we wouldn’t have the fog much longer. By the time Harry turned east, visibility was about fifty yards. He slowed and the engines went from a roar to a low throaty growl. We churned up less of a wake as we cut across the water, and I guessed not announcing ourselves so clearly was worth the reduction in speed.
“Almost there, Billy. Enjoy the ride so far?”
“It’s been more than I bargained for,” I said, which certainly was true in more ways than one. “I’m going out by sub and—”
“Shut up, Billy! Don’t tell me how you’re getting back, you damned fool! What if we’re captured? Haven’t you heard that line ‘Ve half vays of making you talk?’ It’s true, you know. Drugs, torture, whatever it takes. Don’t the Yanks teach their agents how to keep their bloody mouths shut?”
“Sorry, it slipped out,” I said. “It was just a cover story anyway. Santa Claus is really coming down from the North Pole to airlift me out.”
“Saint Nick himself, eh? Not bad.”
Harry smiled readily, but I thought I detected a worried look on his face as he studied me. I could tell he was comparing me to previous British agents he had brought in. Experienced agents who knew how to keep their stiff upper lips firmly pressed against their lower ones. I knew the comparison wasn’t favorable.
“Ship! Two o’clock!” Higgins yelled as he pointed to the right. Moving away from us was the gray form of a small ship, maybe a trawler. As we drew closer and the fog thinned, several men at once spotted two more small craft, a larger one in front and another smaller one, behind. For a second all guns swiveled toward the three ships.
“Keep a good lookout there!” Harry yelled angrily. “This isn’t a sight-seeing cruise!” The gun crews and lookouts returned to scanning the horizon in all directions.
“Think they’ll spot us?” I asked.
“Too soon to tell. We’re very low in the water and they are moving away from us. Maybe not.”
“Is that a V-boat?”
“Yes. Being escorted by two E-boats. German patrol craft, much like ours.”
“Not as good as ours though?” I asked hopefully.
“Goes without saying, old boy!”
Harry was doing his best to keep everyone’s morale up. It worked until the line of three German vessels abruptly turned simultaneously, at about a forty-five-degree angle.
“Jesus! Did they spot us?” I really needed another morale boost.
“Damn!” Harry muttered. “No, but they soon might. It looks like they’re on maneuvers. Simultaneous changes of course under low-visibility conditions. Good practice for not bumping into each other. Very practical, those sodding Teutons!”
“What’s the problem with that?”
“They won’t keep moving away from us. If their next movement is an about angle to starboard, they’ll be heading straight toward us and we’ll be spotted for sure.”
It was cold and windy, but I started to sweat. Harry kept on the same course and speed.
“Should we make a run for it?” I asked, trying to keep the desperation out of my voice.
“Worst thing we could do,” he answered. “We’d kick up a bigger wake, and the movement might catch their eye. We’ve got to count on steady movement, distance, and a low profile. Plus the fact that they shouldn’t be expecting anyone to appear out of this fog.”
“Meaning no one in their right mind would have come through that storm?”
“Exactly, Billy! See, there’s nothing—”
Harry snapped his head toward the enemy ships. He’d seen something. By the time I saw the tracers, they were halfway to our boat, and I heard the sound of firing catching up across the distance. Sparkles of brightness appeared on the bigger ship, and now all three were turning, heading straight for us. Harry jammed the throttle forward and I grabbed onto the rail as all guns aimed at the Germans.
“Hang on!” Harry yelled as he turned the boat to port and geysers of foam exploded in front of us, whole rows of them.
“Why aren’t we shooting back?” I yelled, gesturing with my Thompson.
“Don’t worry, Billy, they’ll be close enough very quickly. That’s the heavy 40mm stuff from the V-boat. Pretty inaccurate at this range. The E-boats can close on us, though. We’ll have to deal with them before we put you ashore.”
As Harry hollered back at me he was zigging and zagging, still keeping on the same general course.
“Won’t they trap you inshore? Shouldn’t you abort the landing?”
“Billy, this is what they pay us for. Not much, but it is our job. We’ll land you and then dart in and out of these little islands. They’ll either think we were just trying to throw them off the scent, or that we landed a dozen agents. They won’t know where to look for you. If I were you, though, I’d get off Tomma before they close in and search it.”
I didn’t answer him. I was thinking about the Norwegian Underground Army contacts waiting on Tomma to pick me up. I added them to my list of possible lives lost in my pursuit of Rolf Kayser. Then I added myself.
I watched as the bright tracer rounds arced lazily through the sky toward us, looking more like fireworks than cannon fire. Then I remembered that usually for every one tracer round there were ten regular rounds, and realized that the sky was actually full of more lead than I could see. Again the geysers sprouted around us.
“Ready!” yelled Harry and slewed the boat to starboard, running at the lead E-boat. Machine guns and the forward 20mm started firing, seeking out the E-boat as it closed on us and we on it. Cannon fire from the V-boat was flying over our heads and hitting the water where we had just been. Harry was talking at me, but I couldn’t hear a thing. I watched his face, still focused on the water ahead of us, as he opened his mouth and yelled. No words could be heard, only the chatter of machine guns, the roar of wide-open engines, and the splashes of near misses all around us. The twin .50 caliber machine guns on either side of us were firing rapidly, shell casings spewing out, clinking and smoking on the deck around us. The 20mm gun was firing at a slower rate, a steady pow, pow, pow as the gunner scored several direct hits on the E-boat. Suddenly he was cut down as a line of machine-gun fire hit the bow of our boat and chewed up the deck, hurling him back against the wheelhouse. Higgins ran to the 20mm and braced himself against the shoulder harness. He fired, wildly at first, but then found his target. The other gunners did, too, and one E-boat was soon blazing, dead in the water.
Harry leaned over to me and said something. All I he
ard was “mix it up.” He pointed to my Thompson. I got it. He was deliberately getting in close to the E-boats so the slower Vorpostenboot couldn’t fire without risking hitting the E-boats. The shooting had slackened off, and now the remaining E-boat was running a loop around Harry, firing and then circling to get back to the safety of the bigger boat, where we couldn’t follow.
“Make smoke!” Harry bellowed into the intercom, as he turned hard to port and tried to cut off the E-boat. Plumes of thick smoke began to appear out of a rear-facing funnel, and the E-boat turned to starboard, trying to bring all guns to bear at once. Harry had anticipated this and was turning toward port again, doing to the Germans exactly what they were trying to do to us. The E-boat was raked by our fire, but one of its forward machine guns found us as well. I ducked as shells splintered the wood all around the wheelhouse. Harry yelled again and turned the 718 away from the E-boat, seeking the safety of the smoke screen he had just laid. I ran back to the stern and fired my Thompson at our pursuer. I was putting in a fresh clip when a blast hit just below me, churning up water at the stern and sending chunks of the hull flying. There was a muffled explosion belowdecks and suddenly we were making black smoke. Not artificial smoke, but the real thing, from an engine fire. The E-boat finally turned away, our return fire scoring direct hits all over it. Our bow became heavy as if we were was taking on water. Then we entered into the smoke screen and everything went gray.
I made my way forward. Men were being carried up from belowdecks, coughing and hacking as thick black smoke curled up out of the passageway.
“Report!” demanded Harry. His left arm dangled uselessly at his side, a stream of blood collecting in a pool at his feet. With the other arm he gripped the wheel, keeping the boat on course and probably holding himself up.
“Can’t see much yet, Cap’n,” said a short, barrel-chested seaman, grease and soot darkening his features. “Looks like number one and two have had it. Three’s damaged but working, number four is fine. And you’re wounded, sir, left arm.”
“Casualties below?” Harry ignored his last comment.
“Two men dead, Cap’n. One other, burned pretty bad.”
“Very well, Chief. Shut down one through three and make repairs as you can.”
“Aye, sir. Better get that arm bandaged now, sir.” The chief waited until Harry nodded, then went back down into the smoke. A crewman with a medical kit came into the wheelhouse from the bow and ripped away the sleeves from Harry’s sweater and shirt.
“How’s Higgins?” Harry asked.
“Dead, sir.”
Harry winced as antiseptic was poured over his wound. “A good lad . . .” Harry looked faint and I grabbed him before he fell over.
“Hang on, captain. There’s a splinter. . . .” Before he could finish, the crewman pulled a long, sharp piece of wood out of Harry’s upper arm. Blood gushed. More antiseptic was poured and the shock of it probably kept Harry conscious.
“Not as bad as it looks, sir,” said the crewman as he applied a gauze pad and wrapped the wound tight.
“Oh, I’d say it’s as bad as it looks, wouldn’t you, Billy?”
Harry glanced around at the boat, bullet holes everywhere, two men dead above deck, two men dead below, and three engines out of commission. His face was pale and beaded with sweat.
“Yeah, Harry, it’s bad. Now how do we get to Tomma?” I asked.
“That bit’s easy.”
He checked his compass as the crewman rigged up a sling and gently placed his arm in it. He winced, and then adjusted course slightly. “We’re headed there now, with the smoke between us and the Germans. That E-boat won’t follow, and the V-boat will stay offshore, looking to hit us when we come out. We’ll circle a few islands and drop you at Tomma, then . . . well, then you’ll have other worries.”
“How can you make it on one engine?”
“Slowly. But we can make it. If the Vorpostenboot and the Luftwaffe cooperate.”
I couldn’t look at him. The truth of the situation was written all over his face, and I felt sure guilt was etched on mine. Buried deep within the smoke screen, there was nowhere else to turn my eyes and escape the reality of what I had created. I looked forward and saw the bodies of young Higgins and the other gunner. I turned away and looked to my rear. The black smoke was thinning out and I could see lines of bullet holes where they had struck the engine compartment. Empty shell casings rolled back and forth on the deck, and worried men gripped their guns in white-knuckled embraces. They were wide-eyed and jumpy. I didn’t like looking at them either. I felt that they would be able to see right through me, to see that I had brought them to this place, perhaps to die here. I closed my eyes.
“First time in action, Billy?” Harry misread me, and his question caught me by surprise. It had been, and I hadn’t been scared. Not what I had expected. I did feel awful now, but I realized it actually had been exciting.
“Yes.”
“Well, you didn’t try to hide or jump overboard, so you’ll probably be all right.”
“I feel sort of strange now.”
“Yes,” Harry nodded. “It happens to me all the time. It’s almost magical, the feeling of being alive, isn’t it?”
“I don’t really feel very magical, Harry. Just scared.”
I didn’t want to go into my real reasons for feeling bad. There were four dead men on my conscience and I didn’t want any more.
“That’s good, Billy. Means you still have your senses about you. And you’re going to need them.”
“What do you mean?”
He took his eyes off the water long enough to look me in the eyes. Right now he wasn’t the happy-go-lucky pirate captain he played for his crew. Right now he was dead serious, delivering news he knew wasn’t good.
“Billy, I can’t stop to row you ashore. With only one engine, we can’t slow down and allow ourselves to be cornered. We’d never get out and your mission would be compromised.”
“I don’t like the way this sounds, Harry, but go ahead.”
“We’ll continue making smoke as we head around Tomma. When we get behind it, I’ll double back and go out through our smoke screen. I’ll bring her in as close as possible, but you’ll have to jump ship and swim to shore. We can’t let you take a boat, because the Germans would find it and then there’d be hell to pay.”
“How far?”
“I can probably get you close to some rocks you can climb ashore from. Perhaps a hundred-yard swim. You can swim, can’t you?”
“Sure. But not weighed down with all this gear.”
“Right. It would take you to the bottom. Get rid of the parka. You won’t need it anyway. No matter how cold it is out here, it’s still summer, even at the Arctic Circle.”
I took off the parka and helmet. I left the Thompson and most everything else, except for my .45 and one grenade that I stuffed into a cargo pocket in my utility pants, along with an extra pair of wool socks. Harry gave me a lightweight blue seaman’s coat with the English markings removed.
“You might not be noticed so easily if you wear this. Most of the locals are fishermen and wear similar gear. Get ready now, we’re almost there. We’ve just passed Lovund and Sleneset.”
Those were two outlying islands. Tomma was next. I put on the life-jacket over the coat and stood near the railing. Tomma was coming up on the horizon. It was about six miles wide and it would be less than that to the mainland. It was a good choice for a landing. Not obvious, with the mainland so close. Big enough to hide out in. Unless we were being observed, the Germans wouldn’t search it first thing. So my little swim made sense. I guess. I watched the island draw closer.
Harry’s first mate took over at the wheel as he came down to stand by me.
“It’s time. Sorry to dump you off like this, Billy, but things often don’t go as planned.”
“True,” I said sadly. “No, they don’t. I’m sorry about all this.”
“What do you have to be sorry about, Billy? This isn
’t on your head. Someone in a cozy office in London thought this up, and now we’re here to pick up the pieces as best we can. That’s the nature of war.”
“Or is it the nature of man?”
Or my nature, I wondered. To pursue Rolf Kayser no matter what the cost to others, because he had offended me by killing my friend?
“If I had time for philosophy, Billy, I’d give that some thought. But right now I just drive the boat.” He grinned, wearily this time.
“Yeah, and I just jump off the boat.” I shook hands with Harry and then did that very thing.
CHAPTER ▪ TWENTY-FOUR
IT WAS LIKE JUMPING into a barrel of ice. I went in deeper than I thought I would, then struggled to the surface, my arms flailing, panic just about to take over. The freezing water shocked me and I gasped for air. The Atlantic was cold along the North Shore back home, even in July, but it wasn’t anywhere near the Arctic Circle, like this water.
I kicked my feet as hard as I could, surfaced, and began to swim toward a line of rocks that jutted out from the shore. I heard the single working engine of MTB 718 resonate through the water and glanced back to see it disappear into its own smoke screen. I felt alone, abandoned. I knew that was irrational, as this was my own plan, but now that it was happening I would’ve given anything to be back on that boat.
The cold went right to my bones. My teeth were chattering and I had to work to keep my limbs moving, to remember to make each stroke. It was easy enough to float, but it was hard work kicking with those heavy combat boots. I wasn’t making much progress, and I started to worry, thinking I was about to go under and stay under. I felt my heart rate go up and knew I was afraid, and that fear could take over and kill me. I had to get up onto the rocks. I forced my legs to kick for all I was worth. I was breathing pretty hard and swallowed a bunch of water. Gagging, teeth chattering, I kept kicking. If I stopped I knew that I would die here.