The Sharp End (Raiding Forces Book 10)

by Phil Ward

  “Jane,” Col. Randal yelled, getting tangled up in the table alongside the couch as he was trying to get up. “Don’t . . .

  “Stay out of this, John,” Lady Jane shouted, fumbling for the pistol. “You piece of frogspawn!”

  Uh-oh!

  Col. Randal jumped up, knocking over the table, grabbed Lady Jane and threw her over his shoulder. He tossed a roll of money to Hekmet, “Pay the bill, call a cab—I’ll get Jane out of here before she does shoot you.”

  Then he went down the stairs, taking them two at a time with Jane hanging over his shoulder. Col. Randal ran out of the restaurant and across the gangplank to the shore, where he found Lady Jane’s Rolls-Royce parked, with King leaning against the side of the car.

  Without a word, King opened the back door and stood aside as Col. Randal threw Lady Jane on the back seat. She was laughing so hard that tears were streaming down her cheeks.

  King ran around, climbed in behind the wheel and floored the Rolls as Col. Randal jumped in the back.

  “Jane, what the hell?”

  “You should have seen the look on your face, John,” Lady Jane said, laughing harder. “Great fun.”

  “Not for me,” Col. Randal said. “Was this on from the start?”

  “Yes, it was,” Lady Jane said. “How were you planning to conclude the evening’s festivities, John?”

  Col. Randal decided that was a question for another time. “I was simply following my orders—someone should have informed me.”

  “We wanted to keep it real,” Lady Jane said, laughing so hard she started to hiccup.

  “Real,” Col. Randal said. “You nearly nailed me with that champagne bottle—I thought you were about to shoot Hekmet.”

  “Possibly have done her a favor if I had,” Lady Jane said.

  “Mandy found the second radio.”

  18

  U.S. 71ST AIRBORNE DIVISION

  Colonel John Randal and Major the Lady Jane Seaborn were on the dock when the ship carrying ex-Captain Travis McCloud and fifty U.S. Paratroop volunteers for Raiding Forces arrived. A convoy of gun jeeps was waiting to transport the men to RFHQ. Any infusion of new troops was always an exciting time.

  Every patrol, with the single exception of Lieutenant Roy Kidd’s Scout Patrol, needed replacements. The plan was to make the new troops feel part of Raiding Forces from the minute they arrived. Captain Mike “Mad Dog” Reupart, who was still on light duty, had orders to get them desert-qualified in the shortest amount of time possible—a “gentleman’s course,” where the idea was to teach—not harass. Then the patrol leaders would be allowed to make their selections.

  Any man who did not measure up would be quietly removed from the program or dropped from the patrol they were assigned to in the event they did not perform up to standard. Since these men were all triple volunteers—volunteered for the army, volunteered for Jump School and volunteered for hazardous service with Raiding Forces—and then handpicked by ex-Capt. McCloud, Col. Randal was not expecting much of a loss rate.

  Lady Jane was almost beside herself with anticipation. She had adopted Raiding Forces as her personal pet project when the unit was in its infancy, struggling to learn how to conduct its first pinprick raids against the French Coast. Even though she’d been offered other, much more prestigious assignments, she had steadfastly stayed with the Raiders from Seaborn House to the Gold Coast, then to Abyssinia and Egypt.

  Now, with the United States in the war, Raiding Forces was going to be the recipient of the first contingent of American fighting men in U.S. uniform to deploy to the Middle East Command’s theatre of operations.

  Colonel Dudley Clarke and a gaggle of photographers, including a film crew, were on hand to record the arrival. Normally troop movements are classified. However, this one was a major event, a turning point in the war—America was swinging into action.

  Except it wasn’t.

  These fifty U.S. paratroopers would be the only American combat troops to serve in Egypt until the arrival of the independent airborne regiment Col. Randal had been promised. And that would be all the U.S. Army’s fighting men coming to Egypt.

  There was, however, no need for the Germans to be let in on that particular piece of information. Ex-Capt. McCloud’s men would be billed as the advance party of a massive U.S. Army troop movement to Middle East Command. Photos would appear in newspapers worldwide. Col. Clarke had always wanted a parachute battalion for his deception operations, and now he was going to turn these fifty jumpers into one in a very public way.

  The A-Force commander had already obtained Col. Randal’s OK to allow the new Raiding Forces volunteers to make daily demonstration jumps in sight of Cairo, before or after their training. Real live jumpers were going to be a lot better than the pseudo parachutists made out of duffel bags filled with sand that A-Force had been using for deception most of the last year—actual paratroopers could be dropped closer to town.

  The Middle East Command’s band was standing by. Field Marshal Claude Auchinleck arrived in his staff car to take part in the deception.

  Ex-Capt. McCloud was followed down the gangplank by the volunteers, carrying their duffle bags over one shoulder, wearing their overseas caps with the round parachute patch stitched on the left side at a jaunty angle and their pants blousing into brown, spit-shined Cochran jump boots. The band started blaring “Stars and Stripes Forever.” Dockworkers and spectators who had gathered around when they heard “the Yanks were coming” began cheering. Sailors on other ships ran to the rails to see what was happening and joined in the celebration. Soon, ship’s captains all over the harbor were tooting their horns and ordering their fire hoses sprayed in salute.

  Col. Clarke said to one of his cameramen, “Get a shot of those jump boots.”

  Ex-Capt. McCloud called the volunteers into formation—three ranks.

  “Capt. McCloud and fifty U.S. volunteers reporting for duty, sir!”

  Col. Randal returned his salute, then he and Lady Jane, accompanied by ex-Capt. McCloud, did a slow walk-through inspection. This was mainly for show, a mark of respect, and would most likely be the last formation these men would hold for a long time—Raiding Forces not being known for standing on ceremony. The troops had a hard time keeping their eyes locked to the front when Lady Jane came by.

  More than a few were wondering what they had gotten themselves into.

  Col. Randal reported to FM Auchinleck—he took up a position to his left with Lady Jane as ex-Capt. McCloud marched the U.S. contingent of Raiding Forces past him. The Field Marshal took the salute.

  As soon as everyone was aboard the jeeps, the convoy was away to RFHQ. Col. Randal and Lady Jane were in the lead gun jeep with the colonel at the wheel. The moment the convoy pulled out of sight, on signal from Col. Clarke, a banner on poles went up.

  The cameras zoomed in.

  “WELCOME U.S. 71st AIRBORNE DIVISION”

  There was no U.S. 71st Airborne Division.

  • • •

  Captain “Geronimo” Joe McKoy and Waldo Treywick were waiting at rfhq. The pair had returned from their real estate tour of West Coast properties the night before. They had spent the entire morning supervising the chefs from the exclusive Bradford Hotel in the gentle art of cooking Bar-B-Q.

  None of the Bradford chefs had ever even heard of Bar-B-Q, but they soon got into the spirit of a new culinary adventure. The sauce was a complete mystery, but Capt. McKoy gladly shared his “secret” recipe, which he confessed “would be a lot better if we had us about a half-a’ fifth a’ tequila to throw in it”—but alas, there was no tequila to be had in Cairo.

  Capt. McKoy also decided that the new U.S. volunteers might like to have “a batch-a’ hush-puppies.” This idea caused a certain amount of angst among the cook staff. The Bradford men were willing to slaughter two steers for the feast but drew the line at cooking puppies. They relented when the ex-Arizona Ranger explained the ingredients consisted primarily of cornmeal—not little dogs.

&nb
sp; Problem was, once the chefs prepared the hush-puppies, they ate most of them.

  They all agreed the Bar-B-Q went down especially well with Egyptian Stella Beer. There were cases of the green bottles—sporting the yellow label with its distinctive blue star—on ice, waiting for the festivities to begin. Word was, if you drank enough Stella Beer you could go blind.

  When the convoy arrived, it was greeted by a party of fifty Raiders under the supervision of Sergeant Mike “March or Die” Mikkalis. The Raiding Forces men shouldered the paratrooper’s duffel bags and carried them into the barracks (a converted horse stable) that had been reserved for the new arrivals. Inside were bunk beds that were made up and waiting—like you would find in a luxury hotel.

  The idea was to welcome the Americans—make them feel a part of the team from the start.

  As the troops were getting settled in, Major Jeb Pelham-Davies was showing the three officers, Captain Duke Slater, Lieutenant Richard “Dynamite Dick” Coogan and Lieutenant Dan Morgan, to the transit officer-quarters building. Enough rooms were available so that every officer in Raiding Forces had his own, though they were seldom at RFHQ to occupy them.

  “How did your trip go?” Col. Randal asked Capt. McKoy.

  “John,” Capt. McKoy said, “people are flat giving land away on the West Coast. They’re in a panic—what’s bein’ called the ‘Jap Flap.’ Sorta a reverse Oklahoma Land Rush. I ain’t never seen anything like it.”

  “Why?”

  “A Jap submarine lobbed a few shells ashore at one of the oil refineries and that caused a scare,” Capt. McKoy said. “Then they had what everybody’s calling ‘The Battle of Los Angeles.’ That happened while we was out there.

  “Anti-aircraft guns goin’ off all night long. Nobody knows what they was shootin’ at but, accordin’ to witnesses, it weren’t no weather balloon like the Army claims. And, that was all she wrote on the price a’ real estate.

  “Me and Waldo bought us about ten thousand adjacent acres apiece up at Malibu. Best lookin’ beachfront you ever saw makes up about ten miles of our property line.

  “Scooped up another twelve thousand acres outside Hollywood in the hills for investment. We may be developers after the war—when we ain’t raisin’ palomino quarter horses up at Malibu.”

  “Land barons,” Col. Randal said. “Sounds like you two did well.”

  “Crazy good,” Capt. McKoy said. “We was buyin’ prime real estate for ten cents on the dollar and gettin’ the mineral rights—them Japs ain’t ever gonna invade California. How would they get there?”

  “They can’t,” Col. Randal said. “But the Japanese may take over all of China, Asia and the Philippines. I think our side has way underestimated the capabilities of the Land of the Rising Sun.”

  “Heard you had yourself a little Jap problem while I’s gone,” Capt. McKoy said. “Singapore just rolled over?”

  Col. Randal said, “Didn’t fight back.”

  “Word is,” Capt. McKoy said, “the Japs are driving on Bataan. General MacArthur is holed up on Corregidor—that don’t sound too good.”

  “No,” Col. Randal said, “it doesn’t.”

  James “Baldie” Taylor arrived with Brigadier Raymond J. Maunsell, who liked to be called R. J., and Colonel Bonner Fellers, the U.S. Army attaché to Middle East Command. Ostensibly, the three were there to be social. Vice Admiral Sir Randolph “Razor” Ransom showed up as they were parking their car.

  All of Major the Lady Jane Seaborn’s Royal Marines were present as well as Veronica Paige. Red had come with two of her Clipper Girl girlfriends from the flight to Singapore who may have been looking for ex-Lieutenant Billy Jack Jaxx and King. Brandy Seaborn and Captain Penelope “Legs” Honeycutt-Parker were present. Even Rikke Runborg, aka Rocky, was sampling the Bar-B-Q.

  Col. Randal pulled aside ex-Captain Travis McCloud and ex-Lt. Jaxx.

  “I’ll be transferring back to the U.S. Army shortly,” Col. Randal said. “As part of my inducement package, an independent Parachute Infantry Regiment is being shipped to Egypt for me to command in conjunction with Raiding Forces.”

  “That’s terrific, sir,” ex-Lt. Jaxx said.

  “We’ll see,” Col. Randal said. “But here’s the interesting part—as the commander of an independent regiment I can promote people up to the rank of major.

  “What I want to do, Travis, is to promote you to major. Not sure yet in what capacity; be thinking about it. Jack, I’m promoting you to captain—youngest in the army.

  “That work for you men?”

  “Yes, sir!” both officers chorused.

  “We need to figure out what to do with our AVG troops,” Col. Randal said. “The army wants them to re-enlist. Give me recommendations on the men you endorse for promotion in the enlisted grades. I want your opinions on anyone who you believe might be a candidate for a direct commission.

  “Get back to me with your thoughts.”

  “Roger, sir,” ex-Capt. McCloud said. “Let’s make separate lists, Jack, then compare notes—then we can talk to the other Patrol Leaders.”

  “Yes, sir,” ex-Lt. Jaxx said.

  The young Texan was a late arrival to Raiding Forces, but in the time he had been there he had made his presence felt. Now he was being elevated into the upper command echelon.

  “When we do transfer,” Col. Randal said, “you’ll be sworn in at your new grade.”

  He handed each of them one of Waldo’s custom-rolled cigars, and all three lit up with his battered U.S. 26th Cavalry Regiment Zippo.

  “Congratulations, gentlemen.”

  When Col. Randal saw Lieutenant Butch “Headhunter” Hoolihan walk by, he said, “Butch, do you have a moment?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  The two walked off a short distance. Lt. Hoolihan had been with Col. Randal from the day he had pulled him out of a club car on a train to stand guard over his private compartment while the initial concept of OPERATION TOMCAT was being briefed. The Royal Marine had been commissioned in the field, having jumped in with the three-man advance party of Force N.

  Col. Randal said, “Pick your replacement, Butch—I’m sending you to Achnacarry to do a tour as an instructor at Special Warfare Training Center.”

  “Bloody hell, sir . . .”

  “You’ve been on constant operations longer than anyone in Raiding Forces. You’re going—is that clear, Lieutenant?”

  Lt. Hoolihan was Col. Randal’s most highly-prized junior officer. He had earned that status the hard way—in the field behind enemy lines under harsh and desperate conditions. It was time for him to have a break.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Four months,” Col. Randal said. “Then come back and have any job you want. Fair?”

  “Roger,” Lt. Hoolihan said. “Thank you, sir—I could use a break from the King Duck. What a beast of a ship.”

  VAdm. Ransom walked over. “I understand you have another skipper for me, Colonel—Wino Muldoon?”

  “Yes, sir,” Col. Randal said. “He was one of the three tugboat captains on OPERATION LOUNGE LIZARD out of the Gold Coast—which you’re not supposed to know anything about, Admiral.”

  “I know nothing about the operation at all,” VAdm. Ransom lied. He knew every detail.

  “I met Skipper Muldoon at the reception after Raiding Forces’ Investiture ceremony at the Palace following OPERATION LOUNGE LIZARD. We shall find employment for him. Sea Squadron could stand expansion for additional operations I am contemplating.

  VAdm. Ransom was now a card-carrying member of MI-6—or the Inter-Services Liaison Department (ISLD), as it was known under its cover name in Egypt. He had recently been ordered by Admiral John Godfrey, Chief of Naval Intelligence, to support GOLDEN FLEECE and RED INDIAN missions in Middle East Command, working in conjunction with Commander Ian Fleming—though that was classified.

  The Razor was the Royal Navy’s Director of Operations (Irregular)—the Admiralty having recently promoted him on paper by dropping “Deputy” from his
job description. VAdm. Ransom was coming up in the world of Naval Special Operations and Intelligence.

  “It’s my understanding that Wino captained the tug that brought you out of Singapore. Good show, Colonel. Better than you shall ever know.”

  “He did, sir,” Col. Randal said. “I think you’re going to like him.”

  “I am sure I will,” VAdm. Ransom said. “I also understand you are to be offered command of a U.S. Army Parachute Infantry Regiment.”

  One of VAdm. Ransom’s express assignments, given him in person by Brigadier Stewart Menzies, aka C, the chief of the British Secret Intelligence Service, was to make sure that Col. Randal remained in command of Raiding Forces.

  R. J., Col. Clarke, Jim and Lady Jane all had identical marching orders.

  “Yes, sir,” Col. Randal said, “that’s what I hear.”

  “Pray tell,” the Razor said, “you shall not be leaving Raiding Forces? Command of a full regiment is a fine thing for an officer of your age, but it could not possibly render the service to the war effort you are doing now. A lot of officers are capable of commanding parachute infantry.

  “Special operations commanders with your experience—irreplaceable.”

  “I’m not sure how the PIR will play into our current operations, sir,” Col. Randal said. “My intention is to stay with Raiding Forces for the duration—if I can.”

  “Colonel,” VAdm. Ransom said, “we are not having this conversation—I happen to be in a position to guarantee that happens.”

  “In that case, sir,” Col. Randal said, “I’ll quit worrying about being reassigned by the War Department.”

  It was not lost on Col. Randal that the admiral was another in a long line of people who seemed overly concerned with persuading him to keep doing exactly what he wanted to do.

  R. J., Jim and Col. Fellers were hovering nearby, waiting for VAdm. Ransom and Col. Randal to finish their conversation. When the admiral departed in search of his daughter, Brandy, Jim came over and said carefully under his breath, so no one else could overhear.