by Alan Evans
*
After the running battle in the Channel Boston was detached from Pizey’s flotilla and returned to escorting the east coast convoys with Arundel, who signalled: “Welcome home. How is your steering now?”
That harked back to the jammed steering-engine of three weeks before and Boston steaming in circles. Ward answered, “Good in a roundabout way. We love you, too.”
So they went back to work.
The weather was not so bad, the ship not quite so wet. They were twice attacked by E-boats but if Dirty Bill was one of them he was not identified and they did not lose a ship. But the memory of the blazing tanker lingered.
A signalman and a cook received letters telling them their girls had found another: the signalman was sunk in gloom but the cook mightily relieved. The joint wake and thanksgiving was held in a pub in Sheerness and became riotous but the shore patrol was not called. And when cook and signalman came back to the ship singing, the coxswain met them at the side, shut them up, dressed them down and sent them peaceably to their hammocks.
On the evening of Wednesday, 25th February, Ward brought his ship into Sheerness for a boiler-clean and six days’ leave for, almost, all hands. He had not thought of CHARIOT or Quartermain for some days but the admiral had not forgotten him. Five minutes after Boston berthed the telegram was brought aboard.
8: “…it should be quite a party.”
Ward wondered what the hell it was all about this time. As the train puffed and sighed into Salisbury Station he looked at his watch and saw it read ten past one. Only ten minutes late; that wasn’t bad at all for a wartime train. The telegram from Quartermain had been uninformative, to say the least. It had read: Report Salisbury 26 February ETA Station 1300.
He had told no one, remembering Quartermain’s instruction, “Keep your trap shut!” Joe Krueger and the others thought he was headed for his home in the north. As he should have been, instead of down here to look at files or some damn thing for Quartermain’s benefit. It had been a waste of time in Richmond Terrace and he was willing to bet it would be a—
He was out on the platform and the Leading Wren was saluting him. He returned the salute, recognising her. Dark hair and eyes, nice legs, nice figure, nice smile: Quartermain’s popsy. He said, “Has he sent you to stop me getting back on the train?”
The smile widened at that and the girl said, “Admiral Quartermain sent his car to fetch you, sir.”
“Same thing.”
Ward walked with her out of the station and asked, “Would you tell me your name? So I don’t have to call you Leading Wren Thingummy?”
“Jenny Melville.”
“How do you like working for the admiral, Jenny Melville?”
“Very much. I want to stay with him.”
“Good job?”
“Not always.” Sometimes it’s bloody, she thought. Sometimes you learn more than you want to.
They came to the silver-grey Daimler and Jenny Melville opened the rear door for Ward but he only threw his bag in. “D’you mind if I sit in the front’? I hate talking to people’s backs.”
“Why, no, sir.”
He joked, “Besides, it feels as if I’m going to a funeral when I sit in the back of this thing.”
The girl did not laugh.
She drove north out of Salisbury, headed for Amesbury and then turned on to the Devizes road.
They talked of the war and the girl asked about Boston so Ward told her about the cook who had celebrated the breaking of his engagement and various other stories and made her laugh.
Once he asked, “Do you know what all this is about?”
“I’m not allowed to say, sir,” and the laughter was gone.
The sky darkened and the rain started to fall. At Tilshead she swung the big car off the road and into the camp at the top of the hill. They were stopped at the gate, but only briefly; the sentries knew her. Jenny Melville drove through the camp and out on to the empty ranges beyond.
They drove in silence now. The girl seemed to be worried about something, her smile gone and her lower lip caught in her teeth. Ward thought Salisbury Plain was a less than cheerful sight this afternoon, an empty, barren, blasted heath. Not quite empty, though—there was an army truck pulled in at the side of the road ahead of them and standing on a knoll near the road was a small, dark-coated figure under a black umbrella.
Jenny Melville halted the Daimler behind the truck. “There you are, sir.”
“Thank you.”
The clouds were low over the plain. It was raining heavily and steadily now, driving on the wind. Ward climbed to the top of the knoll using one hand to hold on his cap and stood beside Quartermain. Rain ran off the back of the admiral’s umbrella in a small waterfall. He looked around as Ward squelched up and grunted. “Um! You got here then. Good.”
“Good afternoon, sir.”
But Quartermain had turned away and was gazing out over the plain. A house stood about two hundred yards away, very old and ramshackle, the roof almost gone and the windows just gaping holes. There was still a door and it was shut. About thirty yards from the door a line of white mine tape was pegged out round the house on the long, tussocky grass. On higher ground three or four hundred yards beyond the house was an old bell-tent, while below it, and left, was a sandbagged machine-gun emplacement.
Midway between the house and the knoll, and facing the house, were two men lying behind a Bren. Movement drew Ward’s eye. A quarter mile away a group of soldiers had risen from cover in the grass and gorse.
Quartermain said, “Commandos.”
There looked to be a dozen or more but as Ward watched the party split into two. A small group of four headed away towards the bell-tent, while the rest made for the house. All moved at the double.
They carried submachine-guns and Ward thought, Thompsons? They slogged up the slope over the heavy ground towards the house and tent at a fast trot. The small group deployed and dropped flat about fifty yards from the tent. Most of the large group bellied down along the white line of the mine tape but three ran on, circling wide around the front of the house. They passed the Bren and finally dropped into cover close to the head of a shallow valley, little more than a fold in the ground, that twisted away across the plain. They were about thirty yards from the sandbagged emplacement.
Quartermain looked at his watch. “Forty seconds to go.” Without turning he said, “We’ve found your Monsieur Peyraud who helped build the dock at St. Nazaire and we’re going to bring him out. He refused to work for the Nazis and now he’s held prisoner in his own house. We struck lucky there—the Nazis would probably have carted him off to jail if they hadn’t needed a body of men in the area for another reason…Anyway, we want Peyraud to come of his own free will so we need someone who can gain his confidence quickly. Remember, we are talking of a man of sixty-seven, in good health but woken in the night by gunfire and finding himself faced by armed strangers. He needs to see a friendly face, someone he knows and can trust—or be persuaded to trust.”
Quartermain looked at his watch again and muttered, “Ten seconds.” He was silent a moment, then: “Your record shows you have your faults and my own experience is that you have a temper and directness of approach that can border on insubordination. But you also have sincerity and I think Alain Peyraud would trust you.”
Ward stared at him, unable to believe this was real. He was supposed to be on leave in Northumberland, not standing in the wind and cold rain of Salisbury Plain, being asked to land in occupied France. Was Quartermain serious?
Suddenly the Thompsons before the house, the tent and over by the sandbagged emplacement burst into racketing life. Four of the men lying before the house rose and ran like sprinters across the open ground, crouching and weaving. The Bren in the foreground was firing short bursts over their heads and Ward thought, Christ! They’re using live ammunition!
The four plastered themselves against the wall of the house, one either side of the window, one either side of the door.
The two flanking the window each hurled something into the house through the empty frame. Seconds later the grenades exploded in a double thump! The men by the door kicked it in and charged into the house while the other two rolled in over the window-sill. Those left at the mine tape now ran across, crouching under the fire of the Bren. Two broke away to belly down, one at each corner of the house, but the others ran straight inside.
There was firing inside the house. Ward saw, through the holes that had been the upper windows, the men appear in the rooms there. Grenades burst and the Thompsons hammered for half a minute, then the men poured out of the house again. They moved, spread out and independently, in short rushes, first back to the mine tape and then making a wide circle around the back of the house. Two of them dragged or half-carried between them a third man who seemed unable to run and stumbled continually. Quarter-main said, “He’s hobbled. Just a half yard of rope between his ankles but it keeps him down to an old man’s speed.”
The other party were falling back in similar fashion from the bell-tent, now bombed flat, and the two groups met some two hundred yards from the side of the house farthest from the door. They had circled it. Now they went on together and were met by the three at the head of the valley. The sandbagged emplacement had been bombed and smoke still drifted from it. They all withdrew down the valley, firing back at the house. When they were lost to sight the overlapping chatter of the Thompsons still came rattling back across the plain to where Ward and Quartermain stood.
The Bren ceased firing, then the Thompsons.
The two men at the Bren stood up. One of them lifted the gun, the other the ammunition box, and they trudged back to the road and the waiting truck.
The others reappeared at the head of the little valley, moving in a loose double file, an officer at their head and a sergeant at the tail. They slogged at the double across the plain, heading for the house.
Quartermain nodded satisfaction. “That’s the fourth time they’ve done it.” He turned his head to look up at Ward. “Well? What about it? Will you go?”
“Yes, sir.” After all, he reckoned he had started it, sending them in search of Peyraud.
“Just like that. Do you know what you’re in for?”
“No, sir.” But, after the exhibition just seen, he had a fair idea.
Quartermain sniffed. “You’re a mad bugger. Fortunately there are a few more about. Come and meet them.”
He started down from the knoll. Ward followed, heard squelching behind him, glanced around and saw Leading Wren Melville trailing them. She wore rubber boots and Ward wished he’d brought a pair; his own feet were soaking.
The commandos were drawn up rigidly before the house but as Quartermain approached he bellowed, “I’m not talking out in this bloody rain! Get ’em in the house, Peter!”
The officer barked an order, the ranks broke up and the commandos entered the house. Quartermain and Ward followed them. The wind whistled through the broken windows and rain dripped through holes in the floor. The commandos stood in a loose half-circle. Quartermain found a dry square yard, let down his umbrella and shook the water from it. Jenny Melville took it and stepped back discreetly.
Quartermain said, “Good afternoon, gentlemen!”
An answering murmur came back. There was a smell of wet khaki serge, sweat and oil and cordite. Ward thought these men carried about them all the stenches of war but one: blood. Would that come soon? The light was fading. Their eyes watched the admiral but they would flicker briefly, curiously to Ward.
Quartermain said, “You will be fully briefed tonight but as you’ve probably guessed, today’s exercises were in preparation for a particular raid and I’m going to tell you something about it now.”
That created a little stir and quick exchanges of glances. Quartermain waited for it to subside then went on: “First of all, this is Lieutenant John Ward. He’s going with you. John, this is Captain Peter Madden, Lieutenant Tim Gregson, Sergeant Beare…” He reeled off the names of all of them without hesitation and finished: “. . Sergeants Dent and O’Donnell.”
Ward thought it sounded like a lot of chiefs and not many Indians: three sergeants in a party of fifteen? Technical men, maybe? His eyes switched from face to face around the half-circle, meeting the eyes measuring him. Captain Madden looked confident, a cheerful, don’t-give-a-bugger-for-anybody sort of bloke he thought he could get on with—
“Mr. Ward was brought here at short notice.” Quartermain scowled an apology at Jack. “I heard a week ago where Peyraud was held and knew the type of operation this would be because Jerry has a Freya radar close by the house. Reconnaissance Spitfires have been over a few times to take a look at the Freya, so we have aerial photographs of the area, we know how the raid has to be made and I was able to bring Peter and his men here for training. But it was only the day before yesterday that I received enough detailed information to order the raid—and to send for you.”
The little admiral looked around the waiting half-circle. “Your objective is to rescue an old man, an engineer, from a house on the French coast. But we don’t want Jerry to realise we’ve taken him or that the raid was made to get him. For some time we’ve been planning another raid by a company of the Parachute Regiment to capture parts of a new German radar, the Würzburg. They’re going tomorrow night, and so will you. We know all about the Freya by the house but attack it anyway, so Jerry will think that you, like the paras, went for the radar. In today’s exercise it was represented by the bell-tent.
“The area for several miles around the house is heavily wooded and unsuitable for a parachute drop. It is considered the casualty rate would be unacceptably heavy. So instead you will be in the hands of your pilots. There is only the one landing zone, a clearing a quarter mile inland of the house, about as long as a football pitch and not quite as wide.”
Pilots? Ward wondered what aircraft could land in that small clearing—a Lysander? But he thought they only carried a couple of passengers and you could hardly land six of the things…
He listened to Quartermain: “A French Resistance man will mark the zone and meet you to act as guide. You will bring him out because that area would be a death trap for him if you left him. While there is a track from the L.Z. to the Freya there is no track through the forest to the house and that is the reason for the guide. Speed and surprise are essential, and you won’t have time for map-reading your way through close country at night. The German garrison billeted in the house to guard the Freya and our engineer, and to man a pill-box overlooking the beach, totals fifty or more. You will need to neutralise the pill-box because landing-craft will lift you off the beach.”
Quartermain paused a moment to let that sink in, then: “So—attack the Freya, burn the house to the ground and bring back that man. Surprise and speed. You have my confidence, gentlemen.”
The commandos marched back to the road and the truck, climbed aboard. Captain Madden stood by the tailboard and Ward stopped beside him on his way to the Daimler. He had a question he needed to ask but Madden spoke first. He took off his helmet and ran fingers through wiry hair, a middle-sized, compact young man of about Ward’s age and he grinned, “Well, if it all goes to plan it should be quite a party. What do you think?”
Ward answered from long experience, “It’s a bloody certainty it won’t all go to plan.”
Madden nodded cheerfully and winked. Ward realised the wink was not intended for him, turned and saw Leading Wren Jenny Melville holding open the door of the Daimler for Quartermain, saluting as he climbed in. She returned Madden’s wink then abruptly became solemn as she found Ward’s gaze on her. She still held the door open —for him, he realised.
He turned quickly back to Madden and asked his question: “How do we get there?”
Madden told him in a word and Ward said, “Jesus Christ!”
9: The Raid
Sergeant Archie Dent was just three hours short of his twenty-first birthday and he wondered seriously, though he was not a ser
ious young man, if he would make it. He sat in the pilot’s seat of the eight-man Hotspur glider and stared out through the perspex canopy at the night. The runway of Thruxton airfield was desolate under the moon, a black tarmac desert. The Blenheims that had been the first aircraft to land there in 1941 had burst three tyres on the rough concrete so it had quickly been tarmacked.
It was a fine, clear night. The weather men reported, however, that much of France was covered in snow. There were fourteen Whitleys lined up at the end of the runway, all the bombers running up their twin Merlin engines and creating a thunder in the night. Twelve carried men of the Parachute Regiment, their mission to capture vital parts of the Würzburg radar at Bruneval, north of Le Havre on the French coast. The two remaining Whitleys were each to tow a glider, one piloted by Sergeant Dent, the other by Sergeant O’Donnell. Captain Madden and six commandos were packed into O’Donnell’s glider, Lieutenant Gregson and six other men, including Ward, into Dent’s.
The Hotspur was thirty-nine feet long with a wingspan of forty-six feet. It sat very low, on short oleo legs, and Dent in the pilot’s seat had his boots no more than three feet above the runway. Between Dent and the bomber ahead of him the tow snaked widely, slack on the tarmac. The wash from the Whitley’s propellers was enough to set the Hotspur, a flimsy craft of wood struts and plywood, to violent juddering.
The headroom inside the glider was only five feet at most; the hull measured three and a half feet across at its widest point. There was a door on the right and forward, another on the left and to the rear. Lieutenant Gregson sat in the nose, just behind the pilot. Three of the other six sat sideways facing the right hand door, the other three faced that on the left. The doors were just crude panels, three feet high by two wide and fastened in place with knock-off catches. There were tiny portholes, about four inches in diameter, but cut in the roof so that the men could only glimpse the star-scattered sky.