Deed of Glory (Commander Cochrane Smith series)

by Alan Evans

  Every man aboard was strapped into a Sutton harness, webbing straps coming down over his shoulders, others round his waist, all fastened at the navel with a locking-pin. Dent and Gregson in the nose wore flying suits against the cold while those in the hull sat on sleeping-bags, others spread over them. The seats were low and they sat with their knees under their chins.

  This would be only Ward’s second flight in a glider and he swore it would be his last. He had been given one quick trip earlier that day—“to get the hang of it”, Madden had said. In fact the flight had been to see if Ward became airsick. He had not. He had learned how to get in, and out, and he wanted to know no more. He hated being shut in this crowded box, unable to see what was going on, or to do anything about it. Madden and the others were full of confidence. Ward’s thought was that as this jaunt had to be attempted then the sooner it was over and done with the better.

  The others. He wished there had been more time to get to know them but he thought he knew enough. Last night at the briefing and again today they had all studied the aerial photographs and the maps, questioned, argued, listened and learned, committing the information to memory. Ward remembered now the description of Wellington’s men—‘not tall but deep in the chest’. That fitted these commandos in the Hotspur with him. Sergeant Beare was the biggest with a wrestler’s build, broad and long-armed with huge hands. He was also the only regular soldier amongst them. The others had been Territorial soldiers—part-timers—or had volunteered in 1939. Jimmy Nicholl was the smallest, dark and very quick. The other privates, Lockwood, Driscoll and Baldry, Sergeant Dent the pilot and Lieutenant Tim Gregson, all were men of average build. They were a cheerful lot but they all had a reassuring aura of contained toughness. Tim Gregson, in particular, gave a man confidence; between them he and Peter Madden could pull this off.

  If anyone could.

  *

  Dent licked his lips. Not long now. He squinted as the lights of the flarepath glared into life. One by one and in quick succession the twelve Whitleys carrying the paras took off, then the thirteenth, towing O’Donnell’s glider, raced along the runway and lifted into the night sky. Dent thought, Unlucky thirteen. He crossed his fingers for O’Donnell, then took a deep, steadying breath. Here we go!

  The Whitley ahead of him lumbered slowly forward, the snake of the tow straightening astern of it. Dent saw the ground crew signal to the bomber’s pilot that the slack was taken up and the pilot opened his throttles. The Whitley ran away and the Hotspur juddered after it, speed increasing rapidly until they were past sixty knots and Archie felt the lift, heard the rear-gunner in the power-operated turret of the Whitley, voice squawking through the intercom to his pilot and down the line that ran along the tow into Dent’s earphones: “Matchbox airborne!”

  Now the Hotspur was flying above the Whitley that was still on the runway, they were off the ground and out of the slipstream and the juddering was gone. Seconds later the Whitley lifted off, climbing, and the Hotspur climbed with it, above and behind at the end of the tow. When the Whitley levelled off, Dent eased forward on the stick and the Hotspur dropped below the bomber, bucketing a mad instant as they passed through the slipstream, then riding smooth and still.

  Archie Dent checked his few instruments: airspeed, altimeter, turn and bank, “angle of dangle”. You had to keep the angle of the tow right or be battered in the slipstream. The levers that operated the flaps were down by his left knee and the tit to release the tow, a ball the size of a billiard ball, was in reach of his left hand. Across the cabin stretched the rope fastened to the clips holding the perspex canopy; pull that and the canopy came free, leaving the cabin open.

  He could just make out the tow stretching up to the Whitley, three blue lights on the trailing edge of each wing. He could hear the roar of its engines and see the cigarette glow of their exhausts.

  He settled solidly down into the seat. This was going to be a long trip, his longest by far.

  It could well be his last.

  *

  Ward sat with his left shoulder against the plywood bulk-head that separated him from the pilot’s cabin. He worked his wrist up from under the covering sleeping-bag and held his watch before his face. They had been flying for only ten minutes.

  On his right sat Sergeant Beare, sleeping, as were most of the others. Young Jimmy Nicholl’s head rested on the sergeant’s broad shoulder. Further back in the hull a light glowed: Lockwood, a farm labourer before the war, was reading with the help of a pocket torch. Ward had caught a glimpse of his book before they boarded the Hotspur, Hemingway’s For Whom the Bell Tolls. He thought it an unfortunate choice of title.

  How could Lockwood read, the rest of them sleep, with what lay ahead? He looked out of the tiny porthole above him, at the bright, moonlit sky. It was bitterly cold and he was glad of the sleeping-bag, and the airborne troopers’ smock they had given him along with close-fitting helmet and gloves. A Thompson gun hung on its sling against his chest and the Verey pistol in a pocket of the smock was a pressure on his hip. Madden gave him a short course on the Thompson at Tilshead, and asked, “Are you sure you’ve never handled one before?”

  Ward answered, “Never.” But he knew from grouse-shooting days with his father that he was a natural shot.

  Now he wondered about Krueger, Boston and her crew, all of them on leave. He should have been on leave too, and that thought summoned up memories of his time with Catherine Guillard.

  He stared across the narrow cabin, lit only by the tiny portholes in the roof, and forced himself to concentrate on the business in hand. He mentally checked over the details of the operation. Again. And again.

  When they were over the sea Dent and O’Donnell jettisoned their oleo landing gear because, to shorten the landing run, they were going to land on the wooden skid beneath the nose and hull of each Hotspur. It was a beautiful, clear night with a moon. Archie Dent reckoned visibility at four miles and prayed they would not meet night fighters. He tried not to imagine German cannon shells tearing through the plywood skin of the Hotspur.

  The flight went on.

  *

  They had been airborne over two hours when Archie heard the voice of the rear-gunner in the Whitley: “Hallo, Match-box! Skipper says enemy coast in five minutes!”

  Archie straightened in his seat and took a fresh grip of the stick. At the briefing they’d said that enemy radar, if it picked them up, would see only one ‘blip’ for both Whitley and glider, and that by the time the glider cast off the tow they would be inside the minimum range of the radar. Thus they would land undetected and Jerry would think the Whitleys were on a routine bombing raid. The briefing had been understandably reticent, however, on the subject of what would happen to them during the time that the enemy radar was tracking them, be they represented by two blips or two hundred…

  Archie put that thought to one side and repeated the rear-gunner’s message to Lieutenant Gregson who rapped on the bulkhead behind him, alerting the half-dozen in the hull.

  Ward woke to his rapping, surprised that he had slept. He gave Beare a nudge and the others came awake as Beare passed it on. Lockwood’s torch clicked out and the book was put away. They stripped off the covering sleeping-bags and kicked them out of the way. They were ready.

  The rear-gunner reported, “Skipper says enemy coast in sight!”

  Whatever relief Archie Dent might have felt was short-lived. A flash lit the perspex dome and his head jerked, his eyes narrowed against the glare that was instantly gone, instantly repeated again and again and interspersed with the regular crump! crump! crump! of bursting flak. The radar had indeed been tracking them, the guns lying in wait. He saw the bursts well out to starboard but the sight gave him little joy for he knew that the other Whitley was out there in the middle of them. He prayed for her, but in vain.

  He watched the tongues of flame mark her. Then she was falling, sliding away towards the sea. She was still under some control, her dive shallow but her end certain. Now, sud
denly, she was a ball of fire. Then the rear-gunner’s voice squawked in his ear, “LZ in sight right ahead! Pull off now!”

  Archie yanked at the tit and felt the kick as the tow was released. The Whitley lifted above him and pulled away ahead, flying on inland to keep up the pretence of a routine bombing raid. He gave all his attention now to the night before him, saw a distant pin-prick of light on the ground and gently adjusted his course.

  All was silence now. The guns had ceased firing, the Whitley droned away into the distance, and there was only the whisper of the windrush as the Hotspur slid softly down the moonlit night.

  Gregson asked, “See it?”

  Dent used his left hand to pull off the headphones and drop them. “Seen.”

  Gregson sounded cool and Dent thought that he was going to be a good man to have along on a crazy show like this.

  The guiding light was gone, masked by the forest inland as the glider descended.

  The white line of phosphorescence that was the sea breaking on the shore drifted up towards him. On either hand were grey cliffs with the black throat of a gully between, at the bottom of it a thread of silver, the stream winding inland. He was sliding above the gully now and he could see lights again, three of them now, one closer than the other two. They were in a clearing and he could make that out, the moonlit ground white with frost or snow, surrounded by the black-patched treetops.

  It wasn’t much of a landing ground. A bit longer than a football pitch they’d said at the briefing, forty yards wide, and a stream at the end of it.

  He had to get the Hotspur down before the first marker light and stop her before the other two. They’d said the wind would be right on the nose and there was a lift of the ground up to the lights before it dropped away to the stream. It had sounded bad enough at the briefing, but up here in the dark, trying to bring the glider in as low as he dared over the trees, holding her nose up so she was just short of stalling—this was murder.

  All around was the forest. He had to put her down at the lights or she’d be a bloody wreck.

  And only one chance.

  He put the nose down, the Hotspur seemed to fall over the black wall of the trees and he was looking at the white ground coming up at him. He shuddered at the thought of smashing in on the fragile nose, his legs inside it. He hauled back desperately on the stick, pulled up the nose then let it drop again, just holding her from stalling. The first light rushed up at him and now he stalled her deliberately, heaved hard on the first lever and got half-flaps, then the second lever, full flaps. The Hotspur hung for a second nose up, he saw the light just ahead of the port wing and he knew they were low, almost down—

  The glider slammed on to the earth.

  The silent flight was ended and the night full of sound now, a slamming, ripping and tearing as the Hotspur skidded across the frozen ground and Archie fought to hold her down, hold her straight, and somehow stop her. There were no brakes. Snow flew back like spray as the nose ploughed through it. Blackness lifted like the waving arms of a great Indian goddess and he recognised the bare branches of a tree at the instant he saw the silver of the snow-covered earth falling away. He yelled, “We’re goin’ in the drink!”

  In the black coffin of the cabin Ward heard the yell as all of them were jolted and tossed about, secured though they were in the Sutton harnesses. There came one monstrous blow on the hull and a cracking and crunching of timber and the Hotspur slewed, fell sideways—and stopped, lying on its port side.

  Into the sudden silence the voice of Sergeant Beare barked, “Out!” They pulled on the pins of the harnesses and they fell away. Beare snapped off the clips on the right hand door and kicked it out. He followed it quickly, Thompson gun held ready. Jimmy Nicholl went next, then Ward. The door on the port side was crushed against the earth, so the other men squirmed out after him.

  The night was still. It seemed the ruse had worked and they had not been seen. The Hotspur lay under the spread branches of trees and sideways-on to the stream that ran only feet away. Above him on the bank the commandos threw themselves down in the carpet of snow and peered out into the clearing. Sergeant Beare loomed with the stocky figure of Dent, the pilot, behind him and Ward asked, “Where’s Mr. Gregson?”

  Dent answered, “Bought it, sir.” He explained: “We hit a tree. Branch smashed in that side of the canopy, ripping it off, just missed me but hit Mr. Gregson.”

  Ward asked, “Are you sure he’s dead?”

  “Yes, sir.” That was Beare, and he added, “No sign of the other glider either. God knows where they finished up.

  Dent started, “I saw the other tug—”

  A voice above them called, “Somebody comin’!”

  Beare snapped, “Hold your fire! That could be the Frog we’re meeting!”

  He started up the bank and Ward went with him, the pair of them halting below the crest so they could just see over it and out into the clearing where the snow was cut in a broad furrow by the Hotspur’s skid. A figure trotted towards them through the snow, awkwardly because of hands held high. A youth by the look of him, light on his feet, not tall. He wore trousers tucked into the tops of boots and a dark, short overcoat buttoned to the neck, beret clapped on his head.

  He slowed to a walk as he came to the shadow of the trees and Ward took a step forward so he could be seen. The figure halted and the challenge came breathlessly high: “British?”

  “Oui!” Ward answered and walked forward.

  They met under the snow-clad branches of the trees and in the filtered moonlight Ward looked down into the face of Catherine Guillard.

  For a second he was speechless, then he burst out in astonishment, “Catherine!”

  The girl was no less surprised: “John?”

  Then anger brought from Ward, “Are they all bloody mad, sending you on a job like this?”

  “No, John! They did not know it would be me and I had no choice. There are only two of us who could handle this, who know the ground, the details, what has to be done. The other is my wireless operator and he can’t be risked; he argued, inevitably, but without him there is no communication with London. So it had to be me.”

  Ward still stood tight-lipped and Catherine said quietly, “Anyway, it is very little. I waited near here in the house of friends—,” but alone because the Boilets had gone away to escape suspicion, “—listened to the BBC until the message came. Then I set the lights and now I guide you. And afterwards I leave with you. It’s really very simple.”

  And if the raiding party failed to escape? Ward knew the orders and he was not so certain that Quartermain had never suspected Catherine Guillard would be involved in this way. They were playing for high stakes and an agent was an agent. But she was looking up at him and here in the snow and under the cold moon there was a current between them and she reached out to touch his arm.

  Beare muttered, “We’ve got to be moving, sir. Would you like me to take charge?”

  His black bad temper spoke for Ward, “No, I bloody well wouldn’t!”

  Beare thought, I hope the big bastard knows what he’s doing.

  Ward stared out over Catherine’s head into the field beyond, fighting down the rage, thinking coolly again. There was still no other glider. He turned to Dent. “What were you saying?”

  Archie Dent answered, “I saw the other Whitley go down in the sea, sir. Didn’t see anything of the Hotspur.”

  Ward took it in. Gregson was dead and probably Peter Madden and all his party so Ward was left with the handful of men around him and Catherine Guillard. He was aware of Beare and Dent watching him.

  He said, “Sergeant Dent, when we get closer you’ll take one man and do what you can with the Freya. Steal a bit if possible but shoot it up anyway. The idea is to make it look as if this raid was aimed at the Freya. Remember?”

  “Yes, sir.” Dent glanced round. “I’ll take Baldry. All right, sir?”

  Ward nodded, “Time?” He looked at his watch.

  Dent checked his:
“Twelve twenty-five.”

  “Agreed. Give us till fifteen minutes from now to get into position. That’ll be twelve-forty. But if you hear firing down here before then, you can start right away. Any questions?”

  “RV afterwards, sir?”

  Ward told himself he should have thought of the rendezvous but he had been concentrating on the immediate first decision.

  Dent prompted, “The original, sir? First bend in the gully down from the bridge?”

  The bridge was seaward of the house and might well have a sentry: but with any luck they would be out of his sight round the bend in the gully. Ward nodded.

  Beare asked, “Pill-box, sir? Line of retreat?”

  The plan rehearsed on Salisbury Plain had been for one small party to take and hold the pill-box at the head of the gully and so keep the escape route down to the beach open for the others. Ward said, “We’ll have to take that when it comes. We’re short-handed as it is.” He saw Beare nodding reluctant approval.

  Ward looked round at them, cast a glance back down the slope to the wreck of the Hotspur where lay the body of Tim Gregson, then faced forward. “Move now.”

  The men in front of him rose to their feet and Ward led the way forward with Catherine Guillard. Behind them came Jimmy Nicholl, then Lockwood, Driscoll and the broad figure of Beare bringing up the rear. Dent and Baldry followed for a while, then headed out where Catherine indicated, making for the track leading up the slope to the cliff-top. Ward could not make out the Freya there but the wooded crest was an unmistakable hump against the night sky.

  Catherine and the file of men moved steadily through the forest, following a path hidden beneath the snow that crunched softly under their boots. They glimpsed the moon-bright sky through a lacing of branches but under the trees it was dark. Ward’s breath streamed like smoke in the crisp, cold air. He realised he was breathing quickly as if he had run a race, knew this was due to tension and tried to control it, breathed more slowly and deeply.