by Alan Evans
He wished to God that Catherine was safe, somewhere else, anywhere but here, but they needed her. By leading them right to the house she was gaining the element of surprise and a chance of success.
But it was still a bloody mess.
What else could go wrong?
What could go right, now, with the already small force reduced to less than half?
*
When the first flak burst Peter Madden thought his glider was hit. It bucked and shuddered, but then it still flew and he realised the bursts were ahead of the Whitley that towed them. The glider was only being shaken as it passed through the turbulence the flak created. He sat behind O’Donnell in the nose and over the pilot’s shoulder he could see the Whitley silhouetted against the flashes. Then, as O’Donnell juggled with the controls to hold the Hotspur steady, Madden saw flames wink into life on the dark silhouette. They showed as tiny slivers of orange light on the port wing, then the starboard, but the slivers grew to wide, trailing tongues almost before he could blink.
He reasoned that both engines must have been hit. She was going down. If both engines had been hit then the rest of her would probably be holed like a colander. The pilot was still flying her—she was in a shallow dive, as if under some control, but he could not save her. Madden waited for instructions, some message, but none came back along that fragile line from the flaming, falling wreck.
He shouted at O’Donnell, “Let go!”
The pilot jerked at the tit and the towing-line fell away. He eased the stick to port and the Hotspur slipped out of the track of the Whitley, then eased it back and the Hotspur steadied, flying free. For seconds he was blind because the blazing aircraft had destroyed his night vision, then the Whitley struck and the fire was blotted out as she buried herself in the dark sea below.
O’Donnell held the stick with one hand, snatched off the earphones with the other and tossed them aside. “Bloody caper, this is!”
Madden asked, “See anything? Know where we are?”
O’Donnell shook his head, then: “There’s the coast!”
Madden saw the white line of breaking surf below and ahead. They were flying at eighty knots. O’Donnell said, “And there’s the cliff!”
It lifted before them like a grey wall and it seemed they would smash into it. Then O’Donnell got lift from some blessed thermal and the Hotspur soared, swooped up over the edge of the cliff and skimmed on above the snow-covered trees that ran below like a black, foam-flecked sea.
And in the bright moonlight they could see no gully or silver thread of a stream, no lights, no clearing. Peter Madden said, “Turn north.” He was sure they were too far south.
O’Donnell answered, “North, sir.”
The Hotspur tilted as it turned, losing altitude, then settled again into level flight but now the trees below looked dangerously close, seemed to be reaching up to tear at the belly of the glider.
O’Donnell warned, “We’d better find a hole soon.” But the forest stretched away endlessly, ready to rip the Hotspur apart—and the men inside her.
Then Peter Madden pointed. “Look! Down there!”
It was a break in the trees, possibly a road or a track running through a clearing, a ribbon stretched straight and white against the mottled white and black shadows of the gorse or bracken on either side. The clearing looked possibly wide enough, definitely not long enough, but they had nowhere else to go.
Madden said, “Take it!”
O’Donnell was already easing left on stick and rudder, then pulling the stick back to him, touching right rudder. He was lining her up, straightening her, steadying. They were low and slow, near to stalling. He swallowed and thought that if the bloody wind was right then they just might—The track was under them, the Hotspur’s skid nearly rubbing. There were trees on either hand, set back across a score of yards of clear ground, and close ahead. In the space of a heartbeat he wondered what the ground and the track were like under the snow, then they were down, the Hotspur bumping and lurching, swaying and screeching as the ruts of the track tore at her.
O’Donnell fought to hold her steady and straight, kept her from cartwheeling but could not hold her on the track. She slithered off into the open ground and bucked across it on her belly. The trees loomed up but first there was undergrowth. Snow spurted over the canopy, but they were slowing, the bushes acting as brakes. One wing caught and held briefly, the Hotspur spun around full circle on its skid and the other wing was sliced away on the trees. They ground to a shuddering halt.
For a long moment nobody stirred. Then, realising they were on the ground and alive, they moved as one.
O’Donnell pushed up the perspex canopy and he and Madden climbed free of the wreckage. The men were scrambling out of the cabin, deploying to form a defensive perimeter, and Madden listened a moment, head on one side. There was the sighing of wind in the trees, a rustling as his men bellied down at the edge of them, but no sound of German armoured vehicles tearing up the road—not yet. Madden moved quickly along the line of men, asking softly, “Everybody all right?” O’Donnell followed him and they found no man missing or even injured.
O’Donnell muttered, “It’s a bloody miracle.”
Madden agreed with him. But he still had problems. He did not know where the other Hotspur was, or where his objective lay. He did not know where he was and he would not find out standing here.
“Move!” He started out northwards along the track, trotting in the powdery snow at the side of it, the Thompson held two-handed across his chest. He only had the faintest of instincts to guide him. The men rose and followed him in file, O’Donnell at the tail.
They double-marched though the close-crowding trees that told him nothing for ten minutes. It was an eerie experience. They were still shaken by the Hotspur’s landing and now they were running along a lane through moonlit forest in a land hushed, snow-covered—and held by an enemy who might be hidden in the forest alongside, watching, coldly choosing his moment. Or around the next bend in the track.
Suddenly, ahead of them, a village lay in a clearing, a mere scattering of houses with a church standing at their centre. Madden halted his party. There was no light to be seen, not a sign of life—but he thought he knew where he was. He turned back along the track and into the trees, took out his torch and the map from the big pocket on the leg of his trousers. He had studied the map a hundred times before, committing its features to memory and he was sure about this village but still he checked that there was no other exactly the same. There was not.
He pencilled in his route then led his men past the village, flitting like shadows under the spread branches of the trees. A dog barked once, and a second time, the sound carried clear on the frosty air, then there was silence again as they left the village behind them. Now they ran in a shallow valley, the forest on one side, a stream on the other, and that was when they heard the crackle of small arms fire and saw its red winking far down the valley, above the trees, on the wooded crest of a hill.
That was their objective and it was still all of a mile away, across strange country, treacherously snow-covered and in the dark.
*
As Peter Madden and his section had crawled out of their wrecked Hotspur, Catherine Guillard was leading Ward and his men through the forest. The journey took time because Catherine stopped frequently to check that she was on the right path. She had reconnoitred this route by daylight and now it was night.
Finally they came on a break in the forest and Ward stood with the girl under the last of the trees. The forest curved away to the left and right, the trees describing a great circle. To his right a stream, a tributary of that running in the valley bottom, wriggled out of the forest, meandered along its edge and passed within yards of him. A path ran along the far bank of the stream and beyond stood a stone wall. Inside that enclosing wall, in the middle distance, lifted the dark, angular mass of the house, its roof silver under the snow and the moon.
Catherine pointed left and sai
d, “The gate is that way—and one of the guards.” She had to raise her voice to be heard above the rushing stream. It ran fast and brawling in winter spate and Ward knew it would be cold.
The stream and the house, the trees, the snow and the moonlight, all made a Christmas card scene. Just inches from his face, however, festoons of barbed wire, sagging and rusting, looped from tree to tree. The German garrison had used the trees as fence posts to run their wire. It jerked now as Lockwood worked on it with cutters. The others were spread out along the edge of the forest and Beare stood at Ward’s shoulder, head turning slowly as he surveyed the ground.
The last strands of wire parted and trailed in the snow. Catherine made to move forward but Ward’s hand on her arm stopped her. He said, “I can see the house. You stay here.” She would be, just possibly, safer there. “Join us afterwards. When we get out.” If they got out. “Wait at the bottom of the valley.” He pointed. “Beyond the bridge and out of sight of it.”
Catherine opened her mouth to protest, thought better of it. Their eyes met briefly, then Ward climbed away down the bank and waded into the stream.
The water was icy cold and the tumbling race of it deafened him. None of them heard the patrolling sentry. He walked around the bend in the path some thirty yards away and halted. He wore a coalscuttle helmet, carried a rifle over one shoulder and after a second of staring immobility he fumbled to bring it into action and yelled a warning.
Beare and Nicholl fired at him with their Thompsons, but he ran back around the bend in the path. They could hear him still shouting, and now an answering voice. Then a whistle shrilled.
Ward splashed out of the stream, looked back and saw the commandos coming after him, lifting their boots high out of the dragging water as they pranced across the stream like horses.
He turned and ran at the garden wall, barely six feet high, swung easily on to the top and down on the other side, then waited there, only seconds, for the others. Now he could see all of the house, the moonlight glinting on blacked-out windows, a door open at the front and a man on the steps outside it, yelling down to the guard at the gate. Ward heard the clatter of a Thompson, distantly, from beyond the house, and saw the flicker of muzzle-flashes on the cliff-top where the Freya stood. Then there was a fusillade of rifles and Thompsons. Clearly Dent and Baldry had stirred up a hornet’s nest.
Driscoll was last to swing over the wall. Ward led all of them, running crouched in its shadow to the trees that lined the side of the house and went on to meet the rear wall. They were planted in two rows, seeming to be an evergreen windbreak. The shadow under their branches was as deep as that by the wall and Ward straightened as he ran. He had wondered what else could go wrong and now he had his answer. The cat was out of the bag and surprise was lost. Now all they had to rely on was speed.
Beare, pounding through the snow, overtook Ward as they reached the end of the house. The gable wall of it was dark but they could see a ground floor window and the side door they sought. A window above was curtained but a chink of light showed. That should be Peyraud’s room—
Beare panted, “Want me to make a recce, sir?”
“No!” Speed. They had to gamble on it. “Straight in!” Ward swerved towards the house, running across the open ground towards it but now they were out of sight of anyone at the front. He brought up against the door and fumbled for the handle.
Beare rasped, “Stand clear!” He was ready with his Thompson to smash the window and Lockwood stood on the other side, a grenade in his hand, finger hooked in the pin. But Ward got the door open and burst in, throwing it wide. He was in the kitchen, long and narrow with a huge table seeming to fill it. A banked up stove at one side showed a warm glow and a kettle stood on top of it sending out a feather of steam. The glow shed a dim red light across the bare scrubbed floorboards.
A narrow servant’s staircase ran up the opposite wall. Ward vaulted over the table and took the stairs three at a time. Beare went after him, cursing his recklessness, shouting back, “Lockwood! Driscoll! Hold here!”
Ward turned at the head of the stairs on to a narrow landing that ran the width of the house. A passage opened midway along on the left, presumably leading to the rest of the house. There was a closed door to his right.
Beare shoved past, Nicholl crowding behind him. They reached the passage and Beare peered around into it. A single lighted bulb hanging halfway along the passage showed open doors and at the far end a soldier, rifle in one hand, tunic in the other. He stood at the head of another staircase but he looked over his shoulder at their peering heads. Beare fired a burst, the spent cartridge cases leaping and bouncing from the walls to roll tinkling across the floor. The soldier disappeared and they heard him falling on the stairs, then shouting. Beare told Nicholl, “We can’t check all those rooms so hold here!”
Nicholl dropped down, only his head showing to stare down the passage, his Thompson trained. Beare went to look for Ward.
Ward had found Peyraud’s door locked, had braced his back against the opposite wall and kicked. The door shook and at the second kick splintered at the edge and swung inward. He caught a fleeting impression of a room crowded with solid, old furniture. There was light, partly from the embers of a log fire that glowed red through the fine white ash in the grate, partly from a small oil-lamp with a low flame, a night-light that burned on a table by the bed. The bed itself was large and Alain Peyraud was almost lost in it, a tall man still but shrunken a little with age now. He lay propped on one elbow and blinked short-sightedly, startled, at Ward while his free hand groped about the table in search of his spectacles.
A burst of fire racketed outside in the passage. Beare entered, pushed past Ward and crossed to the window. He knelt there, peered out through a crack in the curtains and threw back over his shoulder, “Bloody lucky nobody was in that kitchen, sir. I reckon the door was open because the sentries on patrol nip in for a crafty brew now and then.” He turned and eyed Ward reprovingly, then nodded at Peyraud. “Is this the feller, sir?”
Peyraud’s head jerked around to peer in the direction of the voice while his hand still hunted for the glasses. He said with a high note of disbelief, “English?” Then he started as a single shot outside was followed by the hammering of Thompsons. Those below in the kitchen were muted but Nicholl’s on the landing just outside the door was again deafening.
In the silence that followed the sound of German voices deep inside the house seemed thin and distant. Ward said, “British commandos.” He stepped to the table and put the spectacles into Peyraud’s scrabbling fingers. “I’m an officer of the Royal Navy. I hope you’ll remember me: Jack Ward. We met in Paris in 1939.”
Peyraud hooked the spectacles over his ears and looked at Ward, then sat up in bed and lifted the lamp to peer more closely at Ward’s face. Finally he nodded. “I remember. We used to play billiards. You were with a lady, very nice.”
There was another burst of fire and the crack! of a grenade exploding. Ward said quickly, “I haven’t much time. We came here to take you to England. The Germans are using the great dock at St. Nazaire and we have a plan to put it out of action but we need detailed information about the gates and the dock. You built it; you can tell us. Will you come with us?”
Peyraud stared up at him, then said, “You mean—now? This moment?” Then he added, “But of course you mean now. You cannot delay.”
“We couldn’t warn you, couldn’t get a message to you.” Peyraud nodded, but hesitated. “This is my home.”
The Thompsons hammered again and Beare crossed to the door, shot a glance at Ward that said “For Christ’s sake hurry it up!” He sidled out.
A grenade exploded close, so that they felt the shudder of its blast in the room. Ward pressed. “Will you help us, sir?”
Peyraud answered him. “I’m a prisoner here. They send a guard with me when I walk outside and they lock me in this room at night. If I am lucky they will keep me here but I think they will lose patience and send me to a
German prison. I am an old man and that would kill me. So. You need me, I will come.” He threw back the covers and swung his legs out of the bed, stood in woollen pyjamas several sizes too big for him.
Ward heaved an inward sigh of relief. His orders were to bring Peyraud out whether he agreed or no. That had not been a pleasant prospect. “Thank you, sir.”
Beare reappeared. “Driscoll can’t see anybody at the back yet but that won’t last much longer. We’ve got to move, sir!”
“In one minute.”
And in one minute Peyraud, clothes dragged on over his pyjamas with Ward’s help, his overcoat still unbuttoned and a beret clapped on his head, was hustled out of the room and down the stairs. Beare picked up the lamp, hurled it against the wall and saw its oil take light. At the door he shouted to Nicholl, “O.K. Jimmy! Out!”
Nicholl wormed back from his position at the angle of the corridor, rose, and ran down the stairs. Beare threw an incendiary grenade around the corner to fall in the corridor, heard it burst and saw the leap of flame. He threw another into the bedroom and then followed Nicholl.
Down in the kitchen Driscoll defended the outside door. Behind him and on the far side of the room was another door and Lockwood knelt there. He could see along a passage to a hall where there was yellow light. He was to hold this passage and thus the kitchen and the escape route. He was not to bring the enemy down here. German soldiers ran across the end of the passage but he kept still and did not fire. They sounded to be running out of the house. He set down two incendiary grenades, handily close to the wall.
He heard the trampling of feet on the stairs over his head, glanced round and saw Ward and a muffled, stumbling figure come down into the kitchen, then Nicholl. Lockwood turned back to the passage, just as a soldier appeared at the end of it. He wore no helmet but carried a rifle across his chest and he started cautiously down the passage. Lockwood let him come on then shot him down at point-blank range.
Dust fell from the ceiling as a grenade exploded on the floor above, then another. Rubber-soled boots pounded on the stairs and Beare jumped the last three steps down into the kitchen. Lockwood shifted his Thompson to his left hand, lobbed incendiary grenades down the passage into the hall then fired a burst after them.