On the Edge of Darkness (Special Force Orca Book 1) (22 page)

“
Not a bad idea that ‘Nervous’.” said Wilson, “Rig up a ring outside the ‘ouses of Parliament and get ‘Itler and Chamberlain to fight it out. Grudge Fight that’s the way we sort things out in the ‘Andrew’; works all right. Clears the air, like.”

“
Can’t say I’m fancying Churchill or Chamberlin in a punch up . I wouldn’t be after putting my money on either of them. You English would have to change your Prime Minister if you wanted to win anything.”

“
Get a bigger bloke in,” added Goddard.

“
You could be Prime Minister, Nervous,” said Wilson warming to the idea… “Now, come to think about it…That’s it, whoever is the Heavy Weight Champion of Great Britain gets to be Prime Minister as well… Yer Middleweight Champion gets to be Minister for War...We could do away with elections and all that crap, have boxing tournaments instead. Charge an entry fee and do away for the need to tax every bastard.”

There was a companionable silence while the mess deck thought about the
revolutionary idea.

Ordinary Seaman Goddard, deep in thought
, had not been listening to the conversation. “Whose side are the Austrians on, anyway?”

Wyatt pulled a face
, “Fucked if I know.”

“
Did you say Austrians or Australians?” asked Wilson from his seat close to a noisy donkey boiler.

“
Austrians!” yelled Goddard, Austrians. I know whose side the Australians are on.”

“
Well, sprog, you know more than I do,” said O’Neill. “Sure, I’ve had more fights with Australians than I’ve had with Austrians.”

“
That’s because the Austrians ain’t got a Navy. Land locked ain’t they?”

O
’Neill thought about the likelihood that any country could do without a Navy and dismissed it as unlikely. “Sure, if they ain’t on our side they must be on the other side.”

“
Nah” said Burton, “‘Itler conquered yer Austrians before we got into the War, ain’t that right, Tug?”

“
Don’t talk daft,” said Wilson, ‘Itler’s an Austrian, everyone knows that.”

“
I didn’t,” volunteered Goddard.

Wilson shook his head,
“Why am I not surprised?”

“
If you're right, said O’Neill, “they managed to keep that quiet.”

“
Wouldn’t you if he was Irish?”

“
He’d make a good Irishman,” ventured Wyatt, an evil smile playing at the corner of his mouth, he’s a stormy bastard all right.”

O
’Neill refused to bite.

Wyatt tried again
, “Are they right, what they say about the Irish?”

“
And what would that be?”

“
That Irish arse is poisonous.”

“
And isn’t it like yourself to lower the tone of the conversation.”

“
What’s that supposed to mean?”

Wilson had a question before things could deteriorate any further.
“Do you speak from personal experience when you say it’s poisonous, Earpy?”

“
I wouldn’t touch one with a barge pole,” said Wyatt.

“
As I remember the saying, it’s Scotch arse that’s poisonous,” continued Wilson, on a more scholarly line of thought.

“
‘Ere ain’t you a Scotsman, Tug?” enquired Burton.

Wilson shook one finger smiling,
“Oh no yer ain’t going to get me biting, you know damn well I’m from Silvertown.”

“
I thought as much,” said the South Londoner, “North of the Thames, that’s Scotland, in my book.”

*     *     *

Olaf’s night visitors returned to the Inlet as dawn splintered through the grey of the eastern sky.

“
It’s as well we came in here first,” reported Hogg, “according to the Kristiansand there’s a whole nest of Panzers, resting from the front and parked right beside our bridge. He was there the day before yesterday he said that the whole area is a hornet’s nest.”

In the silence that followed Grant lit a cigarette and offered the pack around.
“A lot could have happened in two days… We’ll take a look ourselves tonight, We’ll have to delay the raid; I want to be sure what we’re taking on, if we take it on at all.”

*     *     *

The moon shone down on the parked German tanks, by its ghostly light they had an appearance not unlike massive silver crabs. There were eleven of them, assembled in a tight circle, nose to tail. Five were the older PzKwIII’s the remainder were the heavier PzKwIV with their long-barrelled seventy five millimetre gun.

A gap had been left on the bridge side
of the laager through which soldiers in the green uniforms of the Waffen SS moved continuously. Two sentries patrolled the outside perimeter; another guarded the gap checking papers.

The south side of the defensive ring was only yards from the bridge and its sentry box. There had been no attempt at concealing the parked vehicles from the air, no camouflage netting, no cut branches, nothing. The Germans, obviously, felt secure from attack by air.

Above the enemy tanks, a road wound its way up to the top of a steep incline. Half way up and almost level with his own position Grant could see an empty lorry, with SS markings it was waiting outside a barbed-wire compound, its engine running, exhaust fumes swirling in its headlights.

The wire gate was opened a
nd it passed through and parked just inside. The compound, unlike the tanks, was draped in camouflage netting. Grant assumed it to be an ammunition or fuel dump.

Below, the main road was jammed with enemy traffic
, its earth surface churned to a glutinous brown slush.

Across the bridge, on the far bank of the Landola
River, Grant could make out three eighty-eights their muzzles pointing skywards. That side of the bridge had its own sentry box, manned by two members of the Feldgendarmerie checking papers.

Grant was about to crawl back from the ridge, to where the marines waited, when he noticed a group of soldiers on the bridge. They were waving, looking down at the river.
Crouching low he carefully moved to his right and looked down into the swirling waters of the fjord. A hundred feet below an E-boat was passing slowly under the bridge.

A Naval patrol, it was only to be expected, he was a fool not to have thought of it before. The bridge must be one of the most important in Norway right now.

As he considered the implications of his discovery he caught sight of the lorry, on the slope opposite, it was weaving its way back down to the crowded road.

He would have to leave his marines here to time the E-boat
’s movements ready for a possible attack on the bridge the following night. Suddenly a tank engine roared into life, making him start. The revving of its powerful engine drowned even the drone of the convoy passing along the road. The tank, nearest the small opening, was moving to allow the lorry, he’d seen descending the mountain, to pass into the ring of tanks. As soon as it had passed the tank moved back into place and switched off its engine. Grant watched as men began to unload the lorry’s cargo, fuel and ammo, stored together, The Germans were getting complacent.

*     *     *

Grant decided to take Bushel back with him after all. The corporal’s particular brand of expertise might come in useful when it came to drawing up the finer points of a plan. It left Blake and Stilson behind on the ridge with orders to keep watch and taking note of the times the sentries changed, the E-boats patrols, enemy movements in general and anything else that might be of use.

Back on board the
‘Eddy’, Grant and Bushel, fortified by a couple of cups of thick sweet tea, set about drawing up a detailed map of the enemy positions from the notes they’d made on site.

By lunch they had finalised a plan for the raid that evening. There was, however, one problem.
It called for good communications between the three separate groups that comprised the raiding party. It would, almost certainly have to be used within sight and hearing of enemy soldiers. So whatever method they used it would have to be short and sweet as well as silent and meant they could not use wireless or lamp. They pondered the problem over more tea.

Grant offered round a packet of cigarettes.

“Cigarettes” cried Bushel, banging the table top and making them all jump.

“
There’s no need to sound so surprised, anyone would think…” began Grant.

“
No, don’t you see…” Bushel paused, holding up his hand for silence, while he thought about his idea. “We can use cigarettes,” Grant stared open-mouthed at Bushel fearing the corporal had gone completely mad.

“
The Germans are not bothering with a blackout, right?”

Grant nodded,
still confused, “Don’t you see, there’s no smoking restrictions. I remember everybody lighting up while we were on that ridge.”

Grant
’s face showed he hadn’t.

“
Well, I did, continued Bushel, “I was gasping for a burn all night…Anyway what I’m saying is, we work out a series of signals using cigarettes and matches. Jerry will assume it’s one of their men and be none the wiser.”

Chapter 13

Of Hairy String and Hairier Deeds

Near Landola, Norway, 2300 hrs, Thursday, 23
rd
May, 1940.

Grant studied the damp paper for the twentieth time. The only pattern, observed by the marines, seemed to be that there was no pattern.

It did seem
, however, that the E-boat never visited the bridge more than twice in any four-hour period. If they moved in directly the patrol had passed, allowing for them to get out of earshot, it might give them the time to launch a river borne attack and get away safely. Time was a critical factor any delay would jeopardise their chances of getting back to base by first light.

*     *     *

“How about over there, sir, that looks like a likely spot.” said Maurice, Hogg had been right the diminutive midshipman was nothing if not keen, too keen; perhaps. So far he had spotted six ‘likely spots’ in the space of thirty minutes.

There had been quite a bit of toing and froing of kit as well as men before they were able to get under way. Midshipman Hope had joined one of the two shore teams
, he was one of the few sailors who could drive, it was a skill that few of seamen possessed.

That particular team, led by Hogg and guided by Marine Blake, had to cover almost a mile of torturous mountain paths
before they could reach their objective, the lookout point on the ridge above the target.

*     *     *

‘Snake’ Stilson straightened and lit his cigarette, at his feet the still form of the German sentry had, horribly, acquired a second gaping mouth, one that grinned back at the marine, blood red.

He pulled deeply
on the cigarette; the glow illuminated his face momentarily before he moved its glowing end in the shape of a tick.

One hundred yards away Hogg, Blake and Jackson emerged from the deep shadow cast by
a stack of ammunition boxes. Hogg moved quickly across to a row of parked lorries while the other two began rolling oil drums to where the ground fell away steeply.

“
How many of these do you want moved, sir? asked Blake, as he arrived at the cliff edge with the first drum.

“
Hang on…” grunted Hogg, as he rolled his drum up alongside Blake’s. “It’s a case of the more the merrier I suppose… say thirty.”

“
That’ll take some time, sir, do you think we’ve got it to spare?”

Somewhere behind them a
n engine coughed and spluttered before revving noisily into life. It appeared out of the dark, moving slowly towards them, it stopped with a jolt and Midshipman Hope jumped quickly down from the cab. “I can’t believe our luck, sir, all the vehicles have their keys in their ignition.”

Blake jerked a thumb in the direction of the lorry park
. “That’ll be in case of a fire, sir. They’re all loaded with either ammo or oil drums.”

“
Oil drums!…That will save us some work. Mr Hope back one of them over here. Then go back for one with ammo aboard and pick me up at the top of the road.”

*     *     *

Hogg and Hope had the heavy bonnet of the ammunition truck propped up and were working industriously on its engine. Parts lay scattered on the ground at their feet. Neither of them had any mechanical knowledge whatsoever, both worked on the principle that if it had bolts you could undo, then it joined the growing pile. As they worked, they kept a weather eye on the fjord below the bridge and on the queue of heavily laden German lorries slowed to a trickle by the ammunition truck parked on the narrow road.

*     *     *

Marine Blake, binoculars raised, watched the young officers hundreds of feet below him. Stilson was somewhere behind him, watching the road that led down from the supply dump, in case of problems there.

From where he lay Blake could not see the water in the fjord
, only the steep side of the opposite bank.

In the circle of his binoculars
, the magnified figure of Hogg, straightened from his labours and gave a cigarette to his young companion before lighting one for himself. Blake waited to see what the signal would be. Hogg yawned and stretched both arms above his head as he did so the red end of the cigarette made a distinct tick in the gloom.

Blake jumped to his feet, standing
well to one side, he opened the tailgate of the lorry. Nothing! The cargo hadn’t budged an inch. He swore out loud and scrambled quickly up onto the curved and slippery surface of the drums, bracing himself against one he pushed with his feet against the first in the line. Nothing!…He yelled for Stilson.

*     *     *

Hogg stretched again, his cigarette making the signal for a second time. He waited… Nothing! What the hell had gone wrong? With the ‘Eddy’ already in place any delay could prove fatal… He looked casually around; all it wanted now was for someone to ask for their non- existent papers.

*     *     *

The two marines were dragging the heavy, oil-soaked beam of wood behind them. It was difficult going, their feet slipping on the hard frozen snow. Reaching the front of the lorry they dropped it into place. Blake straightened. “Right drive the front wheels of the lorry up onto it, that should give us a slope to get the drums moving,”

Stilson looked doubtful,
“I can’t drive.” He looked at Blake’s blackened face, until it dawned on him, “Don’t tell me…”

Blake rubbed his chin
with one oily hand… “Shit!”

*     *     *

“You two men!” a harsh voice called from the direction of the tank park. The two young English officers flashed a quick look at each other. They ignored the remark, hoping it wasn’t directed at them… It was… an angry looking Jager Oberst had appeared at their side.

“
Am I talking to myself!” he yelled, above the drone of the passing convoy

The two sprang to attention
, “No, Herr Oberst,” replied Hogg,

“
What do you think you are doing? You are taking up half of the road with this heap of shit!…” his eyes dropped to their naval overalls. “Kriegsmarine? What are you doing here? What unit are you with?”

*     *     *

The two marines rested after another attempt at getting the drums moving. Blake jumped down and sat on the beam they had dragged there. “It’s no good, the bloody things haven’t moved an inch.” He pointed, his breath white against the dirty snow. “We’ll never move this lot… over that edge… might ‘ave…but for the slope … One of us’ll have to have a go at driving the bloody thing up on to this,” he slapped the beam.

He placed a hand on each knee and pushed himself to his feet
, “I’ll take a shufty.”

The cab was huge, the controls a bewildering maze of dials, switches and levers.

“Right, the first thing’s got to be to start the engine.” He picked at a tooth contemplatively while he studied the dashboard. The key was in the ignition, where Hope had left it… “All right! ‘Ere goes’…Nothing! Blake worked his way systematically along the line of switches and buttons, the lights came on, the windscreen wipers danced madly backwards and forwards... suddenly he found the starter button. The powerful engine roared into life and, in gear, jumped back towards the waiting abyss. Blake gave a yell of alarm and jumped out head first. The lorry hit the wooden beam and stalled with a mighty jerk. He heard a rumble followed by the scrape of metal on metal and, alarmingly, the lorry began to jump up and down. The jolt of the engine stalling had dislodged the oil drums and, one by one, the drums were dropping off the back of their own accord.

“
See!” gasped Blake to his grim-faced audience of one, “nothing to it really.”

*     *     *

Behind the German officer the surface of the mountain had suddenly come alive, a seething, heaving mass of drums, leaping and tumbling down the slope.

The German colonel
swung round, his voice trailing off in mid sentence.

Hogg,
seeing his chance, flicked the switch on the timing device taped to the petrol feed, grabbed Hope’s arm and half dragged him out into the slowly moving traffic, unceremoniously he pushed him down the bank, into the darkness.

Turning they
and ran along the line of army trucks, yelling, jumping on and off the cabs, pointing up towards the landslide of drums. Lorries stopped, drivers wound down windows, staring in horror at the oil drums plummeting towards them from the mountain above.

The drivers began to abandon their vehicles, leaping to the ground and running for their lives.
Ahead the remaining convoy continued in complete ignorance of the drama unfolding behind them.

Again
Hogg seized the moment. Jumping into the abandoned cab of the lead lorry he whipped out the keys. In seconds he was back down onto the road and running back to where Hope waited.

Then all hell
broke loose. The first of the drums had reached the tanks, leaping and bouncing over the laager and into its centre. Many of the drums had split and were cascading oil in glistening black Katherine Wheels. One after another they smashed headlong into the unyielding metal of the tanks and soon a river of oil began to flow out from the laager across the road and under the stalled convoy.

*     *     *

Grant peered up at the bridge, the headlights of the vehicles cast surreal shadows onto its heavy metal girders. The rumble of lorries crossing, which had drowned the noise of the E-boat’s engines, had stopped. It had been replaced by the yells and screams of men in flight and in fear of their lives. In the background an unidentified rushing, booming noise grew rapidly in its intensity.

The boat moved into the shadow of the bridge. He craned his neck back. The structure was now directly above, an oil drum bounced suddenly into view soaring out, falling like a depth charge. The column of water that shot into the air had barely settled when two others shot out from the road above. With considerable effort he turned his attention back to the diving team assembling on the
cramped fore-end of the E-boat.

The frogmen, Dirty-Four
’s diver, Burton, and the marine, Bushel, were poised outboard of the guard rails looking back at him. Burton, bulky with rope and tackle, Bushel with a rope wrapped around his middle. Aft of them two men steadied a drum, packed with explosives, balanced precariously on the gunwale.

The
‘Eddy’ eased slowly forward, under the bridge they had been in deep shadow now as they passed out from under it they were barely making headway, Grant was gauging the speed of the water hissing past, adjusting the revs to stem the racing current. At last he was ready to give the signal and the heavy drum was dropped to the waterline. Alongside it the two frogmen slipped soundlessly into the swift flowing water and were rapidly swept past him towards the stern. They struck out frantically for the steep banks of the fjord the light grass line squirming snake-like in their wake.

The two swimmers had no sooner reached the shore when a gigantic
blast of light and sound ripped the night into shadow less day.

*     *     *

        The German colonel, Luger pistol in hand, cap now missing, bent double, gasping for breath. He had outrun the drums, the avalanche of oil drums had stopped; of the two ‘mechanics’ there was no sign, but they were the least of his worries, he turned back towards the convoy and broke into a staggering lurching run along the line. Thick black glutinous oil squelched under his running feet, the smell rank in his flaring nostrils. It was everywhere, his convoy sat in a volatile inflammatory lake of diesel. He had to get it under way, get it clear of this section of road.