On the Edge of Darkness (Special Force Orca Book 1) (37 page)

By Saturday, 1
st
of June, the bone-weary crew of the ‘Nishga’ were near to collapse; they had been closed up at their action stations, almost continuously, for five days and nights, managing only to catch a few hours sleep on the longer routes across the channel. There was no rest, even when the ship was away from poor decrepit Dunkirk. For then they moved under perpetual threat of attack from the fighters and bombers that were constantly overhead and, of course, there were always the U Boats and E-boats known to be in the Channel.

At one point Barr was an interested listener to a conversation between his Gunnery Officer, and the Cockney
gun layer of ‘A’ gun. It concerned their last target. ‘Guns’ was apparently concerned over the exact identity of the target.

“
Director to ‘A’ Gun.”

“
‘A’ Gun”

“
You were blazing away there, Petty Officer…Are you absolutely certain that was a Jerry?”

“
Yes, sir,” came the confident reply.

“
What makes you so sure?”

“
I used colour recognition to identify her, sir.” replied the gun layer technically.

“
Well, Erh…Well spotted…The colours aren’t that different, though, are they?”

“
Oh it’s Dolly Dimple when you get the ‘ang of it, sir,” replied the seaman gunner, condescendingly.

“
Well, perhaps you could let us all in on your secret. All stations listen in a minute, will you?”

Gun layer
: “It’s pretty straight forward, sir…If it’s grey… it one of theirs. If it’s black… it’s one of theirs at night.”

*     *     *

Saturday, 1
st
June; 1940

Adding to the tension, the Germans were now known to be laying mines, not only in the Dunkirk area, but also around the south coast ports that were being used to land the evacuees. By the end of that most terrible of days thirty-one ships had been sunk or disabled. Six destroyers were included in the toll, the brave ‘Keith’ amongst them; they were losing old friends at an alarming rate.

*     *     *

On Sunday the ‘Nishga’, returning empty from Dover via ‘X’ Route, received a distress call from two hospital ships, the ‘Paris’ and the ‘Worthing’, they were under attack in the channel. By the time they reached the ‘Paris’s position, three quarters of a mile east of W buoy she had already sunk.

The
‘Worthing’ badly damaged, following the attack by twelve German aircraft, had turned back for England.

T
hey joined the other Navy ships in the search for survivors. Both vessels had been clearly marked as hospital ships and the Germans had been given notice that they would be carrying wounded from Dunkirk. Outraged by the brutality of the enemy the ‘Nishgas’ worked through their exhaustion in an angry silence, removing body after body from the water.

When they
eventually reached Dunkirk they had to wait outside the breakwater. All the berths alongside were occupied; but the ships were empty. The seemingly endless stream of men had suddenly dried up. There were still thousands inland, but there had been a communication failure between Tennant’s staff and Army Headquarters. Before long the news that there were empty ships in the harbour had spread verbally and the flood-gates reopened, but by that time, the ‘Nishgas’ had other things on their minds. They had orders to join the screen of destroyers, submarines and A.S.W. Trawlers protecting the evacuation from the packs of U Boats prowling the Channel. They sailed immediately: That day Dunkirk fell.

Epilogue

Barr settled back in his chair, drained the last of his pink gin and lit his battered pipe. He had dined alone, with only his steward to disturb his thoughts. It was his custom on these increasingly rare moments, to let his mind wander over the events of the day. Mentally he ticked off the day’s tasks, occasionally leaning across and making notes in his salt stained diary.

That morning he had finished the last of the letters to the relatives of the dead, killed in the Dunkirk operation.

Dunkirk…Distracted by the memory, his pipe hung unnoticed from his mouth, the smoke twisting its way upwards. Scene after scene flashed before his eyes, memory after memory, shouted order after shouted order, bloody incident after worse.

Dunkirk had changed everything.
Several brutal lifetimes had been condensed into those few days. A sort of shorthand in intense living, a brief alarming seminar that would remain with them for the rest of their days.

Before Dunkirk he had been a bit player, totally absorbed in his own part, with little thought for the greater plot. It was all those men, all those
ships that had finally brought home to him the sheer immensity of the all. It was a tragedy performed on a world stage with a cast of thousands that was set to run and run. It had it all, death, calamity, horror even comedy; a play with surreal, gruesomely indelible scenes. Unrehearsed scenes of death and destruction, performances of heroism and self sacrifice on a scale he had never envisaged.

Out of defeat had come triumph.
A triumph of organisation helped by heroism and not a small amount of prayer. Out of it too had come a dogged determination to prevail in the final act, whenever that might be.

He rose, a little unsteadily, from his chair, banged his pipe ou
t in the desk ashtray and turning out the light, staggered to his bunk.

*     *     *

Lieutenant Crosswall-Brown’s grave lay two miles north-east of Olaf’s Inlet in eighty fathoms of cold water. The graves of Sub Lieutenants Hogg and Kendel and their men lie one hundred and ten miles north of Dunkirk, just part of the terrible human loss that was the beginnings of the Second World War. They were mourned by few of the many they had fought and died for… Some never forgot, told the tale to their grandchildren who although they understood the story could not begin to comprehend the sacrifice. Theirs was to be a very different world.

*     *     *

“So you see gentlemen,” said Churchill, addressing the senior officers of Special Operations, “You are part of the greater plan…” He paused to puff an expensive cloud of blue Havana smoke at the Georgian cornice. “It will be your job to carry the war to the enemy, to pick us up off the canvas. The nastiest of bullies hesitates when he’s being punched in his fat soft belly, and that is what you and your men will be doing. I call it ‘Butcher and Bolt’. You are my strong left jab and the coast of Europe is the Hun’s soft underbelly. I’ll lead with you while I build up my strength for the right’s knockout blow. When we left France, we left, by far, the greater part of our equipment behind. We need time…time, gentlemen…time to consolidate…time to build anew. You will buy me that time with the lives of your warriors… The cost will be high, but we so desperately need that time, for we stand on the edge of darkness.”

*     *     *

The power of the unseen was infinite, the ‘others’ knew nothing of his presence, knew less of his power. He saw all, yet remained himself unseen. They were the unaware, they were the watched, they were the powerless, they were the prey, his amusement … his game. Now he was alone…free…free to continue the lethal game he loved.

*     *     *

The King, in the uniform of Admiral of the Fleet stood on the rostrum, his gold braid startlingly bright against the red carpet and the blue velvet curtains. An aide gave him the first medal. There was just the one Victoria Cross to be presented today. It was posthumous…they nearly always were… They were always the first in the long line. He looked in the direction of the queue of recipients… the George Crosses were next, the… The quiet beauty of the first woman in the queue took his breath away. She wore black. He had never seen a woman look more beautiful in black, dignified and solemn yet somehow… radiant. At her side one of his uniformed aides leant forward and spoke to her. He could not hear what was said, but she walked towards him… head held high, the sparkling chandeliers reflected in the tears that filled her eyes.

*     *     *

Grant and Charlotte joined the throng leaving Buckingham Palace Charlotte looked down at the Victoria Cross in its small box. Suddenly she gave a short laugh…

“
What’s wrong? asked Grant surprised.

“
I was just thinking of Ben’s last signal, wasn’t it ‘Enemy astern of you…am attacking’… that’s the old ‘look behind you trick’ isn’t it. He used it when we were kids…Old as the hills… but it worked… He would have liked that… He would have found that funny… oh so very, very very funny.”

He looked down at her...She had begun to
sob softly.

THE END

Author’s Notes

When I began to write this series of books, I started to think that, perhaps, I had gone a bit too far with the exploits of the entirely fictitious ‘Orca’. Making them perhaps a little too daring, a little too farfetched.

Then one day, I read an account of the war time experiences of the men who served on
M.T.B.s and M.G.B.s and I began to wonder if I had done them justice

These
men took on enormous odds in their frail craft. For the most part these boats ran on aviation fuel, their crews literally went to war sitting on a bomb.

Men like the blockade-runners who, aboard converted
M.T.B.s, ran the gauntlet of Skagerrak, a hundred mile wide channel with German occupied Norway on one side and German occupied Denmark on the other; they brought vital supplies of ball bearings from Sweden, the only supplier.

Men like the crew of
M.T.B. 345, who were trapped by the Germans when they were spotted in a Norwegian Fjord. They managed to hide their boat for four days under camouflage netting. They were eventually caught and shot. Their bodies were tied to depth charges that were then fired into the cold waters of a fjord.

Men
still carried on this work knowing full well that if they were caught, they could suffer a similar fate.

Men like Lieutenant Commander Tommy Fuller, R.C.N. who won the Distinguished Service Cross for taking on twenty- two German E-boats single-handed.

The eight hundred craft involved in the huge operation that was Dunkirk were finally stood down on June 4
th
. The exploits of the ‘Keith’, ‘Vimey’, ‘Whitshed’ and the ‘Venamous’ in the port of Boulogne are based on eye witness accounts.

Three hundred and thirty eight thousand two hundred and twenty six allied troops had been ferried to safety
from Dunkirk; forty thousand had been left behind in France. Ten thousand French soldiers died in defence of the embarkation. Britain had her army back, but now she and her Empire stood alone.

It wasn
’t until I’d finished the sixth book in the series that I discovered that there was actually a Norwegian M.T.B. flotilla, the 30
th
Flotilla, based at Lerwick in the Shetlands and their task was to be as big a thorn in the side of the enemy as they could along the entire coast of Norway. By the exploits of these brave men, the Germans were obliged to reinforce their coastal defences and use men and equipment, badly needed elsewhere, to counter their offensive.

In 1940 The New York Times said of Great Britain

‘There, beaten, but unconquered, in shining splendour, she faced the enemy.’

Tony Molloy
, Spain, 1
st
July, 2003

I hope you have enjoyed reading Book 1 of what is now part of the longest book ever written in the English language. I know, from my reviews on Kindle, that a lot of you do enjoy the series. I mean to cover the whole of WW2 with my good friends from Special Force Orca and hope you will join me on my journey.

June 2014

Below is a list of the books so far. You can find them all at

amazon.com: anthony molloy: Books,
or on my website at anthonymolloy.weebly.com.

Both of which you c
an access through twitter. com/MolloyAnthony.

1  ON THE EDGE OF DARKNESS

2  DEAD RECKONING

3  STANDING INTO DANGER

4  ON FORTUNE’S SIDE

5  LONG DAYS NIGHT

6  TO CATCH A RAT
      7  MOST IMMEDIATE

8  BY NIGHT’S DARK SHADOW

9  NOTICE FOR STEAM

10 BY THOUGHT AND BY DEED
      11 CONQUEROR OF THE OCEANS

12 RING ON MAIN ENGINES

13 REJOIN WITH ALL SPEED