On the Edge of Darkness (Special Force Orca Book 1) (4 page)

A voice
whispered “Out pins” In the sea boat, three arms were raised in silent reply. “Slip” whispered the same voice.

The sea boat fell three feet into the waiting sea
in a crash of iridescent spray and veered wildly out from the destroyer’s side under its lashed tiller. O’Neill sliced through the lashing with his rigging knife and lifted his other hand palm up to his shoulder. In the gloom for’ard Wilson saw the expected signal and yanked on the towing bollard, the bow rope slipped silently into the cold sea. Free of the mother-ships umbilical cord, alone in a coal-black sea, the six-man crew pulled for the shore.

O
’Neill’s face glowed momentarily as he bent to the faint light of the boat’s compass. He eased the tiller a little and the boat settled on a more easterly course, lifting and yawing to a stern sea.

Chapter 3

Olaf’s Inlet

Norwegian Coast, Monday 2200 hours 15
th
April 1940

Olaf Kristiansand and the three marines knelt together in a tight defensive circle, Kristiansand and the NCO looking out to sea to where a darker shadow marked the slow but steady progress of the ‘Nishga’s’ sea boat.

They had carried out the reconnaissance without contact with the enemy and found two
inlets that they agreed were suitable for Barr’s purposes.

All four
men were glad to be returning onboard. It had been a cold twenty-four hours during which they had covered thirty miles of the rugged coastline, mostly at night and in truly bitter conditions.

The NCO tapped both his
marines on their shoulders, gaining their attention he pointed to his own chest and that of Kristiansand’s, and then pointed towards the boat. The two marines nodded and resumed their silent watch.

During their period ashore together Kristiansand had grown accustomed to the silent marines, they hardly spoke and when they did it was in a whispered clipped fashion as if they paid for every word in gold.

The ship’s boat gradually materialised out of the night-gloom; the coxswain waved an arm and his crew lifted their oars clear of the water and stood them on their ends in the’ toss oars’ position while the boat drifted silently in towards the shore. Did these Englishmen ever talk? Kristiansand longed for the sound of a human voice uttering properly completed sentences. He had learnt his English in the United States; now there was a nation who knew how to hold a conversation no matter what the circumstances.

He clambered aboard the boat and watched as the NCO jumped the gunwale behind him
. Turning, Bushel pointed to the two remaining men ashore and tapped the top of his Balaclavaed head with an open palm. The Norwegian shook his head slowly. There they go again.

*     *     *

‘
Nishga’

The group of officers and marines were gathered round Kristiansand and the chart, which he held open in front of him. The Asdic hut had barely enough room to hold them all but at least it was out of the bitter cold wind now blowing in from the north-west.

The Norwegian removed his thick gloves and rubbed his frozen hands together
, “We’ve found two suitable Inlets, both deep enough for your purposes and both sheltered from the west. They are about ten miles apart,” he stabbed at the chart. “The first is here and the second, farther to the south… here.”

Barr scratched at the day
’s growth that shadowed his lantern jaw. “In your opinion which of the two will serve our purposes best?”

“
The one to the south has the better overhang, almost a cave.”

“
Right…We’ll use that and keep the other in our pocket, should the first becomes compromised in any way… Pilot.”

“
Sir?” the respectful reply came from an ascetic looking two-ringer on the far side of the Asdic hut.

“
Set me a course for this Inlet of Olaf’s… Has it a name?” he asked the Norwegian.

“
Not that I know of.”

“
Well, it has now…” He turned back to Lieutenant Usbourne. “Calculate a course for ‘Olaf’s Inlet, Pilot. I want to be close inshore by first light and I mean first light…Number One I want… who’s got the Middle Watch?”

“
Starboard, sir,” replied Lieutenant Grant promptly.

“
Right, I want men from the starboard watch of seamen and a good signalman in the boat, in this Inlet, at dawn… you’re in charge. I want thorough soundings made… I want marker buoys… I want the sea boat to lead us in there… I don’t want to take any chances inshore. I intend to warp the ship into her new berth as soon as we have sufficient light. See to it so that the Chief Bosun’s Mate has the gear laid out in time. Port watch remains at steaming action stations until we are safely in.”

The First Li
eutenant, who had been writing on a dogged eared note pad, looked up. “We’ll need to be pretty quick hiding the ship away, sir. Jerry planes will be up with the dawn. Shall I arrange for camouflage netting to be brought up on deck before I leave?”

“
Yes…I’ve a few ideas, myself concerning camouflaging the old girl, I want ‘Chippy’ and his mate ashore as soon as is practical to cut wood, have him meet me in my cabin after this briefing.”

“
Yes, sir.”

“
And last but not least… the marines.” the Captain looked up at the corporal, “Corporal Bushel, you and your team will go in first before first light. Make sure Jerry’s not waiting for us. Signal us to that effect as soon as is practicable.”

The big corporal nodded.

“I want you to draw up plans for shore defences. I want them hidden from the land, from the sea and from the air.

If an enemy patrol does turn up I don
’t want them to know we are here. No footprints, no fag packets and, regretfully, no fires. But then you know the routine better than I.

If, despite our precautions, we are
discovered form landward, it will be your task to keep them away from the ship for as long as it takes us to get her safely out to sea.”

The corporal nodded
again, “How long would that be, sir. I mean how long would we need to hold them off for? In your estimation.”

“
Hard to say, practice will speed things up, of course, say an hour, hour and a half.” The marine grimaced.

“
Corporal, I want to stay a thorn in the side of Jerry’s coastal shipping for as long as is humanly possible. If we are discovered I want to escape intact to carry on the work from the second base. Your job will be to hold the enemy off while we retire… It may be that we need more time than you can spare…It may mean you and your men being killed or being taken prisoner, but the ship must come before everything else.… All I can offer is that we may be able to pick you up from the second inlet the next night, if the worst should come to the worst.”

“
If the worst comes to the worst there won’t be anybody to pick up,” Bushel said grimly.

Barr
looked away from the corporal’s unblinking eyes, “I’ve the lives of two hundred and nineteen men to consider, corporal…Anyway… get something down on paper as soon as you can, all going well, we will hold another briefing here, same time tomorrow. Any questions?…No?… Good. Carry on please.”

*     *     *

Down the forward seamen’s mess deck, a long supper time argument was in progress over which of the gun’s crew had shot down the German fighter the day before.

The outcome was a stalemate, with Leading Seaman O
’Neill, by virtue of being in the Gunnery Director, and so controlling all the guns, claiming the majority of the credit.

O
’Neill won most of the heated discussions entered into at tot times due more to his own weight than to that of his arguments for O’Neill was a man of huge proportions everything about him was large.

He was a big drinker
, fond of saying that ‘too much is just enough’. He could down twenty pints of his beloved Guinness at one sitting and was ready, though seldom able, to ask for more. Once he had won, outright, the coveted ‘Prick of the Far East Contest’ held spasmodically in the dockyard canteen in Singapore. He was, indeed, a man of legendary proportions in every respect.

As the disagreement had become
more heated it was, as usual, Wilson who stepped in to calm matters with a change of subject.

“
Is that a crucifix round your neck, Nervous?”

“
Of course, my mother gave it to me at my confirmation.”

“
You ain’t religious though are yer, I mean you don’t go to Prayers or anything?”

“
Too many bloody officers there for me.”

Wyatt, who had led the opposition against O
’Neill over the question of the German fighter, was still up for it, “Religion! It’s a load of rubbish invented by the rich to hoodwink the poor. I don’t believe in God.”

Nervous leant on the hammock netting,
“Bejappers! Won’t he be gutted when he finds out?”

Wilson waited until the laughter had died aw
ay but before the verbal cudgels could be picked up again, said. “I remember some writing on a wall somewhere, one of the railway stations in ‘Smoke’, I think it was. It said ‘God is dead’.

“
Now, that could be true,” said Wyatt theologically

“
Yeah, but underneath, in that fancy writing you find in the bible, someone had wrote, ‘Oh, no I ain’t’.”

*     *     *

Lieutenant Grant pointed over the starboard bow of the sea boat, “That looks a good spot.”

O
’Neill leaned forward, “Oars!” the emphasis on the word made it sound more of an insult than an order. The four oarsmen jerked their blades clear of the water and the boat slid in relative silence towards the craggy face of the rock.

Deep under the overhang a series of
caves could be seen burrowed deep into its stony face. “Hold water.” the heavy ash oars dropped as one and the boat instantly lost way.

They lay there
, still in the water, bobbing in the sheltered cathedral-like grandeur of the inlet. All around the rock face rose sheer to a neck-arching height, claustrophobic in its immensity.

“
Right you two,” said O’Neill pointing at the two nearest oarsmen, “Boat yer oars and grab a hold of this little beauty,” he slapped the heavy warp anchor at his feet, the noise echoing around the rock walls like a gunshot.

Between the three of them they wrestled the
anchor up onto the gunwale, the boat listing alarmingly.

At a nod from Grant
, it was eased over the side until it hung fully submerged, held in place by a stout rope attached to a warping bollard set in the pointed stern of the whaler.

“
Lower away,” ordered Grant.

The anchor sank slowly through the green blur of the deep to settle on the bottom.

“All right, coxswain, “I’ll take her in, you take charge of the warp…Give way… together”.

The final stage of the approach up to the treacherous rocks was made with
understandable caution. The warp pulled taut, rising from the clear waters, the boat only feet from the rock promontory.

O
’Neill made fast at the stern and called, “Over you go, ‘Tug’.”

The seaman scrambled
onto the gunwale, paused a second, finely balanced, and then stepped almost gracefully across onto the rock ledge. The sea boat backed away.

They repeated the manoeuvre farther along the cliff
face, again choosing a site with a ledge and an adjacent rock outcrop to which they, would later, secure the destroyer’s mooring.

The boat turned
back towards the inlet’s entrance, the men leaning back into their oars as she gathered speed. As they moved out they made the soundings dropping buoys to form a marked channel deeper than the ‘Nishga’s’ draught. They worked swiftly, for as long as there was sufficient water there was no need to record the exact depth. They needed to save time in any way they could for already a dawn-blue light glimmered in the eastern sky.

*     *     *

As the ‘Nishga’ nosed her way slowly in towards Olaf’s Inlet, Grant climbed the bridge ladder two at a time. Barr sat huddled in his chair, he gave a quick salute.

The
channel’s marked, sir. Basically we’ll need to keep her over to port all the way in. There’s a shelf of rock to starboard at around one fathom but apart from that, the Inlet’s deep enough.” He turned and pointed,” There’s the first buoy, it marks the beginning of the shelf.”