The Steel Fist Read online

  The Steel Fist

  Richard Townsend Bickers

  Copyright © Richard Townsend-Bickers 1984

  The right of Richard Townsend-Bickers to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.

  First published in Great Britain by Robert Hale Limited in 1984 under the name Richard Hall

  This is the first volume in The Commando Series.

  When Winston Churchill directed the formation of the Commandos, he described them as “A steel hand from the sea”, that would strike the enemy along his seaboard and snatch prisoners.

  All characters are fictitious, except where reference is made to people who, in the context of this story, can justly be regarded as historical.

  Table of Contents

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Extract from Fighters Up by Richard Townsend Bickers

  One

  The cold pierced like a bayonet through Taggart’s battledress and sleeveless leather jerkin. His knitted khaki cap comforter and thick, dark hair kept his head warm, but the east wind off the snow stung his ears; even though he had rubbed Snowfire Ointment on them to prevent chaps and chilblains.

  He crawled forward across the snow that lay a metre and a half deep over eastern France and western Germany that February of 1940, cradling his Tommy gun. When the bare fingers protruding from his mittens touched the metal, the skin stuck to it.

  Cold steel, he thought. But we won’t be going in with the bayonet tonight.

  The four Mills grenades hanging from his webbing belt dragged furrows along the snow. It had penetrated his uniform and the coarse cloth clung to his knees and elbows. Each time he moved towards the unseen enemy positions across the frontier — and probably an unseen enemy patrol doing the same job as he and his ten men —more snow packed onto his arms and legs. It froze, but the warmth of his body thawed all that had leaked in, and the damp rough shoddy chafed his skin and irritated his tense nerves and quick temper.

  The ground undulated. Trees and bushes took on the shape of German soldiers. The deciduous were less deceptive than the evergreens, but any could conceal men. He had been ordered to wait until there was a decent half-moon, shortly after midnight, before taking out his fighting patrol. Moonlight created shadows, in many of which Taggart had the scalp-tingling suspicion that Nazis with Schmeisser machine-pistols and stick grenades lurked.

  He raised a hand to signal a halt. The men were in arrowhead formation, Sergeant Duff on his right and Private Udall, his batman and tonight his runner, on his left.

  “Sergeant.”

  It was a whisper. The sergeant, anticipating the call anyway, was watching Taggart. He wriggled alongside. “Sir?”

  “I’m going as far as that hump at one-o’clock, two hundred yards, with the clump of trees and bushes on top. I’ll follow the frozen stream, keeping close in to the left bank. The pimple will make a good observation point and the bushes will prevent us showing on the skyline.”

  “Jerry might have the same idea, sir.”

  “It had occurred to me.” There was no implied rebuke. Taggart smiled as he spoke. Suddenly he was beginning to enjoy himself. It would be regrettable to have to go back without having made contact with the enemy: especially after so much discomfort; and having quelled the wobbling in his guts, which he knew he shared with the ten men he had chosen.

  “We cover you, sir; and if it’s all clear we move up to join you?”

  “That’s right. I’ll take the corporal and two men.” There was no need to mention Udall: where Taggart went, Udall followed.

  “Right. I’ll detail them, sir.”

  Sergeant Duff retreated feet-first down the slight slope; then, when he knew he was out of sight from the hummock to their right front, he raised his blocky form on hands and feet, legs bent, to scuttle like a crab across the snow.

  Taggart turned his head to the left.

  “You heard that, Udall?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  They were a London Territorial battalion. Both Sergeant Duff and Private Udall sounded as unconcerned as though they were about to cross familiar Clapham Common to pick up loitering girls.

  The troops’ demeanour always reassured Taggart. He had much admiration and affection for Cockneys. They could be as phlegmatic as Yorkshiremen and as lively as Welshmen. They were an interesting paradox: pugnacious but unfailingly cheerful, quick-witted and with a gift for humour and repartee.

  He reminded himself that he might need to call on his own sense of humour before the night was out. Cold, apprehensive, yet eager for a fight, soaked to the skin in patches, it might all turn out to be for nothing. The essence of what the press called The Phoney War was the inactivity on both sides. To alleviate boredom and staleness, the French had recently formed volunteer groups to go out looking for action: Groupes Francs. The British had immediately emulated them. Tonight’s sortie was his regiment’s first.

  The Colonel had said, “Try to bring back a prisoner, Rodney. And kill as many ferries as you can: ambush the bastards if you see a chance.”

  The implication was that the enemy must be hunted, would themselves be out on patrol, but usually hid in the woods, waiting for a French or British patrol to walk into a trap.

  In the shadow of the steep but low bank alongside a narrow, iced-over stream, with Udall immediately behind him, followed by the corporal and two more, Taggart led the way to the hummock that thrust thirty feet above the ploughland lying deep under snow.

  His head felt vulnerable. He was used to soldiering in a steel helmet. He knew that thousands had been shot through the head in the Great War before battle bowlers were introduced in 1916. He had heard an uncle reminisce about men’s pith helmets and skulls being shattered by Boer bullets in 1901. The picture that his imagination formed was grisly. He thought that he would rather be shot anywhere than in the head. It was not a welcome thought at that moment.

  His bare fingers touched the magazine of his Tommy gun and he winced. The shock and mild pain dispelled the unwelcome intrusion. He paused.

  “Send Corporal Smith up.”

  Udall turned to whisper the message. The corporal crawled alongside Taggart, looking resigned.

  His expression was not occasioned by distaste for the task. He was long-suffering about his name: Fysshe-Smith, the first part pronounced by himself to rhyme with “pie”; the syllable, by his officers, as though it were “Fish”. His comrades called him Fishy. He was rather a superior sort of Cockney: grammar-school educated and a clerk in a smart bookmaker’s office in Bond Street. His face had distinctly equine features. Taggart esteemed him highly as an effective disciplinarian and a dry humourist. He was also a remarkable shot.

  “When we reach that ditch on the left, take the other two with you and see if you can work around to the flank of the hummock without being seen from there; if Jerry does happen to be there before us.”

  “Yes, sir. What d’you want me to do if I see anything?”

  “Send a man back to report.”

  “Sir.”

  The ditch that cut into the bank of the stream opened twenty-five yards ahead.

  “Put your head round carefully: Jerry might be waiting round the corner.”

  “I’ll have a pineapple ready.”

  “Don’t chuck it unless they open fire first. If they’re around, I’m counting on surprise. I want to get us all up that pimple before we open up. If there’s anything to shoot at.”

  “I’d lay short odds about it, sir. Got a feeling in my water Jerry’s in spitt
ing distance. Somewhere.”

  “Hope you’re right.”

  Judged against an absolute scale or taken in proportion to the forces massed along the whole Front, Taggart reminded himself, what I’m hoping will happen is insignificant. But it’ll be the most significant event of my life — to date — if it does happen.

  It might be the end of my life, too.

  Or the first step on the way to a prisoner of war camp. Balls. If Jerry’s here, he’s the one who should be worrying.

  But he had to make the decisions for all eleven of them and this was the first time he had ever exposed other men to the danger of death or injury. He felt the weight of it.

  Corporal Fysshe-Smith crept past him with a Bren gunner and another rifleman. The man with the Bren gun had been chosen for his size and Taggart watched anxiously as his burdened six-foot shape hugged the shadows.

  The three men paused and Taggart held his breath while the corporal peered around the corner and along the ditch.

  Fysshe-Smith jerked his head back like an over-adventurous tortoise jinking into its shell.

  Taggart began to breathe rapidly and could feel his heart thudding.

  A moment later the messenger the corporal had sent was prone and head-to-head with Taggart.

  “Two ferries with a Spandau, sir, twenty yards up the ditch. They’re keeping a lookout this way.”

  Sense of responsibility dictated reflection. Excitement prompted swift action. Tactical training warned not to waste the element of surprise.

  “Udall, go back and tell Sergeant Duff to leave the other Bren and one rifleman there and bring the other two up here. I’m going up for a word with Corporal Smith.”

  When he reached the ditch, Taggart saw that it was wider than it had looked in an oblique view. He laid his right cheek on the snow and edged his head forward until his eyes could see into the ditch. He felt a stomach twinge when he saw the two Germans and their machine-gun.

  “We won’t be able to cross this opening without being seen, Corporal. But I’ve got to get beyond it, to rush the pimple. Four of us: you, Udall, two more. Sergeant Duff stays here with your Bren and two men. The other two and a Bren stay where they are to cover us all.”

  Taggart repeated his plan to the sergeant. “And you and the others here charge up the pimple after us if I put up a green flare. I’m going to try to slip past the end of the ditch without being spotted. The rest of you coming with me follow one at a time. If Jerry spots us, wipe out those two at the Spandau with a grenade. Everybody know what he has to do?”

  One man might, with a lot of luck, be able to sneak past the opening. With monumental good fortune, two. Thus Taggart reckoned. He checked that the safety catch on his Tommy gun was off, the magazine securely home, a grenade immediately to hand.

  He had forgotten all about his exposed head. His only thought now was: How many of them are there? And are they on the pimple? If so, where among the thin belt of trees and bushes?

  Taggart stood, bent double, and gathered himself to leap across the mouth of the ditch in one long stride, then sprint three more to leave room for the next man, before throwing himself flat again.

  A flare arced into the sky from the crest of the hummock, its white radiance reflected dazzlingly off the snow.

  Taggart made his leap, hurled himself forward for three more giant steps, and hit the snow.

  The bursting of a German flare and the stammer of a Spandau on the hummock came simultaneously.

  There was a confusion of sounds. Taggard heard them as he pounded through the snow.

  One of the two Germans at the Spandau shouted at the instant that Taggart was crossing the end of the ditch.

  A split second later a grenade thrown by Corporal Fysshe-Smith exploded.

  One of the Germans started screaming.

  Another grenade burst and the screams stopped.

  With the flare, which had been fired a moment before Taggart made his move, bullets began to send spurts of snow into the air where they pattered along the icebound stream.

  The forward Bren opened fire. The magazines contained no tracer to betray its position, but all could see the snow its bullets threw up at the top of the slope where the enemy lay hidden.

  The corporal, Udall and two more riflemen had joined Taggart but they were pinned down. The bank protected them from sight and bullets, but the tracer from the Spandau on the hump was hitting the snow and ice only two feet to their right. It kept putting down short bursts.

  Taggart gave a start of surprise when Spandau fire broke out on his left. Enfiladed, damn it. He was hot and sweaty, his ears no longer tingled. His right forefinger felt slippery on the Tommy gun’s trigger.

  He heard Udall’s voice.

  “It’s all right, sir. Message passed along: the grenades didn’t damage the Spandau too badly; Sar’nt Duff’s grabbed it.”

  That must have shaken Jerry as much as it shook me. Taggart felt calm for the first time since he had crept out of a concreted casemate forward of the main forts of The Maginot Line. It was like opening an innings against a notorious fast bowler of bumpers, or running onto a rugger pitch to play a dirty team that weighed two stone a man heavier than one’s own. The walk to the crease, the five minutes of preliminary warm-up, could make one quail. Then the first ball was bowled, the first tackle made and one’s blood was up, athirst to dominate the opposition; at whatever cost to one’s person.

  But this isn’t cricket or rugger, and my chaps will get killed; or maimed, perhaps for life, if I make a balls of it.

  A shattering detonation a few yards to the right of the stream and a shower of snow erupting. A whirring like the rapid beating of wings.

  Hell’s teeth, that was a grenade.

  The fragments hummed overhead and pattered onto the snow, punching dimples that were clear in the moonlight.

  “Corporal...”

  There was no need to complete the sentence. Corporal Fysshe-Smith, the patrol’s sniper, knew what was wanted without being told.

  “I’ll get him, sir.”

  He wriggled into a ball with his knees bent under him.

  Another grenade burst near the right bank and showered him and some of the others with snow. Taggart felt lumps slide down his neck and back. He began to burn with anger.

  Thank God Jerry’s so methodical. The burst of Spandau fire from the hump had been coming at regularly spaced intervals. Sergeant Duff’s Spandau bullets aimed at the hump had disrupted the enemy’s rhythm for a while. Now the enemy had resumed it.

  The corporal waited; bunched, knees flexed, counting. A burst from the Spandau ceased and he catapulted himself across the stream and under the overhang of the other bank. He began to raise himself, kneeling. Taggart saw him peeping around a screen of dead weeds curtained with snow and icicles.

  A spurt of flame from the corporal’s rifle; and a moment later, the explosion of the last grenade that a German had lobbed before Fysshe-Smith’s bullet killed him. The grenade fell short. There was a bellow of pain succeeded by groans.

  Udall said, and there was reluctant admiration in his tone, “Reckon the corp got one and the Jerry’s grenade got his mate, sir.”

  “Sounded like it.”

  Retribution from the Spandau atop the mound. Bullets thrashed about on the corporal’s side of the stream. He lay stretched full length against the bank.

  Sergeant Duff sighted his Spandau on the source of the tracer and gave a long burst. The shooting directed against the corporal stopped. By the time it was resumed, presumably by another man replacing the one the sergeant had knocked out, Fysshe-Smith had safely crossed back to rejoin the others.

  Taggart turned to his runner.

  “Go and tell the sergeant I want all the covering fire he can give us, starting as soon as cloud drifts across the moon again.”

  Have they spotted us? Are they only guessing we’re following the stream? Probably: it’s the logical line of approach. But they wouldn’t waste ammo on spec. They must know
we’re somewhere here. Do they know I posted another Bren as back stop?

  Udall returned. Taggart beckoned the others to close up.

  “I’m going to make a dash for the top of the pimple. Alone. I’ll work round to the right flank, by the ditches and broken ground. When I open fire, the rest of you charge and I’ll charge at the same time. If we don’t make it to the top, I’ll fire a flare for Sergeant Duff and the others to attack and we’ll charge again. I’ll wait until that cloud...’

  He was interrupted by heavy Spandau and Schmeisser fire, grenades bursting and men running down the slope of the hummock with fixed bayonets that shivered with eerie light where moonbeams slid along the steel.

  “Hold it,” Taggart shouted. “We’ll fight them off from here.”

  Twelve Germans in line abreast came pelting towards them, four firing Schmeissers from the hip.

  A cloud slid over the moon when the enemy were twenty paces away.

  The darkness was total for eyes accustomed to the bright moon.

  Taggart raised his Verey pistol and fired a white cartridge. An incandescent light spread over the snow and the Germans were only a few strides away. They kept up their Schmeisser and Spandau fire to compel the defenders to keep their heads down. The British did not keep their heads down. They returned the enemy’s fire and Taggart fired a second illuminating flare.

  He heard a man grunt and swear.

  “Who’s hit?”

  “Johnson, sir... in me arm... I’m all right.”

  “Get back to the sergeant.”

  Two agonised cries from the enemy and two men pitched onto the snow. Both lay writhing.

  The Verey light died. Darkness covered the scene again.

  Tracer from the Spandau on the hump laced the darkness. Another Spandau had been brought up and opened fire beside the first. Sergeant Duff’s was spewing tracer as well. Spurts of flames from the muzzles of Schmeissers pocked the blackness. Taggart was conscious of the flames licking out of his Tommy gun, wondering how long it would be before he attracted a burst for himself.