My Enemy Came Nigh Read online

  Anstey had made the gesture of getting up to see them off, but Cpl. Bodgener had taken his tea to his tent, when he woke him, so he had turned up at the cookhouse with his empty mug only after the fitters and riggers had left. He chatted pleasantly to the five Regiment men as he walked with them to their dinghy.

  Foster beamed at him. "Jolly good of you to come and see us off." He peered at the luminous dial of his huge wristwatch. "Bang on time, Sergeant; well done." As an airman he had always appreciated praise from his officers and had been taught, on commissioning, always to express approval of his men when it was merited. Anstey thought that such enthusiastic endorsement of a rendezvous which demanded only five minutes' stroll from their bunks was rather overdoing it.

  He said "Good morning, Fearless. I thought I'd come down and make sure you haven't got any punctures: inflatable boats always make me nervous; you'd never get me into one." He was not being entirely jocular: he had spent two days and nights in his aircraft dinghy in the North Sea in 1942 after being shot down, and still had occasional nightmares in which he was cold, wet, hungry and lost.

  Foster made a swashbuckling gesture of slapping his revolver holster and swinging his Sten gun onto his shoulder. "If we run into Gerry and he punctures us, we've got mae wests to keep us afloat and a Verey pistol to signal you for rescue."

  Anstey clapped him on the back. "You Regiment types are too intrepid for me. Good luck and enjoy yourselves." At the instant look of disappointment on Foster's face he wished that he had not added those last three words.

  Foster said, subdued, "This isn't supposed to be a swan, you know. We're trying to do something useful, not just enjoy ourselves."

  "Don't take on, old boy: I think it's a jolly good show. I'll be most interested in your report. And,'' he added, for he also knew the worth of encouragement, "so will everyone at Afrona, from the group captain downwards."

  Foster grinned. "If we do run into Gerry, we'll try to bring back a scalp."

  Anstey grimaced. "You do that." He watched them disappear in the darkness and went back to bed.

  *

  They had kept the outboard engine throttled down to make the least amount of noise. A mile from Sprat Foster switched it off and the four airmen paddled the boat for the rest of the way.

  Foster was happy and excited leading an assault force onto an unknown shore. He had moved forward to crouch in the bows, his Sten gun ready; a true leader, was Fearless Foster, showing his men the way, not urging them on from behind. He could almost make himself believe that he would welcome a hostile reception; there would be something rather splendid about spraying return fire onto the rocks ahead and leaping out of the dinghy to wade ashore, reloading as he went and firing from the hip.

  He had studied the chart carefully and picked out a small cove where he could hide the boat. "Left a bit," he whispered, and the two starboard men paddled harder, swinging the boat to port. "Keep on... left a bit more... keep going... now turn right."

  He had found the place he wanted and a few strokes brought the boat grounding on the sand. Foster leaped out and held the painter while his men followed him. He looked round in the growing light and pointed: "Tow her over there between those rocks and turn her round so that we can get away easily." He watched the sergeant organise this, then, satisfied that the boat could neither drift away nor be seen from above, he gathered his party round him.

  "Right, chaps. We'll go in file, with Sergeant Golightly at the rear. The plan is to climb to the highest point, keeping in cover as much as possible, then scan the whole place with field glasses. If we see any sign of life, we 'II approach without being seen, and observe. If not, we'll patrol right round and get the lie of the land. Any questions?"

  "Sir!"

  "Yes, Sergeant?"

  "With your permission, sir, may the men fall out and relieve themselves now? We don't want anyone getting caught short or bursting for a pee once we're on the way."

  "Good idea. Carry on." Foster realised that his own bladder needed relief; and wasn't sure that sheer excitement didn't call for even more. But it really wasn't the sort of question for which he had hoped. He doubted whether Julius Caesar or General Bernard Montgomery would have elicited so mundane a response. He hoped that the whole mission was not to be carried out on so low a note.

  *

  Leutnant Scheusal sat in the bows of a rubber boat with Zdenka beside him. Two privates sat amidships while a sergeant steered. They had set off from Mojat at nine, after Scheusal had satisfied himself that the radar was working properly, before leaving his senior warrant officer in charge.

  Heinrich Scheusal was of a sanguine and lazy disposition, with little regard for military strictures. In civilian life he was an electricity authority official in a small Westphalian town. He had enjoyed belonging to the Hitler Youth because he fully endorsed one of its policies; to bring together German youths and maidens in an atmosphere of pastoral and innocent paganism, for the purpose of propagating the race. In other words, to organise camping together and sharing such sports as swimming and canoeing, living rough together in mountain huts, and skiing, so that an abundance of good health and comradeship led naturally to guiltless procreation. The young Heinrich had discovered girls at the age of fifteen and never looked back. He had dedicated himself to promiscuous and incessant fornication with a zeal which far exceeded his interest in sport. He accepted outdoor activity as an unavoidable concomitant of outdoor and indoor relaxation: it even added to the pleasure of the latter; to go swimming in a mixed group became an opportunity to lead one of the girls aside and, as he put it, practise improving the breed. He became skilled in avoiding the more strenuous aspects of skiing and found that saving his energies enabled him to take advantage of the intimate glow induced by gluwein, log fires and community singing to tumble willing and euphoric mädchen into bed while his more strenuous male companions were too tired and drowsy.

  So he had brought Zdenka to Sprot with the sole purpose of uninterrupted sexual dalliance. To his C.O. at Taf he had pleaded the operational necessity to try out a radio link and to find observation posts from which men with binoculars could sight approaching aircraft at long range, in the radar's blind spots, and signal back instantly. As he told his captain, Fregattankapitän von Trampel had suggested visual spotting and communication by pigeon; so he was only carrying out the Oberführer's wishes and modernising them.

  To accompany him he had chosen another Bavarian, a florid sergeant who was as stout as a beer barrel and as unmilitary, and two privates distinguished by their untidiness and waggish disregard for the snap and hard sheen that the Army tried constantly to impose on them.

  His excuse for taking Zdenka was that he wanted her technical advice on the possible siting of another mobile radar transmitter-receiver, to sweep to the west and supplement the one on Mojat. This did not deceive his own captain, but, if von Trampel should hear of it, would be an adequate kind of gobbledegook to bluff him. The Signals captain knew well enough why this one of his lieutenants wanted to take a beautiful Jugoslav girl off virtually on their own, and had no objection: he was a practical man and believed in letting others do the scouting for him. If Scheusal was poking Zdenka it meant that she was pokable and therefore he might have a chance himself sometime. A pragmatic sort, the Signals captain, and not selfish.

  The boat nudged a smooth, sloping rock and Scheusal ordered one of the privates ashore to secure it before he stepped out himself.

  He looked round the cove and up the cliff path, stretched, yawned and said "Sergeant Zotig, take the men round the island anti-clockwise. The Fraulein and I will work our way round clockwise. We will meet on the far side, diagonally across from here, at this point." He indicated a spot on the map where a re-entrant contour showed there was a hollow in the hillside. "Don't come further than that. Wait for us there." Don't want them barging into us with our pants off; he thought. He felt his haversack to make sure that the two bottles of white wine he had packed in an improvised rubber ba
g, filled with ice, were there. With the two hand grenades he never forgot to take with him. He had once saved his life because he always armed himself in this way, in addition to his pistol. His pistol had jammed, in a British Commando raid on a radar site in France where he was serving. Two Commandos were firing at him with sub­ machine guns, and he had tossed a grenade. The blast that shattered them had thrilled him as much as it had relieved him, and he was a dedicated grenade man ever since.

  He patted Zdenka's bottom. "Let's go. You go ahead, Zdenka; you know the way." And I can look up your skirts on the steep bits.

  Sprot was roughly oval, with its axis running north-east and southwest. It was three miles long and a mile-and-a­ half across at its widest. Foster and his party had landed, some four hours earlier, towards the southern end of the north-west-facing shore. Scheusal and his men had approached the southern end of the opposite shore. While the R.A.F. patrol was creeping down the far side of the island, the Germans had sailed in behind its back and landed to the south-east. The sound of the German engine was drowned by the indignant screaming of the colonies of birds the R.A.F. had disturbed, and was baffled by the intervening hill and the rocks among which Foster had concealed his party.

  Scheusal left his boots and socks in the boat and donned sandals. He had also taken his shirt off and was bareheaded. With his binoculars and haversack, and a pretty girl at his side, he looked like a carefree holiday tourist.

  His men wore plimsolls and the two privates were also stripped to the waist. The sergeant had put on a battered Tyrolean hat to keep off the sun: it had travelled up and down the desert in his kitbag and he always swore it was the most efficient protection against sunstroke or frostbite. With his shirt hanging outside his trousers for coolness, he looked, apart from his faded insignia of rank, like a factory worker at Blackpool during Wakes Week.

  *

  Foster led his men stealthily across the island to the point where a hill, a couple of hundred yards inland from the south-east shore, rose two hundred and fifty feet and gave the best vantage point.

  The extreme north-east and south-west extremities of the island were rocky and barren. On both coasts there were many small coves but only two, one on each shore, where there was a big beach. In the centre of Sprat was a grassy bowl where a pond of clear, sweet water was fed by a spring. There were three or four streams around the island, running from springs, and many areas of grass and wild flowers. Everywhere birds and rabbits abounded.

  The scented air and atmosphere of peace and quiet did not relax Fearless Foster's vigilance. His patrol's progress was slow. From time to time he would signal them to fall flat while he wriggled forward to peep round a rock or over a low crest. This caution instilled much fear into the four young airmen, who took it for granted that their officer had received exclusive, secret, officer-type Intelligence and knew the island bristled with the enemy. Sgt. Golightly, who had started his military career in a Territorial infantry regiment, served in France for six months and spent four days on the beach at Dunkirk, watched his antics with interest and did nothing to discourage them. It was perfectly all right with him if young Mr Foster wanted to keep stopping. Foster was 22 years old and as green as lettuce. Golightly, at 25, felt as old as Hannibal and reckoned that driving a herd of elephants over the Alps must have been a picnic compared with Dunkirk. He was a tidy-looking, taciturn man with a blunt, crooked nose and thin lips; he gave the impression that he might have been a competent welterweight boxer or serum half: in fact, he played soccer; rather dirtily; and had injured his nose by walking into a wall in the blackout. This gave him a tendency to snuffle, which drew frowns from Pilot Officer Foster when he cocked his head and listened for sounds of human life on Sprot.

  Let alone people, they did not see so much as goat droppings, during the first two hours. But Foster persisted in his impressive drop-prone-and-then-rush tactics. The aircraftmen pelted after him while the sergeant unhurriedly brought up the rear. In a series of energetic bursts they covered each stretch of open ground. At places where there was a hillock or there were some rocks to climb, Foster, who clambered about the Cheddar Gorge and the Cumberland Fells for fun, went forward alone and dramatically waved his command on when he had made sure that they could safely venture up.

  By the time they gained the summit of the island's highest hill Sgt. Golightly was convinced that P.O. Foster was a lunatic who was harmless to everyone but himself: he was certainly going to get himself killed first, if they ever did meet Gerry; which again was all right with him, for it would give him time to organise the survival of himself and the four erks; in that order.

  The erks were impressed by their leader's skill and intrepidity; and made stiff with apprehension by his wariness.

  By the time they reached the hilltop the sun was well above the horizon and they were all sweating and dusty. Foster swept the island clockwise with his binoculars while Sgt. Golightly, through another pair, scanned round in the opposite direction.

  After fifteen minutes of patient scrutiny, which Sgt. Golightly thought was three times too long, for he had finished in five, Foster admitted in a tone of regret, "Can't see anything, Sergeant. They must be well hidden."

  One of the young airmen gave a nervous cackle. The tension was too much for him.

  Sgt. Golightly suggested "Probably no one here, sir."

  "Can't assume that, just because we can't see anyone. They wouldn't have a large force, anyway: so they'd easily conceal themselves."

  "Yes, sir." Humour the poor deluded imbecile: it would make a good story to tell in the sergeants' mess later, and meanwhile he'd rather leave all the rushing about to the officer. Even if he had to drag himself round this boring island too, it was better than filling in time on Bardoc with arms drill and weapon training.

  "We'll stay together and recce. the whole way round."

  "Yes, sir. Permission to have a mug of tea, sir?"

  "Jolly good idea, Sergeant."

  Two of the men's water bottles had been filled with tea, and they all sat sipping from their battered enamel mugs; while Foster sternly kept lookout and didn't give himself a break until after his men; and the sergeant kept searching for the enemy.

  Foster thought sometimes that he was born out of his time. He should have been of his father's generation: all that jolly good comradeship in the trenches, a spiffing platoon or company to command and look after and be respected by; foot inspections; sing-songs in an estaminet behind the lines when they were on rest; railheads and R.T.Os and Archie bursting around the Sopwith Camels and B.E.2s; long route marches, and homespun philosophy in the quiet intimacy of a dugout. His father, in fact, had been a gloomy subaltern in the Ordnance Corps with a long record of service far beyond earshot of battle.

  Foster was wondering now whether he ought to make the men take their boots off so that he could inspect their feet for blisters, and hoping that Sgt. Golightly would express some salty morsel of homespun philosophy; whatever that was, but he was sure it was jolly spiffing. Instead he was aware that the four erks, who had been muttering among themselves, were now looking at him warily. Not with confidence or respect, but instead rather a hangdog air.

  "What's the matter, Jarvis?" He asked the youngest and most rosy-faced of them. It was Jarvis who had broken into a nervous cackle earlier on; mustn't let him crack up.

  Leading Aircraftman Jarvis giggled. "I dunno, sir,"

  "So something is the matter?"

  "Well... no, sir."

  "Not worried are you?"

  "Not really, sir." Another giggle.

  "There's nothing to worry about. If there are any Germans on the island, they haven't seen us. Our fieldcraft's too good. We 'II see them before they spot us."

  "How many d'you think there are, sir?"

  "None," Sgt. Golightly contributed.

  "That's the spirit, Sergeant." Foster smiled on him. "But if there were, laddie, we'd spot them first. Right?"

  "Yes, sir." Jarvis giggled again.


  "Now we're going right round the island, and if we see nothing we'll post sentries up here and the rest of us can go down and have a cracking good swim in that pond: I bet the water's marvellously cool."

  "Thank you, sir."

  "Right. Let's get cracking, then."

  Now he thinks he's the bloody Wingco Flying, thought Sgt. Golightly. Next thing we know, he'll have us in finger four formation or echelon bloody starboard. Roll on. He settled his pack and Sten gun and got to his feet.

  *

  When the Germans arrived a game of round-the­ mulberry-bush began. The British party had crept and crawled, uncomfortably and suffering many scratches, three quarters of the way round Sprot. Sgt. Zotig and his two companions set off in their footsteps; but not seeking concealment, for they had never suspected a British presence here. And Scheusal and Zdenka, when they began their ostensible survey for a suitable radar or radio site, headed towards the direction in which Foster's patrol was approaching.

  Scheusal had only one idea in his square head for the time being; to bed Zdenka on some soft patch of grass as soon as possible. His lust was fanned by the tantalising sight of her trim buttocks shifting under her tight skirt with each step, and her long, shapely, sun-tanned legs a few feet in front of him; and the glimpses of thigh and white knickers when the climb was steep.

  It was little wonder, then, that Foster's patrol was brought to a halt by an exclamation of "Coo!" from LAC Jarvis, followed by a giggle. All six of them froze; and dropped A.at, except Jarvis, who was seen to raise himself on his arms and crane his neck to peer down into the grassy dell which lay across their line of advance. The other five watched a deep blush creep up his neck and suffuse his cheeks, his eyes bulge and his body quiver. They heard him exclaim again: "Cor!"