Midnight Raid Read online

  *

  Gowland led his section ahead at a steady lope. They were within fifty paces of their objective when the disturbance broke out far below. They heard the sound of a whistle being blown behind the barricade, then of shouting as the five men on lookout called to hurry their aroused comrades.

  Before the barricade could be fully manned, the Commandos were swarming over and around it: knives plunging and ripping, Sten gun butts smashing skulls and faces, boots and garottes kicking and throttling men to death.

  There was only the sound of grunts and curses, thuds and groans. No scream or shout or shot betrayed what was afoot.

  With 15 dead Germans at their feet, the Commandos stood silently in the greater silence that blanketed the whole length of the shelf, listening. They heard voices from the nearer of the two Flak guns on this side of the power station, and shouted orders from where they knew there was a field gun. But there was no alarum up here, yet.

  Taggart ran forward, with the rest of B Troop; and Kirsten, who had recovered her rucksack from where she had hidden it. When they reached the barrier, he first of all glanced down at the dead enemy and then spoke to her.

  “Go back, Kirsten. Hide until you see that we’re fighting our way down to the harbour. Then slip down and join us.”

  “No, Captain. I’ll stay with you. It will be safer.”

  “But there’s going to be a hell of a fight,” he said urgently. “Better for you to…”

  “No. Better for me to be killed than caught on my own.”

  “Well, it’s your decision.” He dismissed her from his thoughts.

  *

  A Troop’s only surviving section, and the only survivor of D Troop’s two, chugged quietly up to Islands Three and Two, respectively. Both got ashore without being detected.

  On Island Two, D Troop reached the gun without being seen and had killed its crew with knife thrusts and by breaking their necks before the enemy knew they were among them.

  On Island Three, A Troop encountered a sentry, who fired wildly with his Schmeisser and was instantly shot dead with one brief burst from the section commander’s Tommy gun.

  Immediately, a babel of shouts and commands broke out as the half-platoon of infantry on the island stood to arms. Sten guns and Tommy guns mowed them down and the Commandos took possession of the island with no losses and two men lightly wounded.

  From the Operations Room, Redlich’s staff were frantically trying to raise both islands by field telephone and radio, but there was no response.

  Redlich heard and felt the concussion as a shell from the captured gun on Island Two burst outside his Headquarters. Then the gun on Island Three began firing into the town. Several street lights went out.

  Redlich ordered Scherer to bombard both islands. The Commandos rained shells on the waterfront and at the factory.

  Out of the darkness emerged a line of assault craft, both engines driving them at full speed for the shore. Before the defenders could adjust to this surprise, H.Q., Heavy Weapons and E Troop had landed: but now they were in the glare of street lights and flares, and of star shells.

  *

  As soon as Taggart saw the two nearest Flak guns begin to shoot, one sending up star shells and the other hurling round after round down among the attackers on the shore, he took his troop full pelt along the shelf.

  Hofstein, at the first gun, saw them coming when the fringe of the bright light from his star shells caught them. He looked wildly round for someone to fend them off; but there was no sign of any infantry, and the gun crew was fully occupied.

  He took to his heels and ran to the second gun.

  The gunners saw the Commandos thirty paces away and turned from their gun to pick up their rifles. Within the next minute they were all dead: and soon the first shell from the gun to which Hofstein had retreated smashed into the concrete around the gun pit.

  Taggart yelled to his men to clear out of the way. There were no more star shells lighting the shelf now. The Commandos raced off into the darkness. Shells continued to burst on and inside the gunpit. One of the Flak sites on the seafront began sending up star shells, but the upper town was beyond their radius.

  Hofstein died at Taggart’s hands with a one-second burst from Taggart’s Tommy gun that riddled his torso with a dozen bullets and almost ripped it in half.

  The gun crew went down under a torrent of Sten gun fire.

  The Commandos turned their captured gun on the third Flak gunpit.

  Taggart looked round for Kirsten. He called to her. Sergeant Major Duff said “I saw her run towards the power station, sir…”

  “What the hell…”

  “Said the Norwegians in there would know there’s a raid on, from the row… she’s gone to make sure they all get out before we smash the place, sir…”

  “Christ! She told me there are two Resistance men there, who…”

  “Said she had to make sure, sir.”

  “Damn her: we can’t shoot the bloody place up until we know she’s out of it.”

  For the moment, they had enough to do with hurling shells into the other two Flak positions. And now the lights were blazing in the upper town as well.

  *

  The main landing, led by Major Abberly, met instant strong opposition. The redoubt on the south side of the fjord turned its two machine-guns on the waterfront and raked the right flank of the attack. The redoubt on the left held its fire, anticipating an attempt on the harbour and hoping to mislead the Commandos into thinking that there was no redoubt on the north shore.

  Hauptmann Scherer, on Redlich’s orders, concentrated the fire of one of his guns on Island Three. With his usual thoroughness, Redlich had had air raid shelters blasted out of both rocky islands. The Commandos, after losing three men from the first shell to fall on Island Three, dived underground.

  On Island Two, the captured gun ranged on the gun that had been shelling Island Three. Commandos were trained in every sort of British and enemy weapon. For special operations they were trained in specific ones. The British Army had full details of all enemy artillery. Many Commandos were recruited from the Royal Artillery. The men of 100 Commando who were firing the captured guns were not as expert as the professional German artillerymen, but they were good enough. It took them a little longer to find their target. They cheered when they saw it blow up with a multi-coloured flash of leaping flames and dense billows of smoke.

  One of Scherer’s other guns shifted its attention to them, but the Commandos on Island Three then emerged from shelter and began to shell it, in its turn.

  On the southern side, those who had survived the mining of the cliff, which had brought down tons of rock, were well hidden in the self same rocks and were able to fire down onto the redoubt that was harassing the Commandos’ right flank.

  Major Redlich was beginning to show signs of tension. He blamed himself for not having really believed that anyone would scale the north cliff. He still did not know exactly at what point the Commandos had climbed it, but that made no difference. When he had ordered the ground at the northern end of the shelf to be sown with Teller mines, it had been more to impress on his garrison that attack could come from anywhere than because he expected so difficult a feat. He wished that he had made the minefield bigger and that he had planted sticks of dynamite there, as he had on the south cliff.

  There was another and more infuriating reason for his tension and increasing anger. He had failed to make provision for help for the enemy from local Partisans. It was obvious that the Commandos must have had a guide to steer them away from the Teller minefield. He cursed the Gestapo, the S.S. and the Military Police for not having identified every single man or woman who was secretly working for the enemy.

  Being an honest man, he also reviled himself. He resolved that when he had won this battle, he would turn the Gestapo and S.S. loose on the surviving Commandos who had climbed the cliff and were now devastating his men and guns on the shelf. There would surely be at least one among the
m who would break under torture and reveal the identity of that guide.

  But, if he were to be the victor, he had better do something about the situation up on the shelf immediately.

  He reviewed the information that he had received. Hofstein had been killed, and with him the entire crews of two of the Flak guns. The 10.5 artillery piece on the seafront had just been blown up by cheeky enemy shelling from the northern island. The other 10.5, on the ledge, was still intact and in action. It was hidden behind the power station, where it was out of sight from all the Flak positions up there. The enemy was using one of the Flak guns to bombard the other two: one had already been knocked out. He gambled on his hunch that the enemy would leave the other intact and try to capture it, and use it to shell the German positions in the town.

  Set against that was the encouraging knowledge that the enemy had suffered severely from the moment their presence was first detected. There was a limit to the number of dead and wounded any attacking force could suffer and still have any hope of success. He believed that the Commandos must very nearly have reached this limit by now. It was time for a heavy counter-attack.

  He beckoned Bissinger. “Get me Weitz.”

  It took a couple of minutes to raise Hauptmann Weitz on the field telephone.

  Redlich, forcing calmness over his impatience, nevertheless spoke with the evident intolerance he always felt for the ever-complaining infantry commander. “What are your damned mortars doing, Weitz?”

  “Sir, only the one at the northern end of the shelf has had a target. It’s just been knocked out, sir, and…”

  “What happened?”

  “The enemy attacked with grenades, and…”

  Redlich cut him off savagely. “Send a company up there at once, with orders to drive the enemy down here. And I want at least three prisoners for interrogation. Understand? No quarter for the others… no other prisoners… got it?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Weitz put down the telephone and told himself that his moment for glory had come. He would lead the attacking company himself…

  The telephone rang again and Redlich’s curt voice dinned in his ears. “You are not to lead this attack personally, Weitz. Stay in your command post…”

  “But, sir, I…”

  Redlich shouted, his nerves raw with worry, “Obey my orders, damn you, Weitz. Put Zimmer in command of the attacking company… over whomever is commanding it now… this job needs dash and imagination.”

  The telephone slammed down and Weitz muttered filthy words.

  Chapter Twelve

  On the shelf, they heard the lorries coming fast up the hill and saw their headlights cutting the darkness when the lorries left the lighted streets of the lower town.

  Taggart counted them: there were six; a company of infantry, he guessed. He wished he had a mortar at his disposal. The enemy mortar they had captured had been damaged beyond use by the grenades they had hurled at its crew. He looked in the direction of the mortar that was thumping at irregular intervals at the southern end of the shelf. They still had 300 yards to cover before they could capture it, and in the meanwhile its bombs were raining down around them and holding them up. He wanted the last Flak gun intact. If they succeeded in killing, incapacitating or capturing its crew, they would have to be quick to train it on that mortar before the mortar crew began lobbing bombs into the Flak gunpit.

  He called to Dempster, who came panting at the double, his blackened face streaked with sweat and with blood from a mortar bomb fragment that had gashed his forehead.

  “George, take your chaps around to the back of the power station and have a go at that ten-point-five… draw fire from the mortar… that’ll give us a chance to rush the last Flak site and then rush the other mortar… or knock it out, if we must. Get that bloody gun and start plastering the power station.”

  Kirsten! The thought came at once to Taggart’s mind. He was about to call after Dempster to make sure that she and the Norwegians on night shift were not trapped in the building. Then he gave a mental shrug: she would have to take her chance… they all would. His orders were to destroy the place.

  He called Sergeant Major Duff and gave orders for the Bren gunners to engage the lorried infantry as soon as they came in range. They would spread out, so the Brens must open fire while the enemy were still in the vehicles. He kept one Bren with him, to give covering fire when he led an attack on the fourth Flak site.

  He heard Udall say “Sir, she’s back.”

  He looked round and saw Kirsten leaning against the sandbags around the gun, gasping for breath. “Everyone out of the building?”

  She nodded and gasped “Yes.”

  “Good. Stay close to me now.”

  She nodded again, still short of breath and shaking from the violence of the last ten minutes, during which she had been under rifle fire from the 10.5 gunpit as she sprinted and zigzagged towards where she thought Taggart to be.

  The lorries were on the shelf now and there were spurts of Bren fire, answering Spandaus, the crack of rifles and the boom of grenades.

  *

  On the waterfront, the three troops were pinned down by the mortar in the central square and by enfilading fire from the southern redoubt. It was not possible to bring their own mortars into action, because the whole of the port area was so brightly lit. They had put out some of the lights with Sten and Bren bullets, but had to be sparing with ammunition. They waited for Taggart to take or destroy the power station and plunge the whole town into darkness. In the meanwhile, Abberly sent ten men to sneak away in one of the assault boats and open fire on the southern redoubt; which would enable the others, who were hiding among the rocks, a chance to rush it.

  He looked towards the harbour entrance as he heard the throb of engines starting. A minesweeper and the last S boat (one was still at sea) emerged from the anchorage and turned parallel to the sea wall against which H.Q., H.W. and E Troops were crouching.

  A moment later searchlights shone from both vessels and swept over the foreshore. Immediately after, their cannon and a machine-gun on the trawler began to flail the beach and the sea wall.

  *

  Zimmer halted his six lorries as soon as the Brens opened up on them and ordered them to back behind the nearest buildings. While his men climbed out, he radioed the mortar on the north side of the power station, which was 200 yards from the 10.5 gun on that side, to begin dropping its bombs between the third and fourth Flak guns: on ground that the Commandos would have to cross in order to reach the last gun and the other mortar, sited beyond it.

  He intended to keep his company together instead of sending each platoon to defend a different enemy objective. It was obvious that the Commandos would try to knock out each gun and mortar, then destroy the power station. He knew that specially trained troops must be adept in stealthy movement and could evade his men if he divided his force. He believed that his best chance of thwarting them would be to launch a heavy counter attack on each group of attackers. With this intention, he led the company first towards the 10.5 gun, which was the closest.

  He heard Dempster shout to Corporal Fysshe-Smith and smiled to himself as he ran. It was a long time since he had heard English spoken; and from the accent he was able to visualise what sort of man this British officer must be: out of the same mould as so many of his Oxford friends.

  Dempster’s section had reached to within 80 yards of the gun, when protective mortar bombs began to fall around it. His sergeant had been wounded in the fight for the first Flak site and was lying with the other wounded in the garage of a house: the medical orderlies had forced the lock and pushed out the car they found in there.

  “Corporal Smith, put that mortar out of action while I take the rest on to the gun.” And blast that mortar, he added to himself: if Fysshe-Smith failed, it would turn its fire onto his men.

  Fysshe-Smith disappeared into the darkness at the head of his sub-section: depleted by four casualties. He took them at the double, dodging among
the trees of a sparse copse, and on to the back fence of a house that stood alone beyond the copse and on the verge of a half-sized football pitch where children played when it was not under snow.

  He left the Bren team, two men with the weapon and spare magazines, where the fence offered some shelter, to give covering fire if needed. The rest he took swiftly across the open ground until they were within 40 yards of their objective, where they dropped to the ground and wriggled forward on elbows and knees.

  Fifteen yards from the mortar emplacement’s surrounding sandbags, he threw a grenade. Immediately it burst, he rose with his men and, screaming like banshees, firing Stens as they charged, and he tossing another grenade ahead of them, they stormed the astonished enemy. When Zimmer heard the commotion and saw the spurts of flame, he changed his mind. He ordered half the company to protect the third Flak gun and the rest to double beyond, to the fourth one, with him.

  When Dempster heard the fighting where he had sent Corporal Fysshe-Smith, he was about to charge the gunpit with the other sub-section with the same wild blood-curdling yells and scattering bullets. He had risen from his crouching position and was opening his mouth to call to his men, when Zimmer’s company came into view. He fell prone and watched them run past, 20 yards away, across his front.

  Should he fire on them and take them by surprise? If he did, it would help Tarrant and Corporal Fysshe-Smith; but it would mean that he could not take the mortar without aid.

  He held his fire. When the enemy had gone from sight, he rose to his feet again and the others, watching him, scrambled up. They ran towards their objective. As it emerged from the surrounding darkness Dempster threw a grenade with all his might. In its brilliance he saw men reeling and falling. He hurled another and fell flat once again until it had burst and danger from its fragments, which whirred overhead, was past. He charged on, all of them yelling now, knives and guns ready. They climbed the sandbags amid the reek of explosives and blood.

  The mortar’s silence was as conspicuous as had been its steady thumping when in action. Dempster was undecided again: better than drawing the fire of the mortar at the rear of the power station, he had sent Fysshe-Smith to put it out of action. If it was still serviceable, he could back up Taggart’s task by mortaring the enemy who had just charged past. But would that endanger Taggart? The last mortar, on the furthest edge of the shelf, to the south, was still peppering the area across which Taggart and Gowland must take their men.