Midnight Raid Read online

  A strong wind was blowing, which made the ship shudder and plunge when she left port, and brought several men rushing to the rail or the nearest heads to vomit. By the time the ship dropped anchor, every assault craft carried two or three men whose strength and morale had been affected by seasickness.

  Anchoring was in itself a thoughtfully calculated matter. The sound of the heavy chains rattling through the hawseholes would carry far. The ship must therefore despatch the assault boats far from Island One; which meant that she would go only half a mile up the fjord.

  Boarding the assault craft while they hung from their davits added a new difficulty to the exercise. Men found their feet slipping and their handholds being torn away by sudden movements when Prince Of Denmark rolled sharply or her bows pitched down. Such motion was exaggerated the higher up the ship one went. On the boat deck the effect of a dipping bow, a stern thrust up by a monstrous wave, a ten-degree lurch to port or starboard was felt much more strongly than on the decks on which the Commandos had travelled.

  Taggart, hurrying to the first of B Troop’s two craft, skidded when the ship simultaneously rolled and reared her bows up steeply. He staggered, trying to regain his balance, felt the sling of his Tommygun slip down his shoulder, raised his right arm with a jerk to prevent the submachine-gun falling off, and was flung forward with such force that his left shoulder and his head crashed into a ventilator. He was poorly protected: for mountaineering, Commandos wore cap comforters and carried their steel helmets strapped to their packs. B Troop were already in this rig, ready to tackle the cliff without wasting time. The impact drove the wind from Taggart’s lungs and made him dizzy.

  He shouted a caution to those following him, but the first three fell in a tangle and tripped up the next two. Amid a lot of quiet swearing and curt exhortations from Duff and the section sergeants, the delay dragged on and the doorway to the deck became jammed.

  Climbing aboard the assault craft, with the ship rocking, two men fell when half-way over the craft’s gunwales; one of them nearly fell overboard and was snatched back in the nick of time. One man twisted his ankle when he fell after boarding an assault craft.

  When the small craft hit the sea, spray cascaded over them, stinging men’s eyes and sending water trickling down inside their collars. They had rubbed burned cork on their faces and the water smeared it, making it run so that it irritated nostrils and coated lips with an unpleasant taste.

  Immediately the assault boats left the mother ship the sea tossed them about so briskly that men were thrown against one another, weapons and equipment bumped and bruised them, sheets of spray broke over the bows and was carried astern by the breeze the boats created as they chugged ahead at three knots on one engine. Two or three men in each of B Troop’s boats vomited onto the boats’ bottoms or over their neighbours. The vile smell of vomit mingled with the fumes of diesel fuel.

  Taggart, in the bows of the leading assault craft, took the full effect of every wave that crashed aboard. By the time the boat nosed in to the stretch of narrow beach at the foot of the cliffs, he was soaked to the skin and shivering.

  Disembarking over the lowered ramp became increasingly difficult as the boat emptied and lightened: the sea breaking on the shore had a progressively greater effect on it. The first sub-section went ashore with only a few stumbles. The remainder tripped, stumbled, slid, and some overbalanced and fell into the sea as the ramp rose or fell two or three feet when the agitated sea lifted the hull or let it drop. Three men fell full length and swallowed salt water. Two nearly lost their weapons. It was the same on the accompanying boat.

  There was one compensation for the change of plan. The cliff originally chosen was too close to the town to risk the noise and flash of the small launchers that sent rockets up to 200 ft, carrying pairs of grapnels to which ropes were attached. Now that the climb was to be made at a safe distance from both the town and Island One, these could be fired with confidence that they would not be heard or seen. They had to be fired from the assault craft, and in conditions when the wind was not too strong and the firing platform fairly stable. Taggart had given the order before the craft beached, and by the time he reached the start of the climb the ropes were in position.

  Climbing when wet, cold and stiff, even for men trained and toughened to such work, was more demanding than on any previous exercise. But the Commandos tackled it with a kind of fury, as though the cliff were personally responsible for the misery of the last two and a half hours, and as if the cliff were as hated an enemy as the Germans. Tonight, the climb which they had rehearsed so often seemed longer and harder than ever before. The ropes were slippery from sea water that had come aboard during the run from the mother ship to this bleak unwelcoming stretch of coast. The weapons they carried had become heavier and more awkward than they were a couple of hours earlier. Muscles that had stiffened warmed reluctantly to their task.

  Weaponry in the Commandos was flexible. Although there was a standard scale of equipment for each type of troop, the arms carried on any raid could be added to or changed. B Troop were carrying three Bren guns, which was not standard for a Rifle Troop. They were not, in fact, carrying any rifles: most were armed with Sten guns, some with Tommyguns, and all carried grenades. The officers and N.C.Os each wore a .45 automatic in addition to their other weapons.

  Fifty feet up, a gust of wind that was funnelled through a cleft in some rocks swept one of the men hard against the cliff face and stunned him. He lost his grip and began to fall. The man next below grabbed him by an ankle. The rope swung, to the danger of the men lower down. The man who had been swept off it was hanging head-down, held by one hand by a comrade, while he grasped the rope again somewhere below the feet of the man who was supporting him. Near the bottom of the rope, a man fell to the beach as the rope danced from side to side.

  At the top, Taggart found himself eventually short of three men who had been injured and unable to complete the climb. Now they had to simulate the long footslog across the side of the mountain, which would bring them, on the night of the real thing, to the power station.

  The best they could do here was less arduous than it would be in Norway. The Scottish hillside was less steep than the slope of the Norwegian mountain; the climb here to the crest of the range of hills along which they would double was easier than the one that awaited them a week from tonight, for now they could follow a sheep track, whereas then they would have to scramble among rocks. The summit of this ridge was gently rounded, but the Norwegian mountain rose a thousand feet higher, and they must traverse the slope. At the end of these hills, however, was a long narrow plateau which excellently approximated to the one along which they would advance to the attack on the power station.

  Taggart hoped that when he set off on this stage, in the target zone, he would not be three men short; and that none would fall by the way: on that uneven and unforgiving iron-hard terrain it would be easy to sprain an ankle or knee.

  *

  The flarepath lights came on and Oberleutnant Zirkenbach taxied his Me 109 away from its blast pen to the downwind end of the runway. He had not admitted as much to Major Redlich, but he had been looking forward to this night exercise since he had attended a briefing for it three days before. Night flying bored him, because single-engined fighters no longer flew on night operations. They had been made use of in the early months of the war, but now the twin-engined Me 110 and Junkers 88C were doing the job, and much better than any day fighter could. Practising to fly at night when it was merely to maintain or improve his airmanship did not interest Zirkenbach. He had time only for practising skills he could use in battle.

  Tonight, however, should provide some good fun. Reluctant though he was to praise any action by either the Army or Navy, he admitted that, this time, Redlich had come up with a decent idea. If the enemy attacked this Godforsaken spot, they would do so under cover of darkness. Therefore it made sense to put on a dummy night attack and use searchlights and flares to illuminate the enemy
assault boats, with aircraft to strafe them.

  The Me 109E that his Staffel flew was the late version, which had two machine-guns and three 20 mm cannons. The latter could sink any assault boat with a mere three-second burst.

  It would be a new experience to fly low over the water at night, attacking small moving targets lit by flares and searchlights. It would be exciting to emerge from the dark into the glare of the fierce white beams, shoot up a boat and zoom away into the blackness again; and then repeat the attack over and over.

  He would put on his lights after the last dummy run and give those dullards on the ground and in their cramped little S boats and minesweepers a display of aerobatics which even they would surely appreciate demanded outstanding virtuosity. To do a roll at night, relying entirely on instruments, was ticklish enough; but he would do a loop or two and an Immelmann or two and a barrel roll as well as slow rolls.

  He would end up by screaming over the roof of Redlich’s Headquarters. He knew that would annoy Redlich, because Redlich had refrained from complaining about his last beat-up: he obviously did not want to admit that it had inconvenienced him.

  Zirkenbach was thoroughly discontented with his life in Norway. He was a handsome young man at whom girls had been throwing themselves ever since he was 18. Now, at 25, he expected female adulation. In France, he had never gone short of what he called his sex ration. Among the conquered population there were many, of both sexes and all ages, who accepted the prospect of permanent subjugation to Germany. Germany had set out to conquer the whole of Europe. It looked as though she would achieve it. For decades to come, France would be a vassal state. The most sensible attitude, such people argued, was to accept the fact and make the best of it. A lot of attractive women squared their consciences with this argument. Power, anyway, was an aphrodisiac. Young, highly decorated Luftwaffe pilots were romantic figures. Zirkenbach had swept many French girls off their feet.

  In Norway, however, it was a different story. The people treated him with icy aloofness or downright scorn and hatred. What made the young women’s contempt worse was the fact that everyone knew about Redlich’s liaison with the beautiful Kirsten. Zirkenbach consoled himself with the reflection that Redlich’s success in finding a Norwegian mistress was so rare that there must be more to it than met the eye. If I can’t get a woman, how can Redlich? he often wondered crossly. He had decided that Redlich was being led up the garden path in his indiscretion and that he was in for a rude shock.

  Kirsten had turned down Zirkenbach’s advances, but accepted Redlich’s. Clearly, he reasoned, that must be because Redlich was senior to him, wore a Knight’s Cross and, most important, was the Sector Commander, with the Luftwaffe and Navy under his orders. She was probably a spy, who had insinuated herself into the local commanding officer’s favour in order to wheedle information from him. This theory satisfied Zirkenbach’s vanity as well as his romantic nature and credulity: he was a sucker for any sensational rumour, especially one generated by himself; but he kept this one to his own thoughts.

  Night flying demanded all his concentration and there was no room in his mind for speculation about intrigue and espionage or for grievances. One of his pilots, who had 200 hours of night flying in his log book, had crashed a few weeks ago. Zirkenbach was past being astonished by night flying accidents killing experienced and careful pilots. Flying in the dark was always frightening. To take off at night was like strap-hanging in an underground train in the way that it confused the senses and judgment. You accelerated from a flarepath into total darkness just as a train did from a brightly lit station into a tunnel. The swiftly gathering speed tended to make a passenger lean forward, so he deliberately leaned back to counteract this effect. To him, if felt as though the train were going up a slope, and that he had leaned back to remain upright. In fact, the train would probably be going downhill, which was the way that tracks leaving a station were usually laid.

  In the same way, a pilot rushing from light into darkness had the mistaken impression that he was climbing steeply away from the flarepath; when, in fact, he was flying level or at only a slight angle of climb. With no horizon to help him, and a poor line of sight to the ground, many pilots put their aircraft into a dive when still very low; and crashed into the ground. For this reason it was imperative to fly by instruments immediately on taking off. Physical sensations were unreliable; instruments, the artificial horizon, turn and bank indicator, angle of climb or descent indicator showed the truth.

  Zirkenbach held his climb until he was 1000 ft above the highest peaks in the area, before he turned towards Olafsund. He could see the surface of the fjord shining in the faint starlight. Not a chink of light showed from the town: Redlich had ensured that, by sending for the mayor and warning him that he would be put in gaol for a week for every infringement of the blackout regulations: and this despite the fact that the mayor was a willing collaborator and labelled by the townsfolk a quisling.

  A radio-telephone transmitter-receiver had been installed in Redlich’s Headquarters, and Zirkenbach went over to its frequency. He heard Bissinger’s voice answer his call. Three more of the Staffel had followed him into the air and were orbiting in safely separated places. He had already checked with each of them and they were now also on the H.Q. channel.

  Bissinger said “We have a target: a minesweeper at the entrance to the fjord.”

  “Attacking.”

  Zirkenbach dived towards the fjord and flew seaward along it at 50 ft. He saw the ship as he rounded the last curve, and swept low over it, then on out of the fjord and round in a tight turn to follow the minesweeper. He dived again. By the time he could climb out and turn safely, before making another attack, the minesweeper had cleared the bend and, on his request, a searchlight beam pierced the darkness and shone fully on the target vessel. Zirkenbach attacked it once more.

  Two more minesweepers and an S boat entered the fjord and the other pilots dived in turn to the attack, their targets well illuminated by searchlights on the shore and flares fired from the waterfront.

  When Zirkenbach landed, he waited for Redlich’s call. “How did it go, Zirkenbach?”

  “Everything was fine, Major. Even if the enemy were to shoot out the searchlights, the flares worked well.”

  They discussed the exercise and when Redlich put down the telephone he sat back and smiled at Bissinger. “If Zirkenbach can’t find anything to complain about or to criticise, it must have gone off well.”

  “Yes, sir: and the whole town must have been watching from behind their blackout curtains. It will have had a salutary effect on them. They won’t be so keen for their precious allies to try making a raid here. They have seen for themselves how hopeless that would be, even on the darkest night.”

  “If, despite our security precautions, there is anyone sending messages to the enemy, let us hope he will make that clear.”

  Bissinger looked shocked: an enemy agent in their midst? Impossible, with the reprisals the Major had threatened if one were caught: ten men and ten women to be shot summarily after watching the execution of the spy himself; or herself. The mayor would be back in gaol, too: for life, this time. He had already been inside for two weeks over the blackout, and on a bread and water diet: he had spent a week in hospital after each sentence, and was terrified of going to prison again. It had made him ardently security conscious.

  Zirkenbach, talking the exercise over with his pilots, agreed with them that the rest of the defences could be dispensed with: the Staffel would repel any attempted raid by day or night; provided the Army just manned the searchlights and fired the flares and star shells.

  “They’d never get past the first island.”

  Chapter Seven

  Leutnant Hofstein, smiling, suave and gay, arrived at his mistress’s door on the evening after the night exercise with a bunch of roses that Hauptmann Weitz had grown with great care in a small greenhouse. Weitz would be apoplectic about their disappearance and accuse everyone of having stolen them.
His gunners, however, were well able to take care of themselves in the face of the irascible little man’s wrath. One of them had connived at Hofstein’s taking them, for a bottle of schnapps.

  The woman who opened the door to him was only a year younger than his mother: but Hofstein frequently reminded himself that his mother had married at 18. She was rosy-faced, plump but firm-fleshed, with large bright eyes of a rare shade of true sapphire blue. Her lips were almost negroid in their fulness and what she did with them here, there and everywhere on Hofstein, almost literally from top to toe, surpassed anything in his not inconsiderable experience. At the age of 23 he had led a very active sexual life with an abundance of young actresses since he was a 17-year-old drama student.

  She giggled at sight of the small bouquet. “You devil, Karl, you’ve been raiding that poor little man’s hothouse.”

  He kissed her and it was like putting his mouth to one of those machines that are used for sucking sump oil from machine tools.

  It took a moment to recover his breath. “There are none left in the gardens, now. And you are the most luscious of all hothouse flowers, yourself, dear Gro. You make these red roses look pallid.”

  “It’s a wonder I’m not pale as a sheet, after all that commotion last night. I lost a good three hours’ sleep.”

  Gro’s German, like her friend Kirsten’s, was good: both had been well taught at school. They both spoke English, too, but this was not an accomplishment either of them ever mentioned.

  “I’ll bet you were glued to your window the whole time the exercise was going on.”

  “Of course. It was a wonderful sight. I loved all the searchlights but I liked the flares even better.”

  “Did you admire my star shells?”

  “Best of all, Liebchen. And I thoroughly enjoyed the aeroplanes. Especially the one right at the end, that did those stunts in the crossed beams of two of the lights.”