Midnight Raid Read online

  “Udall’s very proud of his new accomplishment.” There was amusement in the way Gowland said this. “I heard him telling the sergeant major he reckoned he’d apply for a job with the B.B.C. after the war: as an announcer, of course.”

  It provoked laughter. Udall was a general favourite and his rich Cockney was largely unintelligible to all except his fellow Londoners in the troop.

  The brow – known incorrectly among the general public as the gangway – no longer connected the ship to the quay. The strip of black water, reflecting a few rays of light from the scanty dockside illumination, widened. Tugs towed Prince Of Denmark’s bow and stern away from the quay face. The throbbing of her engines made the decks tremble underfoot. The insinuating smells of oil, paint and brine that permeated every ship became stronger as the breeze stirred and spread them. The first choppy waves began to make the ship roll and pitch.

  They were on their way. Taggart, remembering his old regiment’s retreat from the Franco-Belgian frontier to Dunkirk, and his other raids with The Commandos, could not put away the speculation: how many of those who were setting out would return?

  Abruptly he turned away from the rail. “Let’s go below and see how the troops are settling in.”

  When they left the boat deck the drifting odours became stronger and to them were added those of humanity and webbing equipment, coarse cheap battledress material, leather and boot polish; and, already, vomit.

  *

  The most battle-experienced men, officers and other ranks alike, were the most uneasy sleepers that night. To Taggart and Sergeant Major Duff, to Corporal Fysshe-Smith and Lance Corporal Udall, who had all fought in France and been on Commando raids; to the Colonel and Abberly; to Dempster, whose recollections of the Maginot Line and the rout of the British and French Armies later, brought frequent nightmares; to all these and many more, the anticipation of battle was worse than the realisation.

  Once they were on the brink of action, loaded into assault craft or paddling canoes to a hostile shore, they were masters of their natural anxieties; once they fired their first shots they were in the grip of a ferocity of purpose that simply banished fear. Until then there were many memories to haunt and fret them.

  They knew all about the steady toll of casualties in any battle: not only from shells, mortar bombs and bullets, but also from blunders and sheer misfortune: sections or whole platoons losing their way or blundering onto a concealed enemy position and being annihilated or captured.

  They knew what it was like to lie in an exposed position, to crawl up a rocky slope which was so heavily swept by machine-gun fire that every little ledge or jutting crag was flailed by bullets, so that there was no shelter anywhere. They had clung to barren hillsides while dead and wounded comrades slipped, tumbled and rolled past from above; dislodging others, unhit, and sending them to be killed or badly smashed against boulders below.

  They had seen their companions tread on mines and lose a foot or have a leg severed at the knee, in a split second with a loud report and a puff of smoke and dust. They had heard the screams and sobs of brave stoical men who lay wounded and thrashing about in agony. They had seen how the limbs of the dead continued to twitch and squirm for minutes after their bodies had been riddled or dismembered or their intestines or brains spilled around them.

  In their subconscious, and always ready to surface, they carried with them for ever the stench of blood and burned explosive, of festering wounds and gangrene, of excreta and urine and vomit: intense fear constricted the anal sphincters and bladders of some men, so that they swelled with the retained waste products of their own bodies; in others it caused a total loss of control over the function of bowels and bladder and with it the humiliation of fouling themselves. Some were literally sick with terror.

  They knew that a battle was a hell of noise that was in itself, in a way, more terrifying than the sight of flames erupting from a shell or bomb burst, of bullets striking sparks from rock, from glittering tracer that seemed to come hosing straight at one. They knew that another facet of battle that was never imagined by the uninitiated was the numbed look, the wan faces, the sunken, bewildered eyes and the low, slow, thickened speech of men who had been under heavy fire for too long.

  All these forces and manifestations of battle combined to inflict a remorseless attrition on those who had suffered them. The knowledge that they had to go through it all again – even though at their own choice – produced a subtle penetrating melancholy which, in the lonely hours of sleepless darkness, held apocalyptic horrors.

  Sunrise, of which no one, in a blacked-out cabin or deep below in a ’tween-decks or hold, was aware until he went on deck, brought mist, drizzle and dank greyness. First parade and P.T. on wet decks revealed many absentees, from sea sickness. Many more refused breakfast, too queasy to look at food.

  By noon, spirits had revived. The ship had sailed into an area of calm. An oily sea lapped listlessly against her sides. Men revived from nauseated inertia drew deep breaths of clean ozone-laden air. Nobody forewent his lunch. The ship’s public address system broadcast gramophone records and the B.B.C’s Workers’ Playtime. There was an inter-troop tug of war.

  And then the storm broke. The calm sea was lashed to fury; torrents of rain descended; thunder rolled and lightning flashed, the ship dug her bows deep into vast rollers, then raised them so steeply that men lost their balance. She rocked so acutely from side to side that men who had lost their footing were rolled like bundles of hay, to fetch up hard, bruised and breathless, against furniture or a bulkhead. There was much swearing, vomiting and crawling into sleeping bags on the hard decks, or, for the lucky few, into bunks.

  By 9 p.m. the ship had left the storm far behind, but a quarter of the evening’s food went uneaten.

  The second dawn brought fair weather and a moderate sea. It also brought the first enemy aircraft. From a bank of cloud a Blohm and Voss BV222, the Wiking, poked its snout through to clear air. Its huge size, over 120ft long and with more than 150ft of wingspan, looked like the threat of doom. But these behemoths had only two machine-guns and no bombs. Their present task was to carry urgently needed supplies from as far as northern Norway to North Africa: but the men in Prince Of Denmark did not know that.

  The destroyers opened fire, their pompoms hurling shells, whose paths were marked by lines of tracer, into the Wiking’s belly. The troop-laden ship rang with cheers as flames belched from the fuselage and engines, smoke coiled around the diving Wiking and presently it slammed into the sea and sank before any of its crew could be picked up.

  But had it sent a signal reporting the presence of the British ships?

  From the moment of sailing, everyone aboard had worn a lifebelt, and now the rails were lined with men looking for the furrow of a U boat’s periscope cutting through the water. Among the waves, only trained eyes could have spotted one, and there were sailors aloft for this purpose; but the soldiers stood for hours, gazing at the heaving grey mass and wondering.

  At last night fell, the early darkness of autumn in those northern latitudes, and the watchers drifted away.

  The raid had been timed so that it could be made under cover of darkness and the withdrawal completed in time for the ships to be well out at sea before the sun came up. The few hours before the Commandos had to climb into the assault craft passed in an atmosphere which made it hard to believe that those bad hours of introspection on the first night aboard had ever been. There was a purposeful, spontaneous cheerfulness, the quiet hum of easy, confident talk, occasional laughter, a total absorption in preparation for battle.

  It was only when the engines slowed that nervous flutters affected people’s stomachs. And it was when the strongly running tide that would help the assault craft up the fjord began to roll the ship, and half a dozen men fell from the assault craft, at their davits, and broke arms or legs, that tension set in again.

  *

  Major Redlich despised the Gestapo and was sickened by his knowledge of what it
s interrogators must have done to Gro. She had betrayed nothing and nobody. By the time they dragged her out to be shot she was sagging at the knees and it was only the post to which they tied her that kept her upright. He had attended her execution with disgust and walked away before the hostages, taken at his orders though they had been, were shot.

  The Gestapo rounded up all Gro’s friends. Redlich chafed and fretted at what Kirsten would suffer. There was nothing he could do to prevent her being taken to Gestapo Headquarters and questioned. He had, however, told the Gestapo chief that he would demand a satisfactory explanation for any physical harm done to her. There was no need to tell him of their association: it was well known. He was as greatly troubled by the prospect that she would be found guilty as he was of the mental and physical brutality she would undoubtedly suffer. To have a mistress who was condemned as a spy would lead to himself being under suspicion and interrogated. It would affect his career: he might never be promoted.

  The Gestapo let Kirsten go. They put Hofstein through the mill and released him also; but he was badly frightened. He was looking pale and trembling when he went into Redlich’s office.

  He drew no comfort from Redlich’s face or voice. Redlich sat erect behind his desk, glowering. His hands were clasped on the blotting pad, the fingers restlessly flexing, the knuckles showing white when he clenched them.

  “I sent for you to ask you a question which I am sure the Gestapo have already asked: how many indiscretions did you let slip to this woman?”

  Hofstein did not hesitate. “None, sir.” Lying came easily to an actor: words were mere lines, he was playing the part of a man wrongfully accused.

  Redlich stared at him in silence. Time passed. Hofstein felt sweat begin to form in his armpits.

  “We are both soldiers, Hofstein. You can confide in me, as you could not in the Gestapo.”

  “Of course, sir. But I have nothing to confide.”

  “I have to know the truth, Hofstein. Anything you might have mentioned about our defences could have reached the enemy. In the event of an attack, I must know that every contingency is covered.”

  “Yes, sir. But I committed no indiscretions.”

  And the wretched woman had no radio transmitter, anyway, Redlich reflected. His thoughts switched and he pictured this slim young man in bed with that well-fleshed, though admittedly pretty, middle-aged woman. He had noticed, seeing her about the town, that she had attractive legs and a sensual mouth, fine eyes and beautiful hair. He wouldn’t have minded screwing her himself, but he preferred younger women and Kirsten was only 26. He pictured Gro and Hofstein naked on a wide bed, limbs entwined, bodies heaving. He found it hard to believe that in the throes of passion, or the affection and languour of its aftermath, she had not pumped him with seemingly innocent questions or with statements calculated to prompt a denial or confirmation which would reveal a secret.

  “Think carefully, Hofstein. The lives of every German soldier and sailor in this town might depend upon your telling me the truth: here, in privacy.”

  “I have nothing to confess, sir. I have always been entirely discreet. Gro… she… never tempted me to give anything away. It was a tremendous shock to me to learn what she had been up to.”

  “I’ve no doubt it was,” Redlich retorted drily. “That is all the more reason to suspect that you must have said something, at some time, unwittingly, that gave her material to pass on to the British.”

  “Never that I can recall, sir.”

  Redlich had not given Hofstein permission to sit down. He sat back in his chair and subjected him to his angry, unwavering glare. There was another uncomfortable silence.

  “She never suggested, for instance, that your Flak would stand idle; because the enemy could never deliver an accurate air attack here?”

  Redlich reddened. No, but I said as much to her, damn it. The thought made his bladder seem about to burst and he shifted from leg to leg. “No, sir, never.”

  “You are looking guilty, Hofstein.”

  “Sir… all I ever said to her on that score was… well… one night she said she lived in fear of air raids, and I told her she had no cause to worry, because the British know, since they bombed this place last year, that it is a very difficult target and not possible to bomb accurately… that if they did try, their bombs would fall in the fjord.” It was a travesty of the truth.

  “Then you were a damned fool. Even to say that was to provide her with useful information: that we feel secure against air attack, because of the mountains, which make high-level bombing the only way to do it. That alone is enough to encourage the enemy to launch an air raid, knowing it would surprise us.”

  “I had not thought of it that way, sir.”

  “The trouble with people like you, Hofstein, is that you do not think at all. As long as you can get your oats, even if it’s from a woman old enough to be your aunt, you go after her, panting with lust, regardless of everything else.”

  And a fine one you are to talk about getting one’s oats and going after a woman panting with lust, Hofstein mentally retorted. “I have never felt inclined to make use of an Army brothel, sir: from what I hear, the girls who are sent from Germany couldn’t tempt a blind man, back home.”

  “You are being insolent.”

  “I did not mean to be, sir. I apologise. I only meant, sir, that I am a normal healthy man and I like women. But I do not talk about military matters, sir.”

  “Except to reassure a spy that Olafsund is ripe for a surprise air raid.” Redlich spoke with deep sarcasm. “To teach you to pick your women and your words more carefully in future, Hofstein, I shall give you time to reflect on your stupidity: you will be Garrison Orderly Officer for the next seven days.”

  Hofstein saluted and marched out.

  Silly young fart, Redlich thought. I can imagine him boasting about the alertness and efficacy of his gunners and guns. I hope the British do make an air raid: there’s nothing to subdue a civilian population so effectually as an air raid by their so-called allies which kills and maims a few score of them. That is enough to make even the stoical and phlegmatic Norwegians bitter and ill-disposed towards the British. And, of course, Hofstein is right, if he boasted about our Flak: he has kept it up to a first-class standard; naturally, under my command!

  He picked up his telephone and told Bissinger to come in.

  Bissinger entered with trepidation. The Old Man had been in a foul mood since that woman’s arrest.

  “I’ve just given Hofstein seven days as Garrison Orderly Officer. Put it in Orders.”

  “Sir.”

  “Random searches of every house in the town are to be made, starting at once. Keep the Gestapo out of it; and the Military Police. This is a job for our own chaps: send out four-man search squads, in command of an N.C.O. Use all arms: infantry, artillery, Flak. And begin with Fru Nilsen.”

  For a moment, Bissinger was too startled to say anything. My God! Begin with the Major’s own mistress? Or maybe he only wants to clear her at once, prove her innocence right at the start.

  “F-Fru N-Nilsen, sir: yes, Major. At once.”

  Redlich’s compressed lips eased into a faint smile. “There was no need to add that, Bissinger: all my orders are for instant obedience.”

  Bissinger withdrew wondering what it would take to find a chink in the Major’s emotional armour.

  *

  Oberleutnant zur See Kneipe had been ordered, as commander of the S boat flotilla, to attend the executions. He returned on board feeling revolted and depressed. The summary execution of a spy was right and proper, he agreed. The fact that the spy was a woman, however, made him feel brutal and degraded. This was illogical, he told himself; but that did not change his feelings. The shooting of hostages was utterly barbaric and he could find no excuse for it. It was the way that the S.S. behaved, and Major Redlich was no S.S. officer. Kneipe had always liked and respected him. He could not account for this aberrant savagery.

  Because he admired Redlich
he tried to find an excuse for him, but all he could think of was that the order to carry out this brutal act must have come from Headquarters in Oslo or even from Berlin. The imprisonment of the mayor he considered fair enough and he even despised the mayor for collaborating with the occupying Power. If the boot were on the other foot, he told himself, and Germany were conquered and occupied, he would never collaborate with the conquerors.

  He stood on the bridge of his boat, drinking coffee and surveying the harbour, the town and the fjord. He had long grown used to ersatz coffee, but this morning he was enjoying a treat. One of his brothers was serving with the Afrika Korps and had sent him a parcel containing a kilo of good strong Libyan coffee beans. He was sharing them with his whole crew, with orders to the cook to make them last as long as possible: one mug each a day, and the grounds to be reused as many times as they retained any flavour.

  His second-in-command was a perky midshipman aged 19: five years his junior. The Seekadet was unusually quiet this morning. Kneipe knew what was affecting him: the mental picture of a woman being shot, tied to a post, and of ten more of them, with ten innocent men, being mown down by machine pistols. The shots had resounded all over the little town and its port.

  “I’m going to start patrols outside the fjord,” Kneipe said. “We’ll have a boat out there every night from an hour before dusk until dawn, running ten kilometres south, five kilometres offshore. If the enemy comes, he won’t catch us by surprise.”

  The midshipman brightened. “You think it likely, Oberleutnant?”

  “No smoke without fire. If a spy is receiving radio messages, it must be with a definite purpose.”

  “Shall we do the first patrol?”

  “Certainly. But I want the whole crew of the patrolling boat to be constantly on the alert, so the one that goes out before sunset will be relieved at midnight. That means that each boat will be on patrol on alternate nights and each pair will take it in turns to do the long patrol before midnight and the shorter one until dawn.”