Enemy In Sight (A Commander Steadfast Naval Thriller) Read online

  *

  The slog up the steep rough gorge was tricky in the dying light. Duckworth did his best to locate strong footholds and warn his followers of unstable rocks and dangerous potholes. It was nearly an hour before he emerged near the top of the gorge. By now he was tired, and welcomed the excuse of waiting for his men. If only he had had a shot or two of whisky before the climb, he thought. Soon the party had gathered in a small circle. Duckworth gave his orders.

  ‘I’ll go in first and check the transmitter. It’s possible Jerry’s not touched it, but my guess is we’ll have to start from scratch. Then Goody and Macconnel will lace the structure so nicely that Jerry will spend the next century looking for the bits. Jenkinson and I will spread out in the scrub and stand guard. Two owl hoots and you drop your tools and pick up your guns. OK? Questions?’

  ‘Will that be it, then, sir?’ asked Goody.

  ‘It will. Then it will be time for us all to throw up on the trip back to Alex. I noticed none of us showed ourselves to be navy men on the way out.’

  Macconnel and Goody managed a polite laugh at Duckworth’s unwelcome reminder of the hazards yet to come.

  *

  The walk – now in total darkness – over the flat hilltop to the transmitter was almost as tricky as the climb up the gorge. The men stumbled under the heavy weight of their rucksacks and cursed as they bumped their shins on the aggressively shaped rocks that seemed almost to jump out of the scrub at them. Finally they reached the transmitter area. Duckworth called on the men to halt while he went ahead.

  The rest of the party watched as his massive frame disappeared into the darkness. Soon the only sign of him was the tiny pool of light on the ground from his torch. He was searching for signs of activity at the site. He was now moving forward an inch at a time. Every so often he would halt and finger the ground. Then on again. Then a halt. The men watched anxiously for they knew exactly what their commander was doing. He was looking for booby traps.

  ‘One here!’ he called out in the darkness. ‘It’s a trip wire.’

  Duckworth stepped back a little and took off his rucksack. He took out a reel of twine and with the delicacy of a painter adding the last speck of gold to his masterpiece, he tied the twine to the wire. Then he put the rucksack on again and began the slow, slow, walk back to his men. He paid out the twine with the greatest care. One tug could be the end of him. When he reached his men, he ordered them further back still. He followed them, releasing the twine inch by careful inch.

  ‘That should do it. Down!’ whispered Duckworth. Then he added ‘On a count of three… one, two, three.’

  Duckworth gave the twine a sharp tug. It seemed as if the end of the world had come. A whole ring of mines circling the transmitter site exploded into clouds of dust, small rocks and smoke. The air seemed to rain with matter as the debris tumbled, rattled and thudded back to the ground. Then there was silence, broken after a while by the convulsive coughing of the men as the clouds of dust and debris engulfed them. No one spoke. All were in awe at the size and ingenuity of the German barrage. Indeed, as sappers, they were rather jealous of the amazing demonstration of their art.

  ‘Have they done our job for us, sir?’ asked Goody tentatively. ‘You know, the transmitter.’

  ‘I doubt it, Goody,’ said Duckworth. The mines were a good way off. Anyway, let’s go and see.’

  ‘What about more booby traps, sir?’

  ‘I damn well hope there’s nothing else. The ground will be like a rubbish tip now. We’d have to turn it over with a teaspoon to spot anything.’

  With that Duckworth boldly walked up to the transmitter.

  ‘Bloody hell! ’e’s in for it if he doesn’t watch out,’ remarked Macconnel.

  ‘Perhaps ’e’s had another sip or two,’ teased Goody.

  ‘No chance. I saw that navy man take his bottles away. Good move that was,’ replied Macconnel.

  ‘Well, it’s like ’e’s on something now,’ continued Goody.

  ‘I think ’e’s trying to prove something. Like ’e’s still up to the job,’ said Macconnel.

  ‘Is ’e?’ asked Goody.

  ‘I damn well ’ope so!’ concluded Macconnel.

  While the two sappers had been comparing notes on their commander, he had come back to the men.

  ‘God, they knew how to build in those days,’ said Duckworth. ‘Barely a scratch. She’s all ours to send to Kingdom Come.’

  ‘And our plastic?’

  ‘Gone, of course. Macconnel, Goody… to work!’

  *

  Goody and Macconnel were now confident that there would be no more booby traps. They walked up to the transmitter and laid generous quantities of plastic explosive in all the key areas of the building and mast. Then they inserted pencil fuses set for ten minutes and returned to the rest of the party.

  ‘Is that it?’ asked Steadfast.

  ‘Should be,’ replied Duckworth. ‘We’ll hang on for the fireworks, though.’

  The whole party was suspended in the agonising wait. Steadfast thought of his imminent blissful nights with Virginia and forthcoming boastful days with Moresby and Cunningham. Duckworth began to adjust to the idea of an office job at the depot – at least it would give him time to sort out all his diaries and photos from his exploring days. The sappers mostly thought of beer, women, and the other delights of the back streets of Alexandria that they would not be writing home about.

  All their ruminations ended when the earth seemed to move around them and the heavens filled with a searing white light. The blast of the explosion was followed by the sound of metal falling from the sky. Flaming material fell in the scrub and the men could hear the crackling flames of the dry vegetation. As they choked on the smoke from the burning undergrowth, the sappers breathed in the sweet aromas of thyme, bay and juniper.

  After a minute or two the air cleared a little, although the men were still spluttering and cursing the dust. Duckworth got to his feet, switched on his torch – there was no longer any need to conceal their presence – and marched up to where the transmitter had been. A square of stumpy stone blocks marked all that was left of the building. Of the mast itself, there was no more than the four ragged stumps of angle-iron sticking out of the concrete base.

  ‘Well done, lads!’ called Duckworth as he hastened back to his men. ‘A textbook job, that.’

  ‘OK, Steadfast, we’re all yours. Back to Alex! Pronto!’

  For all his earlier reluctance to stay rather than sail, Steadfast could not help but admire the work of Duckworth and his men. They were real professionals, he thought. And what a scoop for Duckworth to be able to go out after such a bravura display.

  *

  The men were chatting quietly as they scrambled down the gorge towards the beach. A sort of end-of-term feeling had spread through the party as the triumph of their raid sank in. It was in this almost jolly mood that they set foot onto the beach. They were now about fifty feet from the dinghies. Except that the dinghies were not there. The beach seemed abandoned with no sound other than the lazily lapping waves on the rough shingle.

  This peace was broken by a blast of automatic fire aimed at the point where the path opened out onto the beach.

  ‘Take cover!’ yelled Steadfast. ‘Spread out!’ screamed Duckworth.

  Goody, Macconnel, Steadfast and Duckworth each dived behind the nearest rock that they could find. Duckworth was near enough Steadfast to whisper ‘It must be the men from the camp.’

  ‘Still trying to lay their hands on me, do you think?’ jested Steadfast.

  ‘Well, you do seem to have upset them,’ said Duckworth.

  ‘Good. That’s our job – to upset the Jerries.’

  Within half a minute all the transmitter party were crouching in the rocky scrub just above the water line. For a while nothing happened. Steadfast peered from behind his rock but could see no sign of where the Germans were hiding. While still puzzling what to do, he noticed a slight movement at the east end of the be
ach. He raised his gun, his trigger finger within a fraction of an inch of firing. The next sound was quite distinct: an oar. He stared into the darkness that was the sea and saw a vague suggestion of a dinghy, coming in so slowly that it seemed barely to move. Steadfast thought about it. The dinghies had always come in near the centre of the beach – that was the easiest way through the shoals. If the man in the dinghy had deliberately rejected this landing and chosen the east end of the beach, there had to be a reason. He concluded that the Germans must be at the west end of the beach.

  ‘Whose there?’ he called in a whisper as he sought contact with the man in the dinghy.

  ‘Lane, sir. Commander Montague’s compliments but Jerry’s here – a boatload of them. I’m to take you lot to the launches. They’re standing off behind the headland.’

  ‘Well done, Lane. There’s five of us. I’ll let the others know.’

  Steadfast disappeared into the darkness. He had only gone a few yards when he heard another burst of machine gun fire and a scream from Lane that echoed macabrely around the cliffs surrounding the beach. He turned and ran back to the water’s edge. Lane, his feet trapped under a thwart was sprawled backwards, his face staring into nothing. Half his bullet-ridden and blood-stained body was in the boat, half outside. The dinghy, peppered with bullet holes, was sinking fast.

  10. A rejuvenated enemy

  ‘What the hell’s going on,’ whispered Jenkinson to Duckworth.

  ‘Steadfast reckons Jerry’s come back to get him,’ said Duckworth.

  By this time Steadfast had made his way back to the men in the rear.

  ‘We’re fucked – for now at least,’ he said to Duckworth. ‘Jerry’s just sunk our dinghy and done for the oarsman.’

  ‘Christ! You mean we’re stuck here?’ exclaimed Jenkinson.

  ‘Until either Elliston or Montague sends someone to investigate. That could be an hour or more.’

  ‘And Jerry’s still out there somewhere?’ asked Jenkinson anxiously.

  ‘Looks like it. If you and Duckworth had only listened to me I’d have had you safely away hours ago.’

  ‘Christ! Can’t you shut up about that?’ said Duckworth angrily. ‘We’ve explained all that once.’

  ‘Too right you have!’ scorned Steadfast. ‘Well let’s find out just what sort of a mess you’ve got us into. Duckworth, get your men onto finding Jerry. No bravado, though! Just find out how many there are and where they are. Then we can think about what to do.’

  Steadfast and Duckworth settled themselves under a large rock at the east end of the beach to await the reports of their scouts. Jenkinson, who had been sent down to the water’s edge at the west end of the beach, was the first back.

  ‘Not a sign of them on the beach, sir.’

  Goody, who was scouring the west side of the cove came back next.

  ‘I saw a couple of men, sir. Seemed to be well kitted out. I reckon they were moving off inland.’

  But it was Macconnel’s report from the cliff face at the west end of the beach that provided the full picture.

  ‘Anything up to twenty men, sir. They’re climbing up in the direction of the camp.’

  ‘Bloody Hell!’ said Duckworth, ‘they’re reinforcing the camp.’

  ‘Blimey!’ said Goody.

  ‘Fuck!’ added Macconnel.

  ‘Stop whinging!’ said Steadfast. ‘We’ve got the boxes. There’s no hope of Leach and Peabody turning up now. Let’s just bloody go. We just need someone to swim round the headland to get another dinghy. Any volunteers?’

  *

  Before anyone could answer, Kouvakis, who had been quietly in the background, spoke up.

  ‘Boxes? Do you mean some grey metal things about this big?’ He held his hands up to indicate boxes about a metre wide and a third of a metre deep.

  ‘That’s right,’ said Steadfast. ‘How do you know about them?’

  ‘I saw some like that up at the camp earlier today,’ replied Kouvakis.

  Duckworth felt as if he had been knocked sideways by one of his own demolition explosives as the words that he had exchanged with Friedländer came back into his head: ‘We’ve got what we came for,’ he had told Friedländer, who had replied ‘Are you sure of that, captain?’

  ‘The low, cunning, scheming bastards!’ shouted Duckworth. ‘Jenkinson, did you check inside those boxes?’

  ‘No, sir, I just checked the outsides – you know, for the right knobs, dials, switches and so on. There’s no doubt they’re what we came for.’

  ‘No doubt? There bloody well is… bucket-loads of doubt. God, what fools we’ve been. All that climbing up and down cliffs, detonating booby-traps and blasting the transmitter to the heavens, and what have we got? The wrong bloody boxes! They were mock-ups. Bleeding mock-ups. Now their devilish plan begins to makes sense. They lure Steadfast here with the promise of their radar secrets, but fool us into taking away a load of scrap metal. Meanwhile they get Steadfast. Jerry’s not quite the fool I took him for.’

  ‘But they haven’t got me yet,’ chipped in Steadfast, ‘and all your ranting won’t get us anywhere.’

  ‘I’ll have a rant if I damn well feel like one, Commander.’

  ‘Too bloody true,’ replied Steadfast. ‘But, to business.’ He turned to Kouvakis: ‘So the boxes are in the camp are they?’

  ‘Yes, commander, at the back of one of the tents.’

  ‘Duckworth, are your men up to another raid on the camp?’

  Before Duckworth could reply, Jenkinson butted in: ‘Commander, another raid’s not an option – it’s a bleeding necessity. We can’t leave without the boxes – the right boxes – we must go. Now!’

  ‘Hold it!’ cried Steadfast. ‘OK, we’ve got to get the boxes, but I don’t fancy our chances of a night raid. They could have moved the boxes since Kouvakis saw them – in fact they almost certainly will have moved them. No, we need daylight. What do you think, Duckworth, a dawn attack?’

  ‘Bang on! Just enough light to see what we’re doing, but not enough for the Jerries to be wide awake.’

  ‘Attack, sir?’ said Jenkinson apprehensively. ‘They’ve got about 25 men now. It’ll be suicide.’

  ‘Well, not an “attack”. Let’s just say a “visit”,’ said Steadfast.

  Jenkinson did not look reassured by Steadfast’s fine tuning of his language.

  *

  Just before daylight on 6 February the camp raiding party set off from the beach. Steadfast and Duckworth had agreed that their priority was to seize the radar boxes. If they found Leach and Peabody there, they would attempt to liberate them. But, with a camp now holding around twenty-five Germans, they might have to settle for the boxes. That would be a miracle enough for the party of six, thought Steadfast. At all cost they had to avoid a shoot-out.

  Steadfast, Duckworth, Jenkinson, Goody, Macconnel and Kouvakis took the now familiar path up to the campsite under cover of darkness. At the top they waited for the first glimmers of light, which they would need to reconnoitre the site. Duckworth asked for volunteers.

  ‘I’ll go, Captain,’ cried Jenkinson. ‘Anyone want to join me?’

  Macconnel leapt at the chance of a bit of action, but Steadfast put his hand up to sign “hold back”. ‘I reckon Kouvakis should go. You know the camp well, don’t you, Kouvakis?’

  ‘I do, sir.’

  Duckworth seconded Steadfast’s suggestion and the two scouts moved off to crawl through the scrub. At the edge of the cleared patch they separated. Jenkinson was to circle the camp in a clockwise direction and Kouvakis in an anticlockwise one. In that way every part of the camp would be scrutinised by two pairs of eyes. But, even before beginning their detailed reconnoitre, it was obvious to both men that all the earlier battle damage had been repaired, including the erection of five new tents in place of the damaged ones. Ten or so other tents for the reinforcements had been added on the opposite side of the camp. All this, thought Steadfast, just to protect the radar boxes!

  Jenkinson beg
an his tour and was soon round to the side of the camp that faced the sea – this was the side with the new arrivals. Inside the camp, now on his right, there was no sign of life. The fire was damped down and the cooking tripod was without its pot. He was moving very slowly on all fours, one hand, then one foot, then one hand, then one foot. After each movement he paused, listened and looked. Then he smelt it: a cigarette. He looked to his left and found that he was just about to pass between a sentry and the camp. The sentry sat on a tussock, his gun lying across his lap. He was staring out to sea. Dreaming about his girlfriend, thought Jenkinson. He waited for a minute or so before concluding that the German was lost in his own world. It was safe to crawl on between him and the camp.

  The cunning peasant came out in Kouvakis when he made his circle. In his case, he found a sentry on the landward side of the camp, but paid little attention to him. Sentries, he knew, were only alert for the first ten or fifteen minutes of their duty. After that, boredom set in, which soon turned to daydreaming. Sure of his adversary’s torpor, he crept inwards towards the backs of the replacement tents. He reached the guy ropes of the first one and edged his way to the rear flap. With the delicacy of his mother teasing a thread of linen off her distaff, he lifted the flap a few inches. He could hear the grunts and heavy breathing of two dead-to-the world soldiers. Their rifles were propped up against a tent pole. Otherwise, there was nothing of interest.

  The second tent was equally innocuous. When he reached the third tent Kouvakis found three men. Although one man in a sleeping bag looks much like another, the dark blue serge on an exposed arm was a sure sign that he had found Leach or Peabody. Kouvakis was not surprised to find that the second seaman was in the fourth tent.

  Now he came to the fifth tent. Up went the flap, just a few inches. His view of the inside was blocked by something. He felt a bit more and his fingers found the cold steel of the radar boxes. They were still there.

  At the very moment that Kouvakis felt the first box, he heard a metallic click from up where the sentry was. He froze and tried to pull himself into the ground. The sentry stood up, stretched himself, lit a cigarette and took a deep breath of his first morning smoke. Kouvakis felt a sudden urge for a smoke too. When the sentry had finished his cigarette, he stubbed it out on sole of his left boot and threw the butt towards the camp. The stinking remnant smouldered not far from Kouvakis’ nose. His urge to smoke died away. He waited for the sentry to sit down again but, instead, the German began a tour round the camp. A minute or so later a new German was sitting on the rock. The two sentries had swapped posts.