On the Edge of Darkness (Special Force Orca Book 1) (33 page)

Lieutenant Richards retreated through the
thickening smoke screen.

The Admiral
’s guns had detected a new target. “Arh! Barr!” he shot the words like two armour-piercing shells. “A moment please, gentlemen.” He raised a signal arm and taking Barr under it, drew him to one side. I’m afraid I’m going to have to split your ‘Orca Force’ I want you, helping out at Dunkirk,” he raised an eyebrow, “You’ve heard of course?”

“
About the retreat? Yes sir.”

The old adm
iral’s eyes signalled a warning like a shot across the bows.

“
‘Operation Dynamo’ is not a retreat, Barr, it’s a strategic withdrawal! Damn it almost a fleet action. Vice Admiral Ramsey has made an appeal for more destroyers, ‘Havant’, ‘Anthony’, ‘Saladin’, ‘Malcolm’ even the ‘Harvester’s’ going and her crew are still under training! Unlike the other services the Navy does not do retreats, Barr!”

“
No, sir, of course…But I’ve rather a lot on at the moment, I’ve still got men ashore in Norway. I’ve just heard from them that the ‘Network’ has been compromised…”

The Admiral signalled
‘heave to’ with one arthritic hand. “I know, I know… Grant will have to take charge of that…he’ll have to do the best he can… under the circumstances…In actual fact we can’t spare him either. You know the bloody Belgians have chucked the towel in?”

“
I hadn’t heard, no, sir.”

“
Today! Of all bloody days, their King… what’s his name?”

“
Erh...Leopold, I think, sir.”

“
Hmm! Whatever… he signed a bloody armistice, the blighter. His army laid down their arms and left a bloody great hole in our lines. Waterloo all over again. We’re having to shift a whole bloody Division to fill the gap. If they don’t get there in time we’ll lose the bloody lot… Still might for that matter.”

Barr wasn
’t to be side-tracked, “Grant’ll need help, sir, it’s not a one man job…” Surely the ‘Dirty Four’, sir?…Crosswall’s boat?”

“
You obviously don’t fully understand the situation we’re in, Barr. Calais fell to Jerry yesterday; they’ve been bombing Dunkirk for five days now, the place is a bloody shambles and we have over three hundred thousand men there. Ramsey’s right…we will need every ship… Christ! Every blasted raft if we’re to get them off those beaches. Nothing... Nothing can have greater priority… Can’t you see…we are going to need those men in the months and the years ahead…And make no mistake, Barr, we are now talking years. This little lot will put set us back that long. Defending England is going to be our number one priority for the foreseeable future… Norway… the Network, every other bloody thing has to take second place to that.” He took a deep pull at his pipe, it seemed to calm him. “No, Grant will have to do the best he can. I have every confidence in him.” He thought for a moment, sucking slowly at the pipe, then sighed, a thin stream of smoke curling from his mouth, “Tell him he can have the other boat…in this bloody mess, I don’t suppose one boat more or less will make that much of a difference.”

Once the …erh…
‘Strategic withdrawal?’ is complete sir,” asked Barr, he was trying hard not to appear too forceful, “Have I your permission to head north and help out?”

“
Of course! But that could be days…weeks even. You have my permission…but!… only when the Admiralty call a halt to operations at Dunkirk… and hear me Barr…not a second before that…” He held up a warning finger as Barr went to speak, “Not a second before…I know they’re your men. I know how you feel…Christ knows, I’d feel the same.”

“
Thank you sir.” Barr saluted, turned on his heel and disappeared into the throng astern of the Admiral.

*     *     *

In the world in which it moved it shunned the light. Shadow and darkness were its only friends. It flowed into the shadow and it flowed out, merged and re-emerged, unseen, unheard. He had become it at last. He was one with his Mentor. Before the snake, all men walked in fear, wept with dread, sank to their knees in the filth of their own terror. At long last it knew who it was, and what it was, knew its power. Its prey was unaware of its presence, hidden in the deep shadow of the old apartment block, the snake slid to the roof’s edge. Only inches below, the prey, the one with the corporal’s stripes, moved out from the doorway, out past the sandbags. Then… slowly… slowly the snake’s neck stretched over the roof’s edge until it could see the other man through the window. He was standing at the desk writing in a book. The snake hung its long thin body from the roof and slowly slid to the floor. Unseen it slipped quietly into the hut… moments later it emerged and glided silently to the sandbag barrier. In the snake’s trail, a river of black blood flowed from the doorway. It coiled, ready to strike, waiting; the time would come…for its prey would come to it, drawn by the Mentor.

*     *     *

Grant’s E-boat bumped and bounced across the swell, heading east, fast to beat the sun, an all out race to get there before first light.

Astern the other boat
, Crosswall-Brown’s M.T.B., kept station. This time the race had a prize, Kristiansand; it was going to be touch and go. Grant looked to the east; pink had already begun to stripe the horizon.

He had no idea what the situation was ashore. There had been no second message from Bushel. They could have been captured, killed, anything. The lack of information made planning difficult, his mind ached with possibilities
and contingencies. Somehow he had to allow for all and every eventuality. His first priority must be to reach the Inlet before first light. That much was clear. He checked the clock above the tiny chart table; they would make it unless there was a delay of some kind…an engine fault the other boat would have to proceed alone. If they met the enemy… then Crosswall-Brown would have to draw them off, deal with the situation, as best he could alone. Crosswall-Brown would have to buy him the time to disappear into whatever darkness remained. There never seemed to be enough of that. This war was one of dearth and deficits, not enough ships, not enough men, not enough information …not enough darkness.

*     *     *

Bushel crouched in the deep shadow cast by the stark white lights of the checkpoint. Stilson’s warning had come just in time; another thirty seconds and it would have been too late. He was grateful for that, it was Stilson’s manner that worried Bushel. It worried him more than being in a German held town worried him; and that was saying something.

It was
in the look, it was in his movements, his smile, if you could call it that. Tonight he seemed to be worse. At one point he had put his hand on Stilson’s shoulder… he went over the short conversation again in his mind.

‘
You all right, Snake.’ he’d asked.

‘
What do yer mean by that!’ he’d replied quickly; too quickly.

‘
Just that, are you all right?’

‘
We ‘aven’t time for this. We’ve work to do.’

‘
What I meant was…I don’t know…I suppose what I’m trying to say is…Don’t let it get to you.’

The marine had laughed a hollow empty sound,
‘Killing always gets to you. Especially our kind.’

It had been the most words he had heard Stilson string toget
her in a long time, but it wasn’t the words, it was the way that he’d expressed them. The man was haunted, possessed, something. He had seen it there before, but now it was much more than just a passing mood. Those eyes, in that split second before he’d turned away. He’d seen it, putting a name to it was another thing. It certainly wasn’t fear, eagerness? It was more than that, fanaticism? Signs of an inner struggle to control whatever it was that possessed him? Bushel was no doctor, but thinking about it now the bloke could be having a breakdown. If he was, he had chosen one hell of a time, they needed him and his unusual skills. For starters, he was the only one who could get them past that check point.

*     *     *

The German corporal heard the drunken laughter before he saw the three men stagger around the corner and enter the square. He looked in the direction of the sentry post, calling “Werner!” before turning back to face the drunken men, he couldn’t handle this lot alone, where was Werner! Quick anger welled up inside him. He turned and marched rapidly back to the hut, past the sandbags. Suddenly his head wrenched back, his feet left the ground, He kicked and struggled, tried to call out, he could hardly breathe. His chinstrap was buried deep in the fatty folds of his neck crushing his windpipe and vocal chords. Something flashed in the bright light, stroked his exposed throat, warmth spilled down his neck. A terrible pain jerked at his spine. A loud crack echoed in his brain and then he saw an infinite tunnel of diamond bright light stretching back into an endless blackness.

*     *     *

Chapter 18

The Mentor

Bushel’s breath came in quick gasps… cold air froze his lungs, exhaustion was draining his mind. For one crazy moment he thought the Germans could follow the steam of his breath. They wouldn’t need to, his ski tracks in the fresh snow were enough. He snatched a quick look behind; they were still there, lights bobbing and weaving in the night.

All hell had broken lo
ose as they’d left the village. The German patrol had shot out of nowhere, three tracked vehicles, for Christ’s sake! They were still there, right up their arses and gaining, stuck to him like shit to a Pusser’s blanket.

What a bloody mess
… it couldn’t be worse…It could; maybe enemy patrols were already ahead of them… if they were equipped with wireless. If only he’d had the men he had asked for, he could have dropped them off at intervals on the way in… they could have warned him of any patrols on the way back… A lot of ‘ifs’…Frantically he swerved right…it was a job to see the bloody trees… They seemed to charge out of the dark… any darker and… The enemy were using their headlights… When they topped a rise, they shone out like searchlights, probing the sky before dropping back into the trees with a jolt. Suddenly he thought he could hear the sea…He listened as they crested the next hill…There it was again, or was it the sound of their skis, thrown back from the trees…No!…It was definitely waves… with a bit of luck… and they’d used up a lot of that tonight…

The old man was keeping up well…
at least they had him… he must be fifty, if he was a day…probably born on a pair of skis.

He
skidded to a halt in front of ‘Fort One’, spinning through a hundred and eighty degrees. Blake had dropped off; he was already at work frantically rubbing out their tracks from the tree line. Good man… no need to tell him anything. He’d have to be good…No ‘Snake’…If they had been short handed before, now, with Stilson gone…He could already be here… He could be anywhere…He could be dead…The Norwegians would have to man one of the Forts… Would they have the nerve to hold their fire…he’d shoot the bastards himself if they fucked it up.

*     *     *

Jager Leutnant Wieland Sieg’s helmeted head hit the butt of the MG42 as the speeding, bucking reconnaissance half- track jumped a bump in the dirt road. Cursing under his breath, he crouched lower. Through the forward gun slit, he could see the ski tracks clearly in the fresh powdery snow and the yellow glare of the headlights. They seemed to weave in and out of those of the half-track ahead of his. Who the hell were these men? They knew how to ski, that was for sure…but then everyone did in this verflucht country…Enemy Alpine troops…It was possible…Norwegians? Most definitely…If they were, then there would have to be reprisals… Unpleasant stuff…He didn’t want to get involved in that side of things. He preferred to leave that to those who enjoyed it. There were enough of them.

He leant forward and shouted in the driver
’s ear. “If those ski tracks turn off sharp or disappear altogether brake fast, you hear me?”

“
Jawohl, Herr Leutnant!”

Ski
ers could turn a lot sharper than this half-track, especially when it was driven by this dolt. If they disappeared completely it could mean an ambush. He had been in the Alpine Troop long enough to know that. He had learnt that the hard way from those sadistic sods of instructors in the forests of Bavaria.

His thoughts returned to the pursued, who where these people? Was there any sense in wondering
? Whoever they were, they definitely weren’t on his side, the blood trail proved that…he remembered the corpses …Oh yes, there would be reprisals all right.

*     *     *

Bushel shot back across the snow… his men were in place… the enemy headlights were cutting through the trees, sending ghostly shadows flickering and dancing in front of him. He seemed to be racing them as well as Jerry.

The first
Jerry turned the bend in a flurry of snow and came crashing along the last stretch. He skidded to a halt; almost fell through the doorway of the HQ, his skis still attached to his legs. His tired brain fought to cope with the task at hand to remember the plan. Catch the first half-track… block the way, that was it. He struggled to control his breathing. Through the slit the harsh headlights muted to a warm red glow in his ski glasses.

Now
! a blinding flash of orange light illuminated pieces of the half-track flying up in an eruption of white-hot flame. Behind the destroyed vehicle the other half-tracks swerved off the track to the left and right, soldiers leaping from them. Seeking cover, running, crouching low, harsh silhouettes against the white light of the flames and the snowy backdrop. A secondary explosion sent shadows jumping and dancing across the forest floor. The first fire had became a steady roar, exploding ammunition sending flying sparks bursting from its glowing centre.

He belly-
crawled rapidly out of the emplacement and along the drainage ditch fumbling inside his ski suit, he drew the Very pistol and fired the signal. Even before it exploded, he was on his way back. The flare sailed high above the flames and exploded into white light. Immediately Olaf’s machine gun opened up. A noise like mad static blended into the roar of the flames and exploding ammunition. Back in the HQ, Bushel waited by the firing slit. The Norwegian’s Bren, opening up on cue, had sent the enemy troops wiggling and scurrying round to put the trees between them and the machine gun. The entire flank of the enemy troops now lay under the sights of his, so far, silent gun.

He moved his head slightly
to peer along the sights, smelling the oiled metal rank in his nostrils. He squeezed the trigger, the figure in the sights twitched in time to the burst. He swung quickly to his right, another two-second burst, another twitching figure. He worked his way systematically from the enemy rear, killing as he went.

The gun was hot in his hands before they realised what was happening, then they began to run, at first in twos and threes that in seconds had
turned into a rout. Caught between two murderous streams of fire, outflanked, nowhere to hide, they ran and they died in a slow-motion nightmare of deep leg-dragging snow.

The flare died, hiding the contorted dead, the bodies writhing in the snow and the tree cover that had been no cover
at all.

*     *     *

Jager Leutnant Sieg thanked his God that when he had run, he had run to his right. The enemy guns, now thankfully silent, had concentrated their fire on the other side of the blazing half-track. He had been lucky to escape the secondary explosion as they exited their vehicle, his driver had taken the full blast, his body a tower of squirming flames.

There were two guns beautifully positioned, well thought out, too
well positioned to have been a spur of the moment ambush. Light machine guns, probably Brens. He was looking at a professionally executed and pre-planned ambush, either that or a defensive position that had been in place for some time. The first thing he must do was to get the other Sonderkraft half tracks and all the spare ammo off that verdammt road. He waited for a loll in the firing before yelling, “Hofmann!”

Oberjager
Hofmann lay some distance behind his officer waiting the expected call. He took another long pull at the second water bottle, the one half full of ‘Hero’s Piss’. He rose warily and began moving forward from tree to tree, crouching and ducking as he went. With a last sprint, he dived into the thick snow at Sieg’s side.

“
A nest of vipers we’ve stumbled on here, Herr Leutnant.”

Sieg nodded,
“We are going to need more men. Find me some drivers, if there are any still alive! Get those half-tracks back up the trail, reverse them mind, keep to the old tracks. The whole road could be mined for all we know. Inch clear, use the half-track’s radios to call up reinforcements. And, for the sake of Christ, tell them ‘no garrison troops’ we don’t want any careful old men, this is going to be work for heroes.”

“
Ya Herr Jager Leutnant.” replied Hofmann, without enthusiasm he backed away on his beer belly, thinking it was as well he had brought the ‘piss’ with him; he was going to need it.

*     *     *

The snake slid silently from the path into the tree cover. All night it had kept the prey in sight. There was no need to move quietly, the roar of racing half-tracks drowned all other noise. It peered through slitted eyes; the defences around the HQ had given a good account. The two surviving vehicles were being reversed away from the blazing wreck of the lead vehicle. In a welter of snow they skidded to a halt fifty yards in front of it. Three men climbed down. They stood talking. One a, N.C.O, left quickly, one took guard by the wheezing hot vehicles and the third climbed on and into one half-track.

A burst
of small arms fire from the right, the snake recognised the splutter of a German MG42. Tracer ripped through the trees. The snake attached his ski sticks in his pack. No need for them on the slope down to the half-tracks. He slid the safety on the Lanchester forward and pushed off. The skis slid silently over the compacted snow, gaining speed all the while.

The trooper on the ground took the short burst in the chest. The surviving man rose to his feet, reaching for his abandoned machine pistol. His headphones stopped him short. In a
panicked filled second he had struggled free and swung his weapon towards the snake. These were vital seconds, seconds that could have saved his life, and didn’t. The snake struck first. Miniature crimson volcanoes erupted across the man’s heaving chest and he slumped back into his seat. The noise of the distant MG42 had drowned the noise of the snake’s swift strike. It slivered to a halt, a bow-wave of snow covering the sentry’s body. Removing the skis with quick glances to right and left, it opened the engines of both half-tracks and snatched out the ignition wiring, stuffing it deep, into the pocket of its white overalls. Next it smashed the valves of each of the radios and dragged the warm bodies of the prey to the edge of the tree line.

It tore a branch and returning covered all traces of its presence, carefully working back to the
seclusion of the trees. It removed the ground sheet and sleeping bag from the backpack. Carefully choosing a site, close to the two bodies. Pulling the white sheet over its long body it merged into the snow covered forest floor. The bait and the snake waited for more prey.

*     *     *

Bushel was beginning to enjoy himself, like a composer at the first night of his concert; months of creativity were blossoming into a symphony of noise and light. His only worry was the Norwegians on his flank. Kristiansand and his father were no soldiers and could not be relied on to defend a position for long, not in the face of these seasoned mountain troops. He would be happier if Olaf was here, closer to the tunnel and their escape route. He reached a decision and taking the flare pistol crawled out of the HQ and along the shallow drainage ditch, twenty yards; there was no point in drawing Jerry’s attention to the log HQ, flare signals fired from there would do just that, Jerry would soon realise it was not just another gun position. He fired the two flares in quick succession. Immediately a German voice called from the trees, bursts of heavy machine gun fire kicked earth and snow in around him as he crawled, head low and body flat back to shelter.

*     *     *

Suddenly two flares lit the night sky to Sieg’s front. He turned on his side and yelled, “Dautel! Bring your fire to bear on that flare position!” The MG42 gunner commenced fire, tracer tracked through the trees sending splinters of wood flying.

Sieg rolled over on his
back as Hoffman slid in beside him. “That could be their HQ,” he yelled, jerking one thumb over his shoulder, “That’s the second signal from there. Any word from HQ?”

“
Not yet, Herr Leutnant.”

Sieg frowned,
“They’re taking too long, send someone to the rear, check they’re in contact.”