* * *
Grant decided to take Bushel back with him after all. The corporal’s particular brand of expertise might come in useful when it came to drawing up the finer points of a plan. It left Blake and Stilson behind on the ridge with orders to keep watch and taking note of the times the sentries changed, the E-boats patrols, enemy movements in general and anything else that might be of use.
Back on board the ‘Eddy’, Grant and Bushel, fortified by a couple of cups of thick sweet tea, set about drawing up a detailed map of the enemy positions from the notes they’d made on site.
By lunch they had finalised a plan for the raid that evening. There was, however, one problem. It called for good communications between the three separate groups that comprised the raiding party. It would, almost certainly have to be used within sight and hearing of enemy soldiers. So whatever method they used it would have to be short and sweet as well as silent and meant they could not use wireless or lamp. They pondered the problem over more tea.
Grant offered round a packet of cigarettes.
“Cigarettes” cried Bushel, banging the table top and making them all jump.
“There’s no need to sound so surprised, anyone would think…” began Grant.
“No, don’t you see…” Bushel paused, holding up his hand for silence, while he thought about his idea. “We can use cigarettes,” Grant stared open-mouthed at Bushel fearing the corporal had gone completely mad.
“The Germans are not bothering with a blackout, right?”
Grant nodded, still confused, “Don’t you see, there’s no smoking restrictions. I remember everybody lighting up while we were on that ridge.”
Grant’s face showed he hadn’t.
“Well, I did, continued Bushel, “I was gasping for a burn all night…Anyway what I’m saying is, we work out a series of signals using cigarettes and matches. Jerry will assume it’s one of their men and be none the wiser.”
Chapter 13
Of Hairy String and Hairier Deeds
Near Landola, Norway, 2300 hrs, Thursday, 23rd May, 1940.
Grant studied the damp paper for the twentieth time. The only pattern, observed by the marines, seemed to be that there was no pattern.
It did seem, however, that the E-boat never visited the bridge more than twice in any four-hour period. If they moved in directly the patrol had passed, allowing for them to get out of earshot, it might give them the time to launch a river borne attack and get away safely. Time was a critical factor any delay would jeopardise their chances of getting back to base by first light.
* * *
“How about over there, sir, that looks like a likely spot.” said Maurice, Hogg had been right the diminutive midshipman was nothing if not keen, too keen; perhaps. So far he had spotted six ‘likely spots’ in the space of thirty minutes.
There had been quite a bit of toing and froing of kit as well as men before they were able to get under way. Midshipman Hope had joined one of the two shore teams, he was one of the few sailors who could drive, it was a skill that few of seamen possessed.
That particular team, led by Hogg and guided by Marine Blake, had to cover almost a mile of torturous mountain paths before they could reach their objective, the lookout point on the ridge above the target.
* * *
‘Snake’ Stilson straightened and lit his cigarette, at his feet the still form of the German sentry had, horribly, acquired a second gaping mouth, one that grinned back at the marine, blood red.
He pulled deeply on the cigarette; the glow illuminated his face momentarily before he moved its glowing end in the shape of a tick.
One hundred yards away Hogg, Blake and Jackson emerged from the deep shadow cast by a stack of ammunition boxes. Hogg moved quickly across to a row of parked lorries while the other two began rolling oil drums to where the ground fell away steeply.
“How many of these do you want moved, sir? asked Blake, as he arrived at the cliff edge with the first drum.
“Hang on…” grunted Hogg, as he rolled his drum up alongside Blake’s. “It’s a case of the more the merrier I suppose… say thirty.”
“That’ll take some time, sir, do you think we’ve got it to spare?”
Somewhere behind them an engine coughed and spluttered before revving noisily into life. It appeared out of the dark, moving slowly towards them, it stopped with a jolt and Midshipman Hope jumped quickly down from the cab. “I can’t believe our luck, sir, all the vehicles have their keys in their ignition.”
Blake jerked a thumb in the direction of the lorry park. “That’ll be in case of a fire, sir. They’re all loaded with either ammo or oil drums.”
“Oil drums!…That will save us some work. Mr Hope back one of them over here. Then go back for one with ammo aboard and pick me up at the top of the road.”
* * *
Hogg and Hope had the heavy bonnet of the ammunition truck propped up and were working industriously on its engine. Parts lay scattered on the ground at their feet. Neither of them had any mechanical knowledge whatsoever, both worked on the principle that if it had bolts you could undo, then it joined the growing pile. As they worked, they kept a weather eye on the fjord below the bridge and on the queue of heavily laden German lorries slowed to a trickle by the ammunition truck parked on the narrow road.
* * *
Marine Blake, binoculars raised, watched the young officers hundreds of feet below him. Stilson was somewhere behind him, watching the road that led down from the supply dump, in case of problems there.
From where he lay Blake could not see the water in the fjord, only the steep side of the opposite bank.
In the circle of his binoculars, the magnified figure of Hogg, straightened from his labours and gave a cigarette to his young companion before lighting one for himself. Blake waited to see what the signal would be. Hogg yawned and stretched both arms above his head as he did so the red end of the cigarette made a distinct tick in the gloom.
Blake jumped to his feet, standing well to one side, he opened the tailgate of the lorry. Nothing! The cargo hadn’t budged an inch. He swore out loud and scrambled quickly up onto the curved and slippery surface of the drums, bracing himself against one he pushed with his feet against the first in the line. Nothing!…He yelled for Stilson.
* * *
Hogg stretched again, his cigarette making the signal for a second time. He waited… Nothing! What the hell had gone wrong? With the ‘Eddy’ already in place any delay could prove fatal… He looked casually around; all it wanted now was for someone to ask for their non- existent papers.
* * *
The two marines were dragging the heavy, oil-soaked beam of wood behind them. It was difficult going, their feet slipping on the hard frozen snow. Reaching the front of the lorry they dropped it into place. Blake straightened. “Right drive the front wheels of the lorry up onto it, that should give us a slope to get the drums moving,”
Stilson looked doubtful, “I can’t drive.” He looked at Blake’s blackened face, until it dawned on him, “Don’t tell me…”
Blake rubbed his chin with one oily hand… “Shit!”
* * *
“You two men!” a harsh voice called from the direction of the tank park. The two young English officers flashed a quick look at each other. They ignored the remark, hoping it wasn’t directed at them… It was… an angry looking Jager Oberst had appeared at their side.
“Am I talking to myself!” he yelled, above the drone of the passing convoy
The two sprang to attention, “No, Herr Oberst,” replied Hogg,
“What do you think you are doing? You are taking up half of the road with this heap of shit!…” his eyes dropped to their naval overalls. “Kriegsmarine? What are you doing here? What unit are you with?”
* * *
The two marines rested after another attempt at getting the drums moving. Blake jumped down and sat on the beam they had dragge
d there. “It’s no good, the bloody things haven’t moved an inch.” He pointed, his breath white against the dirty snow. “We’ll never move this lot… over that edge… might ‘ave…but for the slope … One of us’ll have to have a go at driving the bloody thing up on to this,” he slapped the beam.
He placed a hand on each knee and pushed himself to his feet, “I’ll take a shufty.”
The cab was huge, the controls a bewildering maze of dials, switches and levers.
“Right, the first thing’s got to be to start the engine.” He picked at a tooth contemplatively while he studied the dashboard. The key was in the ignition, where Hope had left it… “All right! ‘Ere goes’…Nothing! Blake worked his way systematically along the line of switches and buttons, the lights came on, the windscreen wipers danced madly backwards and forwards... suddenly he found the starter button. The powerful engine roared into life and, in gear, jumped back towards the waiting abyss. Blake gave a yell of alarm and jumped out head first. The lorry hit the wooden beam and stalled with a mighty jerk. He heard a rumble followed by the scrape of metal on metal and, alarmingly, the lorry began to jump up and down. The jolt of the engine stalling had dislodged the oil drums and, one by one, the drums were dropping off the back of their own accord.
“See!” gasped Blake to his grim-faced audience of one, “nothing to it really.”
* * *
Behind the German officer the surface of the mountain had suddenly come alive, a seething, heaving mass of drums, leaping and tumbling down the slope.
The German colonel swung round, his voice trailing off in mid sentence.
Hogg, seeing his chance, flicked the switch on the timing device taped to the petrol feed, grabbed Hope’s arm and half dragged him out into the slowly moving traffic, unceremoniously he pushed him down the bank, into the darkness.
Turning they and ran along the line of army trucks, yelling, jumping on and off the cabs, pointing up towards the landslide of drums. Lorries stopped, drivers wound down windows, staring in horror at the oil drums plummeting towards them from the mountain above.
The drivers began to abandon their vehicles, leaping to the ground and running for their lives. Ahead the remaining convoy continued in complete ignorance of the drama unfolding behind them.
Again Hogg seized the moment. Jumping into the abandoned cab of the lead lorry he whipped out the keys. In seconds he was back down onto the road and running back to where Hope waited.
Then all hell broke loose. The first of the drums had reached the tanks, leaping and bouncing over the laager and into its centre. Many of the drums had split and were cascading oil in glistening black Katherine Wheels. One after another they smashed headlong into the unyielding metal of the tanks and soon a river of oil began to flow out from the laager across the road and under the stalled convoy.
* * *
Grant peered up at the bridge, the headlights of the vehicles cast surreal shadows onto its heavy metal girders. The rumble of lorries crossing, which had drowned the noise of the E-boat’s engines, had stopped. It had been replaced by the yells and screams of men in flight and in fear of their lives. In the background an unidentified rushing, booming noise grew rapidly in its intensity.
The boat moved into the shadow of the bridge. He craned his neck back. The structure was now directly above, an oil drum bounced suddenly into view soaring out, falling like a depth charge. The column of water that shot into the air had barely settled when two others shot out from the road above. With considerable effort he turned his attention back to the diving team assembling on the cramped fore-end of the E-boat.
The frogmen, Dirty-Four’s diver, Burton, and the marine, Bushel, were poised outboard of the guard rails looking back at him. Burton, bulky with rope and tackle, Bushel with a rope wrapped around his middle. Aft of them two men steadied a drum, packed with explosives, balanced precariously on the gunwale.
The ‘Eddy’ eased slowly forward, under the bridge they had been in deep shadow now as they passed out from under it they were barely making headway, Grant was gauging the speed of the water hissing past, adjusting the revs to stem the racing current. At last he was ready to give the signal and the heavy drum was dropped to the waterline. Alongside it the two frogmen slipped soundlessly into the swift flowing water and were rapidly swept past him towards the stern. They struck out frantically for the steep banks of the fjord the light grass line squirming snake-like in their wake.
The two swimmers had no sooner reached the shore when a gigantic blast of light and sound ripped the night into shadow less day.
* * *
The German colonel, Luger pistol in hand, cap now missing, bent double, gasping for breath. He had outrun the drums, the avalanche of oil drums had stopped; of the two ‘mechanics’ there was no sign, but they were the least of his worries, he turned back towards the convoy and broke into a staggering lurching run along the line. Thick black glutinous oil squelched under his running feet, the smell rank in his flaring nostrils. It was everywhere, his convoy sat in a volatile inflammatory lake of diesel. He had to get it under way, get it clear of this section of road.
He reached the first lorry, the one that blocked the road, he threw his gun up into the cab and hoisted his exhausted body after it.
He had time to realise there were no keys before a searing flash of soundless light ended the rest of his days.
Hogg’s ammunition lorry vanished in a ball of howling orange and red flame that shot to an incandescent column of white hot flame that soared hundreds of feet into the night sky. Then the oil lake ignited, erupting outwards, from the exploding truck, in a fiery dome of burning oil that encompassed the entire convoy and the bridge. Liquid flame spewed over the edge of the bridge like molten lava, a hundred-foot cascade of flame that quenched itself in a hissing, boiling river.
Grant reduced the revs and the boat sank swiftly back into the inferno into the dancing flickering shadow of the bridge. Amid the rip and roar of further explosions his men worked quietly and quickly, floating the drum across to the waiting divers.
Once the frogman had the drum, bucking and bobbing at their feet, they attached Burton’s purchase to the rope that encircled its fat belly and hoisted it clear of the water. Leaning out they grabbed it and swung it in among the supporting girders of the bridge. As they worked both men snatched nervous glances upwards at the blazing inferno a mere hundred feet above their heads. At last the drum was secured under the iron buttress that supported the eastern end of the bridge. They started the short, but perilous journey back to the E-boat, pulling themselves along the grass line through the surging waters. Floating debris smacked into their bodies threatening to pluck them away into the waiting darkness downstream. An oil drum, blazing fiercely, crashed into the water to their right. They were only yards from safety when they saw it, in seconds it was surrounded by a spreading raft of burning oil that rushed down towards them.
Wilson, on the ‘Eddy’s’ deck, saw the danger, grabbed a boat hook and leaning out attempted to push the drum clear, but it spun round, slipped by him and again headed for the men in the water.
Desperately the divers reached out for the hands of the men leaning over the stern. Bushel was dragged clear with only seconds to spare. The men grabbed for Burton, the heat from the burning drum searing their bare faces. He was in mid-air, suspended by his wrists , when the drum hit his flailing legs. The drum spun away as he kicked out at it. The legs of his water suit were in flames. Two seamen dunked him back in and, mercifully, the flames were snuffed out by the icy water. He was dragged aboard. The two divers lay, side by side, exhausted, mouths open gasping for air like wet and very oily fish.
Grant cut the engine revs to virtually nothing allowing the ‘Eddy’ to be swept clear of the bridge and to disappear rapidly into the gloom downstream.
* * *
The second massive explosion ripped through the fjord ten minutes after the ‘Eddy’ had shot out from under the br
idge. It blew one leg, of the towering structure, away from its supporting rock bringing down hundreds of tons of rock that had loomed above it.
The effect was staggering, the tremendous weight of falling rock, crashing down on one end of the metal structure, bent the roadway into an impossible bow. It snapped and sprang back twisting the bridge into an impassable, Chinese puzzle of metal hanging by its one remaining leg.
* * *
The third explosion that lethal night was by far the biggest. The ammunition dump exploded. Blazing oil from the stacked drums spewed out with the force of an erupting volcano. It turned the mountain top into an inferno to rival the devil’s own bonfire.
Forty-gallon oil drums shot into the sky, arcing away like great fiery rockets. Exploding ammunition sprayed the mountain with great showers of sparks that flickered the high terrain into dancing light. It illuminated the trotting figures of Hogg and his men as they chased their long shadows west towards the fjord.
* * *
The mess sat drinking their rum and staring in amazement at the lemonade bottle that Wilson held in one grimy hand.
They had secured alongside less than an hour before and their rum had been waiting for them. The irrepressible Wilson had produced the bottle from amongst his kit with great reverence. Inside was a metal shackle that was so big it touched the sides of the narrow necked bottle.
“There you are, I told you I could do it that’s ‘alf a tot you owe me Nervous.” He reached out for the Leading Hand’s of the mess’s rum.
“Will you hang on a minute,” said the Irishman, snatching his rum out of harm’s way as quick as any mother would her threatened child. “It’s a trick you’re after playing…That’s never the same bottle…”