Those who dare, p.35
Those Who Dare, page 35
“Sir, I had the distinct impression we were in big trouble.”
On Tomcat, Raiding Forces personnel began folding in on themselves in series of bounding movements, leapfrogging toward the cliffs. Every move was carefully orchestrated. The troops were under tight control.
The Raiders shifted back to where Lieutenant Taylor Corrigan and Lieutenant Percy Stirling had set up security positions around the two sets of ropes that had been carried up the cliff by the hard-charging team from the Mountain Warfare School. The mountaineers had performed an impressive feat of speed climbing.
There had not been time to make a reconnaissance of the narrow path down the cliff. For all anyone knew, it could be mined. All personnel would go down the ropes tonight.
Captain Clive Haig-Tredberry of the Mountain Warfare School established a series of stations all the way down the cliff where the men would have to change ropes. The Raiders from the bunker-busting team and the lighthouse assault team had already gone down, dropping off a man at each station to provide additional assistance to the people who would be following them. Even though everything was running smoothly, it was taking substantially longer to rope down the cliff than anticipated.
There were a total of eight German prisoners. The sight of the ropes going over the edge of the cliff caused them to rebel momentarily. Captain Terry “Zorro” Stone, ribs still aching from his spectacular though painful entry into the signals station, was in no mood to be trifled with at this point in the evening; he indicated his displeasure by loosing at their feet a long burst of fire from his “Chicago piano.” They were the first and only shots he fired that night. He felt better for it, and besides, he noticed right away that the Thompson had become substantially lighter. The Nazi prisoners shinnied down the ropes, looking as though they had been mountaineering all their lives.
Finally, red flares were launched, recalling the rear security element. Sergeant Major Maxwell Hicks met the two road security teams when they arrived at the ropes; he was fretting like a mother hen.
Major Randal was the last man down the rope. He took one last look back at Tomcat. The objective looked peaceful in the pale blue moonlight. The signals station was burning merrily. Captain Stone had fired it, hoping to confuse the Germans about the material they had carried off. Down below he heard the sound of a bagpipe shrieking from the beach. It sounded as if a cat had gotten its tail caught in the lowering ramp of one of the LCAs.
When Major Randal arrived on the beach, Lieutenant Colonel Charles Edward Vaughan had things under iron-fisted control, with everything completely organized, running like clockwork. The Raiders were executing the withdrawal plan as if it were a well-rehearsed demonstration. Raiding Forces had never conducted a practice re-embarkation exercise that had worked as flawlessly. All that hard, repetitious training finally paid off.
When Major Randal walked up, Lieutenant Colonel Vaughan snapped to attention and gave him a salute worthy of his old regiment, the Coldstream Guards. “Beachmaster reports all personnel accounted for. We have a good count. You have all your men embarked at this time except for your personal party, which will be going out on the MGB 345, and beach security.”
Major Randal acknowledged the salute. “Can you give me a casualty report?”
“One man killed, four wounded. The wounded are on board being treated by a navy doctor. Their wounds do not appear to be life threatening. At least that is the initial indication, John.”
“Thanks, Colonel Vaughan. Very nicely done. I doubt anyone will ever do it any better.”
“My pleasure—and I can say the same to you, lad. All things considered, militarily speaking, it does not get any better than this.”
“Time to go then, Colonel. Pull in your beach security element,” Major Randal ordered briskly.
“My sentiments exactly.”
Major Randal stepped into the rubber inflatable dinghy. Captain Stone was already aboard waiting for him. As soon as he was seated, the Lifeboat Serviceman shoved off. Major Randal helped paddle with the butt of his Browning A-5 shotgun. He looked over and saw that Captain Stone had ripped the heavy drum magazine out of his Thompson submachine gun and was using his weapon to paddle just as furiously on the other side. Both men were giving it everything they had. Time to go! They just might actually pull this one off.
Just when it looked like they were going to make it home free, suddenly, horrifyingly, the night erupted into day.
FLASH BANG! A blast blazed, brilliant enough to read a newspaper by. The whole of Tomcat, all the way down to the beach, was magically illuminated; the Raiders could see for miles! The startling white-flash explosion was the most dazzling, mind-numbing event anyone present had ever experienced. It lit up everything.
Then the booming explosion rolled across the water and over them, but compared to the stunning luminosity of the blinding flash, it was a virtual pipsqueak. There was no weapon in the British inventory capable of making a flash like that happen. Was it one of the Nazi wonder weapons? Some gigantic incendiary? The end of the world seemed upon them!
The Raiders and sailors were stupefied beyond description.
“What the bloody hell is that?” screamed a startled Captain Stone.
“How am I supposed know?” Major Randal shouted back.
All three men in the rubber dinghy immediately recommenced paddling like wild men while looking back over their shoulders in terror. They literally could not comprehend what they were witnessing. Nothing in their collective experience had prepared them for the terrible magnificence of what was happening.
On top of the cliff a gigantic tornado of fire spiraled insanely out of control, spinning upward for what looked to be a mile in height and a quarter of a mile in width at the top. The brilliance of the inferno was incredible. They had seen the largest guns fired in action, and they had witnessed bombing raids from up close—on the receiving end and from a distance. They had seen Royal Navy ships explode.
But nothing prepared them for this monster flame.
And then, suddenly, it vanished in a poof, like a candle that had been snuffed out! Night vision was ruined; the men were almost blind from the brilliance. Finally, when they realized that whatever it was was not coming to kill them, the three of them in the dinghy shipped oars and just stared back in awe at the now-smoldering cliff, weak with relief.
“I thought I was going into cardiac arrest. What do you think caused that blast?”
“Percy blew Tomcat’s lighthouse to smithereens!” Major Randal rasped, still in a nearly catatonic state of shock. “We’re going to need a lot more demolitions training, Terry. We don’t know enough about explosives not to be dangerous to ourselves.”
“Consider it done, old stick. I shall get on it straight away. I never knew destroying the lighthouse was on for tonight.”
“I sort of casually mentioned to Percy it might be a good idea to blow it,” Major Randal explained. “I only meant for him to put it out of action. What do you think he did?”
“He complied.”
When the two officers arrived on board HMY Arrow, they found a badly shaken crew. “What was that?” Lieutenant Randy “Hornblower” Seaborn railed in a high-pitched voice. “For a moment I thought I was witnessing something straight out of H. G. Wells. Did we cause that detonation, sir?”
“I’m not sure. Let’s get the hell out of Dodge, Randy, before anything else happens.”
“Aye, aye, sir. I want to go home.”
That night Lieutenant Percy Stirling passed into the military pantheon—forever after to become known as “Pyro” Percy, a true living legend. As Captain “Geronimo Joe” McKoy had predicted, Lieutenant “Pyro” Percy Stirling was responsible for striking terror into the hearts of many brave men—nearly all of them his own.
A lesson learned: It was not always possible to actually expect the unexpected, no matter how hard you try.
Combat is like that.
FROGSPAWN
43
RETURN FROM TOMCAT
THE RETURN VOYAGE FROM OPERATION TOMCAT TOOK NEARLY nine hours. It was a calm passage, though turning to cold. There was no German pursuit. HMY Arrow sailed with the two landing craft assault boats in line formation astern. Around them on the horizon, the 15th Motor Torpedo Boat Flotilla ranged in a loose, diamond-shaped defensive perimeter. The LCAs’ top speed of ten knots dictated the pace for the entire convoy.
When dawn broke it was a beautiful sight to the men of Raiding Forces. Maybe it was not the kind of beautiful sunrise an artist might paint, unless it was his last day on death row before the hanging: The daybreak was a gray, cold, drizzly, muddy-looking sunrise, but to the men returning from Operation Tomcat it was a beautiful thing, because when the Raiders had taken off last night, none of them had been exactly sure he would ever see another one.
With the sun came a flight of four Coastal Command Hawker Hurricane fighters. They roared in at low level, rocking their wings in a V-for-Victory salute, and blasted by. The troops cheered and waved. In perfect formation the Hurricanes zoomed upward in a lazy curve to take up station, race-tracking over the convoy to provide air cover for the remainder of the trip.
In the far distance the faded purple coastline was an inspiring sight.
The coast of England swam into focus. The convoy paralleled it until it was time to turn and make the run up the small bay below Seaborn House. The 15th MTB Flotilla materialized to seaboard, each torpedo boat flashing dot-dot-dot-dash—again, V-for-Victory—with her Aldis signal lamp as she sailed past. Then the flotilla boats kicked in their powerful engines to “all ahead full,” shooting up tall rooster tails of seawater in their wake, and broke off for their home station.
The Hurricanes came down and each plane made a lazy solo pass, doing a slow Victory roll. They, too, broke off and flew out of sight.
Soon the little LCA armada was sailing up the mouth of the river to its dock, led proudly by HMY Arrow. Each craft they passed sounded its horn: dot-dot-dot-dash. Every cottage they passed on shore had people standing outside, waving Union Jacks. When the wind carried right, they could hear the faint sound of cheering.
“What do you think’s going on, Randy?” Major John Randal asked. “You pick up anything on your radio?”
Lieutenant Randy “Hornblower” Seaborn looked at Major Randal closely to see if he was joking, and when he realized the major was serious, he started laughing. “That’s for us, sir.”
“Are you nuts? All we did was blow up a lighthouse.”
“We really blew the hell out of it,” Captain Terry “Zorro” Stone pointed out reasonably.
“Attention on deck!” Lieutenant Seaborn suddenly ordered the crew of the Arrow. “Look sharp, lads, we have a side party standing by on the dock.”
“Who are all those people?” Major Randal wondered out loud in amazement.
“I have no idea, but they seem glad to see us. Time to get the party rolling. Leave has never sounded so good,” Captain Stone exclaimed, with a tingle of excitement creeping into his voice. “I do need my rest and recreation.”
“You nearly required hospitalization after your last one,” Major Randal said dryly.
HMY Arrow eased up to the wharf with its powerful engines warbling. Flashbulbs were popping. The local maritime brass band members were playing their hearts out, blaring “Rule, Brittania.” Waiting on the dock were senior officers from all three services, including Royal Marine Lieutenant General Sir Alan Bourne and his new replacement as director of Combined Operations, Admiral of the Fleet Sir Roger Keyes, Bt, GCB, KVCO, CMG, DSO, the legendary hero of Zeebrugge.
A full complement of representatives from the print and newsreel media was present, along with what appeared to be the entire civilian population from the surrounding three counties.
The “Razor” was there, as well as Randy’s parents, Commander Richard and Mrs. Brandy Seaborn. Lieutenant Seaborn did his best to ignore his mother during the docking maneuvers. He did not want to make a hard landing with her watching.
Major Randal stepped off the Arrow and saluted Lieutenant General Bourne, the man he recognized as his commanding officer.
“Congratulations, Major,” the general said to him, returning the salute as one professional to another, ignoring the mob scene raging around them. “Let me introduce you to my replacement and your new commander, Admiral Sir Roger Keyes.”
The crusty old admiral immediately grabbed Major Randal’s hand and shook it before he had a chance to salute.
“Absolutely capital performance, Major. One of my first official acts is going to be to lavish a shower of medals on your troops. They deserve it. You lads have made us all proud men today.”
Then there was a Royal Air Force air commodore pounding him on the back, and a couple of army generals he had never seen before were soon pumping his hand. Major Randal literally had to tear himself away to get back to the dock so that he could be there to greet his troops ashore as the first LCA pulled up beside the Arrow.
The men of Raiding Forces were doing their best to affect the look of cool, tough, professional fighting men who had pulled off a highly dangerous mission, while likewise conveying the impression that it was nothing much to get excited about. Parachuting behind enemy lines? That’s what we do.
The Tomcat Raiders swaggered off the LCA, carrying their weapons casually in one hand and their Bergen packs slung nonchalantly over their shoulders. They were bristling with pistols and fighting knives, wearing their green berets at jaunty angles, having discarded their jump helmets. The men still had streaks of charcoal camouflage on their faces.
The commander of the Special Warfare Training Center, Lieutenant Colonel Charles Edward Vaughan, was fallen on by a mob of enthusiastic volunteers for Commando training the moment he stepped ashore. It appeared as if the Somerset Light Infantry was volunteering en masse.
Major Randal knew he was going to have one very unhappy local commander of anti-invasion troops on his hands. Regiments of the line really hated it when their best men volunteered out for Commandos or Airborne Forces. Up until now he had made a point of not accepting any volunteers from the Somerset Light Infantry in the interest of local harmony, but he intended to give Lieutenant Colonel Vaughan a list of 4th Battalion Somersets he was interested in—if they made it through Achnacarry.
Brandy Seaborn came up and gave him a huge, welcoming hug. “John, I am so very proud. How terribly exciting this is—as ever, the dashing hero.”
“Brandy, don’t tell anyone, but I’ve been on more dangerous training exercises,” he whispered in her ear. He scanned the crowd. “Where’s Jane?”
“She’s not here, John,” Brandy Seaborn replied. “I thought she would be.”
Before he could respond, a clutch of reporters swarmed around and started shouting questions at him as if he were hard of hearing. They wedged themselves between him and Brandy Seaborn. He looked over at General Bourne and Admiral Keyes. The admiral gave a slight nod of approval. For the next twenty minutes, Major Randal patiently answered their questions, making sure not to discuss any operational details.
It occurred to him that no matter which way he turned, standing on the edge of the crowd was always the debonair figure of Major Lawrence Grand, nattily attired in an impeccably tailored navy blue, double-breasted, pinstriped suit. He was chain-smoking his brown, custom-rolled cigarettes in a short ivory holder, wearing tinted glasses and, as usual, a red carnation in his lapel.
Why did Major Randal have the feeling that Major Grand was keeping close tabs on him?
Then Major Randal bumped into an ancient sergeant major. “What am I looking at?”
“I have been recalled to the colors, sir,” a slightly embarrassed Sergeant Major Maurice Chauncy explained.
“So, this is what a Green Howard looks like!”
“Sir!”
“Does this mean you’re not my butler anymore?”
“Oh, no, sir. I merely have to pull duty in the Operations Room.” Looking around to make sure no one could overhear, Chauncy whispered, “Buzzard Plucker, sir.”
“I see,” Major Randal said, which of course meant that he did not have any idea what his former butler was talking about. “I guess you’ll be going to parachute school next?”
“Actually, sir, Lady Seaborn did mention something about balloons.”
“You’re kidding.”
“Lady Seaborn specifically made reference to a short course. I think I might like to give it a go, sir.”
Major Grand strolled up and stuck out his hand. “Congratulations, John. You obviously have a talent for fast cutting-out operations. A word with you in private, if I may.”
Major Randal turned back toward his butler. “We are not through talking about this, Chaun … ah, Sergeant Major.”
“Sir!”
They walked off a short distance from the crowd. Leaning close to Major Randal’s ear, Major Grand said, “Frogspawn.”
Major Randal froze. He clicked on.
“A major crisis of national strategic importance has been brewing for some months, and I have been quietly developing plans for a sensitive military operation to intervene and put things right,” Major Grand said. “Imagine my complete surprise to find that the troops I had earmarked for this delicate secret mission were away campaigning somewhere in France at the very moment I needed them. Attempting, I believe, to prove something called ‘The Theory of Aerial Envelopment.’”
Major Randal felt the skin on his cheekbones grow tight.
“You know, John,” Major Grand continued, “the thing is that the policy of ‘need to know’ helps keep the enemy from finding out what it is we are up to, but the downside is that ‘need to know’ sometimes leaves our side in the dark. It definitely kept me out of the loop about Operation Tomcat.”
“I see.”
“You are going to be staying at the Bradford Hotel two nights hence. I will pick you up in the lobby at 0900 hours the following morning. I have a busy day planned for you, and I promise you will not be bored.”
