Operation leonardo carte.., p.10
Operation Leonardo (Carter's Commandos Book 5), page 10
He crossed to the port side and looked out. The land there was green, the vegetation spreading out from the Nile delta, invisible in the distance. Carter could see a farmer leading a donkey cart laden with crops.
If they stopped long enough, Carter wondered if he’d get time to visit Alexandria. He’d always had a romantic notion of the city, ever since reading about it as a child; about how Alexander the Great had founded a city in his own name in Egypt, about its great library and the huge lighthouse that had been one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. He knew that both the library and the lighthouse were long gone, but he would still love to see the city.
Probably not, he thought. If he was allowed ashore the rest of the men would have to be allowed as well and in a city like Port Said that was far from advisable. If Suez had a bad reputation, the city at the northern end of the canal was worse.
He glanced ahead to see another ship ahead of them. He couldn’t identify it; some sort of merchantman by the look of it. He leaned out over the rail so that he could see back past the central superstructure. Sure enough, there was another ship behind. That was more easily recognisable as a warship, a destroyer judging by its size, but he couldn’t see its ensign. The Australians and New Zealanders were heavily involved with this operation, so it might be one of theirs.
Carter’s nose twitched as the smell of bacon wafted towards him. A sailor had just emerged through a gangway and was leaning on the side rail, tucking into a sandwich. Breakfast, thought Carter. Then they would start the round of briefings for the men. Between now and their arrival off the shores of Sicily, they would go over the plan time after time until everyone had the whole thing off pat; word perfect. The men would become bored with the repetition, but experience had shown that one of them would miss something if they didn’t have it rammed home.
As well as the briefings there would be some training, first-aid mainly as there wasn’t anywhere they could practice anything else. Once in the Mediterranean they might be allowed some target practice, firing at disused oil drums. But that depended on their position in the convoy. They couldn’t risk hitting some poor bloke on another ship with a ricochet. But they would exercise the mortar crews, going through dry runs on deck, assembling the mortars and then taking them apart again. Lining up on imaginary targets and dropping imaginary bombs down the tubes. They had two Vickers machine guns as well now. The same sort of training would be done with them.
There was talk of setting up a specialist heavy weapons troop to look after the new weapons. Carter hoped he wasn’t picked to lead that. Being tied down to heavy equipment wasn’t very exciting. Some of the officers and NCOs had already been sent on fire control training courses while they had been in Egypt. They were the most likely candidates for the job. But Carter had been in the army long enough to know that wasn’t always the way things worked. Besides, they were going into combat; the trained officers and NCOs might not make it. Other men had undertaken training in signals skills; laying telephone wires and operating field radios so that fire control could be exercised from forward positions.
On that gloomy thought he gave the sailor a farewell nod and left him to his sandwich, while he made his way back below decks to the wardroom in search of his own breakfast.
* * *
It was too much to hope that they weren’t expected. Fighters had chased off enemy reconnaissance aircraft, but not until they must have seen the armada heading westwards. Then there were the Italian submarines. Two laggards from the various convoys had been sunk, picked off by torpedoes as they struggled to maintain the pace that was being set.
And then there was the enemy on their own side. It was only a few weeks earlier that Winston Churchill himself had told the BBC that “something big was about to happen”. The enemy would have been particularly dense not to have guessed that it involved the Mediterranean Sea. The men had roundly cursed Churchill’s stupidity, but there was nothing that could be done now.
The landing craft carrying the CO, The QM, Carter and half of his troop was lowered until it was bumping along the surface of the sea as the Prince Leopold maintained a steady course and speed, but the water was dragging it backwards. The Cox’n applied power, driving the craft forward until it was keeping pace with the bigger craft and the lifeboat falls1, to which the craft was still attached, were more or less vertical. This was a manoeuvre that had been practiced many times. The crew of the landing craft knew what they were doing.
On a word of command from the landing craft’s skipper, the falls were released and the Cox’n turned the boat away from the Prince Leopold’s side, heading due west towards the distant shore. The object they were looking for was so small that it was still invisible; a canoe manned by a naval rating and launched from a submarine, marking the beach they were due to land on.
The other five landing craft joined the first in two lines astern. They would move into line abreast as they drew closer. Like this they presented a smaller target to waiting gunners.
“Damned canoe’s in the wrong place.” Carter heard Vernon say from the front of the Landing craft. “Must have drifted with the wind.” Carter strained his neck to try to pick out the flashing signal that the canoeist was supposed to send, but he couldn’t see over the high slab of the ramp.
“Are you sure, Sir.” It was the QM’s voice. He was acting as 2IC in the absence of Teddy Couples.
“Those mountains behind the signal light; they should be further north. I’d say he’s drifted at least half a mile.”
A destroyer loomed out of the darkness, making to pass behind the flotilla on some errand of its own. Vernon fought his way backwards through the packed ranks of soldiers until he could use the electric loudhailer system in the Coxon’s small bridge housing.”
“Ahoy there.” The metallic voice boomed out. “Can you give us a bearing for the Scoglio?”
There was a short pause, then “Bearing two-six-eight.” Came the reply.
“There, I told you.” Vernon said with some satisfaction as he passed Carter on his way back to the bow of the craft. “At least ten degrees off course.” Carter felt the landing craft change direction and the five others followed suit, like ducklings following their mother.
They continued on their way until the pinnacle of rock appeared in front of them. It was two hundred feet high and fifty feet across at its base. Hard to miss in daylight, but in the darkness they could have passed it by at a hundred yards distance and not known it was there. With a ten degree error they might have landed half a mile away and without any visual cues they would have had no idea where they were until the sun rose. If it hadn’t been for Vernon’s sharp eyes, picking out the silhouette of the mountains against the stars, that is what would have happened. Being on the wrong beach would have been bad enough, but if it was also well defended they could have been cut to ribbons.
Two hundred yards from the beach a machine gun started firing from the shore. What had spooked the crew was impossible to say. Perhaps they’d heard the exchange between Vernon and the destroyer; perhaps they’d just picked out the dark shapes of the landing craft against the sea. Or maybe they’d heard a wandering goat and just panicked. The Lewis guns mounted on either side of the ramps of the two leading craft returned fire and, after a few more random bursts, the gun on shore fell silent.
Intelligence reports said the Italians were demoralised. Was that the first indication that the reports were true?
The ramp dropped and the men stormed ashore, scrambling over the heaped rocks, only to be stopped by barbed wire. Cutters were unstrapped from packs and paths cut through. Behind the wire the commandos found half a dozen pillboxes, the first line of the enemy’s defences. All but one was empty. The one that was manned was quickly dealt with by grenades and Tommy guns, and the commando rushed on. The noise they had made meant their presence would be known about, but their advantage was that the commandos knew where they were going; the enemy had to guess.
Behind them the landing craft raised their ramps and backed off from the beach. They were needed elsewhere.
Carter was aware of the sound of aircraft engines above their heads, which reminded him that the enemy had other things to think about than a beach landing. Paratroops flown in from North Africa were landing inland, seizing strategic crossroads and river crossings. An enemy behind was a more pressing matter than an enemy in front. Those landings had been hours earlier, of course, but the aircraft arriving now would be dropping heavier equipment and supplies.
A hundred yards inland Carter called his men to a halt. NCOs checked their men were present and reported to the Lieutenants. Ernie Barraclough and Arthur Murray reported to Carter. All present and correct. He went forward to find the CO, who was huddled over his map with the QM, examining it by the wan light of a shaded torch.
“4 Troop all present, Sir.” Carter whispered.
“Good. We’ll be moving off in a couple of minutes. Keep close up. We don’t want any gaps forming that might cause people to wander off and get lost.”
The instruction was unnecessary. They had rehearsed this so many times they could do it in their sleep. Carter made his way back to his troop, sandwiched between 3 and 5 troops. The NCOs had formed the men up into two files. For the moment they were sat on the ground, resting their heavy burdens. Never stand when you can sit; never sit when you can lie down. Every commando adhered to the mantra. It went on to say never to miss the chance to eat, drink or sleep, but for the moment those options weren’t available.
Movement rippled along the line as the men rose and stepped forward, only to stop again, like traffic on a busy road. They had to move at the pace of the scouts, who decided if the route was clear or if there was danger.
Slowly the troop inched forward until it reached the first barrier, a high drystone wall. This was the terrain they had to cross to get to the battery. A series of stony fields, each surrounded by its own wall. A dozen walls to cross without accidently discharging a weapon or dropping anything that might make a noise. It was slow going. Very slow.
By the time they were crossing the third wall Carter was growing impatient. He checked his watch, alarmed to see how much of their ninety minutes had already been consumed. At that rate of progress they would be late capturing the battery and that was bound to cost lives as the first wave of troops started their landings on the wide open beaches.
Telling Ernie Barraclough to take charge and keep the men moving, Carter moved quickly ahead, passing 3 Troop. He found the CO and the QM crouched in the deep shadow of the next wall, deep in conversation.
“What do you want, Steven?” Vernon sounded a bit tetchy, something Carter wasn’t used to hearing from him.
“Sorry, Sir. Just wondering what the hold-up is.”
“The scouts keep seeing ghosts.” Vernon said, his frustration evident. “Look, could you go forward and gee them up a bit.”
“Of course, Sir. Where are they right now?”
“Halfway across this next field, last time I saw them. They think they’ve spotted a sentry, though what a sentry would be doing out here in the middle of nowhere, I have no idea.”
“OK, Sir.” He handed his Tommy gun to the QM, stood up and reached for the top of the wall. Swinging his legs, he got a boot on top and hauled himself up until he was lying flat along the top, then dropped down the other side, bracing his legs to act as shock absorbers. Even then he felt his knees protesting at the combined weight of himself and his kit. He reached back and collected his Tommy gun from the QM before moving forward at a crouching run.
The scouts had moved forward as far as the next wall, but were now crouched in its shadow, spaced along it at twenty yard intervals.
“What’s the problem?” Carter hissed, almost tripping over the nearest man in the dark.
“I think there’s a sentry ahead, Sir.” The man whispered.
“Where?”
“About twenty yards along on the right.”
Removing his steel helmet, Carter raised his head above the top of the wall and peered into the darkness. He could make out the line of the right hand wall, heading into the distance Towards the far end of the field. There was something there, about twenty yards along, just as the scout had reported, but was it a man? To Carter’s eyes it looked more like a heap of rubble, perhaps where a portion of the wall had collapsed.
Carter reached around his back and pulled an object from his belt. It was a tip that a pal from 16 Cdo had told him, after encountering a similar problem during a raid in France.
“Take a catapult, old bean.” He had advised. “If you get a lucky shot in, a sentry is bound to cry out and give himself away. Even if you miss, the sound of the stone hitting something is sure to make the sentry move. Maybe he’ll even issue a challenge. That way you won’t waste time creeping up on fence posts and the like.”
So Carter had taken to carrying a catapult. He found a pebble beneath his feet and fitted it to the leather patch in the middle of the thick rubber chord. Pulling backwards as far as he could, he stood up, took aim at the presumed sentry and released. He heard the sound of the pebble smack against a stone, he even saw the small spark that it made, but there was no movement from the mound.
“No one there.” He told the sentry, more abruptly than he meant to. He couldn’t blame the soldier for being cautious. After all, who would want to be responsible for leading the whole commando into an ambush? He handed his Tommy gun over for safe keeping while he crossed the wall, then took it back along with the soldier’s rifle as he followed. “Give me the map.” He instructed. Using his shaded torch, he checked their position against the pencil marks on the map that the soldier had made, before starting off into the night. “Keep up with me.” He hissed back. The sentry paused to flash the “come on” signal with his torch, to the troops behind, then followed Carter.
To his right and left the other two scouts kept in line abreast. He didn’t force the pace too much. There was a difference between careful scouting and a headlong rush, but they did move more quickly, but checking carefully before crossing each wall. Only when they were about two hundred yards from the battery did Carter bring them to a complete halt. In front of them was a dry riverbed, running right to left across their line of advance, taking it across the front of the Italian guns. Carter imagined the layout in his head, his image of the model so clear, he thought he might be able to touch it. They were at the south east corner of the battery, exactly where they had intended to arrive.
Carter’s eyes were seared by a brilliant flash, his ears assaulted by the sound of a heavy gun being fired. It meant the fleet had been spotted offshore and fire orders relayed to the battery commander. Just a single shot, probably to establish the range. As the echoes of the discharge died away, Carter could hear voices shouting orders as the gun was reloaded. Carter sent the scout back to find the CO and report their arrival at their appointed jumping off point for the attack.
The guns of the battery crashed out, firing a volley of shells out to sea. It focused everyone’s minds, if that were still necessary. Carter could hardly forget that they were deep into enemy territory with a full Italian force of anything up to four hundred men in front of them.
Vernon arrived and began to issue hushed orders to deploy ready for the assault. A dozen men from 3 Troop were sent along the river bed with 2 inch mortars to provide harassing fire. A three inch mortar was sent out onto the left hand flank to fire along the line of the guns, along with another dozen men and four Bren guns to protect it and provide enfilading fire. Angus Fraser was given command of that party.
The rest of the force were sent by a circuitous route to take up positions at the rear of the battery. They were the assault party and would be led by the CO himself, two troops attacking with the remainder of 3 Troop in reserve. So far, they seemed to be undetected.
The firing of the guns would help their cause. Both the gunners and the sentries would be deafened by the sound and the muzzle flashes would degrade their night vision.
The attack force marched steadily forward. Even if they were now discovered it would make no difference. They were committed. Fifty yards from the rear of the battery, according to the map, Vernon brought them to a halt once more. The line wavered as some men didn’t get the whispered order, but then came to a standstill, the men shuffling backwards and forwards as they straightened the line.
Vernon nudged his batman and he raised his bugle to his lips. Faltering on the first note, he quickly recovered to sound the advance, the signal to start the attack. In the riverbed and to the flank, the mortars and Bren guns opened up with harassing fire. Interspersed, Carter heard the whip crack of Lee-Enfields and the panicked shouting of the artillery men in the battery. The attacking line stepped forward, their rifles and Tommy guns held in front of them, cocked and ready to fire. Parachute flares soared into the sky to illuminate the battery, but they were focused on the eastern edge, keeping the main attacking force in semi-darkness, as they were supposed to. They were a distraction for the enemy to keep them looking in that direction.
The Italians weren’t going to give up without a fight. Automatic weapons opened up from defensive positions, sending tracer rounds criss-crossing the battery and sending some of the commandos diving for cover. But the firing was wild and inaccurate, so the soldiers scrambled to their feet once again, continuing the attack.
Bangalore torpedoes2 were slid under the barbed wire of the defences and discharged, blowing holes through which the commandos could pass. Vernon called the advance to a halt again and the men dropped to one knee to steady their aim, one elbow resting on their knee before opening fire. Another volley of parachute flares soared into the sky and Vernon called for the advance to continue once again. Carter was wondering if any of his men had been hit, but had no time to turn and check. He had to keep moving, so that his men would follow.
