 
### KING GEORGE'S COMPUTERS

BY

### DAVID SHAW

### Smashwords Edition

### Copyright 2009 David Shaw

### This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

### INTRODUCTION

### This story is based on a single piece of pure speculation. Suppose the transistor had been invented in the United Kingdom in 1937, instead of in the United States in 1947?

There are no particular reasons why it could not have been. Semi-conductors had been used in "cat's whisker" radios since the 1920's. And once transistors were available it would have been quickly recognised that digital computers could now be built. Construction of the world's first digital computer in fact began in 1938 at Iowa State University. Of course, it had to use vacuum tubes and was extremely primitive.

### Shortly afterwards came ENIAC, incorporating 18,000 hot and unreliable tubes. Providing less computing power than a modern wrist watch it weighed 30 tons, occupied 1,500 square feet and dimmed the lights of the building when it was switched on. A transistorised equivalent would have fitted inside a wardrobe. Transistors were everything tubes weren't -- they were small, reliable, cheap, with a meagre appetite for electricity.

### We know that well before the war began the British government was straining every nerve to crack the German 'ENIGMA' codes. It's likely that transistorised computers would have been developed as quickly as humanly possible with virtually unlimited financial support. And in Alan Turing the British had the one thing money couldn't buy -- genius. In fact it was the British who built the first true computer in 1948 at Manchester University, the first computer which held a program stored in its memory and which could be re-programmed without needing to be re-wired.

### Apart from that imaginary scientific development, all other historical facts at the beginning of the story are correct. Kampfgruppe 100 certainly existed. This Luftwaffe pathfinder unit led the attacks which crucified Coventry and almost ripped the heart out of London.

### The beauty of KGr 100's special X-Gerat electronic bombing system was that it enabled a last minute check on the bomber's actual ground speed and so enabled it to correctly calculate the exact moment to release its load. The accuracy of the system was usually within 100 yards of a target at 200 miles from the Luftwaffe's high frequency transmitters. X-Gerat was certainly the most accurate method of night bombing yet devised by any air force up to that time.

### In comparison RAF staff officers were convinced that British bomber crews could achieve pin-point accuracy at night using traditional star sighting techniques with a sextant. Not for another year would they realise that only ten percent of Bomber Command crews were dropping their bombs within five miles of any given target.

### Unlikely as it sounds, the glider 'snatch' technique described was in fact used operationally in Burma to retrieve wounded soldiers from Chindit columns. John Masters gives a fine description of the technique in his fascinating autobiography: "The Road Past Mandalay".

### Lord Mountbatten is also on record as making a very shrewd comment on the technique the first time he saw it demonstrated: "Jesus bloody Christ!"

### As far as the story itself is concerned, all characters are fictional, bar one senior Luftwaffe officer. However, I did have great difficulty with the genesis of 'E.E. Crampton'. I needed to create a well known person in British political and academic circles with quite remarkable powers of imagination and insight. Since any such fictitious character would have been somewhat unbelievable, I was forced to borrow one from real life. There was indeed a Member of Parliament for Oxford University in 1940, and he was indeed a Petty Officer in the Naval Reserve. As for his imagination -- well, if you've never read Mr A.P. Herbert or his collection of misleading legal cases, you have a treat in store.

### One final quirk of fate: William Bradford Shockley was the man who led the team which invented the transistor and founded Silicon Valley. He was actually born in London of American parents. Had they decided to stay there instead of returning to California, who knows what might have happened.

### But still, this is only a whimsy of fiction, merely a re-arranged war game with some new pieces set out on the patterns of history. A handful of scientists, the first electronic computers and a young officer of ferocious ability. Arrayed against them are the armed forces of Nazi Germany, the best soldiers to conquer Europe since the fall of Rome. The game begins with a pawn being moved, an unwitting pawn in a desperate defence.

### CHAPTER ONE

### Captain Henry Arthur Winfield, Royal Engineers, was cramped and cold and bewildered. A soldier on active service was expected to suffer discomfort without complaining and any man in uniform who didn't anticipate being continually buggered about was either a one day recruit or a general. But at least you usually had some idea of where you were going and why. All he knew right now was that he was flying south to carry out some duties of extreme importance. Henry sincerely hoped he wasn't going to be expected to repeat his previous most outstanding performance.

### Five months before Henry had been attached to the staff of the Commander Royal Engineers, Third Division, British Expeditionary Force. In that capacity he had probably done more damage to an army than any other junior office in history.

### Unfortunately it had all been inflicted on his own side. Henry's principal contribution so far towards the downfall of Hitler had been to lead a squad of gun-cotton laden sappers through a mass of British military equipment abandoned outside Dunkirk, charged with the duty of destroying as much of it as possible. His piece-de-resistance had been the thorough wrecking of eighteen 3.7 inch anti-aircraft guns, the pride of the Royal Artillery, each one worth the unbelievable sum of five thousand pounds.

### It had been a bitter experience, for he was a man with one consuming passion in life, and that passion was weapons. Why this should be was a great puzzle to Henry. In his heart of hearts he considered himself much more of a weakling than a born warrior: in fact he'd never willingly become involved in any fight that he could avoid. None the less he was a military engineer whose great interest in life was in the most minute details of any and every man made artifact for waging war, from bayonets to aircraft carriers.

### Like George Bernard Shaw Henry believed that mankind's heart and soul was lavished on its weapons. It was a philosophical viewpoint which certainly seemed true as far as the Germans were concerned and Henry had tremendous professional respect for German engineering and military skills.

### The Whitley he was riding in skittered through an air pocket, falling and then rising again in the turbulent currents. The interior of the obsolescent bomber was packed tight with bodies encumbered with clumsy 37 pattern webbing, all sitting in great discomfort on the fuselage floor, feet jammed against the opposite side of the narrow crawl way. Ten men, including himself, part of a half Troop of Number Two Commando, detached for extra-regimental duties under Captain Winfield.

### Which made it all about as confusing and annoying as anybody could need.

### In the first place the Commandos had been established three months ago, in July 1940, as a token of Churchill's determination to raid newly conquered France. Since no such raiding units then existed the Commandos had been hastily formed from volunteers detached on sufferance from their regiments or corps.

### To be detached from a parent unit once might be considered rather glamorous; to be ordered away from the only unit in the Army that Henry wanted to serve in was a disaster. In many ways it was a unique unit.

### For example, Number Two Commando was the only military unit in the entire British Empire which was parachute trained. At the Prime Minister's insistence the War Office had been obliged to create the Central Landing School at Ringway aerodrome near Manchester to train its handful of airborne troops.

### This homespun answer to Goering's Fallschirmjagers consisted of three hundred novice paratroopers, a handful of RAF instructors and five 'elephant arse' Whitleys, so called because of the extemporised jumping hatch cut in the bottom of each aeroplane's fuselage.

### It was a lousy modification to a mediocre paratroop carrier, resulting in a growing list of broken noses and facial injuries caused by men hitting the opposite rim of the hatch as they jumped. Since the RAF had little interest in airborne forces no quick improvements in jumping technique seemed likely to be developed.

### Which was just one of the many reasons why Henry was flabbergasted at finding himself being flown to his destination. Film stars like Ronald Coleman or Clark Gable might live in a world where travel was simply a matter of packing a bag and stepping on an aeroplane, but it wasn't the way the Army or the Air Force worked. Until he'd arrived at Ringway Henry had never even seen the inside of an aircraft, nor had he ever met anybody else who had. A bunch of squaddies had as about as much chance of travelling to a new posting by air as they had of being billeted in the Savoy on arrival.

### Just as astonishing was the fact he had been allowed to handpick the men he was to take with him. The single strongest factor against the formation of the Commando units had been the determination of line battalions to fight tooth and nail against releasing their best soldiers to some crackpot special purpose force.

### For a Commando unit, in turn, to willingly offer up its own best men to a mere captain must have taken some awesome pressure from above. Whatever the hell was going on that at least was a chance of lifetime. Their improvised volunteering system of recruitment was sending Two Commando the oddest and perhaps the best drafts ever received by any British Army unit. Some of the strangest newcomers were a group of continental Jews, an alarmingly high proportion of whom spoke German as their mother tongue.

### It had seemed unlikely that these Hebrews could be turned into soldiers -- until the Commandos realised the ferocious eagerness and intelligence these new recruits showed in all their efforts. Henry had included several of them on his 'most wanted' list, plus a couple of the razor slashed Gorbals' laddies; McCaughan, the jockey sized sergeant from Skye with the accent of an angel . . . and Cantrell.

### Corporal Cantrell, six feet and one inch of slim Dublin jauntiness, had his knees almost drawn up against his face as he slowly chewed an haversack ration sandwich, apparently unbothered by the Whitley's heaving motion. Rumour had it that on November 21st, 1920, he'd been a fifteen year old member of the Dublin Republican Brigade's Special Action Squad, on that quiet Sunday morning when the IRA carried out their brilliant coup of murdering eleven British intelligence officers while they were still in bed.

### Which was why Henry had selected the Irishman. He knew about guerrilla warfare from the other side of the fence, as the weaker force. It was a skill the British were going to have to learn now. In any case it was hard to pass over a man who had been sentenced to death by the British in the Dublin Four Courts for being a member of the IRA and reprieved by the Anglo-Irish Treaty, only to be badly wounded in the very same courtroom building by a shell fired by the army of the Irish Free State from an 18 pounder battery willingly donated to their cause by a Mr Winston Churchill. After an experience like that Cantrell's decision to join the British army seemed almost natural.

### "And the Irish move to the sound of the guns, like salmon to the sea." Kipling had the right of it, as usual.

### There was a disturbance at the forward end of the plane as one of the passengers got to his feet, stared forward into the cockpit, then sank down again, to shout something in his neighbour's ear. The message was slowly relayed up the reverberating tunnel from man to man.

### "Lieutenant Cunliffe-Brown's complaints, sor, and he says he can see London."

### Well, it sounded like that, only the soldier next to Henry was Private Rosedale, a Geordie who virtually needed an interpreter to communicate with anyone not born on Tyneside. Fortunately he'd earned his living as a journalist in Durham before joining up, so he'd only ever had to worry about writing English and not speaking it.

### As for Cunliffe-Brown it was conceivable that he might seriously frame a message with the word "compliments" in it. The man seemed to have acquired most of his social upbringing from reading the 'Boy's Own Annual'.

### Take another officer the Adjutant had said, that's the order from above. At least Henry hadn't robbed the Commando there because Cunliffe-Brown had only finished his basic parachute training a few days before and had not yet been allotted to a Troop, or more to the point, to a Troop Sergeant to wet nurse him. He was one of the 'hostilities only' officers now arriving, wartime volunteers. Skinny and rather awkward in his movements, deeply tanned, his family farmers in East Africa, no previous military experience or background.

### Still, even an East African at five thousand feet on a cloudy day should recognise London when he saw it. The Whitley had been flying south-east for the whole trip, so the speed and distance figures were about right for London as their destination.

### It wouldn't have been necessary to guess if the aircrew had bothered to mention the plane's destination, but the stupid ponces apparently thought it was beneath their dignity to talk to army brown jobs. Ever since the Battle of Britain had begun to die down every officer in light blue uniform seemed to have become convinced that the survival of the country was due to his own efforts alone.

### Henry was well aware of his own ignorance about what the RAF had really achieved in the last four months of daylight dogfights. The only passing comment he'd allowed himself was that, if after the war, the Air Ministry claims for Luftwaffe losses proved even half way accurate, he'd eat his boots, studs and all.

### Since he'd made his offer whilst being entertained as a guest in the Air Force mess at Ringway it had been received in frigid silence. Impelled by an often dangerous character trait of argumentative logic, Henry had then inquired if the ground crews at Manston aerodrome had finally been persuaded to come out of their air raid shelters, now that winter was coming in?

### Very few people knew about that episode, and how the gallant lads in blue had mutinied at a front line fighter station and gone underground for nearly two weeks, only emerging at night to scavenge for food. Not only did Henry know the details, he took great pleasure in quoting them chapter and verse, until a Squadron Leader on the verge of apoplexy threatened to have him arrested for defeatism. It was also made clear that Captain Winfield was unlikely to be invited into that mess again.

### Henry idly wished that he'd been able to look down from the aircraft as it passed over the small and thickly hedged fields of the East Midlands. His home would have been down there, somewhere near to the Whitley's flight path. A crumbling farm workers tithe cottage, full of kids and smells and a few battered pieces of furniture.

### Henry was the eldest of seven children, all bright, the offspring of a ploughman who could quote more scripture from memory than the parish vicar had ever known. His father was a man who spent his days walking the furrows but who loved to spend his evenings delving just as deeply and thoroughly into any good book he could beg, buy or borrow.

### The memories of his family were driven from Henry's mind as the Whitley began to wallow downwards, the engines throttled back, with a horrible sensation of half flying and half falling just before the aircraft's wheels hit the ground. Several of the passengers seemed far more relieved to be back on terra firma than they normally did after descending under opened silk canopies.

### When Henry dropped out of the hatch under the aircraft he was surprised to find grass underneath his feet instead of hard standing.

### Parked very close to the Whitleys were two Bedford three ton lorries, canvas covers lashed down tightly from cabs to dropboards.

### A stalwart military police sergeant with a face burnt leathery by many years of overseas service was standing by the hatch. He threw Henry a fierce salute and bent down to help him pull his bulky kit bag from underneath the fuselage. Then the MP instinctively stamped his feet in a double shuffle, resettling the lead weights inside the bottoms of his razor creased trousers, so the baggy material resumed the correct 'plus fours' shape over the polished web anklets they were tucked into.

### Henry looked around. It was a small airfield, about a thousand yards long in an east-west direction and much less across. A railway embankment ran at right angles slap across the eastern end. There were two small and very old-fashioned hangars on the south side of the field, probably dating back to the '14 -'18 war, and a kind of clubhouse near to them. The absence of concrete runways and barrack blocks made it almost certain that this was a private flying club's field pressed into emergency service. The only sign of life was a Spitfire parked outside one of the hangars with a group of erks around it staring at the Whitleys as they landed.

### Not surprisingly either, because it was almost certainly the first time that heavy bombers had been landed on this half-arsed apology for an aerodrome. Surely this wasn't London? At least the sky was considerably clearer than it usually was over the Pennines, with only some mares' tails streaking the crisp blue autumn sky. Henry was quite certain he could smell ozone on the light southerly wind.

### "Where are we?" he asked.

### The MP looked puzzled. "Beg your pardon, sir?"

### "Where are we? What's the name of this aerodrome?"

### "This is Rochford, sir, just outside Southend."

### Southend, the stuff that music hall songs were made of, the near legendary playground for yer genuine Cockney sparrer'. As far as Henry could remember it was twenty or thirty miles east of the outer London suburbs, on the northern side of the Thames Estuary.

### A second Whitley bumped down, rolling to a quick stop as the lush grass slowed its wheels.

### The third and final aircraft in the flight seemed to be coming in rather too low towards the embankment as the pilot sought to adjust for the cross wind. At precisely the most awkward moment a small locomotive towing half a dozen goods wagons appeared on top of the embankment as the Whitley flew overhead, fate happily preventing an accident but arranging for the Whitley's undercarriage to flick through the smoke lifting up from the locomotive's funnel.

### Henry smiled in relief at the near miss and also in some delight at the thought of the consequent correspondence between the Southern Railway Company and the RAF. Whether the war was won or lost it was certain that in years to come there would be a huge file buried somewhere in the dusty archives of the Air Ministry dealing with the near collision of a train and one of his Majesty's aircraft on the seventh of October, 1940, at Rochford in the county of . . . well, wherever they were.

### What a pity the Germans and the British couldn't let their paper pushers fight the war out on their own with claims, counter-claims, forms and rubber stamps. The British would probably win hands down, not that it mattered, because in a Europe dominated by bureaucrats the French would rule supreme.

### Anyway, thirty trained Commandos, available for whatever needed to be done. Visible on the Bedfords was the yellow and black portcullis insignia of 1st London Division. Divisional transport, laid on for a scruffy little half Troop, at a time when most front line anti-invasion forces had nothing but commandeered London buses for transport. Who the devil was pulling so many strings, and why?

### Henry's heart sank as deeply as it had risen, down to a black bitter pit. There was only one explanation which made sense. They were going to be used to protect some Very Important Person, a Praetorian guard for somebody the nation couldn't afford to lose in case of invasion or an attempted assassination attempt by fifth columnists. Maybe even Churchill himself.

### And there was cause for mixed feelings: if there was a man whom Henry admired unto love, it was Winston Churchill. Listening to him delivering his defiant speeches on the wireless was enough to set any man's blood on fire. But when that lisping voice had finished plucking down the finest fruits of the English language since Shakespeare then rationality set in, and Henry could see Churchill's overweening pride and stubbornness for what they were, a recipe to lead the British Empire into disaster after disaster.

### Far from guarding the Prime Minister, it might realistically be a lot better for everybody to give the Germans every chance of shooting him. Because there was no way that Britain could be on the winning side in this war now unless the Americans or the Russians came in against Hitler. And why would they do that?

### "Sir, I've got special orders for your movement: verbal orders."

### Henry realised that he'd been staring at the MP sergeant without seeing him, a day dreaming trait which was all too common to him.

### "What are they?"

### The sergeant seemed disconcerted again. Henry could guess why. It was his own accent, the harsh, nasal and unlovely dialect of the East Midlands, where the entrenched Saxon tones had never fully adapted to the alien language bought in by the last lot of invaders in 1066. In many regiments and corps an officer who sounded like Henry would have had a very difficult time of it from both their men and in the officers' mess.

### Fortunately a great deal of social allowance was made for the Royal Engineers, that most plebeian of all military arms.

### "Sir, I've been ordered to ask you to make sure all members of your unit travel in the back of the lorries with all the tarpaulins laced up securely. Nobody is supposed to look out during the journey."

### Well, that had to be some sort of security notion. Number Two Commando soldiers were the most distinctively dressed troops in the country. Their cropped helmets and knee length body overalls were straight copies of German paratroop equipment captured in Holland, copied because nobody in the War Office between the wars had given the slightest thought to preparing British parachute forces.

### Henry found that Sergeant McCaughan had quietly arrived at his side, ready to organise matters at the nod of a head. Another regular, he was twenty and thus a year younger than Henry, both of them holding ranks which they had only been able to reach so early because of wartime expansion.

### Not that either of them felt out of their depth. Each had joined up at fourteen years of age, McCaughan as a boy soldier and Henry as an entrant at the Beachley Army School for Apprenticed Tradesmen. In their own and each other's estimation they were both old sweats, with matching mutual respect.

### There were a few smiles from the men as Henry clambered onto the nearest lorry, smiles which broadened as he almost fell on his backside when the vehicle jerked forward. It was normal practice for officers to ride in vehicle cabs, leaving the rest of the passengers with the customary freedom to sing cheerfully obscene songs and wolf whistle any halfway decent looking girls they saw.

### In truth, many officers would have considered the notion of riding in the back of a lorry with their troops as a prelude to bolshevik rebellion. Their feelings would have been further outraged by being addressed by a mere corporal who never even asked permission to speak.

### "Would you have any idea what's in the wind, sir?" Cantrell asked cheerfully.

### "We've been sent for in a hurry, and the only thing special about us is that we're paratroopers. So you can draw your own conclusions."

### "Well, sir, if you were to guess?"

### "If I were to guess, corporal, I'd guess we're going to drop into Dublin, looking like Germans, so that Mr De Valera will get a big fright and invite the British back into Eire to protect it. If so, I'll suggest we land on top of the biggest brewery in Ireland and fight it out to the last barrel of Guinness."

### There was a rush of laughter along the wooden benches, as Cantrell grinned easily. "Ah, Captain Winfield, sir, you have the mind for thinking up the worst places to hit people. A great asset you would have been to the organisation in the old days."

### "Don't get your thirst up yet, Corporal. It's just possible I may be wrong. Is there anybody here who knows these parts?"

### Private Owens put up his hand hesitantly. He was the only Londoner in the lorry. Like many of the commandos, including Henry, he was short and stocky, though spared Henry's overabundance of freckles.

### "I came up this way to Burnham-On-Crouch once, sir, working on a Pickford's van. Nothing but flat fields and miles and miles of mud, what they call the Maplin Sands, only I didn't see much sand around."

### Henry shrugged. "OK, now you all know as much as I do. I suppose we'll just have to wait and see."

### The lorry suddenly slowed down, and then waddled slowly over a series of bumps; possibly a planked bridge.

### As it speeded up again afterwards the Bedford started to sway from side to side almost as disconcertingly as the Whitley had done, without even the advantage of fresh air to counteract any resulting nausea. There were too many Woodbines being smoked underneath the laced up canvas for any further hint of ozone to be detectable. But Henry hoped they were still near the sea, wondering if the Bedford was perhaps driving along some twisting road on the edge of a beach, or threading through the cobbled streets of a little fishing port where the sign of the Admiral Benbow creaked in the wind outside a mullion windowed inn.

### He had a very active imagination, probably too much to have a satisfied life either as a regular soldier or as a civilian engineer. His father might have been right about his son's acceptance of the King's Shilling.

### "You're a damned fool, our Henry. Anybody in this day and age who goes sowing, soldiering or sailing wants his head read. Get yoursen an office job in a nice warm factory and start saving for a decent house of your own. There's enough silly bastards in the world wearing uniforms already."

### Which was exactly the same advice as every other survivor of the great war gave to their sons: "Never again, never!"

### But how did you tell a kid anything? Most of them had to find the hard way to be convinced. Before the May blitzkreig Henry had thought of war almost purely as an intellectual and physical challenge.

### Looking back at the wholesale death and suffering, the crying child between its machine-gunned parents, the wanton destruction of a beautiful country, the useless butchery of helpless soldiers on the sands of Dunkirk, he knew now that it was the result of ultimate stupidity, not reason.

### It was perhaps almost possible to excuse Chamberlain and the British people for the betrayal of Munich. Anybody who wasn't insane should fear war. But if the allies had only shown their teeth years before, when Hitler had made his first aggressive move, into the Rhineland! If a real fear of a stalemated war had existed on both sides, not just one, negotiations might have achieved something.

### Henry was still deep in thought about the past mistakes which had brought Britain to the very doorstep of hell when the lorry shuddered to a halt. Cab doors clattered open, the lacing on the rear canvas panels was loosened from outside.

### "Out you get, gents."

### If Rochford had been flat this terrain was straightforwardly bleak. Large irregular meadows of tussocky grass, water shining in the early afternoon sun along the channels which bisected the countryside, with a rime of thick black mud visible on the nearest ones. A pair of curlews mewed at each other as they sideslipped overhead in a strengthening wind.

### The only sign of civilisation immediately visible was the third class metalled road the lorries had come along, so narrow that it seemed to vanish like a pantomime backdrop into the clumps of reeds growing in the ditches on each side of it. Only where they were parked did the road suddenly broaden out for a short distance, providing just enough room for the convoy of clumsy Bedfords to make three point turns and retire in biblical order, he that was last becoming first.

### Looking around, Henry first saw an old stone windmill, blades removed and the building apparently long deserted. Huddled around the base of it were some slate roofed cottages, perhaps ten or fifteen of them, the nearest about two hundred yards away. Long strands of green moss seemed to be so well established on some of the walls that the sodden ground looked to be digesting them.

### Lieutenant Cunliffe-Brown appeared alongside the road`s edge, his face white and pinched.

### "I'd be happy to offer some advice, sir, if only I could think of anything useful to say. I`m feeling a bit lost at the moment."

### "And the cold too, hey, Eric?"

### "Just a smidgeon. I think it's the scenery more than the actual temperature."

### "You have a point. Boris Karloff would be at home here. What the hell are we supposed to be doing in this hovel? I'll see if I can get some sense out of that MP Sergeant."

### "Shall I fall the men in?"

### Henry sucked his teeth thoughtfully as he saw the Military Police NCO marching ponderously in their direction.

### "No, start sorting them out into sections, so they know whose face fits where in the tactical set up. Sergeant McCaughan and the corporals can pick and chose who goes where."

### The MP saluted with full regimental panache again, the hand travelling the longest way and the shortest way down. After Henry had returned the salute, he was offered a brown OHMS envelope with a seal on all corners, together with a receipt book.

### "These are your orders, sir. Could you please sign for them?"

### Henry checked the overstamped number on the envelope against the one in the receipt book very carefully before signing. He'd long ago learnt that the most important man in any Army unit was the ORQMS. The Orderly Room Quartermaster Sergeant was the warrant officer responsible for all the paperwork, a man who could help or hinder you at every turn. And wherever they were bound for, it certainly wasn`t beyond the reach of the Army`s strangling bureaucracy.

### "Right, Sergeant, I'd appreciate a look at your map before you go -- unless you've had orders to the contrary."

### "No sir, I'm sure you're welcome to look. We're at grid reference 44568783. I was told to debus you here and leave you to proceed on foot."

### Henry took the offered ordnance survey map and found the grid reference. It was close to a peninsula about eight miles wide, south of the river Crouch and due north of the wide mouth of the Thames as it ran into the sea. The peninsula was composed of three islands, separated from the mainland and each other by tributaries of the Crouch flowing from north to south.

### The outer island of Foulness was by far the largest of the group, merging into the huge expanse of the Maplin Sands. Nestled against Foulness' south-eastern flank was Potton island, two miles long and a mile wide, and Havengore, a third of the size of Potton.

### On the mainland opposite the middle of Potton island a tiny and isolated hamlet was marked. The only thing of any note about it was the conventional map symbol for a windmill. According to the map, this hamlet was called 'Petty Bowling'. The grid reference the sergeant had supplied was half a mile to the west of Petty Bowling, on the only road going into the habitation.

### Henry decided it might be better thought of as the only way out of the place. There was nothing shown on the far side of Petty Bowling, no bridge, no ford. Just the cottages, the river, and the apparently deserted island on the other side of the river.

### According to the map, should he take it into his head to order his men to about face and march back into civilisation, they faced six twisting miles of the road before seeing the lights of Little Wakering looming up out of the marsh mists. And Little Wakering appeared to be about as interesting a place as Petty Bowling. The local tendency for diminutively suggestive place names could hardly be described as misleading.

### The Commandos stood clear of the road as the lorries noisily turned around and roared off towards the distant horizon. A few black faced sheep nearby stared at the vehicles with mild interest before resuming their grazing. A couple of Henry's men made two fingered gestures at the MP's retreating backs, though without the zest they would normally have shown in being rude to the hated redcaps.

### Henry stared along the road to the village, which still showed no sign of life. He recited, slowly:

### "See you the dimpled track that runs,

### All hollow through the wheat?

### O that was where they hauled the guns,

### That smote King Philip's fleet."

### "Sir?" Cunliffe-Brown responded, clearly puzzled.

### "When I was a boy I won a book at school, the verses of Rudyard Kipling. I read it a lot, and still do. And I presume our presence here has something to do with smiting Herr Hitler. Let's see if the orders throw some light on the subject."

### Henry opened the envelope and read the single sheet of paper inside. Then he shrugged his shoulders in disbelief and beckoned Sergeant McCaughan over to join them.

### "We're to report to the post office in that village over there. That's all it says, before anybody asks any questions. Sergeant, we'll double march to the place to get some fresh air into our lungs. And the first man who asks if we're being posted somewhere is next in line for kitchen duties."

### "Yes . . ." The sergeant's eyes suddenly narrowed as he stared up in the air over Henry's shoulder. "What's that, sir?"

### Henry turned and looked up.

### About a quarter of a mile away at an altitude of around a thousand feet was some kind of an aircraft, heading almost directly towards them. There was nothing to be heard from it and as it got closer the silhouette became recognisable as a Hotspur. Two of them had already arrived at Ringway, since the Hotspur was the first British military transport glider to go into production. They carried a pilot and seven men and were Britain's answer to the German gliders which were rumoured to have captured the supposedly impregnable Belgium fort of Eban-Emael by landing troops on its upperworks.

### Yet there was definitely something strange about the way this Hotspur was being flown. The assumed tactical procedure was for a glider to be cast off from its tow plane near to the landing site and then to dive down quickly to dodge enemy fire. This one seemed to be travelling as far as possible for every foot of height lost, keeping to a dead straight line. Nor was there any sign at all of the towing plane -- the Hotspur might as well have appeared out of thin air for all Henry could see. As it got closer he stared at the glider, wondering if he was suffering from double vision.

### For a second or two Henry thought he was seeing two gliders wingtip to wingtip in an incredible piece of formation flying. Then he realised the truth, that there were two fuselages side by side, married together by a shared centre section and an extended horizontal tail surface. It was obviously a way of building a large capacity glider as quickly and easily as possible with components already in production.

### Together with his men he gaped at the strange aircraft as it passed close by with a faint fluttering noise of disturbed air. Both fuselages were painted dark green and both had cockpit canopies on their nose, one with a head visible inside it, the other canopy apparently painted over for some odd reason.

### Henry estimated the twin Hotspur's glide angle at something around fifteen feet across the ground to one foot of height lost. It seemed impossible the pilot could fly such a steady course for so long and still land anywhere near where he wanted to. But if the glider didn't break off quickly it was going to come down dangerously close to the cottages or the river behind them. Henry waited for the Hotspur to nose down into the last piece of flat ground.

### It didn't. It flew on in a straight line over the rooftops of the village. One thing was for sure, if it didn't hit the water it was certainly going to land just on the other side of the tributary, on Potten island.

### "What do you make of that, sir?" Sergeant McCaughan asked.

### Henry shrugged. "God knows. Probably the Air Force playing silly buggers as usual. The stupid prats are likely swimming ashore by now." He raised his voice. "Right turn, double march."

### The Commandos, Henry in the lead, began doubling towards the mysteries of Petty Bowling, kit bags bouncing on their shoulders. Even running, there was plenty of breath to spare in the half Troop. One man somewhere in the rear began whistling a tune, to have it quickly picked up and sung by his comrades, a tune from the latest and certainly the greatest Hollywood film musical yet made:

### "We're off to see the Wizard,

### The wonderful wonderful Wizard of Oz,

### We hear he is a Whiz of a Wiz,

### If ever a Wiz there was . . ."

### CHAPTER TWO

### The main street of Petty Bowling hardly seemed big enough to accommodate the half Troop, even when spread out in tactical formation. At the entrance to the village a wooden bench was occupied by a dirty looking woman about thirty years old, wearing a pinafore and a head scarf. She was gently rocking a pram with her left hand, the other holding a pinched dog end from which she dragging out the last few lungfuls of smoke.

### On the opposite side of the road next to a wall was a stone block with steps up the side. Its utility might not have been instantly clear to the urban reared soldiers, although shire boys like Henry had often seen them used by upper class ladies of the old school, mounting their horses side saddle before riding to the hunt. Except that at the top of this one was an additional wooden block, six inches thick, apparently intended to give a little extra height to the user. In fact it was about at the right level to let an average sized man stand on it and peer over the top of the wall.

### Henry lifted the block, very cautiously, surprised to find how light it was. Nestled inside the hollowed out centre was a mark seven anti-personnel pressure operated mine. Anybody who decided to use the mounting block as a vantage point would keep on going, straight to heaven. The resulting waist high blast of fragments off the top of the solid stone would be devastatingly effective against any troops within thirty or forty feet.

### "You're a careful one aren't you, Captain Winfield?"

### Henry stared at the grubby baby minder. Her accent sounded completely wrong, even to his tin ear. More like Girton than Gravesend. He walked over to the pram and lifted the top blanket. Inside, held level by clips, was a fine bouncing Thompson sub-machine gun, with a fat tum of a fifty round drum. Her yellow stained fingers had reached in through a hole cut into the back of the pram, to rest lightly on the pistol grip and trigger.

### "That's interesting," Henry snapped. "A Tommy gun. My battalion of three hundred parachute trained Commandos has managed to acquire exactly seven of those. They're the only sub-machine guns we've ever seen, except for the odd times the Germans help out our military education by killing us with their Schmeissers. But, by God, at least our housewives aren't lacking in military supplies. That's a great comfort."

### The woman smiled -- faintly.

### "I'm Patrol Leader Braddock of Home Guard auxiliary unit 202. Our priorities are higher than yours, Captain. Show me the left side of your chest, please."

### The Troop watched with surprise and wry amusement as their Officer Commanding unbuttoned his para jacket and khaki flannel shirt and held them open. The woman's hand felt cold as it slipped in underneath the warmth of Henry's shirt and across the large patch of scar tissue underneath his left nipple.

### "How old were you when that happened, and what caused it?"

### "I was three. I pulled over a pot of boiling water from the hob plate in the fireplace."

### Henry didn't think he was telling her something she didn't already know.

### "Stupidity," he muttered surly.

### "We have to be sure of your identity."

### "I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about a woman who dresses up as a village housewife when she's never scrubbed a door step or turned a butter churn in her life. I'll give you a tip; German officers and NCO's are experts at picking out genuine workers. They wouldn't even have to look at your hands -- one touch is enough to give you away."

### "If I touch one, he won't be in a condition to know the difference -- come on".

### This time the tone of her voice had the unmistakable tone of confidence of one of nature's aristocratic whippers-in, of dogs and slow witted peasants. Even pushing the battered old pram, she seemed to exude a kind of overawing presence. As he followed her along the street and past the crumbling cottages, a not inconsiderable amount of Henry's attention was distracted by the elegant dimensions of the hips and buttocks hidden underneath the unbecoming pinafore.

### The post office was located next to the 'Horse and Trumpet', a pub with a thatched roof and an alarming inclination to overhang the street. Presumably the result of old age, although it clearly wouldn't need much of an explosion to bring the whole edifice down, thus effectively blocking access to the other half of the hamlet.

Inside the dirt streaked window of the post office was a hanging coil of yellow fly paper carrying a burden of winged corpses left over from the summer, and a scrawled notice saying: "NO CHOCOLATES OR RAZOR BLADES LEFT IN STOCK. BLAME HITLER, NOT THE PROPRIETOR."

### Standing in the doorway was the only other visible citizen of Petty Bowling, a small lean faced middle aged man smoking a big pipe. His suit was of ancient tweed, the leather patches on the coat elbows worn to a shiny patina. Whatever its vintage, it probably postdated his black leather shoes, which had the sort of deep shine that only geological layers of spit rubbed polish could achieve.

### A large gold wristwatch and the sweet smell of the tobacco in the air helped confirm the initial impression of long held wealth.

### "Good evening, Captain. I'm Chief Petty Officer Crampton. Pleased to meet you."

### Chief Petty Officer! That was a naval rank equivalent to a sergeant, or thereabouts. Absolute balls! Another piece of bloody nonsense!

### Henry opened his mouth to give a blistering retort. Crampton's held a glint of puckish humour. Henry snapped his fingers as something flickered in his mind, a recent memory of a book he'd read.

### "Not E.E. Crampton, the writer?"

### "The same, at your service."

### Crampton looked mildly surprised at being known, although his fame as an author and barrister was widespread. He specialised in short stories which explored the odder intricacies of English law. He also found time to be a regular contributor to Punch, a crusader against the existing divorce and tax laws, the member of parliament for Oxford University and a Freeman of the Brotherhood of the Thames.

### Crampton's love of legalistic minutiae was only matched by his love of London's river and the sprit-sailed Thames barges he sailed at every opportunity. Hence he was indeed a petty officer in the Royal Navy Volunteer Reserve.

### The only other thing Henry could remember about him was a small but very important item: Crampton's last collection of stories had been prefaced by an introduction written by one of the author's oldest friends, a discredited political hack called Winston Spencer Churchill.

### Patrol leader Braddock snorted with amusement. "You've obviously had a good literary education, Captain Winfield."

### "Not really. It's just that I never had the sort of schooling which enables me to enjoy mess nights with a clear conscience. While the well bred are throwing food around and breaking the furniture, I go off and read a book. It stops me getting ideas above my station."

### The woman stared at Henry as if she had come down to dinner to find the estate's pig man sitting at the head of the high table.

### "I think we're straying from the point a little," Crampton said gently. "Captain, behind the inn there is a skittles alley. Inside are sacks of straw and blankets for your men, rations, and a petrol stove. Can they settle in and organise a scratch meal for themselves? I'm afraid all our arrangements are rather extemporised at present."

### "Before we worry about anything else, can I remind you that I've got troops without even a pistol to their names? If Hitler attacks this place tonight, whatever it is, we couldn't do a damn thing to help defend it. Or have we been flown here to put up the tents for a garden party?"

### "I'm sure Patrol Leader Braddock can fix your men up with whatever they need. She has a particularly well stocked armoury."

### Henry called Cunliffe-Brown over and tried to explain the unlikely situation.

### "If these people have got weapons then draw what we need as soon as possible, get settled in and organise a guard roster -- officers to take a turn as guard commanders. And for God's sake, see if there's any spare ammunition so we can try to get some zeroing done. At least there's no shortage of space for range work."

### Patrol-Leader Braddock seemed upset.

### "My unit is responsible for the security of this area and no firing of any kind will be allowed in it."

### "Very well," Henry answered grumpily. "Then if you're in charge of security I'd better warn you that some of my men speak German amongst themselves. Tell your guards so they don't get trigger happy."

### Crampton blanched: "German? Why do they speak German?"

### "Probably because they're ex-German citizens. I've got five of them, all Jewish. Got the makings of the best bloody soldiers you'll ever see."

### Crampton and Braddock appeared to be suffering from simultaneous attacks of chronic bowel gas.

### "We can't possibly have people like that here," the woman gasped, clearly horrified. "The risks would be intolerable. Whatever possessed you to bring them?"

### "Because nobody told me I had to consider any security implications when asking for volunteers," Henry explained patiently. "I was simply given a free hand to pick men I thought would be the best in a fight. Every one of those Jewish soldiers has relatives who've been tortured and murdered by brown shirted thugs. They're like the Polish fighter pilots in the RAF who do the real damage to the Luftwaffe. They don't piss around dog fighting, they get up close, shoot a Jerry in the back, then sod off quick."

### Henry nodded towards his troops.

### "Incidentally, you see that tall Corporal over there? His name is Cantrell and I have every reason to believe he was, and may still be, a senior officer of the Irish Republican Army."

### "Oh, marvellous!" the Patrol Leader snapped. "And whose side are you on?" Henry didn't bother to answer.

### Crampton sucked loudly on his pipe, then spoke again. "Captain, would you trust these men to keep their mouths shut under all circumstances."

### "No. I don't think any of them would willingly help the Germans. But I wouldn't trust any of those Jews as far as I could throw them in connection with information which might be useful to the Zionist movement.

### "As for Cantrell, apart from any Dublin connection he's got, the Irish and the Yanks stick together like turds to a blanket. For a hundred dollars and place of honour in the Saint Patrick's day parade he'd probably spill everything he knows about us to the New York Sanitation Department, let alone Washington."

### Cunliffe-Brown blinked, possibly shocked by Henry's bluntness. Crampton turned to him.

### "Carry on, please, Lieutenant. The Patrol Leader will give you every assistance. Come with me, Captain."

### Henry walked beside him, past a gravel bordered chapel towards the narrow estuary. Small wavelets kicked up by the wind lapped against the piles of a sagging wooden jetty tottering on barnacle encrusted piles. Crampton paused beside it.

### "Why did you bring the Irishman, Captain Winfield?"

### "He's an expert on guerrilla war. More than that, his expertise was gained on the irregulars' side of the fence. Despite what the 'Seven Pillars of Wisdom' would have you believe, it's not the sort of warfare we know much about."

### "Hmm. Well, you'll realise you've landed me with quite a security headache?"

###  "Bollocks."

### Henry was tired, and suddenly cold in the breeze blowing off the dirty looking water.

### "We're here to do a job which requires parachute troops. If any of my lot get captured they'll tell the Germans no more than any other men under Gestapo interrogation, which means, eventually, everything. So would the most patriotic Englishman: a red hot poker up your arse tends to loosen your faith, along with everything else. On that score it doesn't matter who you drop into the lion's den."

### "Suppose there are survivors? Survivors with important and highly secret information who return to England to tell stories about what they've seen?

### "I'm no expert, but counter intelligence is surely only a matter of manpower. With just a few suspects you should be able to watch them all the time, even if it takes a hundred field police dressed in civilian clothes to do the job. You might even get some interesting leads. I don't know about the IRA or the Yanks, but I've got a notion the Soviets are further into us than anybody suspects. I reckon there's one committed communist in every twenty of the twats that come out of a university."

### Henry laughed harshly.

### "Except maybe those that come out of Russian universities."

### "And Oxford and Cambridge, of course. I judge from your conversational tenor that you never graced either of those establishments?"

### "You are perfectly correct in that assumption. As for the political purity of the public schoolboys' post puberty pleasure palaces, I hope you're equally correct."

### There was a pause while Crampton took out his pipe and looked at as if it had just materialised in his mouth.

### "Captain, when you were granted a commission after finishing your time at the Army's Apprentice School, you went through the same training as all regular Army engineers do. You read the mechanical science tripos at Cambridge -- Christ's College, in your case. Because sapper undergraduates only get two years study instead of the normal three years it's very unusual for Royal Engineer students to gain a three part honours degree. There was only one officer in your year who achieved such a distinction. We both know who that officer was, don't we? So why are you lying to me?"

### Henry shrugged.

### "Even the War Office can't spend forever re-organising itself from the chaos of Dunkirk. When they finally realise they've let the Commandos take a trained engineer officer I'll be posted back to the RE's. I don't want that, I want to help run the war. The only chance we have against the Germans' massive military superiority is fight them like Apaches, with quick raids against key targets. The bastards not only have a lot more men than us, their training and equipment is far better."

### "And you think you have a talent for such warfare?"

### "Well, there's clearly no other bugger in the British Army who knows what he's doing."

### Crampton fell silent while he pondered on this latest example of Winfield tact. Henry took the opportunity to examine the scene. On the other side of the narrow river were the reeds marking the edge of Potton island. Moored up amongst them was a wooden vessel about seventy foot long with a stumpy mast. It was no surprise to Henry to recognise her as a Thames barge.

### "The last of the breed," Crampton said lovingly, following his eyes.

"The 'Lady of the Lea,' only nine years old and almost certainly the last wooden spritsail barge ever to be built. We're using her as a floating barracks, store room and workshop while we play our little games in this lonely spot. Do you see the red trim just visible underneath all that horrible green paint? She used to earn her living carrying explosives -- so she has scuttles fore and aft which allow her to be sunk very quickly if necessary. If she caught fire, for example."

### Henry nodded, not very interested.

### "Talking of explosive ladies, who is that lunatic woman with the panzer pram?"

### "Mrs Braddock is a member of Home Guard Auxiliary Unit 202. Although described as Home Guard units the auxiliaries are in fact responsible for organising and arming the underground cells of the British resistance movement. They have hideouts all over the country, with weapons and supplies laid up against the day the Germans invade."

### "It's pointless having a resistance movement in a country this small unless it contributes to the main battle while it's actually being fought," Henry explained, trying to keep his patience. "Once the Germans have won that, everything else is irrelevant. A group of guerrillas sitting in the marshes won't make any difference at all to the final conquest of Britain."

### "You're quite right. The reason the auxiliaries are here is because we need to temporarily guard this area without drawing attention to it. Those damned high flying Junkers 86's range all over southern England with their cameras. If we'd surrounded the place with regular troops and tanks we might as well have sent Luftwaffe intelligence a map with a ring drawn around Petty Bowling."

### "Brilliant tactics -- except it would be easier all round if you put your secret establishment on the west coast of Scotland, well away from all the bombers or reconnaissance planes, and then surrounded it with troops."

### Crampton fiddled with his pipe and a small horn-handled knife, scraping carbon out of the bowl.

### "Your geographical argument is sound enough. The snag is that I'm administrating a most secret research section under the direct control of the Prime Minister. What we're developing are devices with revolutionary implications. Which means that Winston wants us as close to London as possible, so he can keep us right under his thumb. He might have to leave the Middle East to Wavell, he might not be able to lead the Home Fleet out of Scapa Flow on the bridge of the leading battleship, but, by God, he makes sure we're not going to be under anybody's control but his."

### Henry tried to come to terms with what Crampton was saying. This was a man who spoke with trained legal precision, not some witless bullshitter. This was something big, something important, and Captain Henry Winfield was miraculously close enough to find out about it.

### "Does that odd twin fuselaged Hotspur we saw a few minutes ago have anything to do with what you're talking about?"

### "Yes, it certainly does. So do you, Captain. In fact you're the reason for a lot of the things that are happening here. I'll take you over and show you."

### Crampton carefully knocked the ash out of his pipe and dropped the briar into his jacket pocket. Then he bent down to undo the rope holding a small rowing boat to the jetty. Standing inside the small boat, he held it against one of the piles while the soldier clambered into it.

### Once seated in the stern Henry watched Crampton use the oars with casual grace to pull towards the barge. But all his attention was focused on Crampton's last enigmatic remark.

### "You don't mean that suggestion I put in about snatching gliders off the ground, do you?"

### "That's exactly what I do mean," Crampton confirmed, smiling. "How did you get such an outlandish notion?"

### Henry shrugged.

### "It was pretty simple. The Army and the RAF have had a scheme for years for picking up despatch bags from the ground. The troops put up bamboo poles with a loop of rope hanging between them and the Lysander or whatever aircraft it is comes in flying low with a hook hanging underneath it. The hook grabs the rope, the bag is whisked off into the air and the aircraft observer pulls it in.

### "When I saw the gliders at Ringway it crossed my mind that it might be possible to use the same technique to pull a glider off the ground with a powered aircraft. The problem was the damage that the initial jerk would do to the glider.

### "Anyway, I made some enquiries and I found out that the Americans have started making ropes out of a new synthetic material called nylon. The stuff can stretch quite a way without breaking, so it seemed likely it would help to absorb that initial shock. I did some quick calculations which seemed to suggest the idea was worth experimenting with and sent it in to the War Office. Never heard anything more about it, so I thought it had got stuck in a pigeon hole somewhere."

### "The pigeon hole it ended up in was mine. I have a special need for a Commando raid at a target which is too far from the coast to be reached from the sea. Nor did I relish the thought of using paratroopers who could not possibly reach home afterwards. It also happened that your suggestion tied in rather nicely with some ideas my section was already working on. So we decided to try the concept out. I'm happy to tell you that your calculations were correct."

### Henry was staring at the deck of the barge. Just forward of the huge tiller with the barge's name engraved on it were two gun positions, port and starboard, each with a double Oerlikon mounting. There seemed to be similar mountings in the bows -- eight 20mm cannon to protect one wooden barge when entire convoys of merchant ships didn't have as much firepower!

### And a steady thumping noise, together with a trickle of water and smoke from an exhaust pipe proved that not only did the Lady of the Lea have an engine but that it was warmed up and ready for instant use.

### A hard faced young man in a rollneck pullover standing near the starboard lee board dropped a line to the dinghy and then lowered a ladder of wooden slats secured together with ropes. Henry managed to haul himself up it without falling into the river. Crampton followed him onto the deck without even bothering to take the pipe from his mouth.

### Henry looked around with interest. Gun crews manned every gun position, constantly scanning their arcs of responsibility with unblinking care. Fore and aft was a lookout with huge binoculars on stands in front of each of them, continually swiveling the lenses across the ground and the sky. Henry also noted the axes lying ready by each of the mooring ropes. It would take some pretty quick work to get a boarding party onto this worthless looking vessel.

### "Let's go for a walk, shall we?"

### Henry followed Crampton to the gangplank on the other side of the barge. It joined onto a series of forty four gallon drums floating on their sides in the shallow water, supporting a walkway of twin planks which took them to the shore. Running alongside the planks were a row of metal stakes carrying a field telephone cable.

### At the end of the walkway a muddy path had been cut through the reeds, which were replaced by brambles and patches of open grass as the path led the two men onto drier ground, the telephone cable still following the same course.

### From ahead the sound of a small engine was starting to overlay the noise of the wind. They walked over a slight rise in the ground onto the edge of a clear stretch of grassland some sixty yards wide and stretching out about three hundred yards in front of them. In the middle of the strip were two slender poles and at the other end was the Hotspur, its twin noses facing them.

### Over on the left was a tangle of small trees and bushes which seemed to have been dragged together from different parts of the improvised landing ground. Only at very close range was it possible to see that the debris had been artistically arranged above an improvised pill box made of sandbags concreted together. Henry was suddenly aware of the gun muzzles pointing out from underneath the camouflage of broken branches. Next to the pillbox was a small shed with a metal dish about two foot in diameter mounted above its roof. Henry had never seen anything like it before.

### "An extremely narrow beam high frequency radio transmitter," Crampton told him, pointing to the dish.

### Henry wondered what he was supposed to say.

### "I'm a mechanical engineer, not an electrical one."

### He was momentarily distracted when he noticed where the beat of the engine was coming from. A little tracked machine was parked underneath a flysheet close to the path. It was about six feet long with a seat and control levers on it and had obviously been used to haul the debris clear of the strip. A power take off mounted on the small caterpillar tractor was driving an electric generator.

Closer examination revealed that the tractor had a six horsepower Sturmey-Archer engine and the maker's name plate said 'MODEL MG 2 - RANSOMES, SYMES & JEFFERIES, NORWICH.'

### "A neat little gadget," Henry commented. "A kind of pocket sized bulldozer."

### "They're used by market gardeners for ploughing, I believe. Also in Holland, because they can be ferried across the drainage dykes in small boats. But we do have more important things to discuss."

### Henry noted that the cable from the generator led to the shed and then walked with Crampton down to the two poles in the landing strip. They were apparently made of aluminium, of sections joined together to make an overall height of twenty feet, and set fifty feet apart. Each pole stood on a H-section stand and was secured by three ropes lashed to it about two thirds of the way up and tightly stretched out to pegs driven deep into the grass. At the top of each pole was two half rings. Running through the inner rings were the loops of light rope used to lift up the lasso of the towing rope and hold it in place with breaking cord. On each of the outer lifting ropes was a battery lamp lifted up to the same height as the top of the lasso.

### "You're thinking of a night snatch? I never thought the RAF would even consider trying that, not even in bright moonlight."

### "We're giving them some very special help," Crampton answered, displaying a slight smile. "And your idea works. We've developed a workable method of grabbing the loop using a navy Swordfish with an extended version of the normal carrier landing hook. The glider is on the end of the nylon rope hanging here. The nylon takes up some of the shock but the glider goes from standing still to a hundred miles an hour in seven seconds. I haven't tried it myself but I'm told it's quite an experience.

### "At least we've had no casualties so far. The Swordfish has just gone off to Farnborough to have a radio altimeter fitted for the first night snatch."

### "Fine, but your glider pilot must be either a very clever or a very stupid man. I saw him fly into this strip from the other side of the village and it seemed a miracle to me that he was able to judge his height and distance so well."

### Crampton's smile grew wider.

### "Let us step into this shed, Captain, and I shall show you something very remarkable indeed."

### At first glance the interior of the shed suggested nothing of overwhelming interest. There was a roughly poured concrete floor underfoot, two men in their twenties wearing civilian clothes underneath white lab coats, trestle tables with various sorts of electrical equipment.

### The scientists, if that's what they were, just nodded as Crampton and Henry came in. They were bent in deep concentration over a teleprinter machine which suddenly broke into action and printed a line or two at great speed. One of the men swore angrily.

### "What bloody idiot put that figure in for signal velocity reduction through the aerials?"

### Crampton appeared slightly offended. He fiddled with his pipe while Henry stared at the teleprinter with his jaw hanging open. He had to be going crazy because after printing the first line of text he was certain the teleprinter had printed the second line backwards without bothering with a carriage return.

### "God almighty, can the signaller at the other end of the line really type in reverse order? I've never heard of anybody being able to do that."

### Crampton hesitated, apparently seeking the right words.

### "That's our big secret, Henry. The teleprinter operator on the Lady of the Lee isn't a human being."

### "Oh yes? Have we started enlisting Martians then? They'll just about fit in nicely with the assorted mob I've already got in my unit."

### "I'm being quite serious, Henry. Have you ever heard of a man called Charles Babbage? He died about seventy years ago."

### Henry nodded.

### "The name rings a bell. He tried to build some kind of weird calculating machine, didn't he?"

### "That's correct. He called it an analytical machine. The idea was to carry out calculations using gears and levers. Unfortunately the idea was ahead of its time. No craftsmen could build the mechanism to the level of accuracy required. But there was nothing wrong with the concept that Babbage had. It is possible in principle to design a machine which can carry out calculations. Some of our bright boys have been thinking for a long time about trying to do what Babbage tried, only using electricity instead of mechanical gears."

###  "Electricity?"

### Crampton picked up a folding canvas chair, opened it and motioned Henry to sit down.

### "Captain, all I'm talking about is using numbers. Just like counting on your fingers. The thing is, with electricity, we need to use some kind of switches to do our counting. You've got ten fingers, but a switch has only got two states. It can be either switched on or switched off. Because we have ten fingers we count in units of ten, the decimal system. Whereas the machine counts in twos, the binary system. You've heard of that?"

### "I understand the concept. Your first number is either a one or a zero, then you move to the left with each positive number doubling in value; 2, 4, 8, and so on."

### "Yes, that's it, though I'm no mathematician myself. But what the science people tell me is that for a long time they've had a pretty clear idea of how an electronic arithmetical device could be built. They knew in theory how to build the circuits for an electrical calculator. The problem was that those circuits would have needed many thousands of vacuum valves. Nobody was prepared to sink a fortune into building a calculator which would have been lucky to run for five minutes at a time before a valve blew."

### "And something happened to change things?"

### "Yes, three years ago a strange discovery was made by a million to one chance. The discovery was that certain types of material could be used to build a device which could amplify signals, a device which could do the same job as a valve in a circuit.

### "Imagine a fire brigade hose operating at extremely high pressure with a big brass valve set in the middle of the hose: now imagine a garden hose coupled up to that big valve and that whenever water comes down the garden hose it pushes the valve open. Every time the weak little garden tap is turned on it sends a fierce jet of water shooting out of the big hose. Turn off the garden tap and the big hose stops flowing.

### "That's what this newly discovered device could do with electronic signals. It was like the valve in the fire hose: it could take a weak current like a radio signal and amplify it to a speaker so it can be heard. It transfers control signals from a low resistance circuit to a high resistance circuit -- a transferable resistor, otherwise known as a transistor."

### Henry tried to make a sensible response: "So what's the advantage of these transistor things over a vacuum valve?"

### "Well, they're about one hundred times smaller, they use very little electricity, they're quite easy to make, they're very rugged and, best of all, they're absolutely reliable. By a stroke of luck the team that developed them had one member whom immediately realised their potential for building calculating machines.

### "Even then the government could see that a war with Hitler was looming and if such calculating machines could be built in secrecy they might be a God send to us. So the only transistors produced were reserved for use in electronic calculators -- or computers, which is the preferred term. If you only knew the amount of money and man hours which has been sunk into developing them! We could have built another battleship with the cash and still had change left over. But I think computers will turn out to be a good bargain."

### "And you're in charge of all this?"

### Crampton waved one hand depreciatingly.

### "Not in any technical way. But since I've been MP for Oxford University for several years and I have friends in both political and scientific circles, I've been asked to look into more ways of using these computers to help the war effort."

### "More ways? What have they done for us so far?"

### "Well, as I indicated, it's taken a while to develop all the ideas necessary to make them useful. We do have several of them working very well now, all engaged on most secret work. The decision has been made that from now on we'll concentrate on building the simplest and smallest type of computer, a model which can be used in all kinds of situations and can be produced in some numbers. I suppose you might call it a model T computer. Anyway we have one of the first of these portable thinking machines on board the Lady of the Lee."

### Crampton looked towards the men at the teleprinter.

### "Bill, perhaps you could say a word?"

### One of the scientists nodded. He had bright blue eyes set in a beefy face, looking more like a farmer squire than anything else.

### "Well, you have to understand that an electronic computer is a kind of idiot savant. It can do simple sums very quickly but it hasn't got any kind of intelligence. It has to have a list of instructions to follow for everything it does. We call that a program, a computer program.

### "Actually, that's really an advantage because we can get a computer to do different jobs by giving it different programs to work to. But all that would be useless if we had to keep typing every instruction in turn into the computer. It has to have a memory of its own where the instructions are stored so it can keep going back quickly for them."

### Henry stared at him.

### "An electric box of tricks with its own memory? That sounds pretty far fetched."

### "Not really. To a computer, everything is just numbers. So all we need is a lot of pigeon holes each with its own number so the computer can find it, and inside each pigeon hole is a number waiting to worked on. Because the numbers are all binary code we could get by with using lots and lots of switches -- some switched on and some switched off. It's easier though to have lots of tiny magnets and to call them switched on or off depending on which way the magnetic polarity if flowing in them."

### Henry shook his head. "I'm already starting to lose my grip on this," he confessed.

### "It's not desirable you should understand much about the mechanics of it," Bill said. "But at least you can be told that each line of instructions in the program has an identifying number. By sending that number to the computer it prints out the line on this teletype and I can see if it's correct. If I want to alter it I type it out again and the paper tape punch on the side of the machine makes a copy of whatever I type. When I'm sure that what I've typed has no errors I send it to the computer using the paper tape copy and a tape reader. The old line is wiped from its memory and the new one put in where the original line was stored."

### "So you just keep on doing that until you get your instructions right?"

### Bill smiled ruefully.

### "'Just' is not a word we use very often about computer programming. More often than not it drives you crazy because of the gremlins. They're the tiny little mistakes that somehow creep into every program when they're being written and seem to take a devil of a lot of time to eradicate. But that's the general idea. We keep trying until we get it right.

### "When I'm satisfied my program is working properly I print out a copy on the teleprinter for my reference and a copy on the paper tape. Then, if I want to use that program again, I can load it all back into the computer using the tape reader without having to retype all the pages of instructions again.

### "Once the program has been loaded it can start doing whatever sums I want the machine to solve for me?

### Henry scratched the back of his neck, puzzlement on his face

### "And all this is quicker and easier than simply using a slide rule?"

### Beefy's answer so quiet Henry scarcely heard it.

### "Captain, the computer we're using here does five thousand arithmetical operations every second."

### Henry felt his jaw drop. Never in his life had he been so dumb founded, so completely astonished.

### "This isn't some far fetched theory you're talking about? You're actually achieving five thousand computations -- every second! Not every hour?"

### "Good God! It's a whole new world."

Henry tried to regain some kind of composure but failed. This was something beyond belief. He took out a packet of Passing Clouds and lit one of the cigarettes without even knowing it.

### "You do realise what you're telling me? It's like the invention of the wheel. It's like Orville Wright taking off on the first ever aeroplane flight in America and landing on the other side of the Atlantic."

### Henry looked around at Crampton.

### "Do you understand what this could mean? With the right program they could work out the tide times for Westminster Bridge for the next hundred years in an hour or so. Jesus bloody Christ!

### "Yes, I understand that kind of thing. Some of it anyway. But what I understand above all right now is the need for this country to be able to keep on fighting until we can start using transistors in a big way in our war effort. Let me explain in more detail about our biggest problem at the moment. The problem we're all here to try to deal with."

### Crampton stood up, walked to the wall of the shed and pulled down a map showing southern England and the French coast.

### "Henry, the Battle of Britain is effectively over. It's been a draw, which means we've survived. But now a new kind of war is beginning, one which is unlike any war ever fought before. It's being fought with weapons which are as weak and unsubstantial as a puff of wind, but deadlier than an invading army. The transmitting dish above this shed uses one half of a watt of electricity. Several such transmitters could destroy a city every night: a British city.

### "The reason why I say that is because the Germans have now switched to night bombing -- the blitz which is smashing London. There's not much we can do to stop them, they come over as they please and our fighters and flak guns can't see the bombers to stop them.

### "Fortunately, that works both ways. The Luftwaffe crews aren't concentrating their attacks because they're having trouble finding their targets. The Luftwaffe has never shown much interest in night flying before, their crews aren't trained for it. And, of course, there are a lot of raw crews who are replacements for casualties lost in the recent air battles.

### "So, while London is getting a pounding, the bombs are being scattered over the city in a pretty haphazard way, thank God. The sheer size of the place is our biggest help."

### "We know that the Germans are now setting up a series of narrow beam radio transmitters along the French coast to help guide their bombers to specific targets in the UK. A main beam will be transmitted from Cherbourg and laid across the desired target area -- Whitehall, for example. A series of other beams from the French coast will cut this beam at right angles. By utilising these beams to operate a very clever guidance system which calculates true ground speed the German crews expect to be able to drop their bombs with an average accuracy of one hundred yards."

### "Fucking hell!"

### Henry stared at Crampton with horror.

### "They'll tear us to pieces. Over half our imports are coming through the docks at Liverpool -- destroy those wharves and we'll starve. What happens if they launch huge raids on vital industrial areas like Derby and Coventry? There are only three factories in the whole country making Rolls Royce aero engines. Knock them out and we won't have any more fighters."

### "Oh, it's got to be stopped, at any cost," Crampton agreed.

### "We have a few tricks of our own which might jam their beams. Whether they'll work or not we don't know. But what has us really terrified is the operating concept behind the use of this device; X Gerat, or X apparatus, in English. To get the best from the system the Germans have formed an elite squadron of the top forty bomber crews in the entire Luftwaffe. These men are ex-airline pilots from Lufthansa and aircrew who served with the Condor Legion in Spain. They are without doubt the finest bomber unit in the world. Their job is to use X Gerat to spearhead the Luftwaffe's night attacks as lamplighters, dropping flares and incendiaries to show the rest of the bombers where to drop their loads."

### Crampton took a leather pouch out of his pocket and began to stuff some of his sweet smelling tobacco into his pipe.

### "You see, it's not just a question of which side can outwit the other with radio beams and jamming. It's the question of having this elite unit in business as attack leaders. They're so good that even without any radio aids they might still be able to mark their targets on clear nights. Naturally, we'll do everything we can to spoil their fun with X Gerat. But life would be a great deal easier if this unit, this Kampfgruppe 100, were to be forcibly retired from the war.

### "Forcibly retired in the sense that all these elite German bomber crews are killed, and as soon as maybe. Those are my instructions from the Prime Minister."

### Crampton put a match to his pipe, then swished the stick through the air to extinguish the flame.

### "We know a lot about KGr 100. I won't tell you how we know and you won't ask me and we'll both pretend you're so stupid you can't work out we're using our computers to break some of the German codes. We know that the aircrew of KGr 100 are billeted in a certain chateau in Brittany. We know that in a few days time they are having an informal party to mark their operational debut as lamplighters. We know that Field Marshall Sperrle of Luftflotte III will be there as guest of honour and we know that some young ladies of uncertain morals will also be travelling from Paris for the party.

### "What we haven't quite worked out yet is how best to eliminate the lot of them."

### "Quite an interesting situation," Henry commented, deeply interested. "Go on, please."

### "Well, we're developing our own bombing system. There's a device which both we and the Germans have, though we're slightly more advanced. It's called radio location. Radio signals are sent out and bounce back off aircraft, and by watching the returning pulses on a cathode tube we can tell roughly where the aircraft are. It was one of the reasons we didn't lose the Battle of Britain. We could see the raids coming from far enough away to scramble our fighters in time. The problem was that it was often hard to tell the difference between our fighters and the incoming German aircraft."

### The MP went over to a blackboard and picked up a chalk.

"Radio waves go out, hit the target, bounce back. What we did was to fit a device called a transponder to our aircraft. A transponder is a radio transmitter which automatically sends out a signal when it itself picks up a specially coded signal. So by sending out correctly coded radio waves the radiolocation station would get an unmistakable identification of a friendly aircraft because the amplified transponder response was like a diamond illuminated by a torch in a dark cellar. The system is known as 'IFF, identification friend or foe'.

### "Given time we can build enough radiolocation sets to hunt down the night bombers. We can also develop radiolocation techniques to guide our own bombers against German cities. But time is what we don't have and it's not a city I have to destroy, but just one building -- the chateau that the crews of KGr 100 are living in."

### Crampton made a rough sketch of a castle turret on the blackboard, then drew a dotted line high above it.

### "The radio horizon, that's our problem, Henry. To receive very short wave radio signals from a transmitting station in England an aircraft over the chateau would need to be flying at an altitude of at least nine thousand feet."

### "And that's a long way down to hit one particular building."

### Crampton nodded.

### "That's right. And since we couldn't bring Brittany any closer to the computer we decided to take a computer to Brittany. Or, at least, as close as we dare too. We're mounting a computer inside an aircraft and flying it over the Channel. But we can't let the aircraft across the French coast in case it crashes and the computer falls into enemy hands."

### A piece of cloth wiped the blackboard clean and then Crampton drew a line down the centre of it.

### "This is the coast of France. Imagine our computer equipped aircraft is flying in circles seven thousand feet above the Channel, about thirty miles from the French coastline. Before it can do anything useful it has to know exactly where it is.

### "Now suppose there was a transponder at a fixed location. The aircraft could aim a very narrow beam of radio signals at it, just like a searchlight. And when the searchlight was pointing directly at the transponder it would generate a return signal which would show exactly far away it is. The range is provided by the same principle as in radiolocation, measuring the speed of the return of a radio signal.

### "So the computer would know the distance to the transponder and its bearing. From that information and from the known location of the transponder the computer could continually work out its position to within a few yards."

### "What sort of a fixed point would the transponder be on?"

### "Actually, the fixed ground transponder is going to be mounted inside the clock tower of the Royal Naval College at Dartmouth. That'll be about ninety miles away from the computer plane's orbiting position."

### Henry shook his head.

### "I still can't get the picture. What will this transmitting aerial look like and how will it work?"

### "The aerial will look exactly like the dish above this building. Only it will be mounted inside a perspex dome under the aircraft to protect it from the slip stream. The dome will be on a rotating mount and also able to traverse through ninety degrees. Like a dorsal gun turret, able to point towards anything underneath the aircraft. Once the dish has picked up the transponder the computer will keep it locked onto it while moving the dish to counteract any movement the aircraft makes."

### "So the radio beam will be like a kind of invisible leash?"

### "That's right. The computer sends out a thousand pulses a second through the dish aerial whilst continually tracking the aerial's azimuth and depressed angle so it knows where the transponder is in relationship to the aircraft. The time it takes each pulse to return tells the computer how far away the transponder is. Those different sets of information are integrated by the computer's program to provide a continual plot of the aircraft's position."

### "It's all very clever," Henry agreed. "But I still don't see how it helps you bomb KGr 100. They're going to be in a chateau inland, not on an island in the channel."

### "You don't understand because you still don't understand how revolutionary these computers are. Not only can it work out where it is, it can work out another aircraft's position at the same time."

### Crampton drew a side sketch of an aircraft with a dome underneath it and arrow heads coming out of it. Then he drew a second dome on top of the aircraft and more arrow heads, now pointing in the opposite direction.

### "There you are. Another dish but operating on a different frequency and mounted on top of the computer plane. This one is also tracking a transponder. The difference is that the transponder is inside another aircraft or a glider.

### "Aircraft A, the computer plane, activates the transponder on aircraft B with its secondary radio beam, which supplies it with the bearing and range of aircraft B. Since the computer already knows where it is, it can also work out where aircraft B is. All that remains now is for instructions to be passed to B from A.

### "The radio beam between the two aircraft has what is technically known as interlaced pulse modulation. Which means it can carry voice transmissions as well as the ranging signals. So the computer operator on aircraft A simply directs the pilot of aircraft B on the course to fly and tells him when to drop his bombs. Or how to steer his glider to land in the right place."

### Henry tapped some ash into the curved palm of his hand.

### "I'm still pretty confused. Are you saying this two plane technique has solved your problem?"

### "No. It's only reduced it. On full distance tests our average result to date has been drop the bombs from aircraft B within fifty yards of the target. The computer programs still need a lot of fine tuning.

### "The real crux of the problem is that our system can only guide one aircraft at a time. Suppose we drop one big bomb, and we're lucky enough to land it right in the middle of the chateau. A lot of the Germans will still survive. They'll scuttle into the wine cellars deep below the building or run away from the place in the three or four minutes it takes to get the next bomber lined up for the next bomb run."

### "You could do what KGr 100 is planning to do. Drop flares on the chateau and let other aircraft bomb the flares."

### Crampton nodded.

### "Yes, we could, provided there was no clouds or mist to stop them being seen on the only night when we can be sure that all of KGr 100's aircrew will be in their mess. And we still couldn't concentrate the attack enough to be sure of killing everybody.

### "That was about the stage we'd reached in our planning until we read your suggestion about retrieving gliders after a raid. We thought that if a glider was fitted with a transponder it could be guided into a selected landing spot close the chateau. Then a party of Commandos from the glider should be able to get into position to rush the building after the bombing attack. Once inside you could shoot any survivors and drop grenades into the wine cellars. A general de-lousing operation. Then back to the glider, the computer guides in the snatch plane to pick up the glider and away you go back to England."

### "And you are prepared to give me an absolute guarantee that you can land a glider at any map reference I give you?"

### "There were two pilots in that Hotspur which just landed. The one who flew it for virtually the entire descent was inside a covered cockpit. The computer on the barge was tracking the transponder on the glider through the aerial above us and constantly updated a display showing the course the glider had to steer to compensate for wind drift and the rate of sink.

### "A computer operator relayed that information to the pilot. All the pilot had to do was to maintain the ordered course and speed. The second pilot didn't need to take over the controls until the last few minutes.

### "At night it would have been easy enough to land by eyesight from that position. So, yes, we can guarantee to land you wherever you want."

### Henry leaned forward and crushed out his dog end into an Rowntree's coca tin already full of ash that one of the technicians must have left behind.

### "Then my unit can kill KGr 100 for you, every one of them, provided the RAF are not allowed anywhere near the chateau to cock things up. The problem is that I believe the only possible way to do is to set up a steel trap around the building and to burn the occupants alive. It will be a brutal act of war which will enrage every German in and out of uniform.

### "Considering that we may well be forced into signing an armistice with the German government before the spring, are you prepared to pay that political price? And bear in mind that anyone even remotely involved in this operation is likely to end up in a concentration camp once Goering or Himmler is installed in Buckingham Palace."

### Crampton suddenly smiled, stood up and walked over to the teletype terminal. Then he clapped his hand down on it in a surprisingly emotional surge of movement.

### "We're not going to lose the war, Henry, not now! We needed a miracle to save us and God has sent us machines that can make miracles!"

### CHAPTER THREE

### Henry was surprised and amused by the author's sudden display of fervour.

### "We can see and hear and count and read and write!

### But remember, please, the law by which we live,

### We are not built to comprehend a lie,

### If you make a slip in handling us, you die!"

### Crampton smiled back as Henry quoted Kipling's lines aloud. Then he stretched out his arms as if easing the kinks in his muscles.

### "Good old Rudyard. I wished he'd lived long enough to see this. But I take your point. It's just as easy to get things wrong with computers as it is with anything else, perhaps a great deal more easy because they work so quickly. We must make sure we don't get it wrong, that's all. For now, Henry, we'd better get back to the barge because there matters we need to settle very quickly."

### He turned to the two scientists: "It'll be getting dark soon. You'll be coming along presently?"

### "Very soon," beefy face said. "We've just got to make sure that all the data is back loaded before we leave."

### "Alright, but remember, I don't want to see any torches being used and I certainly don't want anybody straying off the path or getting drowned in the dark."

### For an academic, Crampton seemed to Henry to have quite a brisk tone of command. On the other hand a barrister would no doubt get a lot of practice in browbeating people. Crampton led the way out into a dreary dusk with the formerly clear skies now filling with a scud of grey cloud driven by a rising wind. Even straw beds in a skittles alley seemed a welcoming prospect in these gloomy dregs of the day.

### "One thing I don't understand is why these German aircrews aren't billeted on their aerodrome," Henry commented.

### "KGr 100 isn't using a captured French military airfield, but a peacetime flying club field," Crampton explained.

### "There are reasons. The first is that to get the best cut of radio beams across targets in England the main radio beam is transmitted from Brittany, with the secondary beams broadcast from the low countries cutting it at right angles. Where the beams cross are where the bombs are dropped.

### "By flying from Brittany the pathfinder crews can follow the main beam all the way in. The second reason is the shortage of concrete runways in northern France for all the Luftwaffe bomber units now deployed there. Since it's intended that KGr 100 will mainly carry marking flares, which are a light load, they only need a grass aerodrome to fly from. Hence the need to find local accommodation."

### Henry rubbed his hands together briskly for warmth. "OK, I understand that."

### In the dimming light he saw Crampton's face turn towards him.

### "You'd like a cup of tea and something to eat, I daresay?"

### "I would," Henry confirmed. "I'd also like to take a look at this computer gadget, if you don't mind. And I'd like to have Mrs Braddock sit in with me on the briefing."

### Crampton stopped:"Why? Why Mrs Braddock, I mean?"

### "I have to get close to that chateau before I can do anything. Naturally, the problem is getting rid of sentries before they can give the alarm. I have men who speak German as their native language, so if I dress them up as Luftwaffe officers there's a good chance they can get close enough to the sentries to kill them silently. It just seems to me that if there's a party going on a woman with them dressed up to the nines would be good camouflage -- provided she had the nerve to tackle the job."

### "I can assure of Mrs Braddock's nerve, and her ability to kill if she has to. I also know she went to school in Switzerland and speaks both French and German fluently. I don't think you'll have much trouble in persuading her to go with you."

### "Good."

### "Now, seriously, do you really think it would be possible for you to carry out this operation without the RAF's help?"

### "Look, the idea of having to rely on split second co-operation with the RAF is complete nonsense. The brylcream boys are likely to get halfway over the Channel and then turn around and go home because they've suddenly discovered their flight ration sandwiches have been made with stale bread."

### Crampton seemed scandalised: "I assume you're joking?"

### "That's right. Three days on the beach at Dunkirk being bombed and shot at by everything with swastikas on its wings and not one sight of our super young pilots in their Supermarine fighters. I haven't stopped laughing yet.

### "Look, if this was a German operation I could trust the Luftwaffe to be at the right place at the right time to help the ground troops. The RAF in comparison are just war fighting amateurs with no real interest in Army co-operation. Unfortunately we'll need them to get in and out, and we'll need them to make some kind of a diversion but, for God's sake, let me deal with the important part of the job myself."

### "Never in the history of human conflict has much been owed . . ." Crampton quoted quietly. "You don't agree?"

### "Never have so few been so badly led by so many. Fighter Command, the Air Staff, the Air Ministry -- all rotten to the core. I've talked to some fighter pilots. Our fighter tactics were abysmal, our squadrons were wrongly deployed, our aircraft were under armed and most of our pilots couldn't hit a barrage balloon."

### "Well, Henry, I can see you'll be a great help to inter-service co-operation," Crampton remarked drily. "But it's obvious even to me that a handful of men armed only with small arms couldn't seriously damage a chateau from the outside. You'd need to take a field gun with you."

### "Exactly. Or the next best thing, a Smith gun."

### Crampton peered at him, blinking his eyes: "What the devil is a Smith gun?""

### Henry smiled.

### "A most unlikely contraption, I grant you. It's probably the cheapest gun ever built, designed for the Home Guard by a toy factory engineer named Smith. It's a smoothbore which fires three inch mortar bombs horizontally. The barrel and the wheels are made from sheet steel joined together with nuts and bolts instead of welds. The barrel is mounted through the axle between the wheels so the whole thing can be turned on its side and one wheel becomes a three hundred and sixty degree traverse mount. Recoil is absorbed by twelve rubber bands in the axle."

### "Rubber bands?"

### Something seemed to be amusing the barrister.

### "Rubber bands. The Smith gun is ideal for this job. It only weighs six hundred pounds, so it's easy to manhandle. It has scarcely any muzzle flash to blind the gun crew at night and it packs a hell of a punch because it's a low velocity weapon.

### "A field gun weighs five and a half tons and fires a fifty five pound shell with four and a half pounds of explosive inside. The rest of the shell has to be made of high grade steel to stand up to the stresses of being fired at high velocity.

### "A three inch mortar bomb puts twice as much high explosive onto the target. Of course, the effective range of the Smith gun is only about three hundred yards. Which is quite good enough for what I want to do."

### "Would one of these guns be able to demolish the chateau?"

### "No. What I'd do is to lob in a couple of high explosive rounds to smash the windows and doors with concussion. Then I'd fire in phosphorous rounds.

### "Phosphorous is used to make smoke screens. In seconds the place would be filled with blinding smoke so thick nobody would be able to find the cellar entrance. Phosphorous also burns, and keeps on burning unless it's kept under water. If you ever get a piece of it on your bare skin the only chance you've got is to scrape it off before it burns through you.

### "A few thousand fragments of that stuff floating around inside any kind of building and you'll have uncontrollable fires in seconds, especially when they're fanned by draughts from the broken windows."

### Crampton shook his head: "This sounds like an appallingly savage way of tackling the business."

### "Which is something I've already warned you about. German bombers are killing hundreds of our civilians every night. The only possible responses are to either give them a taste of their own medicine or ask for an armistice. Which is it to be?"

### "Well, one immediate thought I have is that there's a small moat around the chateau, directly under the windows. A lot of people inside the building would probably have no difficulty in jumping into it, thereby escaping from the flames. Nor would you be able to see them in the smoke."

### "Better and better. All I have to do is to fire Mills bombs from rifle grenade launchers into the smoke. They'll hit the chateau walls, bounce back into the water, sink to the bottom and explode when the fuses burn down. Anybody within thirty yards gets gutted like a kipper by the shock waves transmitted through the water."

### "Hmmm . . . perhaps."

### Back on the Lady of the Lea their reception seemed as indifferent as before.

### Crampton led Henry below via a hatch and a ladder to the hold, divided up by thin plywood partitions rattling gently with the vibration from a diesel engine idling inside the hull. A teleprinter kept chattering away angrily in the background. The partitions seemed to be used as offices, each lit with bare electric lights. Henry saw seven or eight civilians busy at trestle tables covered in reams of paper and teacups.

### Despite the time of day they all seemed to be still hard at work, scarcely glancing at him as he passed by. He was very surprised to see the majority of them were females, mostly young ones and all looking desperately tired.

### "We've found that women seem to have a natural talent for programming," Crampton explained. "Quite frankly, I don't know how we'd be able to cope without their diligence and constant good humour. Most of them are having to sleep in their offices in hammocks."

### The thin partitions at the centre of the hold were reinforced by steel bars. The only entrance was by a door also made of steel bars. Two men were on guard there, each of them holding one of those precious Thompson guns which only the auxiliaries seemed to be able to obtain.

### Hanging above their heads was a pull friction igniter connected to two lengths of instantaneous fuse cord wound round a supporting chain.

### "Pull cord in case of emergency only," Crampton said, parodying the notice shown in every British railway carriage.

### "Penalty for improper use is probably drowning, because the Lady would go straight to the bottom with the bow and stern scuttles blown open. We're moored above a three fathom hole in the river bed."

### He beckoned Henry to the door. "There's our oracle, the electronic brain that was guiding the glider you saw earlier."

### Henry peered through the bars. It was perhaps the most anti climatic experience of his life. The only thing to be seen was a locker about five feet high and three foot on each side, apparently made of aluminium. A small red bulb glowed above a switch at the top. Nothing else was visible on the smooth surface. Mounted behind it was a tube coming down from the deck and a hum which suggested cooling air was being sucked down the tube.

### "Is it doing anything now?"

### "It never stops working. Or perhaps it would be more accurate to say it never stops waiting for work to do. The problem is that human beings are very slow in preparing the work into a format that the computer can deal with. Of course it would be totally uneconomical to have an expensive machine here just for our aircraft guidance program. We have other programs on hand it can tackle whenever we can spare it. I believe it's doing some aircraft design stress calculations for Hawkers at the moment."

### Henry nodded: "Is there any measure of the performance of these things, like the horsepower of an engine?"

### "Yes, although the only one I pretend to understand is the amount of core memory it has available. By memory the scientists specifically mean the memory inside the machine -- if you like, memory is equivalent to brain power. The more memory, the more ability. But there's also a concept called storage, where a computer reads and writes information onto paper tape.

### "By our thinking that's like taking information from books or writing books. If I asked you your birthday you could tell me instantly from your memory. So could a computer if that data was in its memory. If I asked you Napoleon's birthday you'd probably have to go to a library to find out the answer. In a computer's terms it would have to search for the data in outside storage. Internal memory is very fast but there's never enough of it, whilst data storage is virtually unlimited, but slow to read."

### "So the limiting factor is the amount of internal memory available to the computer?"

### Crampton nodded.

### "Yes. I've explained that in the binary system everything eventually comes down to on's and off's -- ones and zeros. Each one or zero is called a binary digit. Binary digits are put together in groups of eight to make a letter or number which we humans use.

### "An eight bit grouping of binary digits is called an octword.

### "A thousand octwords is called a kiloword. Of course it's slightly complicated by the fact that a kilo in binary is not a thousand but one thousand and twenty four. Still that's close enough. If anybody says the internal memory of a computer is 1K, they mean the memory can hold one thousand and twenty four octwords, each octword made up of eight binary digits.

### "This machine is considered very powerful for its size, with a 4K internal memory."

### Henry scratched his nose, still staring through the bars.

### "Somehow, life seemed a lot simpler when I got up this morning. I've just about reached the stage where I expect a white rabbit with a gold watch to come running past."

### "Believe me, Captain, these devices are going to take us into a world which will probably make Alice's look like a model of sanity. Lewis Carroll was, after all, a mathematician by profession, which doesn't surprise me at all. They are the strangest people I know, by a very long chalk."

### "You obviously haven't met some of my senior officers. Can we look at some maps, now, please?"

### "Come along."

### Henry was well endowed with the average soldier's ability to get lost in anything that floated. Crampton went down another ladder and went towards what Henry thought were the bows, though he wasn't quite sure. The dim festoon lighting shone on damp planks and frames that looked like the setting for Nelson's death scene.

### Then Crampton opened the door of a snug little cabin. Waiting inside was Mrs Braddock, seated in front of a small desk. On the desk was a teatray, complete with a teapot hidden under a knitted cozy in an odd touch of domesticity.

### "Perhaps I can put you two on first name terms," Crampton said. "Julie, this is Henry, Henry this is Julie. My dear, Henry has suggested that you might like to join his little expedition. He thinks you might be useful in helping to dispose of any troublesome sentries."

### "One would like to do one's bit, of course," drawled Mrs Braddock. "Milk and sugar, Henry?"

### "One lump, please, Julie." He could be as full of sangfroid as any member of the upper class. "You do realise I'm talking about killing people?"

### "I didn't think you wanted me to pat them on the head and send them home to mother. I've got something here which might interest you on that point -- oh, by the way, those are fish paste sandwiches on the plate. It was the best I could do, I'm afraid."

### Henry took the covering napkin off the plate and bit deeply into one of the sandwiches. Then he stopped chewing and replaced the sandwich as Julie Braddock reached into a wardrobe against the wall and took out a stubby rifle. The back half looked like a normal .303 butt and action. From the bolt forward it resembled a car muffler mounted on a wooden stock.

### "The auxiliaries don't have to go through the usual cumbersome procedure to get the weapons we need. This is one of our little toys, called a De Lisle carbine. It was designed to meet our requirement for a silenced weapon.

### The problem with most silenced weapons, as you probably know, is that they fire supersonic rounds, so no amount of muffling the exhaust gases can do anything about the sound made by the bullet breaking the sound barrier. To get around the problem this carbine fires American .45 pistol rounds, which are heavy but subsonic. Not only is the weapon almost completely silent, the long barrel means the rounds can be fired accurately out to a hundred yards."

### Julie whipped the bolt open, checked the action was empty and passed him the carbine. Just like a well trained infantry man would.

### Henry held the carbine to his shoulder, looking through the sights and checking the balance. His first instinctive reaction was that the De Lisle was the answer to the Commando unit's prayers.

### "Remarkable. We've been making crossbows out of car springs. Your equipment makes me envious."

### Julie Braddock finished stirring his tea and passed the delicate cup to him balanced on a fine bone china saucer.

### "Perhaps you should temper your enthusiasm for that De Lisle with the thought that if things go wrong in France I shall be expected to kill you with it -- or will you kill me first, I wonder?"

### Henry nearly dropped the saucer then tried to smile: "Ladies first, perhaps?"

### "I'm not a lady." Julie said curtly, passing a steaming cup to Crampton, who sipped from it with clear pleasure before speaking.

### Henry was indeed greatly puzzled as to exactly what Julie Braddock was. He was trying to judge her by her appearance, which was difficult. She was much older than him, perhaps over thirty, her features more resolute than good looking, with some hint of bitterness about them. Her hair was very fair and bobbed short, there were fine wrinkles around her hard blue eyes and a faint yellow brown tinge in her complexion which was the usual trademark of time spent in India.

### Definitely one of the memsahib sort, he decided, the kind who went around putting down native revolts with stern words. Just the sort to make him acutely conscious of his social inferiority.

### "Julie does have a point," Crampton said.

### "I've given you a fuller briefing than I should have done, Henry, unwisely perhaps, but I feel you have a measure of ingenuity in you which can only be given full reign if you know most of the facts about this business. If either of you are to venture into enemy territory, it will only be if you give me your word to take poison pills rather than be captured."

### "I understand that," Henry acknowledged. "But what if the worst should happen and one of us is wounded and captured while unconscious? Just a thought, but have you seen those shoulder holsters that American detectives wear in films? They might be the solution."

### The woman shook her head, frowning.

### "I don't understand. If we're not in a position to take pills, how could we shoot ourselves?"

### "We wouldn't need to. The holsters would have several ounces of plastic explosive sewn into them and pressure release detonators at the bottom. The guns would be secured by stud press straps around the hand grips. The first thing the Jerries would do with any prisoner -- wounded or not -- is to disarm them. As soon as a pistol is lifted out of a holster the explosive would go off against the prisoner's chest cavity, and bingo, no more chance of an interrogation."

### Crampton smacked his palms together in approval as Julie fluttered her eyelids across the desk.

### "Oh, Henry, I knew from the first that you were going to turn out to be a heart breaker."

### "Very amusing, Julie. Henry, do me a favour and roll down that map on the left, would you?"

### The map came down easily on the roller. It was an Institut Geographic National map, number 0516, scaled at one to twenty five thousand, covering North East Brittany.

### "Henry, our area of interest is bounded by Cap Frehel, Saint Malo, Dinan and Lamballe. A flat coastal plain of about twenty miles square between the coast of the Golfe de Saint Malo and the high ground of the Landes Du Mene. Look for where the river Arguenon flows into the sea."

### "Got it."

### "Trace the river inland to where the Dinan to Lamballe road crosses it."

### "At this village -- Carnoules?"

### Crampton and Julie both winced. "My God, your French pronunciation is awful," Crampton complained. "How did you communicate with the French when you were stationed there?"

### "The only thing the French are any good at doesn't need explaining. Anyway, I'm afraid I'm completely tone deaf. There's no way I can learn any foreign languages. Sorry."

### Crampton waved his hand. "Never mind. Pull down the second map there."

### Henry did so, scratching his chin as he studied it while Crampton kept on talking.

### "What you have there is a local map drawn up with the help of one of De Gaulle's Free French soldiers who used to live in the area. You can see it looks something like the flag of Saint George, cut up into four smaller squares. The dividing line that runs down the middle is the Arguenon, flowing from south to north. The line running through the centre from one side to another is the road between Dinan and Lamballe.

### "Directly in the middle is the bridge which carries the road over the river. On the western bank is most of the village of Carnoules, perhaps forty buildings all told, stretching out to the west along the road. According to our information there are only a few cottages on the eastern side of the river."

### Crampton paused to refresh himself with another sip of tea before continuing.

### "On the southern side of the road the ground begins to rise steeply to a maximum of five hundred feet in this particular area. On the northern side is the flat plain. Now, let's look at each of those convenient quarters into which the map is roughly divided. The upper left quarter contains the flying club airstrip which has now been taken over by KGR 100. The upper right quarter is flat farming land. Bottom left quarter is of no special interest -- but look at the bottom right quarter."

### "You mean this re-entrant?"

### "That's right. A second and smaller valley runs alongside the valley of the Arguenon, or, more correctly, approaches it at an angle until they meet near the road and flatten out at the edge of the coastal plain. At the mouth of this second valley is the Chateau Valbourges, which takes its name from the valley it guards and the stream that runs through it. The Chateau Valbourges is now the home of the aircrew of KGr 100."

### Henry swallowed half his cup of tea in one gulp and picked up the rest of his sandwich again.

### "What does that mean exactly? Is it just an officer's mess? After all, many of the aircrew will be NCO's, not officers."

### Julie Braddock answered: "The German armed forces are much less rank and class conscious than ours are. They put all the aircrew in the same building if it's large enough."

### Henry nodded. "OK, that makes sense. What sort of a building is this chateau?"

### Crampton scrabbled through the files on his desk, finally opening one of the thinnest. "We simply don't know too much about the construction and layout. The most helpful thing we've been able to find is this rather gaudy promotional note, by courtesy of the Cook's travel people."

### Henry took the proffered sheet and read it.

### 'In 1518 Gilles Montaigne, a bourgeois treasurer to Francois I, began work on the chateau of Valbourges, on the site of a medieval castle destroyed by the Dauphin a century before. What now stands, except for one nineteenth century tower, was finished by 1527. It was then that Montaigne was involved in a corruption scandal at the court, a scandal which forced him into exile. The King confiscated his treasurer's chateau and put his own royal badge upon it, a salamander.

### 'Architecturally, the chateau is on the borderline between medieval and modern. At the latter end of the previous century gunpowder had made castles obsolete in warfare, but their towers, moats and machicolations were still considered symbols of status and nobility in 1518. For Montaigne, suddenly raised to the nobility by his own success, nothing could be more important than these visible symbols of rank, and Valbourges possesses all of them. The final wonderful effect is of an illumination from the Book of Hours brought to life.'

### Henry shrugged and handed the paper back.

### "It sounds as if the place is pretty solidly built. But there's nothing useful there. Even the moat may have been filled in long ago."

### "Our Free French informant says no, he visited the chateau about a year ago and the moat was still full then."

### Henry drained the last of his tea.

### "I get a creepy feeling up my back when you talk about this Free French character. What does that mob know about this raid?"

### "Absolutely nothing," Julie said curtly. "We asked them to supply twenty men, all from different parts of France, and they're being kept in strict security until it's all over."

### Crampton put another sheet of paper down in front of Henry.

### "This is the best diagram we've been able to make of the chateau from our informant. For the building we've assumed a square layout with approximately a hundred yards on each side, surrounded by the moat which we guess is about twenty yards wide. Then there's a footpath around the moat, and a belt of thickly planted trees, maybe forty yards wide, forming an outer circle. At the perimeter of the trees is a wall, ten feet high.

### "There are two ways in to the chateau. From the front is a driveway from the Dinan-Lambelle road. That crosses the moat by a causeway. At the rear is a pedestrian footbridge from the chateau over the moat, which connects in turn to some stables. From the stables there's a bridle path which passes through the trees and through a gate in the wall big enough to let a horse through. Apparently the stables were still being used pre-war and so the gate should still be functional."

### Henry nodded: "Have you made any decision about which approach you consider the best?"

### Julie stood up, smoothing down her ugly pinafore and tapped the centre of the sketch map with the tip of her pencil.

### "This, as you know, is the bridge over the Arguenon river. It carries the Dinan-Lambelle road, which is classed as a 'D' road, a chemins departemental. If we follow the road to the east for two hundred yards we come to a road junction, where a minor 'V' class road, a chemins vicinal, joins the D road from the south-east. This V road passes over the high ground between the valleys of the Arguenon and the Valbourges, then follows the valley of Valbourges until it eventually joins the Lamballe-Rennes road eight miles to the north."

### Julie brought the pencil back towards the middle of the map.

### "At its closest point the V road passes within nine hundred yards of the chateau and about two hundred feet above it as it crosses the ridgeline between the two valleys. And the bridle path from the chateau joins up with the V road at that closest point."

### Henry lit a Churchman, nodding slowly: "So you're suggesting that following the V road and then going down the bridle path is the logical approach?"

### "Yes," Julie said. "Whatever else happens you can hardly get lost if you follow them. The nearest piece of flat ground suitable for landing the glider is also alongside the V road further up the Valbourges valley. One snag is that there's a farmhouse on the site. Another problem is that you'll have an approach march of over two miles from the farm to the bridle path turn off above the chateau."

### "Hmmmm . . ." Henry stood close to the Institut Geographic map, closely studying the contour lines.

### "My first reaction is that I dislike the idea of landing the glider blind, hoping everything will be as we expect. I feel the best thing to do would be to drop a small scouting party the night before the raid. Four men, including myself, parachuted into the valley perhaps two miles further up the valley from the farmhouse.

### "We'd then march north west, up into the high ground. I leave two men to watch the farmhouse during daylight hours. Myself and one other man move further on to watch the chateau and what we can see of the village. At dusk I move back, rejoin my observation party at the farm, then secure the area and put out shielded landing lights to help the glider pilots to land."

### Crampton seemed unenthusiastic.

### "You may well be seen coming down, or seen during the day, wrecking any chance of a successful raid. A British aircraft flying around near Carnoules might be enough to put the Germans on their guard."

### "Let's think this through," Henry countered. "When's the raid scheduled for?"

### "The night of the 17th."

### Henry took out his diary and riffled through it to find the astronomical data page he needed.

### "OK, so that means the night of the 16th for the scouting party to land. It's the first night of the moon waxing gibbous and moonset is at 0147 hours. If we can have the services of your flying computer and a transponder fitted to the dropping aircraft we should be dropped in exactly the right place, even in pitch darkness. Once I've got my feet on the ground all I have to do is to follow a compass bearing and walk uphill. When I'm on the ridgeline I can't get far lost in direction and I'll count my paces for distance."

### Crampton tapped his fingers on his desk.

### "What you're suggesting is a full field trial of the navigation system twenty four hours before the real thing. I can see some advantages to that, and some disadvantages. What I have to judge is the danger of warning the Luftwaffe that something is in the wind."

### Henry held up his hand and bent one finger over.

### "Point one, the noise of the dropping aircraft. I'd suggest we use a de Havilland Dragon. With both engines at full power they produce only two hundred and sixty horsepower and the engines won't be at anything like full power for level flight at slow speed.

### "With a bit of careful route planning and navigational help from your computer the Dragon can slip in and out over a non populated piece of coastline and stay away from any towns or villages inland. It probably won't be heard and it certainly won't be seen after moonset."

### Now Henry bent over another finger.

### "Which brings me to the second point, that rural France has a much lower population density than most of England. So if we jump from a very quiet plane with darkened parachute canopies, with no moon, we stand a very good chance of not being seen. Provided, of course, we do get dropped where we want to be dropped. That's the responsibility of your back room boys. Can they do it or not? That's for you to tell me."

### Another finger.

### "Thirdly, all my movements will be over empty country between moonset and sunrise. I'm certainly going to keep clear of that farm and any dogs it might have. When the sun comes up both my observation parties will be hidden and camouflaged up on the high ground, and won't move until it gets dark again. For those three reasons I feel we can put a scouting party in ahead of the main raid without being detected."

### Crampton slouched lower in his seat.

### "It's becoming a long day." He picked up a gold propelling pencil and made some notes.

### "Alright, explain to what you see as the advantages of using a scouting party?"

### Henry did so willingly.

### "It gives us a chance to try out the navigation system.

### "It gives me a chance to look over the area in daylight so I know exactly what's where the next night.

### "It gives us a chance to confirm our information is correct. We'd look fine fools if there were no Germans in that chateau after all.

### "It gives me a chance to make sure there isn't a platoon of German infantry billeted in that farmhouse.

### "It gives me a chance to select a clear strip for the glider to land on and put out lights to aid the landing.

### "Most importantly, if the glider tow plane doesn't get a go ahead signal from me, he turns around and goes back to England. Because if there's no signal they can assume things have gone drastically wrong.

### "The great disadvantage is that I'm making my plans without being sure of whether the drop plane or the gliders are likely to be detected by one of these radiolocation devices you've talked about. How much of a danger is that?"

### Crampton tapped the pencil against the table top.

### "Little or non-existent just now, I believe. The Germans don't have many sets in service yet and so far all of them have been deployed along our bombers' likely flight paths to help protect the Fatherland. So on that one I think we can only cross our fingers and hope for the best. Otherwise, you've made a very convincing case."

### He looked at Julie: "Communications, that's going to be important if we use a scouting party. You were telling me something about a special air to ground wireless, weren't you?"

### "We have a requirement for a small ground-to-air transceiver which is suitable for clandestine operations. I believe there's a radio workshop designing something called an S-phone. I don't know how far they've got with it."

### "I'll check." Crampton made another note.

### "Alright, Henry, assume your scouting party has no troubles and the glider lands as it should. You march off down this V road, do you?"

### "Wait a minute, what's the carrying capacity of one of your twin gliders? Twice a Hotspur would be about fourteen troops or three thousand pounds per glider."

### Crampton flipped an outstretched hand from side as if it were teetering on an edge.

### "Well, that's what we can cram in. And we have installed extra panels in the wings to try to keep the wing loading within reason. But at that weight they'll need very careful handling."

### "In that case, we'll work on three of them being required to bring in everything I need. Because all the equipment will be abandoned one glider will be enough to get us out afterwards."

### "I don't see that being a problem," Crampton responded. "If we can guide one glider in we should be able to land two others in the same place as well. Just as long as they don't collide on the strip. And it gives you two more chances of getting out if one gets damaged during landing. I presume you need the extra glider for the -- what was it -- Smith gun?"

### "Partly. Take a look at the chateau again. I probably won't need many three inch mortar rounds to set the place on fire. I won't need many mills bombs or much small arms ammunition to kill survivors in the moat.

### "My problem is in trying to seal off the front of the building from the back of it. The simplest and safest way would be to use a pair of two inch mortars firing over the roof. But it means I'll need a lot of two inch bombs, more than my men can carry. So I'll have to get some help from the Great Western Railway Company."

### Crampton took a deep breath.

### "I'm not really in the mood for jokes, Henry."

### "I'm not joking. I'm talking about those little Brough Superior electric trolleys the porters use to move luggage around on station platforms. They run off batteries slung underneath the cargo tray and I had a close look at one a few weeks ago while I was waiting for a connection at Plymouth. They can carry three hundred pounds each easily and provided the bridle path is reasonably smooth they should be able to reach the chateau. So I'll take three of those, each loaded with mortar bombs, three inch and two inch.""

### "Nine hundred pounds of ammunition! Isn't that rather over-egging the pudding?" Julie asked in surprise.

### "A pair of two inch mortars firing at full speed use up a hundred pounds of ammunition every minute. I'm going to need all the two inch bombs I can get. I'll also need to have them modified."

### "For what reason?"

### "If the Luftwaffe's best start legging it over the causeway and my bombs are landing down in the moat, most of the blast and splinters will miss them. What's needed is for the bombs to explode about twenty feet up in the air, so the whole area gets swept clean.

### "That's a general principle for all mortar bombs, exploding them above ground is far better than exploding them on the ground. So I've been designing a mortar fuse which uses a pinch of black powder in the nose and a time delay of half a second. A mortar bomb, unlike an artillery shell, usually lands almost vertically, so when the small primary charge explodes it'll blow the bomb back up into the air, then the delayed action fuse sets off the main explosive charge. Every bouncing bomb should kill or main anyone within three hundred square yards."

### Julie was pouring out some more tea, but paused to look at Henry with interest.

### "You say you've been designing these fuses?"

### "That's right. I have a lot of strange ideas but I've never had much luck up until now in getting people interested in them. The Army is a very conservative organisation."

### "If you can deal with KGr 100 Winston will give you your own army -- a small one, anyway," Crampton promised. "Now, having landed, you make your way to the chateau. What time do you intend to attack?"

### Henry consulted his diary again.

### "Moonset on the 17th is 0233 hours. I'll want some moonlight to see by when we retreat, and I assume moonlight would help the snatch aircraft. What we'll actually get depends on the cloud cover. But let's say the glider is retrieved at 0200. So if I start firing at 0120 I should have done whatever I'm going to do by 0130. That gives me thirty minutes to get back to the glider."

### Crampton shook his head.

### "Half an hour to cover two and a half miles? Isn't that cutting it a bit fine, bearing in mind the inevitable confusions and delays?"

### "No, not the way we'll be travelling. Each man will be carrying a folding airborne pattern push bike on his back. They weigh twenty eight pounds each and fold up into a flat package, even the handlebars and the pedals. As soon as we've finished they'll unfold the bikes and pedal off at a speed which will make the Tour de France look like a spastics' outing."

### Henry gratefully accepted another cup of tea from Julie while Crampton sorted through his notes.

### "Do you think you can outpace any pursuing force?"

### "I'm assuming that the nearest Germans are at KGr 100's airfield or, more likely, billeted in Carnoules. The key to blocking them off is clearly the bridge over the river. So I intend to detach three men at the bridle path turnoff to cycle down to Carnoules and blow the bridge. That way my back will be covered."

### "The RAF could probably do that job for you."

### "No, it's too important to be left to them. What I could use is a heavy bombing raid on the airfield to cover the noise of my attack on the chateau and the noise of the bridge being blown.

### "You'll appreciate the importance of getting the timing right though. If the air raid starts before I'm in position the Jerries in the chateau will take cover down in the wine cellars before I attack. Which is not what we want. And if the senior officer at the airfield hears gun fire from the chateau before the bombs drop he'll immediately send ground forces to investigate.

### "Ideally, I'd like to be able to use that offshore computer aircraft of yours as a kind of flying command post to co-ordinate the timings. Assuming, of course, that we can find a way of talking to each other."

### "Once the bridge is destroyed you won't have to worry about the Germans on the other side of the river, that's certain."

### "The Germans always counter-attack, they always do it quickly, and they always do it with the maximum amount of ingenuity and ferocity. My main safety lies in their not knowing the chateau is being attacked. Knocking down that bridge is just some additional insurance."

### Eric Crampton sighed and made another note.

### "Look, Henry, I think you're making some good points, but that's enough to start with. First thing in the morning we'll make out a complete operations plan and code it on the computer. Then we'll pass it to my immediate superior, the Minister of Defence."

### "I've never heard of any such person as a Minister of Defence."

### "The Minister of Defence is the chairman of the Defence Committee of the War Cabinet -- whom also happens to be the Prime Minister. Which means that the Defence Committee is run, by no coincidence, by the Ten Downing Street Secretariat. In essence, the Defence Committee consists of different members for each meeting, all handpicked by Winston to let him have his own way.

### "Which he usually does for about three quarters of the time. Then he starts talking about invading Norway or something equally bizarre, the Chiefs of Staff tell him as politely as possible not to be so silly, and things break up in a blazing row."

### "It sounds like a strange way to run a war."

### "Perhaps it is, my boy, perhaps it is, but at least it has the essence of simplicity. As long as Winston backs us the wheels will turn relentlessly. So get a good night's sleep and we'll reconvene in the morning. I hope you won't find the skittles alley too uncomfortable."

### Henry stood up.

### "I don't think I'll have any trouble sleeping -- I may have some strange dreams though."

### Julie led the way out. At the cabin door Crampton called Henry back.

### "Captain, do you think you can really mete out a measure of revenge upon the Luftwaffe for what they have done to our women and children?"

### Henry smiled gently and answered softly:

### "By sword and cord, by torch and tow,

### I'll light their land with twain!"

### CHAPTER FOUR

### Henry was having a more peaceful life in enemy occupied France than he'd managed to have in England for the last few days. Which wasn't really that odd, come to think about it. If the Germans had learnt about his arrival he would have been dead by now. The only other alternative was that his scouting party had landed undetected and that was what had happened.

### When daylight had finally filtered through a low layer of grey bellied clouds it revealed a scene of bucolic peacefulness. The Chateau of Valbourges was partly obscured by a surrounding belt of closely clustered willows though its ornate turrets soared high above the mournfully hanging branches. The superb setting of the building between the lightly wooded slopes of the small valley was testimony to the vision of Gilles Montaigne: courtier, treasurer, rogue and master builder.

### Grey toned walls dividing the small fields around the chateau accentuated the gloriously natural marriage of handcrafted stone and landscape. The only jarring note was the flag hoisted at first light from the tallest tower above the trees. It displayed an eagle which looked virtually identical to the RAF's emblem, except that this one was perched on a swastika. The question as to whether the Luftwaffe was occupying the chateau had been very quickly answered.

### Both the bridle path and the chemin vicinal were as expected, the V road sealed with asphalt and about five paces wide, low walls and shallow ditches on either side, whilst the entrance to the bridle path was barred by a small wooden gate suspended from a large tree trunk swiveling on a post by what looked like a mortice and tenon joint. The stump of the trunk extended well out to the side of the post, a convenient counterweight to the gate.

### To the front of the observation position the ground sloped gently to a long spinney of beech trees five hundred yards away, where a colony of rooks squabbled in the bare branches. Behind the spinney and hidden by the trees was the main departemental road between Lamballe and Dinan. Strange looking black and white cows, spotted like dalmatians, stood in bored groups in the intervening small fields.

### Another indication to Henry that he was on foreign soil was the bluestoned bridge over the small and sluggish river on his left flank where the main road came into their sight again. Or, more correctly, it was the ugly shape of the half track parked close to the bridge on the far side on the Arguenon.

### Especially so because the barrel of the 20mm light flak gun mounted on the firing pedestal above the tracks was pointing in the general direction of the British soldiers' observation position. Henry and his companion, Private Reech, were both greatly relieved to see that the men around the vehicle seemed to have no more urgent interests than washing themselves in canvas buckets and drinking from mugs clenched in both hands, shoulders hunched against the dawn cold.

### The half track was thirty yards south of the bridge, sand bags built up around it to the mudguards, side shields lowered to facilitate all round traverse of the gun. A thoroughly nasty piece of work, equally useful for anti-aircraft or ground defence, with an effective range of a thousand yards and able to spit out a hundred and fifty high explosive rounds every minute. The bridge party would have their hands full dealing with that.

### One of the gun crew had now dived into the mist wreathed river, swimming back and forth across it with frenetic energy.

### "Strength through joy," Henry whispered derisively.

### A tarpaulin was stretched from the top of the back wall of sandbags to the ground. Two men were rolling up blankets at the side of the shelter and securing them to back packs.

### A little beyond the gun position the cottages of Carnoules were sending up smoke from their chimneys, smoke immediately pulled into a surly jig with a blustery but uncertain wind. Henry had been astonished by the clarity of detail through the lenses of the Zeiss binoculars Crampton had presented him with as a parting gift. Even from this distance he could see the curious French rural style of interlocking ridge slates at the apex of many of the roofs. It was cheaper than cutting triangular ridge-pieces, although far more likely to let in rain.

### Not that the French peasantry would care about that; from his experience they'd rather lose an entire generation of children to pneumonia than spend a franc they didn't have to. It would take a damned clever occupying army to get out of France with any money left in their pockets. The French robbed their allies blind so God alone knew what they'd do to their enemies.

### A sudden disquieting thought was that if Henry's German made binoculars were so good there would be other glasses down there which would work just as well in reverse. Without moving anything except his head, and that slowly, he checked again on both sides of the observation position, fervently hoping it still looked as innocuous as it had before being occupied.

### In the pre-dawn darkness, working by touch, the soldiers had each removed three pieces of coiled chicken wire mesh from inside their kit bags, each piece adorned with scraps of brown and green cloth. Ground sheets were put down first, then the blackened parachute canopies, then the pieces of chicken wire, reshaped by hand from circles to wider semi-circles and pegged down with meat skewers. Placed in a row, the three pieces of the wire made a tunnel big enough for a man to lie inside. At first light the hides were swiftly given an additional and more subtle decoration of grasses and crowberry plants before being occupied.

### It had been one of life's better moments, a chance to relax with a feeling of tremendous satisfaction. For the flight over from England had totally convinced Henry about the effectiveness of Crampton's computers.

### The start had certainly been odd, with the two aircraft being used in the parachute drop standing side by side on St Eval airfield. It had seemed incredible that both had been built by the same manufacturer and within a few years of each other. The de Havilland Dragon was the sort of aircraft Henry had grown up with, a biplane with lots of bracing wires and struts, a fixed undercarriage and hand carved wooden props on the two engines. The pilot sat in the extreme nose, where he completely filled up all the available space in a cockpit which was more perspex than anything else.

### It was a design which was starting to look old, if not antique, but the Dragon was no joke. With its light build it could operate out of any small field and still carry six passengers plus baggage for five hundred miles at a hundred miles an hour whilst only consuming a few gallons of fuel on the trip.

### The aeroplane beside the Dragon was a big a contrast as could be imagined, looking as if it had flown in from some kind of science fiction future. It was sleek as a shark, as smooth as oiled silk. Four engines like giant bullets emerged from the forty five foot wide wings, each engine fitted with a three bladed constant speed propeller. The contours of the fuselage flowed in pure unspoilt lines from the sharp nose and over the retractable undercarriage to the twin finned rudder at the rear. Or at least the lines had been unspoilt. Now the aircraft had an unsightly blister on top of its fuselage and one below it, just aft of the wheel wells, both blisters housing short wave radio aerials on rotating Frazer-Nash mounts.

### The reasons why a de Havilland Albatross had been selected to carry the world's first flying computer were three fold. Its performance, with its four 525 HP Gipsy engines giving it a range of over three thousand miles in the Atlantic mail carrier role whilst carrying a thousand pounds of payload. The interior space provided by a cabin which could seat twenty two passengers on shorter journeys. And finally because of the ease of installing the external aerials in an aircraft made of plywood. For despite its futuristic appearance the Albatross was still made in the traditional de Havilland way, of wood and glue.

### Inside, on the one occasion Henry had found time to take a look, the Albatross had seemed even more like a spaceship fallen to earth. There was the bulk of the computer mounted in the centre line of the cabin with a wooden bench extending aft from it, the top of the bench littered with electronic equipment and several canvas stools set up beside it. The fleshy faced civilian scientist had led the way up the sloping floor, trying to explain the set up.

### "Those two seats up front are for the chaps supervising the transponder aerials. They mainly have the job of picking up the transponders in the first instance. Once the beams have detected them they should stay locked onto them no matter what the other aircraft or this one does. As far as you're concerned the really interesting things happen here, at the computer operator's position and the controller's position. This is the computer operator's perch."

### In front of the stool and on top of the bench was a black crackle coated box with a glass screen and lots of adjusting knobs underneath the screen.

### "There's a cathode ray tube in there, the same as they us in television sets."

### Henry was fascinated and excited: "Is this what a television set looks like? I've never seen one before."

### Bill Joyce -- Beefy's name -- seemed amused.

### "I suppose you could say it looks something like a television set but the picture on the screen is very different -- no dancing girls I'm afraid. Watch this."

### Bill had leaned forward and thrown a switch.

### "Wait until the tube warms up."

### In a couple of minutes a series of words in white showed up against a grey background. Henry had looked into the screen and read the displayed message: "LOAD PROGRAM? FREE FLIGHT=FF: WIND DRIVEN=WD: ENTER CHOICE="

### "Is it asking us to do something?"

### "It's offering us a choice, Henry. We call it a menu. We can either load the free flight program or the wind driven program. We'll start off with the free flight one. Go ahead and tell it."

### "Me! How?"

### "Look down on the bench. You see that metal panel that looks like a keyboard?"

### There was a rectangular metal panel with rows of hollow squares marked out in bright red paint, with equally bright red numbers and letters inside the boxes like the keyboard of a typewriter. But it was obvious that they weren't keys, just unyielding metal.

### "Pick up that piece of bakelite that looks like a pencil. Mind the cord."

### Henry had examined the strip of bakelite curiously. From one end protruded a tip of bare metal like a pen nib and on the other end was a length of braided cable , like the cable on a telephone handset, only this was connected to the keyboard box.

### "That's called a stylus. If you touch any of the squares it makes an electrical connection through the keyboard and the number or letter shows up on the screen. Go ahead, press the F key twice."

### Gingerly, Henry had done as he was told, tapping the stylus on the F square and staring into the screen. Each time he touched the metal the letter 'F' appeared.

### "Well, it works, but what happens now?"

### "Down on the right hand side there's a square marked 'ENTER'. Touch it."

### As soon as Henry had done so all the words disappeared and other ones appeared: "'RUN FF PROGRAM? Y/N'"

### "All you have to do now is to touch the Y square to say yes."

### "This is silly. You can't talk to a box."

### None the less, Henry had touched the Y square with the tip of the stylus and then jerked back with a shock as a pair of large film reels next to the television set had started turning without any warning.

### "It's OK, it's loading the program now," David had said. "We're using old film stock with holes cut in it instead of paper tape because it's much tougher and more reliable than paper. We wouldn't like to have to leave you on the other side of the Channel just because a piece of paper broke and got jammed in the reader."

### "Yeah, OK. But what did that stuff about free flight mean?"

### "Come over to the controller's position and I'll explain."

### Bill moved down to the end of the bench. Underneath a perspex cover was the French National map 0516 of North East Brittany which Henry had done his planning from.

### "Now the first time we're going to us this equipment in real action is when you get parachuted into this area. We've written two different programs because we have two different sets of circumstances to deal with. When we drop your group on parachutes it's going to be with what we call a free flight program because it doesn't matter a lot to you which way the wind is blowing, not as long as we drop you in the right place. But if we're landing a glider it has -- as far as possible -- to land into the prevailing wind. That's a wind driven program."

### "Uh?"

### "Look, here's your drop zone. As a controller I'd look at the map and select the route which kept the Dragon's flight path as far as possible from any occupied areas. I'd pick the point where I want to arrive on the map, whatever waypoints and new courses I want, and where I want to move off the map again. And I use a ruler, a protractor and a crayon to mark those places and courses on the map. For simplicity's sake, let's imagine a straight line across the map, a line that directly crosses your drop zone."

### Bill had made the line, putting a cross on each end of it and one more over the chosen drop zone. Then he opened a drawer underneath the bench and took out a brown envelope from a pile inside. On it was printed 'FF'. Bill tore it open and pulled out a small white printed pad.

### "This is a proforma made up for the free flight program. The controller's job is to write down all the necessary map co-ordinates and courses he wants inserted into the program running on the computer. Then he tears off the top copy and gives it to the computer operator while he keeps a carbon copy. Both people have a separate circuit through their earphones and microphones so they can talk without being disturbed. As the operator enters the data from the proforma pad he reads back each figure to the controller who's double checking the map co-ordinates again. Only then is the program allowed to run.

### "The essential point is that since it's a free flight program the controller can pick and chose whichever path he wants the aircraft under his control to follow to get to wherever he wants it to go."

### "Er -- OK. But why do you keep the pads in envelopes?"

### "They're made of special paper which turns brown and completely unreadable after about ten minutes' exposure to light. If this lot ends up at the bottom of the Channel we don't want any pieces of paper left floating on the surface that might give any useful clues away."

### Bill shook the envelope and a half crown fell out of it. He showed Henry the big coin.

### "A sinker -- just the right shape and size but a bit expensive. Still, even if the Jerries get one of these envelopes in their hands they'll perhaps think it's some kind of a betting slip."

### Henry nodded: "Alright, so what happens with the wind driven program?"

### "It's a little more complicated than the free flight one. For example, instead of a drop zone for parachutists or bombs we talk about an arrival point, and we have to be very careful in letting the computer know what height we want our target to be at when it reaches the arrival point. It would be embarrassing if we tried to land a glider when it was still thirty feet up in the air. It would be even more embarrassing if we flew the snatch plane into the ground on top of the waiting glider. But the main difference is that we need to tell the computer not only the arrival point but also what the prevailing wind conditions are. Which isn't hard to work out, not for us."

### "Why's that?"

### "Once we've locked onto the transponder at the Naval College we'll know what our position is all the time and so we'll be able to compare our track with what it should be with the forecast winds. With that data we can refine our forecasts down into what we call 'real-time' knowledge. We'll know exactly how strong the wind is and what direction it's blowing from. Put that into the computer with the co-ordinates of the arrival point and it'll come back with the release point co-ordinates and heights for the towing aircraft to cast off the gliders. Simple."

### "Yes, simple. And what happens if your magic box wants you to fly the gliders directly above a town that's got a battery of German flak guns stationed in it?"

### Bill shrugged his shoulders: "Toughski shitski, as they say in Russia. We've already got far too much programming code to validate in a hurry to worry about that sort of possibility."

### "Well, just as long as you care."

### Mr Joyce wasn't amused. "Look underneath the bench."

### Henry did, to see all the space there filled with appeared to be a squashed in miniature barrage balloon. He prodded the swollen silver grey material and Bill had squawked in anger.

### "Don't go weakening that. There's four hundred pounds of explosive underneath that lot with barometric switches inside the gas bag holding the firing circuit open. Before we take off the safety switches are going to be closed from a panel that's only accessible from the ground. One or two bullet holes in the bag or a single bad tear and the whole plane gets blown into splinters.

### "Not to mention the fact that everybody on board is going to be padlocked into a lead filled harness so there's no chance of staying afloat. Things could easily go just as wrong for us civilians as they could for you military types."

### Henry had smiled and -- a most unusual gesture for him -- had touched Bill on the shoulder. "Don't worry, mate, I think we're both running on our own wind driven programs."

### "I'm not windy," Bill had answered sturdily.

### "Aren't you? Well, I am."

### But for all the forebodings the trip had, at first anyway, seemed almost boring. As far as Henry could tell nobody had fired a single shot at the Dragon. Not that he'd expected much flak anyway. Even the Germans didn't have enough searchlights or anti-aircraft guns to line the entire coastline of continental Europe. Most of their defences would be in the Channel ports where the invasion barges were supposed to be still waiting their chance to bring the Wehrmacht to England and where the RAF bombers were still trying to sink them in the harbours.

### Things were certainly quiet enough in Brittany, with enough uncovered windows on the ground to suggest that many of the rural dwellers of France regarded the war as over and won and the blackout regulations as no longer of any importance. Whether or not the farm near their drop zone was showing any lights was a question that Henry hadn't had time to ask. The navigator was crouched over the transponder with a spare set of headphones on, listening to the controller in the Albatross talking to the Dragon's pilot.

### When the controller called "go!" over the radio link the navigator chopped his hand down and it was time to jump.

### In fact leaving the Dragon was hardly a matter of jumping. Compared to the evil old Whitley it was like stepping off a tram. The passenger door was already removed so it was simply a case of stepping out into the night and spreadeagling his body on top of the rushing wind as he fell.

### A gasp of relief came from deep inside Henry's chest as the harness tugged and pulled him up into a vertical position. Working swiftly he jerked open the quick release buckle holding the kit bag to him whilst holding the line at the top of the bag with his left hand. Letting the line slip quickly through the gloved fingers of both hands he lowered the kit bag below him until the line had entirely run out of the long canvas pocket on the side of his left trouser leg and the bag was hanging free ten feet below his feet from the knot secured to his harness. The suspended weight immediately began to dampen down the slight oscillation of his body underneath the canopy.

### Reaching up he gripped the risers, deliberately refraining from looking upwards. If the parachute was fouled or torn, too bad, because he didn't have a spare, and anyway it was already too late to deploy one. In any case nothing could break the magic of the moment. Henry hated parachuting until the moment the chute opened -- after that, he loved it.

### Admittedly, ninety nine point nine per cent of this reaction was due to relief at finding himself underneath an opened canopy but the split second transition from noise, roaring wind and desperate athletics to the utter tranquillity of gliding out of the sky like a bird was totally unlike anything else in his experience.

### On this occasion he had perhaps five seconds to look around before landing. He could see high ground ahead of him in the starlight, although he had no idea of which side of the valley he was facing. Then he seemed to bounce back up into the sky as the kit bag hit the ground, removing some of the load on the canopy and causing it to flare.

### His rate of descent abruptly checked, Henry had taken the landing impact along the side of his right leg and across his back, the billowing black canopy continuing to drag him through the grass.

### Rolling over on his stomach, he jerked on the bottom risers. Something with a mixture between cream and clay smeared itself across his face, a substance with a hard outer crust and a foul smell inside.

### "Shit!" Henry snarled involuntarily, dragging his sleeve across his face to try and remove some of the clinging patches of the fresh cowpat.

### After that inauspicious start things had gone better. He'd bundled up his parachute, followed the line from the harness to the kit bag and inspected it closely. There was no doubt at all that the three layers of coiled wire mesh inside the bag had proved an excellent stiffener and shock absorber, supplementing the rubber and paper padding in the bottom of the bag.

### Henry had undone the draw cord at the top, taken out a De Lisle carbine, then packed away the parachute and gloves in the kit bag. Two extra carrying strops had been sewn onto the bag. A leather strap with two clip hooks enabled him to carry the bulky object on his back. It was hardly an ideal arrangement but the wire helped greatly by preventing the canvas sack from sagging under the weight of the radio set and bicycle lamps inside.

### The last thing he did before moving off was to lash small snow shoes over his canvas gym shoes -- or, at least that was what they looked like.

### Homemade contraptions utilising a long green sapling for the outer curve, reinforced with cross-pieces and twine. On the bottom of each one was a layer of rubber, cut off square at the front so he could crawl if necessary whilst wearing them.

### Henry wasn't keen to make the Huns a free present of his tactical methods, especially the advance arrival of a scouting unit. By using the shoes he hoped to minimise any tracks they left behind. As the pads extended out an inch or so around the sides of his shoes they made walking more difficult and more tiring but he still believed them to be worth using. As a precaution the securing lines over his feet used a combination of transport knots and a highwayman's hitch, so one tug sufficed to release the fastenings on each undershoe.

### Henry padded along for thirty paces, stopped, and clicked his fingers once. An answering double click came from his left. He moved towards it, weapon ready. A crouching figure stood upright.

### "Jennings, zur. I think that be Corporal Parrish over yonder."

### "You see anybody else around?"

### "No zur. But I can smell something that's rank bad."

### "It's me. Covered in cow shit. Let's go. You'd better lead, you seem to have good night vision."

### Jennings moved surprisingly quickly across the field, Henry close behind, his sweaty palms clutching the carbine. It was a pity that the auxiliaries had only been able to provide them with two of the very special weapons.

### Lance Corporal Parrish was sprawled on the ground, apparently trying to hide behind his kit bag with his fighting knife still in his hand.

### "Watch yoursen!" he whispered urgently. "There's a fucken bull here, awfa' mad!"

### A snort from a black mass in the gloom confirmed his alarm. Henry circled the animal to the right, keeping his carbine aimed at the lowered head threatening to charge, while Jennings helped the Corporal to his feet. Then the Cornishman chuckled.

### "Why zur, tis no bull, but a cow. The beast's head be stuck in some way."

### Moving closer Henry saw that a short piece of rope was tied from one of the animal's horns to a front hoof. He could only assume it was some kind of local method for persuading the animals to eat more by keeping their heads down close to the grass, thus fattening more quickly. Typical Frog cruelty to animals, although it did have a funny side. Three intrepid Commandos ready to fight to the death against one frightened cow!

### The Lance Corporal still seemed unsteady on his feet.

### "Banged ma head against the doorway as I went out, sir," he explained. "Then the bloody kit bag line got wrapt around ma legs whist I was trying to get ma wits back. When I landed, I knocked all the wind out of ma'self. Then I saw that bastard cow an' thought I was due for a richt meltin'."

### Henry had checked Parrish's head as well as he could in the darkness. Like the rest of them the Lance Corporal was wearing a circular rubber and canvas helmet which was normally only used for training jumps. As an independent commander for the first time Henry was able to indulge in some of his personal whims, one of the first of which had been to been to discard steel helmets. As far as he was concerned they were anachronistic encumbrances from the days of trench warfare. Admittedly, the flat topped rubber helmets looked distinctly odd, like something out of a Flash Gordon comic strip, but they also meant the wearers could be quickly identified as friendly troops in poor visibility.

### Now he was wondering if he'd made a mistake in ditching the helmets. Parrish certainly had some blood on his scalp, although it was impossible to judge whether the injuries were superficial or not.

### "Dinna fret, sir. I'll be fine, bye and bye."

### That was probably true. Parrish was a youthful veteran of Barlinnie, the toughest prison in Scotland, a young man as hard and battered as a piece of Glasgow tramline. There were already enough scars on his body for any three normal men. It was also typical of Henry's unit that his scouting unit contained a bank clerk, a potential bank robber and a young man whose only ambition was to become a clergyman as soon as the war was over.

### The group moved off again, Jennings bringing up the rear and Parrish in the middle. If the Corporal collapsed somebody had to be behind him to make sure he wasn't left behind.

### A little surprisingly, Reech, the best signaller and worst parachutist of them all had made a perfect descent. He was standing with his kit bag on the ground beside him as if waiting for the next bus.

### "Piece of cake, sir," he had said smugly.

### Having collected his tiny command together Henry had orientated himself. Looking around, the only thing he could say for certain was that they were standing in a field underneath a heavily clouded sky. Since he had to assume that he was close to the correct position all he needed to do was keep walking to the east to the top of the ridge line and then turn right. Simple enough navigation, provided they didn't have to dodge anybody.

### "Check your L-tablets," Henry ordered.

### Each of them pulled on the string around their necks. Instead of identity discs each man had a small disc hanging on the string with a spring loaded dispenser inside. When pressed, each disc popped out a pill containing a lethal dose of potassium of cyanide.

### "If you have to use them don't hesitate, or you'll suffer a lot and help the Jerries a lot," Henry enjoined them. "Go to your God like a soldier, not a mutilated animal from the abattoir. The only time the Germans talk about mercy is when they're begging for it."

### With Reech as last man now and Jennings leading they set off, slipping and sliding a little on the grass tussocks because of the rubber pads under their boots. The discovery of a small road after two hundred yards travel seemed to confirm their position was very close to what had been intended. The road was in the right place, of the right width, and aligned in the right direction as the V road on their briefing maps. It also had a mileage post shining palely on the grass verge.

### Henry had clustered his men around him for cover while he flicked on his torch inside his cupped hand for a split second. Then he'd grunted in astonishment and awe. For the post had read 'CARNOULES -- 7 KILOMETRES'.

### This was the third night parachute descent Henry had made into open country, both of the previous ones during training in England. The first time he'd been landed eleven miles from the selected drop zone. The second time, in perfect weather conditions, the error margin had only been two miles. What he had now was absolute proof that this time, on a pitch black night, the computer guided Dragon had landed him literally within a stone's throw of his target. It was a pity there was no time to hang about trying to understand all the revolutionary implications of what had just happened.

### They crossed the road and walked upwards towards the ridgeline.

### Twice on the upward climb the file stopped, the first time because of the throbbing noise of de-synchronized aero engines coming towards them. The aircraft, presumably one of KGr 100's, passed overhead in the darkness without being seen. Whatever it was doing it seemed to be in a minority because only one more aircraft had been heard subsequently, either taking off or landing.

### A second stop had been caused by Parrish's difficulty in continuing. It was obvious that he was finding it hard to shake off the effects of the blow on his head. The NCO's doggedness was unaffected though. It took some forceful persuasion before he allowed Henry to carry his kit bag for him. After a five minute halt they moved off again, Henry still cursing himself for not bringing their helmets.

### It was fortunate that once the high ground had been reached it was a short and fairly easy stage to the first observation position. Henry had told Jennings to let Parrish sleep if he could, and if he did, to leave him undisturbed as long as possible. Bedded down underneath his hide he was in as comfortable a position as they could provide for him. Henry had given his final instructions very quietly.

### "If Corporal Parrish starts making a dangerous amount of noise because he's in a coma, you are to silence him by whatever means are necessary. You will not be held responsible if such action results in further injury or death to him. You understand my orders?"

### "Yes, zur."

### "OK, then. Remember, I must know if that farmhouse is occupied, and if it is, how many people live there. And anything else you can tell me about the landing area would be much appreciated. If all three of the gliders crack up on this side of the Channel it'll be the end of the line for us."

### "Yes, zur."

### "I intend to start moving back to this position as soon as it gets dark tonight."

### Henry rubbed his hand against the bare ribbed rocks which marked the observation post's position.

### "I'll throw a stone against this to let you know I'm around, then click my fingers once. Two double clicks is the correct response."

### "Aye, zur. Good luck."

### "And to you, Jennings. You may have a boring day but tomorrow night will make up for it."

### "Don't ee worry 'bout that, Cap'n. I bought my knitting with me to pass the time."

### Henry shook his head in bewilderment: "Your knitting!"

### "Aye," Jennings answered calmly. "Making myself a balaclava, I be. A body could catch their death of cold in this line of business."

### "Fine, you can make me one while you're at it. But you'd better be careful of the size, my head's bigger than it looks. Come on Reech, let's go."

### Once dawn's first light had confirmed beyond all doubt that they were in the correct position Henry and Reech had taken it in turns to sleep while the other maintained a watch. Henry had taken the first sentry stag, jotting down notes on any traffic he could see.

### Although the trees in front made it impossible to observe the road between the bridge and the turnoff to the chateau he could overlook the roof of the chateau and see about a hundred yards of the driveway. Usually, whenever a vehicle passed his line of sight leaving the chateau it showed itself again soon afterwards crossing the river bridge, either stopping then at one of the German billets in the village or going on to the airfield.

### That the village had been largely taken over by the Luftwaffe was beyond doubt. Although Henry could only see about one third of Carnoules that was more than enough to confirm that the Huns had their feet well and truly under the table.

### An odds and ends collection of motorbikes and covered vans were parked in a row, with typical Teutonic tact, next to a small statue of a First World War French soldier holding a flag to his lips.

### Beyond them were two Luftwaffe buses and a mobile field kitchen. As the light grew stronger groups of men in blue-grey uniform appeared on the streets, interspersed with civilians in ones or twos, many of the civilians apparently elderly.

### Neither nationality appeared to take a great deal of notice of the other except for a group of school children who seemed continually fascinated by the Germans' equipment, especially their weapons. Henry found it easy to deduce the latter fact because of his own experience. One of the privileges granted to Commando troops was to be billeted in civilian homes in whatever part of the UK they were based, so he had some idea of what was going on in Carnoules.

### But what comparison could there be between a householder who accommodated a soldier for patriotism and six shillings and eight pence per day and one who had to accept a foreign invader on pain of eviction?

### The answer, apparently, was that there wasn't much difference at all. At the end of the high street nearest the river three large square concrete tanks were surrounded by early rising women slapping and pounding their laundry into a state of cleanliness. Nearly all the shirts being hung up to dry were grey and definitely German service issue, as were the matching socks and underwear.

### Whatever proprieties were being observed on the streets none of the women seemed to have any qualms about washing their dirty linen in public, as it were. The new European order was obviously alive and well and thriving in Carnoules.

### "Cunts!" Henry snarled, carefully keeping his hand over the rubber speaking tube which connected him to the other hide.

### A faint droning noise came out of it at regular intervals as Reech snored. Henry had to look through his binoculars again before he could believe he was watching French women acting as dhobi-wallahs for the Huns only a few weeks after many of their own men had been killed by these same soldiers.

### And yet, and yet.

### For a start, this wasn't France, it was Brittany, a hangout of Celtic leftovers. Not so much a case of being conquered as seeing the old conquerors conquered. And who down there could believe in even the possibility of defeating Hitler's Germany? The game was over, the winner had collected everything on the table, so what sense was there in trying to pretend otherwise? A lot was going to have to happen before any sizable percentage of the occupied populations would be ready to even consider fighting against the Germans.

### Henry's train of thought was broken into by the sight of the first traffic of the morning along the V road. It consisted of one very old push bike being slowly wheeled up the slope by a thin man of indeterminate age wearing a knee length smock made of brown material, a dilapidated trilby hat and a old sack tied around his shoulders.

### The man's movements were slow and economical of effort, the rhythm of a farm worker dragging his tiring body through a lifetime of toil. Henry had joined the army as a boy precisely because of the fact that he'd been bought up amongst such people. If he got shot today it was still worth it to have dodged the muck and boredom of the farmyard.

### Watching the passing traffic did get rather more interesting after that. Some light German military lorries in the village, a motorcycle and sidecar apparently running a shuttle service between the chateau and the airfield, several civilian cars with Wehrmacht plates.

### Henry twice saw a small fighting patrol carrying Schmeissers walking along the far bank of the river, which seemed to delineate part of the airfield security boundary. Close observation of their route revealed splashes of whitewash on tree trunks and white rags tied to bushes to help the patrols find their way at night without flashing torches about.

### No doubt about old Jerry, he was a soldier to his fingertips, imaginative, painstaking, a foe with scarcely a flaw in his metal. If the pricks could translate just one tenth of their military skill into political common sense they'd be no stopping them.

### Three times during Henry's watch a large green and grey Heinkel 111 with a row of aerials on its back lifted up above the village, wheels retracting and a unit badge of a Viking ship visible next to the glazed nose section. Something Henry carefully noted for his after action report. When one of the Heinkels passed directly overhead Henry squirmed down into the folds of parachute silk, then froze like a mouse underneath an hovering hawk. In his mind he knew how unlikely it was that anybody up there could see the hide but his body refused to believe it.

### Of course the aircraft simply flew on to do its airworthiness checks, or whatever it was about, with no sign of interest in his area. Still, he was glad he'd been able to palm off the camera supplied by Air Intelligence to Reech. Since his family had never been able to afford even a box brownie his excuse that he understood nothing about the mysteries of focusing and light exposure was both sincere and unshakeable.

### Henry also carefully considered the bridge, though he saw no reason to modify the plan he had already drawn up to damage it. Without time or opportunity to drill into the structure to place charges in the approved manner it was going to have to be a case of the bridge party using brute force to attack the structure.

### Each man would be carrying a pack filled with explosive and kapok. The packs would be tied together on the end of a length of rope, lowered into the water and allowed to drift alongside the central pillar under one of the haunches of the bridge. A grapnel tied onto the rope and secured to the bridge parapet would hold the packs in the correct position while the safety fuse on the detonating cord was lit.

### The blast from the demolition pack would punch upwards through the intrados and extrados layers of brickwork forming the arch and displace the spandrel so that the line of thrust following the arch was sharply turned, thus collapsing the road surface. At least that was what his MEXE chart said should happen.

### When Reech awoke Henry was glad to hand over the observation duties to him. He cleaned his teeth with a rag and some salt, pissed into an old rubber hot water bottle, said a short prayer, wrapped himself in the filthy parachute panels and closed his eyes.

### It was a good sleep, completely undisturbed, save for nostalgic boyhood odours of wet bracken and damp earth, and the soothing sound of raindrops pattering against leaves. When he opened his eyes the sound and smells stayed with him.

### Showers of rain blown by a raw north wind were slapping against the hillside. What had been a fairly calm and clear day had worsened considerably whilst he slept. Now he could understand why so many of the village cottages presented blank walls to the north. That had to be the direction from which the prevailing winds blew, off the sea. Cold water began to drip through the camouflage netting above him and seep into his clothes.

### Henry's G 1098 issue watch showed it was ten minutes past four. Which meant only another two hours to full darkness, although it seemed more likely to be only half an hour with the sullen stratocumulus clouds hanging overhead like a decaying shroud.

### He slipped a glacier mint into his mouth and sucked on it as he peered through a patch of long grass shaking in the wind gusts. In his judgement, limited though it was, the conditions seemed bad but not yet unflyable. Not that there was much point in worrying about the Hotspurs. They would either arrive or they wouldn't. All his landing party could do was to make sure they were ready and hope for the best.

### Henry picked up the speaking tube and whistled gently down it.

### "Reech."

### "Sir?"

### "Anything interesting happen?"

### "Two things, sir. A damned great Mercedes with a pennant flying went down the drive to the chateau at 1322. Departed at 1503, but didn't cross the bridge. I assume it turned right on the main road and went to Dinan. I had no chance to see who was inside."

### "Just some senior officer cadging a few free drinks, I daresay. What else?"

### "Well, I've only seen a couple of horse drawn wagons going down this road in front of us, and a few men on push bikes, but there was a car at 1256, coming from Carnoules. A civilian car -- one of those long Citroen 15's with the big double V badge on the radiator. It had some bullet holes in the bodywork but old ones, patched up.

### "There were three Jerries inside it, senior NCO's by their uniforms, and all looking very happy and relaxed. I'd guess the car is a piece of loot picked up by the local sergeants' mess sometime during the summer campaign and used for a runabout. They were out on pleasure, not military duties, I'm sure of that."

### "Hmm."

### Henry as an regular officer and Reech as a 'hostilities only' private both knew the same basic facts about service life; whoever else in a unit might be suffering hardships the last ones to feel the pinch would be the warrant officers and sergeants. They'd been at the game too long. Likewise, if there were any creature comforts going it was a sure bet that the old sweats would have them all organised for their own benefit long before their officers had even heard about them.

### As for the Citroen, practically every car owner in Paris had fled west or south during the great retreat, many of them being strafed by the Huns and abandoning their vehicles by the side of the road. And if anybody had the tools and expertise to fix up almost any kind of machinery it would be Luftwaffe ground crew.

### "You think the Jerries were off on a spree somewhere?"

### "It's a bit hard to be sure, sir. They came back past us at 1605, just before you woke up. I mean, I couldn't swear to anything, but I didn't get the impression they were drunk. Just a lot more relaxed even than they were before."

### Henry scratched at his stubby chin.

### "Reech, you were studying to do God's work before this war started. Show me your insight into your fellow human beings. You saw them go out and you saw them come back. What do you think they might have been doing to make their trip worthwhile?"

### Reech coughed apologetically.

### "Well, sir, in my experience any group of men with that sort of expectation and then relaxed happiness are either going out fishing or fornicating -- and I didn't see any fishing rods."

### "That's interesting. If they followed the road to the next village on the map it would have been a round trip of about nine miles. They could gave done that in the car with no rush and still had plenty of time to indulge themselves. Let's both hope they went straight past the farm. I'd hate to discover that it's been turned into a Hun knocking shop."

### "Yes, sir."

### "Better say amen, Reech. We may need the help of a higher authority than I can invoke."

### "Amen, sir."

### The day died swiftly, grey light ebbing out of the grey sky.

### Henry took out his handkerchief, soaked the khaki material in a trickle of rainwater, then carefully wiped off the burnt cork and remains of cow dung from his face. There was nothing he could do about the rest of his body which looked as if it had been rolling in a pile of carbon papers. The hastily applied dye on the silk canopy was coming off on everything it touched.

### Out of his shirt pocket he produced a small metal mirror, a tube of shavex and the cutthroat razor he'd bought at the start of the war as a precaution of his own against a shortfall in the supply of life's necessities. If need be he wouldn't have to buy another "7 O'clock" safety blade until about 1950, by which time the Germans might be ready to sign an armistice.

### After a long drawn out and thoroughly enjoyable shave Henry carefully unwrapped a stub of burnt cork and re-camouflaged his face. Then he put his hand into the kit bag and produced a water bottle filled with cold tea, a packet of hard tack biscuits and a tin of bully beef. It would probably take all of Crampton's fancy computers to work out how many tons of those particular foodstuffs the British army had in store -- certainly enough for this war and probably the next as well.

### Still, you couldn't complain. Here he was, rested, shaved, fed and knowing precisely where he was and what he was supposed to be doing, none of which conditions usually applied to the poor bloody infantry in the front line. If he couldn't do any good under these conditions then Henry Winfield would have to be a damned poor leader. The light had thickened into murk and mist, nightfall was upon them, and his luck was waiting, good or bad.

### Henry picked up the speaking tube.

### "OK, Reech, as Mr Kipling might say, we're a little in front o' Christmas time and just behind the rains. Time to start moving."

### CHAPTER FIVE

### For some unaccountable reason Henry found the march back to Jennings' and Parrish's position nerve wracking. Over ground where he had almost strolled the previous night he now moved with exaggerated caution. Some of the slowness was necessary in order to keep checking the compass back bearing; most of it was due to sheer fright.

### Perhaps it had been easier before because of the usual burst of euphoria he felt after every successful parachute descent. Now his mind had fixed itself firmly on the fear of being discovered by the Germans and euphoria was the last word he would have chosen to describe his present emotions.

### It was a rational fear but the facts didn't justify his subservience to it, as Henry well knew. No man who wanted to stay out of sight would have any reason to complain about the Commandos' present circumstances.

### Despite the brightness of the moon large chunks of stratocumulus reduced it for most of the time to a mere luminous patch in the blackened sky. A brisk wind was blowing at about twenty knots, still from the north, scurrying the clouds along like defaulters under punishment. Only when an occasional gap appeared in them did visibility on the ridge extend beyond a few paces, revealing only a wider area of close cropped grass and barren patches of rock.

### To Henry it seemed as if he was trudging across the bottom of the sea in lead soled boots -- a dead and very cold sea. Deprived of the warmth of the parachute canopy his body was becoming rapidly chilled by the combination of the fresh wind and his slow movement. A few spiteful showers were still around, each one lasting only for a minute or so, yet enough to keep a man's clothes damp and sticking to his goose-pimpled skin.

### Logically, Henry should have been feeling pleased about the weather conditions. Although making extra difficulties for the glider pilots they would be a great help on his approach march to the chateau. What ought to be his greatest worry was KGr 100 being sent off on a bombing raid that night and his mailed fist closing around an empty trap.

### Of course Crampton's computer boys were sure they had the latest information from the German side. A party was on and a party which had a Field Marshal for a guest wasn't likely to be cancelled. Especially when the Field Marshal concerned was Hugo Sperrle, the only man in the Luftwaffe with any chance of matching Herman Goering in gluttony. But surely somebody in Germany was going to have a rush of sanity to the head and start using KGr 100 soon? Only a few hundred bombs dropped under X-gerat control on critical targets and Britain would be crippled. What were the idiots waiting for? A victory parade down the Unter Der Linden in spring sunshine?

### Henry had been trying to keep a count on his paces, although it was complicated by the need to avoid the patches of slippery rock. He was reluctant to remove the rubber pads from his boots yet. Whatever happened now he was already convinced that the technique of dropping scouts ahead of a raid was a good one, which meant it should be concealed from the Germans if at all possible. Leaving the countryside churned up by footprints was not the way to do that.

### Eventually, after an extra thirteen paces beyond his outward count, he found a cluster of semi-buried boulders which seemed familiar. The stone he threw rattled against the rocks, followed by the quiet sound of his fingers snapping. From behind the boulders came the two double snaps in response. Then Reech crawled forward while Henry covered him with his carbine. After a few seconds, he heard the arranged recognition signal, three single clicks. Henry crawled towards the sounds.

### Parrish and Reech were huddled together in the lee of the rocks. He put his head close to theirs.

### "How are you feeling, Corporal?"

### "Fine, sir, fine. Had ma'sel a good sleep early on, and I'm bonnie."

### "Good. Where's Jennings?"

### "He's away down to yon farm, sir."

### "What!"

### Parrish took a deep breath.

### "It was this way, sir. Just after thirteen hundred we saw a car arrive wi' three Jerries in it. They stopped by the farm, but ne'r went into the hoose. Instead, they went into an old barn an' stayed there for two hours. Carrying bags they were, an' came out looking like they owned Sauchiehall street . Awfa' happy they were, sir, awfa' happy. Wouldna' be surprised neither, 'cause some lucky bastard has got a barnful o' bints doon there."

### Henry groaned. "Shit and shankers!"

### "Aye, sir. Anyhow, we couldna' quite ken the way of it. We saw three lassies doon there wi' the Jerries, but we didna see any arrive, or go awa' after the boys had been aroond. Just one of them taking a stroll a while ago, and another two fetching plates from the farm hoose, likely their suppa'. It looks as if the girls are biding in the barn the while, away out of the hoose. We dinna understand it full, because we saw the farmer and his old wifey working aroond the place today, but not a sign o' any o' they women aboot til those bluidy Germans came."

### "That's odd. Alright, we can assume that some of the local ladies have set themselves up in business in the barn as floosies. We can also assume that the farmer is getting a percentage of whatever was in those bags. Booze and fags for the black market, I suppose."

### Henry scratched his chin, continuing to think aloud.

### "It does seem odd that the women would stay inside the barn all day, though. These are country people, used to getting up early and working. Lolling around in the straw during daylight hours isn't the way of things around here, however much money is being made on the side."

### "Sir, Jennings an' ma'sel are positive that the women are nae locals. City bred, we reckoned, an' comfy city at that. Smart clothes an' smoking their fags in long black holders, like that film star, Noel Coward. You ken what I mean?"

### All of them caught their breath in sudden fear as a high pitched yelp came at them out of the darkness. Henry lifted his head up and stared down into the gloomy valley.

### "It's OK," he said reassuringly. "Just a dog fox following the smell of a vixen on heat. It's their mating season."

### "They all seem to be at it around here," Reech commented. Henry fought an impulse to hit him. The pressure bearing down on his shoulders had crushed his sense of humour well out of reach.

### "This is great. I've got about ninety minutes before I have to send the go ahead signal if the raiding party's to land here tonight and the landing site I want to use has had all these lunatics running around near it. For all I know there could be a charabanc loaded with Luftwaffe NCO's coming over tonight on another excursion trip from KGr 100. I can't even begin to guess why a bunch of smart city women should be setting themselves up in a stinking barn at the backend of nowhere: looking after staff officers in Montmartre ought to be their style.

### "And to top it all, one of my men has decided to wander down there and do some sight seeing."

### "That was ma notion, sir." Lance Corporal Parrish said stoutly.

### "I thought it best to try an' find out what was what, instead o' just biding til you came. Jennings is gey guid in the dark, an' one of us had to be here tae meet you. He'll find out what he can, an' meet you doon there at 1845 hours. Perhaps he'll ken something that we couldna' have found arriving later."

### "You were absolutely right, Corporal Parrish," Henry admitted. He had committed the sin of speaking before thinking. "Sending Jennings ahead like that was the best way of trying to get some more information. Have you made a sketch map of the place?"

### "Aye, sir. I moved ma hide back behind these rocks so we could use it."

### Henry crawled halfway into the camouflaged tunnel after removing his smock and taking a small torch out of his shirt pocket, silently cursing the awkwardness of the shoulder holster locked around his upper torso and the Webley & Scott revolver inside it.

### Worst of all was the need to continually check that the strap around the butt was still secure. Not one of his best ideas. The PE lined holster would probably kill him by accident a lot earlier than was strictly necessary.

### Parrish entered the hide from the other end, also in his shirt sleeves. They waited while Reech carefully draped their smocks over each end of the hide, tucking the bottoms carefully around their waists.

### "All secure, sir."

### Henry switched on the torch, producing the faintest of glimmers through the red tinted glass. Holding it close to the army notebook between himself and Parrish he listened to the Lance Corporal and absorbed the details on the page.

### "The farm buildings are fifty yards in from the road, sir. There's a wall aboot two hundred yards ta the south, going east-west. An' a burn runs the same way as the road, mebbe three hundred yards in. That part o' the field is pretty flat, except for a pair o' old sheep pens towards the road side, eighty yards from the road, an' the same from the bottom wall. There are na trees doon that end."

### "Apart from the pens, it appears clear?"

### "Aye, sir. But aboot level with the farm, there's a sort o' hump in the field. It starts behind the farm, in the middle o' the field, an' comes out like a kind o' arrow-heid. The farm buildings are up against one side, an' the other carries on easterly tae the burn. Then you've another hundred yards or so of flat ground, but it's nae use to us, there's three bloody great trees right in the middle of it."

### "I suppose they built the farm in the lee of the slope to keep out of this damned north wind. So you're saying we've only got one choice? We've got to land the gliders on the bottom part of the paddock?"

### "Aye, and there's a dozen cows wanderin' in the field. We'll hae to move them. I'm thinking we could mebbe drive them through the gate in the bottom wall."

### "Yes. We certainly can't have them running around on the landing zone. It'd be easier to herd them into a corner of the field and shoot them with the carbines, but that would tip the Jerries off that there were men on the ground before the gliders landed."

### "Yes sir. I've a second map o' the farm buildings here, if ye want ta see it."

### Henry nodded. "Let's have a look, please."

### It was easy enough to understand the drawing, with all the main features and distances carefully inked in. Most of the farm buildings formed a rough rectangle. The farm house was on the northern side, the barn thirty yards to the south, with a wall connecting both buildings on the western side, and an enclosed yard between them, a row of open fronted sheds on the eastern edge facing into the yard. Outside the other buildings, fifty yards to the south, was a wooden milking shed. Between the western end of the buildings and the V road were two duck ponds, with trees around them.

### "Where is Jennings planning to rendezvous with us?"

### "Between the milking shed and the bottom duck pond, sir. Here, where the manure heap is."

### "Very appropriate. Have you heard any dogs barking?"

### "No, sir. Nor seen none."

### "That's odd. Still, whether there's any around or not, we should be OK if we keep downwind. We'll get onto the road a couple of hundred yards south of the farm and approach it using the far side road wall as cover. By the by, did you see any telephone wires?"

### "No, sir."

### "Right, I suppose we'd better get on with it."

### After helping Parrish stow his hide away in his kit bag the Commandos descended the slope, Henry leading.

### Halfway down they entered a stretch of bracken which rustled against their legs, soaking every inch of material below the knees in water which seemed to turn into ice. The only places on Henry's calves which weren't numb itched from nettle stings. As soon as he could see the road he monkey crawled forward to the nearer wall.

### Hearing nothing, he raised his head over the top of the dry built stone coping and looked around. As he did so the rising moon slipped clear of the suffocating embrace of the clouds for several seconds.

### The road and the surrounding countryside stood out in sharper detail, but without revealing any sign of life. It was the sort of night when a man would walk wide of a graveyard. Henry shivered and looked carefully at the farm buildings half left from his position. Old traces of white paint around the upper shutters on the house gave the building a skeletal atmosphere. Above the roof the tail of the Great Bear jutted up. The pattern of cold stars seemed to mark the edge of approaching clearer weather.

### Henry stared at the familiar shape of the plough and crossed his fingers in hope. Then the merest flicker of dimmed headlights loomed on the horizon, where the V road from Carnoules crossed the ridge. Bad news always carries its own stamp of authenticity even when still far away. KGr 100 were sending over another pack of randy airmen.

### Perhaps the ideal thing to have done would have been to wait and make sure the approaching vehicle was indeed heading for the farm. Certainly to stay off the road until the coast was clear again. On the other hand he wanted to find out as much as he could about the set up at the farm. Which meant being as close as he could if more visitors arrived.

### Henry pushed his kit bag over the wall, then rolled over the top himself. As soon as the other three men were over he slung the kit bag underneath his chest and crossed the tarmac on his hands and knees, his carbine awkwardly wedged between the bag and his body. It was easier going on the grass verge opposite but still viciously painful. Fragments of stone and strands of briars jabbed into his flesh, as always seemed to happen whenever he tried to crawl on even the most benign looking patch of grass.

### Henry stopped after his first outburst of fierce energy had dulled, to glance over the wall once more and then towards the headlights again. Judging it as well as he could it seemed another seventy yards would put his party about level with the trees around the nearest duck pond. That was where he wanted to cross the wall which was on the farm side of the road, where he had some cover from line of sight from the farm house. The question was, would he have enough time to cover the distance before the head lights picked them up?

### What would have been a fairly simple guess in peacetime conditions was complicated by his uncertainty about the efficacy of the blackout masks fitted to German headlights. In Britain only the faintest glimmer of light was allowable and the regulations were ruthlessly enforced. It was obvious from the fact he had seen these lights while they were still below the ridge line that the standards here in German occupied France were far slacker.

### Well, why not, the Germans were the winning side so far, weren't they?

### In the event his party covered the distance with time to spare. When the length of road by the farm gate was lit up by the approaching lights Henry was still lying alongside the wall, but on the far side, in a ditch which ran down between the wall and the farm paddock. The other members of his party were stretched out behind him, half submerged in muddy water and staring at the buildings. To the right was the milking shed, a black hulk sixty or seventy paces away. Much closer were the grizzled old oaks which stood between the duck ponds and the paddock. Indeed, the soldiers could hear the gentle groaning of the branches as they swayed in the wind.

### Henry peered through the gaps between the trunks, looking at the south east corner of the barn. No signs of life. Then he took another long look at the upper story of the farmhouse visible beyond the sagging slate roof of the barn, wondering if he could make out a very dim night light burning in one of the bedrooms. Probably a hurricane lamp with the wick turned down low, the same way his father kept one handy against any night time need in a house without electricity.

### The car's destination was made certain when it stopped by the farm entrance. Its headlights were indeed far brighter than any Henry had seen since the war started. A figure in a baggy kneed uniform with high boots and a side cap opened the gate and then conscientiously closed it again after the car had passed. The man got back into the car which drove down the access track towards the farm buildings. It looked like the Citroen Reech had seen and sounded as if it badly needed a new exhaust muffler.

### Then the vehicle turned right at the north west corner of the farmhouse and cruised very slowly along the western edge of the buildings before turning left again and stopping on the southern side of the barn. In the beams of the headlights was a wooden loading platform, set at a convenient height for rolling milk churns onto a cart.

### A door opened above the platform and Henry glimpsed an interesting shaped female silhouette standing in the entrance. The headlights were doused and the darkness was complete again. The wind carried a babble of raucous German -- a language which seemed to Henry to be ideally suited for sounding raucous. If these sort of night time arrivals were a regular thing it wasn't surprising there were no dogs kept around the place to kick up a racket every time a bunch of strangers came visiting.

### After the initial burst of conversation had died down the door in the side of the barn slammed shut behind the Germans.

### Henry waited a few moments in case somebody was still lingering near the Citroen. When he was reasonably sure it was safe to move he began crawling again, towards the place the manure heap should be. Wind gusts of renewed strength clawed at the mud and water soaked front of his body. It felt as if he was being lashed with an icy whip which was cutting through to the ribs of his chest.

### He clenched his teeth and kept an anxious watch to the left, in the direction of the ponds. Where there were ducks there might equally well be geese and they were far more effective sentries than any dog.

### His nose soon told him he was close to the manure heap. Then he saw the irregular shape of it and gratefully felt the wind drop as he moved into the lee of the steaming mound. A click of his fingers brought a similar response.

### Jennings was lying a few yards to their right, the barrel of his carbine resting on top of his kit bag, the butt against his shoulder.

### "Here, zur."

### God, but the atmosphere was ripe. Farms were the same everywhere, nothing but shit and stink.

### "Did you find out anything, Jennings?"

### "Yes, zur. I looked into that barn. I saw four women in there. One be around fifty, looks like gentry. The other three be younger, perhaps her daughters, all handsome maids, especially one coppernob. They do zeem to be sleeping in that barn, but hardly a spare stitch of clothing or kit to their names as I could see. Only one little bag between all of 'em. Looks like they came along here in a real hurry. There be a big shiny car in one of they sheds over yonder which must belong to 'ee. Tis covered with sacks, but I took a look underneath, and it has a big silver mascot on the bonnet, a flying bird with a long neck."

### "Was it a swan, maybe? With the wings extended down?"

### "Yes, zur. How did you know?"

### "Because I know my military history. The flying stork was the badge of Guynemer, the First War French fighter ace. After the war it was adopted by the company which had made the best aero-engines for the allies, Hispano-Suiza. I also happen to know that Hispano-Suiza cars cost an absolute bloody fortune -- maybe a thousand pounds or more."

### Henry shook his head in bewilderment.

### "Why would a bunch of women who could afford a vehicle like that be peddling their arses in a filthy bloody barn? Can you make any sense out of it, Jennings?"

### "Not I, zur. But you could ask the old lady, if you've a mind. She's sitting in the car now, crying to herself."

### "Crying?"

### "Yes, zur. I heard her. I think her was praying as well, but I didn't understand the words. Not French, I be sure of that."

### "Was it Jewish? I mean Hebrew -- or is it Yiddish?"

### Jennings spread his hands wide.

### "I don't know anything about that sort of stuff. But we've a few who'd know in the raiding party."

### "Yes, but I need somebody who can ask some questions now. If these people live in France surely to God they can speak French."

### Henry clicked his fingers again: "Reech."

### Reech slithered closer.

### "Sir?"

### "One of the reasons why I wanted you to be with me on this trip is because you're reputed to be able to parlevous Francais. I hope my information was correct?"

### "Yes, sir. When I was a boy my family used to have a holiday every year in Roussillon. I picked the language up pretty well."

### Henry nodded in approval.

### "OK. We've got things to do here, and the first is to make this place secure for the gliders to land. Which is not going to be easy. There are four of us, with two carbines and two pistols between us. In there are three or four Jerries, judging by the noise they made just now, and they must be carrying their sidearms. In addition we've got these women to worry about, not to mention the couple we know are living in the farmhouse.

### "We need all the help we can get so maybe these women can give us some, especially if we can offer something in return. Jennings says there's a old lady sitting in a car at the back of that yard and she seems to be crying. Go over there and ask her what's the problem, and can the British Army give her a hand?"

### "Yes, sir. Just me?"

### "Jennings will lead the way, and I'm coming along to satisfy my curiosity. Corporal Parrish."

### "Sir."

### "Corporal, I want you to slip up as close as you think prudent to that doorway. If the Huns come out in the normal way of things, let 'em go and give them a blessing for their journey. But if you hear shooting put a bullet into any German who comes through the door. All clear?"

### "Aye, sir."

### "Which way are we going, Jennings?"

### "Along this side of the milking shed, then over the wall into the yard. If you stand on the wall close to the gate, zur, you'm can peek through a ventilation slit under the barn eaves and see inside the barn."

### "Got it. You've taken your rubber soles off?"

### "Had to, zur."

### "OK, everybody else take theirs off, and then we'll move. Leave the kit bags here. Corporal Parrish, tie all the soles together and put the bundle into one of the bags. I don't want any of them left behind."

### Henry found that following Jennings through the dark was hardly any easier than trying to find the way himself. The man slipped along like a ferret down a rabbit hole. Maybe that was a good simile as Jennings seemed to have all the makings of a marvellous poacher. Except that he was employed in peacetime as a bank clerk in Bodmin and nobody lucky enough to have a secure job like that would risk it by appearing in court on a poaching charge.

### Commando soldiers often seemed to be acting outside their normal characters -- but which role was the assumed one?

### Having circled around the milking shed they stopped at the eastern end of the building, staring towards the wall ten yards away across the mud and at the closed wooden barred gate set in it.

### Jennings went across the gap first, crawling on the flat of his stomach through the filth. Then Henry, his carbine held in his upturned hands as he used his legs and forearms to propel himself. As always in such manoeuvres, there was a good chance of dragging your trousers off if they were less than very securely fastened. Infantry fighting was the toughest test of everything a man possessed, from his resources of courage to the strength of his braces and buttons.

### Henry knelt by the side of the wall while Jennings stared into the yard. Then he took his weight on his arms while Jennings used Henry's back as a step ladder to slip over the top of the barrier.

### A mixture of male and female voices came faintly from the direction of the barn, although the male ones seemed to be in the majority. They also seemed to have a definite sense of pleasurable anticipation in them that the women's voices lacked.

### Reech stepped onto Henry and slid down into the yard. Then Reech and Jennings helped Henry over the wall.

### To their left was the end of the barn, on the a row of sagging wooden roofs held up by rough hewn beams which stretched along the eastern side of the yard. There seemed to be a whole lot of indiscernible junk hidden in the almost total blackness underneath the roof but Jennings went directly towards a sleek shape draped with an assortment of old sacks.

### Setting their feet down with the greatest possible care the three of them came closer to the concealed car, Henry the furthest back. Even so, he could clearly hear the sobbing coming out of the darkness. It was a sound he hated, a reminder of the times his own mother had wept while he did his inadequate best to comfort her.

### Reech tapped his fingers on the roof of the Hispano-Suiza. A white face turned towards his almost invisible figure.

### "Bonjour, la voiture. Les armee Anglais sont arrives."

### A gasp of surprise, and a gabble of answering French. There was no chance that Henry could make any sense out of it, so he simply stayed in the shadows, staring out across the yard while the whispered conversation went back and forth. One phase was repeated on both sides, "Les Russe blancs!", with special emphasis by the woman.

### Then more talk, the woman getting more and more excited, with Reech trying to calm her down:"Dame, tais-toi, tais-toi!"

### Eventually, and not before time, Henry thought, Reech beckoned him over.

### "I think I've got the gist of it now, sir. Her name is Densky, Countess Densky, if you please. She's a White Russian who seems to have got out of the country after the revolution with her children and most of the family fortune, although the Count was caught and shot by the Bolsheviks. She's been living in Paris since 1920, in an apartment on the Boulevard MacDonald. She has two daughters who live with her. The block she lives in seems to be a sort of enclave of displaced Czarists -- well, for rich ones, anyway.

### "Four days ago she went out on a shopping trip with her daughters, her niece and the family chauffeur. When they got back to her home they found police cars parked in front of the apartment building with several people being taken out in handcuffs, although they were too far away to recognise any of the prisoners. So they hid around the corner and sent the chauffeur to find out what was happening. He came back and told them that all the people who had been arrested were White Russians.

### "Of course they asked him if he had any idea of what was happening. He said that one of the bystanders had been told by one of the flics that they had orders to round up all the Whites because Hitler wanted to send them to Stalin as a sign of good will. So the Countess decided there was nothing for it but to head into the country with only what they had with them, it being far too dangerous to risk going back home."

### "Pretty hard headed action, wasn't it?" Henry asked. "Just to cut and run like that, without even trying to confirm this story about being handed over to Stalin?"

### "Sir, I'm not sure we're in a position to pass judgement. Maybe if we thought we were going to be handed over to an organisation like the NKVD we'd do the same. At any event the Countess seems to think anything is better than a one way ticket to Moscow. She says she came here because the man who owns the Chateau Valbourges is engaged to her niece and she thought he could help. She knew the Luftwaffe had moved into the chateau but she had nowhere else to go to.

### "When she arrived she tried to make contact with the fiance before showing her face and found out what she'd been afraid of had happened. The Grand Duke was placed under house arrest in the chateau at the same time as the arrests started in Paris."

### "Grand Duke?"

### "Grand Duke Peter, sir. His father was Grand Duke Kyril, first cousin to Nicholas the Second, the last Czar. They've lived here in Brittany for years, until Grand Duke Kyril died in 1938."

### "Reech, cut out this family tree business, will you? All I want to know is what these women are doing in this scummy dump."

### "Well, the car ran out of petrol after they'd got here, and the women had no ration coupons to get any more, nor much money either, not daring to use their cheque book."

### "And then?"

### "They asked for food at this farm. Unfortunately they were unwise enough to tell the truth as to why they'd left Paris in such a hurry. What they got was an offer to stay in the barn and be nice to some Luftwaffe NCO's with whom the farmer was already doing a side trade in black market rations. Otherwise, the farmer said, the Surete Nationale office in Rennes was going to get a phone call about the suspicious foreigners in the area."

### Henry shrugged his shoulder: "That sounds just like every farmer I've ever met. Who are these nasty bastards?"

### "Monsieur Loridon and wife, whoever they are. It seems they bought the farm only a few months ago. In any case, they're obviously attrape-nigaud specialists -- experts in never giving a sucker an even break."

### "Well, their luck's just taken a turn for the worse. But weren't the Luftwaffe boys worried about getting involved with people who are supposed to be on the run from the Gestapo?"

### Reech spoke again to the elderly Countess, still holding forlornly onto his arm. He translated her answer.

### "She says that everybody here knows that the German armed forces have their own legal system and the Gestapo cannot take any direct action against a soldier. In any case these Luftwaffe NCO's regard themselves as such important technicians that only a few special officers can give them orders. They don't think that anybody is going to bother them in a quiet place like this over a few Russian women. In a sense, the Luftwaffe is protecting them from the Gestapo and the NKVD, and she knows which organisation she prefers. Even though the Luftwaffe men are raping her daughters."

### A particularly jarring outburst of male laughter filtered through the barn walls. The Countess's white streaked hair bobbed as she winced at the sound. She must have carried quite a few extra pounds until recently, though her fine clothes seemed very loose now. The moonlight was hardly enough to see her features clearly but Henry had the impression she had been a damn good looker in her time.

### She spoke again in low pitched yet vehement passion.

### "She wants to know what we're doing here, and if there is any chance her daughters can go back to England with us. She says she doesn't care how dangerous it is."

### "Tell her we're here to make this place safe for some of our comrades to land here in an aircraft. We need to capture the Germans in the barn. The same applies to the farmer and his wife. If she and her family will help us, we'll take them all back with us."

### "Can I tell her that as a promise from a British officer? It would convince her like nothing else could."

### "Yes. My best efforts to transport them to England. Whatever happens after that will be for the United Kingdom authorities to decide. Make that clear as well."

### Before Reech had got halfway through some kind of sentence about Capitaine Winfield, l'officeure Bretagne, apres la bataille. . . ." the Countess had seized Henry's hand and began kissing it fervently.

### "Merci beaucoup, merci beaucoup!"

### "Yes, alright, let's not get too bloody excited, we haven't done anything yet. Wait here."

### Henry broke away from the woman as gently as he could, then carefully hoisted himself onto the wall where it abutted against the barn wall. He had to twist his upper torso to the right whilst leaning against the barn in order to peer into the narrow vertical slit of the air vent let into the stonework.

### Inside the building an upper staging of wooden planks halfway up the white washed walls restricted his view. Most of what could have been visible was hidden in complete darkness. But in the centre of the darkened building was a circle of dim light cast by a paraffin lamp hanging, he supposed, from a rope or chain rigged across the centre of the barn.

### Underneath them was a kind of square, some eight feet by eight feet, outlined by four rows of corn sacks piled up about three sacks high. It looked as if some loose hay had been spread between the sacks and on top of that was a mass of yellow tinged silk, torn in several places, but undoubtedly an old parachute.

### It was somehow reassuring to see that the Luftwaffe had as many problems in keeping time expired canopies under lock and key as the RAF did. Parachute silk and shroud lines were becoming part of the currency of war, with every scrap utilised as comprehensively as a pig in a Chicago slaughterhouse. Some of the folds of this canopy had been thrown across the tops of the sacks. Sitting on them, side on to Henry's vantage point, was a naked man.

### He was big framed, with tufts of black hair on his chest and shoulders. As was often the case the comparative hirsuteness of his body was matched by a scarcity on his head, a large patch of bare scalp being visible under the light, with the hair that was left around it mostly grey.

### What was less usual were the scars on the side of his neck and over his chest. It looked as if he'd been badly wounded at one time, no hair now growing where the flesh had been ripped open. At the moment his face showed only pleasure, which was not surprising under the circumstances.

### Kneeling in front of him were two young women who seemed to be taking it in turns to administer "La Pipe". Even Henry knew the French slang for that particular activity.

### Both of the girls were still fully dressed. The nearest was a well built seventeen or eighteen old, short but strong looking, wearing a well tailored suit of grey flecked with blue, set off by a white blouse and a single brooch of silver and diamonds that glowed even in the dim light of the paraffin lamp. Her hair, jet black, was swept back and held in place by a leather strap and wooden pin.

### The face framed by the glossy hair was exceptionally good looking, though it still retained a hint of childish chubbiness, with a sulky pout around the full mouth. Her right hand was held out between the German's thighs, steadying his rigid cock as her companion ran her tongue over and around the top of it.

### The other girl seemed taller and a little older, also wearing a smart suit, made of a dark blue material, the jacket cut in bolero style, the skirt pulled up far enough to let her kneel in front of the German and lean forward. Her hair was bobbed in tight curls around her ears and as raven wing dark as her companion's. She was wearing a blue and white sombrero hat with two notched white ribbons hanging from the back.

### Quite how the hat was staying in place while her head bobbed up and down so energetically was something of a mystery to Henry.

### The man grunted an order and the mademoiselle in the saucy hat moved back a little to allow her partner to take her place. The face now revealed underneath the curled brim was perhaps more handsome than beautiful because of a rather too prominent nose but it seemed to indicate a strong personality. The impression that Henry got was of deep disgust at what she was being forced to do.

### The younger girl was either more frightened of the consequences of not obeying or simply of a more sensual nature, because she seemed determined to swallow every centimetre of the swollen penis that she could, to the Hun's evident delight.

### It must have added a picaresque touch to his pleasure to have the girls perform on him while looking as if they had just stepped off Les Grand Boulevards. Then the German looked up from his lap as more newcomers crowded into the square. Three more men, all middle aged and all without their uniforms or any other kind of clothing, apart from wrist watches and boots. In between them was the last of the three younger émigré women, taller and heavier than the others, with a large bust and provocative hips, looking more like a meat and potatoes sort of girl than a skinny coffee and croissant type.

### Unlike the other two her hair was golden red, cut straight across her forehead to hang loose to her shoulders and she was absolutely beautiful. There was no other way to describe the seemingly perfect symmetry of her face, although that would have been only a mask if it wasn't for the emotion in the brilliant blue of her eyes, the tautness of her carefully made up features. Not fear or shame, but savage anger. She was wearing a frock made of a floral material which looked as if it might have been heavy silk, with an eton collar, elbow length loose sleeves and a matching tie belt with an oversized knot at the front. Two blood red stones dangled from her ears inset in ostentatious earrings, a double string of the same stones around her neck.

### She also had a more unusual set of accessories, a pair of blued steel handcuffs which kept her wrists clasped together before her body.

### The Germans forced her towards one side of the square and made her kneel on the sacks, leaning forward to rest her forearms on the bench of a chaff cutting machine. She was rewarded by having her breasts tweaked by two of the men, one standing on each side of her, whilst the other German lifted up the hem of the skirt and draped it over the small of her back. The red-head's legs were quite marvellous, at least from Henry's viewpoint. The enticing contours were enhanced by the two stocking seams which ran up from the heavy walking shoes to reach ever more interesting heights, before terminating in stocking tops held in place by a white suspender belt just visible underneath a pair of matching white briefs.

### The man behind her laughed and picked up a thin cane. A single stroke which landed just below the elastic edges of the briefs made her yelp and squirm as the other two Huns apparently tightened their grip on her nipples, holding her in place. The scarred man sitting on the far side of the square chortled with glee, running his fingers deep into the hair of one of the girls attending him, simultaneously stretching his hand across the back of the other's neck to pull her towards him.

### Oddly enough Henry felt more jealousy about the fact that the Germans were clearly keeping warm in the sheltered building than of the other pleasures they were enjoying: the way he felt at the moment he would have gladly traded off half a dozen females in return for a set of dry clothes and a seat by a roaring fire.

### Having seen all that he needed and reassured that the Jerries were likely to be distracted for some time he slowly lowered his legs back onto the ground. Reech and the Countess were waiting close by.

### "Ask her if she's still got the keys to the Hispano, and whether there's any charge left in the battery?"

### Reech whispered a translation.

### "She still has the keys, and, as far as she knows, there's no problem with the battery."

### "OK, where's the main door to the barn?"

### She showed it to them, two doors in fact, each five feet across, spanning an entrance wide enough for a horse and cart to pass through. Opening one of them quickly would need two strong men to deal with the weight resting on each set of sagging hinges. Although the doors were firmly closed there was no sign of any locks on them.

### Henry ran the blade of his fighting knife down between the middle of them, encountering no resistance. Ergo, no bar or bolts on the other side.

### Having retreated back around the corner, Henry asked in a whisper: "Do the Huns ever use that entrance?"

### "Non."

### "Is it locked or blocked in any way? Has she seen the farmer open it recently?

### Reech answered carefully after the Countess had finished speaking.

### "One of the doors was opened yesterday, to bring in a sick cow. The doors aren't locked as far as she knows."

### Satisfied, Henry issued his orders.

### Working as quietly as possible the Commandos took the sacks off the Hispano-Suiza and pushed the car out of the shed. A three point turn was made, Henry leaning through the side window to move the steering wheel as the other soldiers strained against the polished sides of the car.

### After some teeth gritting efforts in moving the tremendous weight of the machine its headlights were finally aligned on the centre of the right hand door and positioned six feet away from it.

### Sacks were wrapped around the great silvery housings standing above the mudguards as Jennings slipped away to let Parrish know what was happening. When he returned he joined Reech in standing ready at the right hand door whilst the countess waited in the car. She turned on the ignition and showed Henry which was the light switch.

### When he flicked it two heavily shielded gleams appeared at the front of the car. He switched them off again, then pulled off the sacking covering the headlights. Then he made a last check with Reech.

### "She understands what to do?"

### "Yes, sir. She's to get her girls out of there as quickly as possible, and afterwards they're to hold the Loridons while we attend to the Jerries."

### Reech's voice dropped slightly. "Sir, I think there may be some very rough justice done if the Russians get their hands on that couple. They're fairly old, from what we could see of them during the day, and the Countess absolutely hates them."

### Henry wasn't interested.

### "If that was my worst problem, I'd be a happy man. Let's go." He waved the Countess forward.

### The woman sidled close to the doors and began to call out in a pitiful whine as though she was in genuine agony.

### "Mes enfants . . . mes enfants. Mon Dieu!"

### At the same time Reech and Jennings, on their knees, began to open the door in short, creaking movements. A head topped by long tousled dark hair appeared in the gap and the Countess, with surprising speed, grabbed the girl's arm and tugged it so violently that the younger woman fell forward, perhaps over one of the soldier's legs.

### "Merde!"

### The bare white body, still clutching a blanket to its front, rolled over on the cobblestones acquiring a patchy covering of mud and cow shit.

### In the shrieks and confusion a second naked girl stood in the doorway, staring ahead in complete bewilderment. Then Reech and Jennings seized her and threw her forward out of the way. She collided with the front of the Hispano Suiza, screeched in pain and doubled up, clutching one of her knees.

### "Door!"

### Henry saw and heard his men jerking the barn door open with all their strength. Then he depressed the headlight switch.

### The girl with the injured knee was between the car bonnet and the door, bending over, still wearing her little sombrero with the dangling ribbons and nothing else. She shrieked and jumped aside as the searchlight-like beams of the Hispano illuminated her bare derriere.

### Inside the barn it was like a theatre door publicity photograph, every actor frozen into immobility, although certainly unlike any picture ever likely to be displayed in Leicester Square.

### Scar chest was sitting on the sacks on the far side of the square, still naked, holding a wine bottle in his hand. Directly in front of him was one of his comrades, head lifted up towards the light and eyes bulging. On either side of his chest was a well shaped female leg, the toes of the fashionable ladies' shoes now pointing outwards and upwards, with ankles and knees held widely apart by the other two Huns. Beyond that scene was a patch of bright colours on an advertising sign leaning up against a wall for some reason: 'DUBO, DUBON, DUBONNET'.

### Another splash of colour was the red hair hanging like a curtain beneath the upside down face of the girl being fucked by the Huns. Her eyes were squinting at the figure which had appeared in front the headlights -- Henry thought that if his flat helmeted shape appeared odd to the Germans it must seem even stranger from her position. His voice cracked like a whip.

### "Achtung - Feldgendarmerie!"

### Dazzled, utterly bewildered, momentarily believing that they were indeed dealing with their own military police, the Germans instinctively stood to attention except for the one kneeling on top of the girl, who had the problem of already standing to attention as it were. He was a plump sort of character and looked as if he was on the verge of a heart attack. Finally managing to separate himself from the girl he coyly stayed on his knees behind the sacks, until Henry shoved the barrel of his carbine against his head.

### "Englander Kommando. On your feet, you shit!"

### Henry had often heard some of his upper crust fellow officers use the old line from 'Punch' magazine about 'collapse of stout party'. This was the first time in his life when he'd really seen it happen. Fatso actually fainted and fell on top of the Russian red head. Probably a case of too much blood already being drained off to deal with the sudden shock.

### "Jesus wept," Henry swore. "Jennings, get these other bastards lined up underneath the lamp. Reech, switch those bloody headlights off before somebody sees them and wonders what's going on."

### He stepped over the sacks dragged out the girl from underneath the pile of Hun blubber and pushed her off towards one of the darker corners.

### Parrish had appeared from behind the Germans, pistol clutched in his hand and looking eager for battle.

### The headlights went off, leaving only the dim overhead light of the hurricane lamp. Scar chest snarled something that sounded like a threat. Henry reversed his carbine and whipped the steel butt plate into the man's face. The German went down in stages, onto his knees, then sidewards, hands pressed against his mouth, before curling up and spitting out several teeth and bloody fragments.

### The other two Luftwaffe men stared at him in horror, then back towards Henry. One of them was the youngest, mid thirties probably, a skinny specimen, and the other was certainly in his forties, but small and well muscled, with a surprisingly well tanned skin. Not only was it a deep tan, it was an overall one.

### Henry addressed them, uncaring of whether or not he was understood.

### "There seems to be an idea in your country that the rest of the world exists simply to be pushed around by Germans. It's not a theory I subscribe to. There's only one master race and you're not it. The next bastard who talks back to me is going to wish he'd kept his big mouth shut."

### The woman he had picked up was back again, still handcuffed but with her crumpled silk dress now pulled back down over her legs. She stepped into the square behind Fatso, who had recovered enough to try to get up. Her shoe lashed out underneath his buttocks with venomous force, the tip of it landing directly on his dangling testicles.

### The Hun sucked in breath in one great gulp, then screamed as loudly as he could as he clutched his balls with both hands, pitching forward on his face. The noise he made wasn't very loud. The woman kicked him again, on the side the side of his head, tearing away part of his right ear. Her force and timing would have been a credit to Tommy Lawton at a cup final. It was obviously true what they said about red heads and their temper.

### "Stop that," Henry ordered curtly. "I want somebody left in this bunch who can talk."

### Reech dragged her away, still spitting fury.

### "Si les cons peuvent voler, il est le capitaine d'escradille!"

### "What was that she said?"

### "Roughly translated, sir, it was to the effect that if cunts could fly, this one would be a squadron leader."

### "Very poetical. Corporal Parrish, Reech, go and round up the people in the farmhouse. Take Jenning's carbine, Corporal, in case it's needed."

### As the other two left, Henry saw a uniform jacket hanging from a hook on the wall. He took it down and stepped underneath the light to examine the shoulder tabs.

### "Three silver pips."

### "Same as you, zur." Jenning said cheerfully, his eyes never leaving the Germans, Parrish's Colt now in his hand.

### "Yeah, well, in this case it means the owner is a Stabsfeldwebel, a Staff Sergeant Major. Four bloody great eagles here on the collar tab - more insignia than a British general, just for a pox doctor's clerk of a sergeant major. That's odd . . ."

### Henry looked at the cloth badge woven onto the left forearm, six lightning bolts shooting out from a central star, then he examined the eagles again.

### "According to his speciality badge he's a master radioman, but the colour patch behind the eagles is light green, which means air traffic control. For a signaller it should be brown. I'd bet a month's pay that the bugger who owns this could tell us a lot about KGr 100's electronic tricks."

### He held the jacket up against the backs of the two men -- it clearly fitted neither, and it was far too small to contain Fatso. Which only left Scar Chest. Henry kicked him in the ribs.

### "On your feet, Cinderella. The ball's over and you're the pumpkin."

### He looked at the jacket again in the light.

### "Christ, an Iron Cross, second class. This guy's done some flying as well. He's got a Great War observer's badge."

### Henry snorted with laughter.

### "Bloody hell, it's got the Bavarian Crown on it instead of the Imperial one. This bastard was getting some service in when Richthofen was still playing with paper aeroplanes."

### Henry kicked him again, with enough force to make the man sob with pain. "You naughty old Grandad, you're too old -- "

### The sound of a shot came through the barn door, a deep and booming noise.

### "Hellfire and damnation! Watch 'em, Jennings."

### Henry ran out into the yard, turning left towards the farmhouse, the back door standing open, the white paint on the interior panels showing clearly in the moonlight. A pistol shot cracked out somewhere on the far side of the building, then another.

### Disliking the idea of blindly entering the confined rooms he looked towards the high wall between the end of the barn and the end of the farmhouse. A couple of pigsties stood against it, handy for scraps from the kitchen. He jumped into one of the sties, kicked half a dozen grunting young porkers out of his way then clambered onto the roof of one of the ramshackle shelters. The moonlight was bright enough to make the water in the duck ponds glisten but there was no movement visible from his vantage position.

### Henry swung his legs over the wall, hung from the top for a second, and then dropped down to the dirt road bordering the buildings.

### Even as he untangled the carbine from around his shoulders he saw a figure in a flowing white night dress appear on his right from the corner of the farmhouse and hobble rapidly towards the trees by the duck ponds. A scream of female rage followed the figure, the scream coming from a young woman wearing a sombrero hat and still nothing else, a meat cleaver held up over her head. Close on her heels was one of the soldiers, sprinting as he chased the girl.

### The apparition in the night dress stopped and turned around, lifting up a firearm of some kind which wavered around wildly.

### Henry took aim as best he could in the indifferent light, settling the V and the notch on the ghostly figure. He hardly knew he'd fired until he felt the recoil against his shoulder and a thump like two hands smacking together. The nightdress was flat on the ground, knocked down like a cornstalk under the scythe.

### He ran forward to meet the girl and Reech, both already staring down at the farmer's wife. The .45 round had hit her a trifle low, but absolutely central, smashing a large piece of her spine and ripping the elderly woman's stomach open. Even the wind couldn't blow away the stench of the exposed guts. The only movement was the fluttering of a few stray locks of grey hair protruding from underneath an old fashioned nightcap.

### "What happened, Reech?" Henry snapped.

### "These silly Russian bitches caught the old man in the house and started cutting him up with the kitchen cutlery. While Parrish and I were trying to stop them the old biddy pulled a shotgun out of the cupboard and shot Parrish in the back, then dashed outside. I had a couple of shots at her with the pistol, but never hit her. So then I thought I'd better get the carbine from Parrish but when I went back in it was jammed underneath him, covered in blood, and I couldn't get it out. So then I started chasing her again, with this bloodthirsty little bint having a good start on me."

### "Christ, what a cockup."

### Henry picked up the old fashioned single barreled shotgun with an exposed hammer. He opened it and took out the cartridge case inside.

### "Shit! It's already been fired. She never reloaded it. She couldn't have got another shot off anyway. I killed her for nothing. The question is, has anybody heard the noise that's already been made?"

### He looked around. There was no sign of life outside the farm, no lights, no shouts, simply the apparently empty countryside under the high moon and the dwindling clouds.

### "God, I hope nobody heard," he said fervently.

### "I'd better take a look at Parrish. Tell this mad bitch to fetch some sacks and weights from the yard to cover the body up, then to get back into the farm and stay there, unless she wants to meet the Gestapo in the morning."

### The girl seemed to be subdued and frightened now. She turned and scurried away at Reech's command.

### Henry ran back to the farm buildings and re-entered the barn by the side door, passing the Germans' car. Three of them were standing in a line, the other one still kneeling down in the square and clutching himself in sobbing agony. Jennings was wisely keeping off to one side where he could cover all of them from the flank.

### Henry shouted the man's name as he approached the group, not wanting to risk another shooting incident.

### "Everything under control?"

### "Yes, zur. These baint going any place. But I think I've shit myself."

### "What happened?"

### "Bloody old beast of a cow back there in a stall gave a fucking great bellow without I even knew the bastard thing was there. The Lord alone knows how I didn't shoot any of these fuckers. I'm alright now though."

### "OK. Parrish has been shot by the old woman in the farmhouse. Pretty badly, I think. I've killed her. I'll be back in a minute. Reech, stay here with Jennings. Take the carbine. If any of this bunch even look sideways at you, kill one of them with it. The fat bastard would probably be happy to be put out of his misery."

### Reech didn't smile and when Henry entered the farmhouse's kitchen he saw why. Shining his torch around he found it difficult to distinguish between the red hue of the lens and the copious amounts of blood spattered around.

### Monsieur Loridon had been a short man with a lot of extra weight on his body but the layers of fat had done little to stop the various knife thrusts and meat cleaver blows that had come his way in a concerted and deadly attack. His upper torso was lying across the table, arms underneath it with one knee jammed into a chair, giving an impression of prayer except for the head being turned sideways, white skull bone showing underneath ripped skin and flesh,

### Parrish was sprawled on the ragged carpet in the front room, a paraffin lamp burning on the side-board, each red handed murderess tending the wounded soldier with strips of torn up sheet and feminine gentleness, trying to staunch the bleeding which continually soaked the makeshift bandages.

### As Henry stepped closer, Parrish opened his eyes, eyes set in a chalk white face, looked up at him, and said "Fuck it", very quietly. Then he closed his eyes again.

### Henry shook his head sadly. It was the way with very badly wounded men. Isolated islands of desperation. No impassioned calls to any God, no crying for a mother. Just occasional muttered words of despair. It seemed to him that Parrish had only moments left to run. And if he, Captain fuckwit Winfield, had listened to Reech's warning then this would never have happened.

### Then again, if the German people had put Hitler into the lunatic asylum where he belonged nobody would have been hurt. The bitter truth was that you could only do your best and if it wasn't good enough it was God's fault for not making you smarter.

### Anyway he could do no good here and it was his job to get the landing strip ready for the gliders.

### On the way out he took one more look at the farmer's remains and whispered softly: "The female of the species is always deadlier than the male."

### Kipling's warning, it seemed, was especially true of Russian females.

### CHAPTER SIX

### Where there had been bone chilling cold there was now sweat and urgency. Henry and Reech were working against time to finish laying out the landing lights for the gliders.

### In fact there were three separate sets of lights to be prepared. The first were the three red ones to mark the line of the downwind wall. Henry unscrewed the glass shields in the front of the lamps and inserted a piece of red cellophane in each before placing it on top of the wall. As the lamps came out of the kit bags they were handled with great care because of the electrical flex connecting them together. After each had been set up it was covered with a thick army sock.

### Two of the Russian girls were watching their every action intently.

### "Get them sweeping the strip, Reech." Henry ordered. "Make sure they tell us if they find any potholes or soft patches."

### His faith in their reliability was not high. One of them was the well built red head who had been on the receiving end of the cane, Natalya, a lass probably still eager to inflict as much revenge as she could on any male. The other, Laryssa, was she of the sulky expression, which hadn't changed either. The youngest of the three and spoilt rotten from childhood, at a guess.

### "Yes, sir. I've explained it to them carefully."

### The girls had been brought along to help drive the cows into the next field. Now the two of them were walking back towards the farm, heads lowered and buffeted by wind gusts as they searched for any dangers or obstructions hidden in the dark field.

### Henry might have ordered the other girl, Anna, to help them, but it had seemed better to let her and the Countess continue to give Parrish whatever comfort they could.

### Jennings was still standing guard over the Germans in the barn, though it hardly mattered now. All the Huns were blindfolded and had their hands tied behind their backs.

### More to the point, they were standing on a plank which was precariously balanced across two oat bins, with loops of silk cut from the old Luftwaffe parachute tied around their necks in running bowlines and secured to an overhead beam. If anybody or anything upset their particular apple cart the whole bunch would end up treading air.

### Please be to God that nobody would think of looking for them before tomorrow morning's muster parade.

### That was presumably dependent as to whether any of them were supposed to be on duty between now and then. Senior NCO's with their high level technical qualifications were usually free of the closer supervision inflicted on the rank and file and were unlikely to be bed checked. Of course there might be some kind of all ranks curfew for security reasons but, on the evidence of Henry's eyes so far, German servicemen in France seemed to be in about as much danger from the local population as they would be in the Black Forest.

### The two soldiers erected more red warning lights in front of the sheep pens. Then they began the task of setting out the main landing strip. This was to consist of four lights in the form of the Greek letter gamma, or so the RAF glider pilots had asked for.

### After Henry had requested a translation, not being a classical scholar, it transpired that they were talking about an upside down capital L. In effect, a hundred yard strip marked out with three lights: top, middle and bottom, with a fourth light set off at a right angle to the top upwind lamp.

### At each location a long meat skewer was pushed into the turf and a sock covered lamp was fitted at the top, standing clear of the highest tussocks of grass and weeds. Then a circle of the rag covered chicken wire originally used for their hides was set up around each of the lamps, re-bent to leave a forty five degree gap open facing downwind. The lights would thus only be visible in the direction the gliders were supposed to be coming from. Finally, they pegged each shield down hard with more meat skewers driven deep into the ground to prevent the shields being dislodged by the wind.

### After finishing the job of setting out the lights Henry returned to the milking shed, walking backwards as he unreeled more flex behind him.

### Under cover in the shed he took a block of wood out of his pocket with two nails set in it. Taking the ends of the flex, already taped together and stripped of insulation he then twisted the exposed wires around the nails.

### On the block was a crude switch made of a bent strip of copper mostly covered with insulating tape. He pressed the switch down onto the nails and on the wooden block a small testing bulb shone in his cupped hands like a tiny star of hope amongst the surrounding darkness. Since the landing lights were set up in a series circuit all of them must therefore be connected to the battery and working.

### He put a wooden wedge between strip and nails, held securely in place by two strong rubber bands around the block and pressing down on the makeshift switch. Then he went back down the field again, going to each lamp to remove the socks and put them carefully back in his kit bag.

### The two girls finished another downwind sweep of the field as he uncovered the wall danger lights. It was then 2048 according to his watch, and radio contact was supposed to be made at 2115. It was close timing, but he was satisfied now that they could land the Hotspurs safely, provided this blessed partial hiatus in the stormy weather would only last a little longer.

### "Right, back up to the farm."

### He stretched his arms out and the girls moved out on either side of him for a final check of the springy turf. Good grazing land they had in these parts. Not as good as the Welland valley of course, but not bad.

### Reech had moved back into the milking shed, where he was using a faint glimmer of muffled torchlight to examine the contents of two well padded aluminium boxes.

### "Both sets seem OK, sir."

### "By God, I hope one of them at least is working properly. I still find it hard to believe they can do what they're supposed to.

### "OK, just to recap, once the first glider lands find Mr Cunliffe-Brown and explain what's happened. Use the girls to help you carry our kit bags over and stow them in the glider. In the meantime take the girls back to the barn. Anything you can find out from them about the situation in Carnoules and at the aerodrome I want to know.

### "Then get that fat German down and stick a knife in his arse. Let the other prisoners hear him scream. Even if none of them speak French worth a damn it'll put them in the right frame of mind for when our German speakers get here and put the hard word on them."

### "I'm sorry, sir, I can't torture a prisoner."

### "What!"

### Henry couldn't believe his ears. In all his service he'd never heard of a single instance of any soldier ever questioning an order. In the regular British Army the only acceptable excuse for disobedience was being both dead and buried. On the other hand you didn't find many sappers in the regular Army who were theology students.

### Damn it all though, he couldn't allow anybody to back chat him. But of all the times and places to start bellowing like a parade ground sergeant-major this was the worst imaginable.

### "I'll happily cut the bastard's balls off for you. Just say the word."

### The tone of the voice was bitter, the accent American. Both of the soldiers gaped at Natalya in astonishment, accompanied as far as Henry was concerned by relief that he now had an excuse to change the subject without losing face.

### "I thought you upper class Russians were totally Frenchified. It never crossed my mind any of you'd be interested in learning English."

### "You call me French again, buddy, and I'll kick you where I kicked that other creep. Maybe my aunt and these other broads are half assed French but my parents figured back in the twenties that the whole of Europe was going communist.

### "Like you said, most of the old Czarists only knew one foreign language, French, so my folks migrated to Montreal. But they were smart enough to know that in North America you speak English to get ahead. They sent me to a protestant school in the west end, then to McGill University. I'm a Canadian."

### "Damn your eyes, why didn't you say so before now?"

### "I guess I was so surprised at first I kept on thinking in French, like I have been for months. And then I decided I'd keep my trap shut until I was sure you guys really were Limeys."

### "What the hell are you doing here anyway?"

### "Making one hell of a mistake. Ever since I was a kid I've been told about how lousy communism is, and how we had to fight it wherever we could. My father thinks Hitler is a real hero. He says he's the only guy in Europe who can knock Stalin off his perch. Anyway, I wanted to see what was happening over here, so I came to Paris for a summer vacation to stay with my relatives.

### "When the Germans started rolling all over the French I figured there was no percentage in trying to get away in the middle of a shooting match. There wasn't one person I spoke to in Paris who thought the English could last one more month on their own. They advised me to sit tight while the peace treaties were signed, and then I could get a ship home from Le Havre.

### "What was more, I didn't really want to go, not then. I wanted to see the Germans clean out all the communist scum that has poisoned France for years. As soon as I could, I was going to go and volunteer at Nazi Headquarters to work for their propaganda people in Canada and America, so the folks at home would back Hitler against Stalin."

### Her voice trembled, on the verge of despair.

### "Shit, I didn't know anything about anything."

### Then she took control of herself.

### "I used to think that Charlie Chaplin film, 'The Great Dictator', was funny. Funny! I never even want to think about any kind of stinking dictatorship again. God, I want to get out of here!"

### Henry spoke softly:

### "This is a state above the law,

### Where the state exists for the state alone.

### Here is neither evil nor good in life,

### Except as the needs of the state condone."

### "Is that Kipling as well, sir?" Reech asked. "It doesn't sound quite familiar."

### "Never mind. Hey, just a minute, Natalya, did those Germans know you were a Canadian?"

### "Yes, they knew. Why, what difference did it make?"

### "What difference! What bloody difference! Reech, go and sort out what intelligence you can get from this girl and the other one. I'll keep Natalya here. But first of all you will deliver a message from me to those Germans if any of them can speak French well enough to understand it and pass it on to his mates.

### "You will tell them they have been arrested in the act of raping a British subject. Therefore they are criminals, not prisoners of war, and they have no claim for protection under the Geneva Convention. I'm going to hang two of them by authority of my King's Commission for the criminals they are and I'm going to leave one of them alive to explain to the Luftwaffe why I did so. The man who gives me the best information about KGr 100 is going to be the lucky survivor."

### Henry could hear the vehement anger in his own voice at the mere thought of a bunch of filthy German arseholes having the brass necked nerve to knowingly lay a finger on a British woman. By Christ, they'd get the same lesson the Indians got after the Mutiny -- the boot, the bayonet and the fire!

### Reech knew better than to argue this point. He went off with the other girl as Henry took a deep breath to calm himself and carefully picked up the radio. Natalya watched with well justified amazement as he buckled a harness around his chest that suspended a fifteen pound metal box from his chest.

### "What's that?"

### "A kind of electronic magic."

### Magic would certainly be the right word for it if it worked.

### In Henry's experience the only reliable wireless transmissions were the ones that came out of the BBC's towers at Alexander Palace and Rugby. It was an absolute fact that the Army radio sets were usually nowhere near as useful as flags or heliographs were.

### True, the S-phone had worked wonderfully well in rehearsals, which was probably an excellent guarantee that when it was switched on now nothing at all would happen. Despite being so small it owed nothing to the transistors used in the computers but had five valves inside it, the same kind of fragile valves used in normal wireless sets, only smaller. The unconventional part of the design was the narrow beam it transmitted from the box at a mere 0.2 watts.

### Only two S-phones existed in the world, both of them in this barn, prototypes rushed out of a secret electronics workshop in England by direct pressure exerted by Crampton via Ten Downing Street.

### "What are you guys intending to do?" Natalya asked.

### Henry thought about trying to explain how they were going to kill a lot of Germans and then get back into gliders and sit and wait for a plane to swoop down and pluck them out of this field. He thought Natalya would have no trouble grasping the first half of the concept and lots of trouble indeed in understanding the second part.

### "You'll have to wait and see. You'll see a lot of things you won't understand and I don't have the time to explain now. Do any of the other girls speak English?"

### "No, just me."

### "Which of you can drive?"

### "We all can, of course."

### "It must be nice to be rich," Henry said sourly. "Right, your aunt promised us that you'd help us in return for a trip back to England. Will you help?"

### "Sure. What do you want us to do?"

### "I intend to use that car the Germans came in to evacuate any wounded I may have. When we leave get a mattress out of the farm and lash it to the car's roof. Cut what ever cords you need from that parachute canopy in the barn. Explain to the girls they can stand on the running boards to steady any casualties on the mattress.

### "Tell them you're all to wait here until the shooting starts, then you'll drive up along the V road as far as the bridle path turnoff above the chateau and to wait there. There'll be a strip of white canopy tied across the road by the turnoff so you can't miss it. And I want strips of parachute canopy tied to the front and back of the car in an X shape so we can identify it in the dark."

### "OK, so we wait for you up there?"

### "Yes. Drive up to the white marker, turn the car around and wait. You'd best leave the Countess here at the farm."

### Suddenly, without the slightest expectation of it happening, he found tears springing from his eyes and shuffled out further into the darkness, hoping the girl couldn't see him wiping his face with the back of his hand or hear him sniffing.

### "What's the matter?"

### "17, Back of 19, Gallow Top Road, Gavan. It was the home address of the man who got shot. I always thought it was an odd one. Probably one of those miner's terraced houses, one tap and a toilet in the yard shared between two families. Poor bastards, to bring up a son in a shit hole like that and lose him in a shitty war in such a stupid, shitty way."

### Natalya said nothing, probably not understanding what he was talking about and Henry moved clear of the milking shed, took out his prismatic compass and checked that the clamp on the outer ring was still tight. Confident it was still correctly set he aligned the compass to the north and held it in position as he shuffled around until his chest was pointing in the same direction as the white guidance line on the opened compass cover.

### The sky was clearing fast, the strengthening moonlight showing up the walls on the other side of the paddock and the rolling contours of the hills stood out clearly. Away to the north a faint droning noise indicated a powerful engine being revved up, almost certainly a Heinkel's twelve cylinder Jumo. If KGr 100 were getting ready to fly out on a raid . . .

### Henry shrugged -- it was out of his control now, and in the hands of the Almighty. He knelt down in the mud and bowed his head as he prayed aloud:

### "God of our fathers, known of old,

### Lord of our far-flung battle-line,

### Beneath whose awful hand we hold

### Dominion over palm and pine --

### Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,

### Lest we forget -- lest we forget!"

### Then he stood up and pressed a switch on the side of the box on his chest.

### Henry tried to imagine a beam of radio signals streaming forward along the compass bearing he was facing, spreading out like a searchlight the further they went. If he could look along that beam with superhuman vision he would be able to see the Albatross just above his visible horizon thirty five miles away as it flew in a tight orbit high over the waves of the Golfe De Saint Malo.

### And if a miracle happened he should be able to talk to it. Abandoning useless speculation he put on the earphones. At least there was a comforting crackle of static in them. He thumbed the pressel switch on the side of the mouth mike.

### "Quorn, Fernie. Report my signals, over."

### "Fernie, Quorn. Loud and clear. Over."

### His heart jumped with relief. The narrow beam signal was as good as they said it would be as long as both transmitters were aligned. Just like talking on a telephone, with the users able to hear each other's voices and -- just as importantly -- able to recognise them.

### No wonder Braddock's resistance organisation wanted S-phones for espionage purposes, especially with the added advantage that no ground station could eavesdrop in on the tight beam. But none of these advantages would have been of any use if the Albatross wasn't being kept in exactly the right position by the non-human navigator aboard the aircraft.

### Henry wondered wildly for one second if anybody had told H.G. Wells about the invention of these computers yet -- his alien invaders had finally arrived but they weren't Martians and the one thing computers could certainly never suffer from were bugs or viruses.

### "Quorn, Fernie. Weary Whitehall warriors work with woeful wanton waste. Over."

### It had been a nice gesture for the planners to remember his Leicestershire origins by using famous hunting packs as call signs. Some compensation for the totally uninspiring name they'd assigned to the attack on KGr100 -- operation "GOATHERD".

### "Fernie, Quorn. Weekes war weapons week wants willing workers wholesale. I daresay neither of us is a German. Report your situation."

### "Quorn, Fernie. Hot scent, hot scent. Over."

### Henry squinted down at a luminous dial of the barometer mounted on top of the wireless box and spoke very slowly.

### "Barometric reading is niner, niner, seven. Wind blowing from Nuts Nuts Edward, strength twenty knots gusting to twenty five. Red lights mark low wall on downwind side of field and obstruction forty yards west of strip. Ground rises in gentle slope one hundred and thirty yards upwind of cross leg. Over."

### "Fernie, Quorn. We will inform pilots. Any problems? Over."

### Henry hesitated. It would take a long time to explain everything which had happened at the farmhouse and none of it made any essential difference to the operation. There was one thing the controller needed to know though.

### "Quorn, Fernie. We need to hail two taxis. Over."

### It had been arranged that each glider would carry its own retrieval kit and two spare Swordfish snatch aircraft were supposed to be flying on the operation in case the lead Swordfish had any mechanical problems. It was looking as if he was going to need a double lift to get everybody out now -- and for that he needed two gliders down safely.

### "Fernie, Quorn. Why? Over."

### A good question -- a very good question.

### Should he tell the Controller he'd met some nice looking girls who were looking for a free trip to England? Not unless he wanted to make the people up there think he'd gone mad. Do it first and argue about it later was the only way to handle this situation.

### "Quorn, Fernie. We have Jerry prisoners with technical knowledge I want to get out."

### A moment's silence as the controller digested the unwelcome news that Germans had been encountered even before the landing party had reached French soil.

### "Fernie, Quorn. Do you intend to carry out Goatherd as planned? Over"

### "Quorn, Fernie. I confirm, Goatherd is to continue as planned. Over."

### "Fernie, Quorn Understood. Operation to continue as planned, two taxis now hailed and meters running. Please confirm. Over."

### "Quorn, Fernie. Confirm, confirm. Out."

### Henry felt somebody moving near him and jerked up his carbine, aiming at Anna.

### She stopped dead still, her face chalk white in the moonlight as he eased one of the earphones off his ear. Natalya appeared, whispering to the other girl, then speaking to Henry.

### "I'm sorry, but your soldier has died."

### "Yeah. OK, tell Anna to go back and take the Countess to the barn and talk to Reech. He's the soldier who speaks French."

### Natalya translated. Anna nodded her head and walked away, trying to pick her steps between the deeper pools of mud.

### "What's your name?"

### "Captain Winfield, Royal Engineers."

### "Engineers? I thought you were soldiers."

### "The Royal Engineers are both. I'm a commissioned officer in the British Army."

### Natalya shrugged her shoulders.

### "OK. Listen, Captain, I've figured it out that you're either here to shoot up the airfield, or the chateau, or both. I want to know if you're going into the chateau."

### "Why do you care?"

### "My fiance is being held a prisoner in there, that's why."

### "Oh." Henry was at a loss for words.

### Then he decided that he didn't have enough time to waste to be sympathetic and no way of lying which wouldn't soon be exposed.

### "Well, it's my job to make sure as many people as possible in that chateau get killed tonight. And I won't be in a position to do any picking or choosing. I'm fighting for the survival of my country. Everything else comes second -- sorry."

### "That's OK, as long as you get us out of here. Peter was a pompous stuffed shirt anyway. It's just that I thought he might be useful to me."

### Henry was rocked back on his heels. "That's all I need, a silly young girl distraught with grief at the loss of a loved one. Bloody hell, people keep telling me I'm the ruthless one."

### "Listen, Captain, ever since I was a kid, all I've ever wanted to be is film star, right there in Hollywood. I've been down to California and what I did to get my face on the screen would shake you out of your socks -- tonight was nothing compared to what went on at some of the parties out on Mulholland Drive -- you've no idea!"

### "Oh, you've no idea how much I've no idea," Henry admitted sadly. "So what went wrong?"

### "The lousy bastards, they tell me my tits and my ass are too big. But they didn't say anything until after they'd sampled the merchandise like crazy, then fobbed me of with nothing but a producer's gate-chit for an extras' line up.

### "So the real reason I came to France was to try my luck in their film industry, since I speak the language. But the bosses here were even more of a clique than in California. Then I met Peter and I thought he might do the trick for me if I married him. Even Hedda Hopper couldn't ignore a real life Empress working on a set."

### "Whoa, what are you talking about?"

### Natalya talked slowly and patiently.

### "Peter is the only son of Grand Duke Kyril, the senior male survivor of the Romanov family. Kyril proclaimed himself Emperor of all the Russias in front of two thousand ex-Czarist officers here in Paris. So the claim passed to Peter when his father died, and when he marries his wife becomes the Czarina."

### "But it doesn't mean anything nowadays, all that Imperial Russian stuff. The Czars were finished with over twenty years ago."

### "Who cares about that? The British Royal family were finished in America a hundred and fifty years ago but I guess Princess Elizabeth could walk into any studio and get a starring role if she wanted one. Royalty means publicity in the States, and publicity is what you need to get the big roles."

### Henry scratched his chin whilst trying to think clearly. Was this crazy bitch infecting him with her infantile lunacies, or was he missing something important here?

### One Russian Duke or Czar, or whatever, who cared? But a lot of the tacit support for Hitler in America came from people who believed that Hitler was only really dangerous to communists. Yet here was a man claiming to be the Czar of Russia, which was about as anti-communist as you could get, but Hitler was apparently prepared to hand him over to Stalin to help keep the oil and wheat flowing in from the Soviet Union. So if this Duke Peter could tell his story in America it might do Britain a lot of good, especially with a young and good looking wife beside him, maybe even a potential film star. And if she wasn't an American, Canadian was probably the next best thing as far as the Yank newspapers were concerned . . .

### Why they might even make a film about it, about the glamorous young couple rescued from the clutches of the evil Nazis by British commandos -- Von Stroheim directing and playing the big shot Nazi lusting after the helpless Natalya, played by herself, and perhaps Erroll Flynn as the hero, Captain Henry Winfield . . .

### "Fernie, Quorn. Cast off. Over." The controller's voice in his earphones recalled him to reality.

### "Quorn, Fernie. Cast off. Over."

### Henry checked his watch's minute hand, then stared into the sky, trying to see something when he knew he couldn't.

### "There's no way you'll land an airplane anywhere near here," Natalya snapped angrily.

### Henry hoped he knew better. There should be an aeroplane about twenty miles to the south, now freed of its towed burden as the glider it had just released began its ten thousand foot descent,a glider being directed towards this very field by an elaborate web of radio signals controlled by a collection of exotic crystals working faster than a thousand human mathematicians could. A web woven in the ether far beyond any mortal sight or hearing, anchored to a faraway stone tower overlooking the great wooden figurehead of HMS Britannia and the grey Channel waters which were England's last line of defence.

### "Charmed magic casements

### Opening on the foam

### Of perilous seas

### In Faery lands forlorn."

### Natalya's face swung towards him: "What? What was that?"

### Henry shrugged. "Sorry -- thinking of something else." He re-checked his watch, the sweep hand moving as slowly as dripping glue. Round and round it trudged, each revolution apparently taking an eon.

### "Fernie, Quorn. Expose."

### "Quorn, Fernie. Exposing now."

### He pressed the switch to close the circuit and once again the test light glowed reassuringly.

### They continued to wait in an agony of impatience, the seconds dragging by in stretched out drops of eternity.

### Henry found himself speaking aloud: "Come on, you fuckwits."

### Then he hastily checked his wireless pressel switch wasn't set to transmit. When he looked up again the Hotspur was whistling in over the bottom wall like a gut shot swan.

### Natalya grabbed Henry's arm with so much strength it seemed to be in danger of being dislocated. Henry wondered dully what one and half tons of smashed up plywood would look like. The double noses were rearing up like a horse refusing a fence, air screaming eerily through the extended air brakes as the pilot fought to lose speed. The glider suddenly seemed to lose interest in the conflict with gravity and slumped heavily on the grass, Natalya gasping in alarm as they heard a harsh clattering sound. Fortunately for Henry's peace of mind he was aware this was a normal sound when the glider's twin underfuselage wheels touched the ground. Then Natalya said something which sounded wonderfully obscene in whatever language she was using and the Hotspur was wallowing to a halt at the end of the strip.

### Henry happily pressed the transmit switch: "Fernie, Quorn. One cub gone to ground. Out."

### "You said it was a plane! You said we could fly out! That fucking thing is no use to us! It's got no motors". For the first time it suddenly occurred to Henry that perhaps Natalya still had some of the kitchen cutlery handy.

### "We are flying out in that, but after we've done our job. You'll have to trust me and see how we do it. Now shut up and let me get on with things."

### Men were jumping out of the twin fuselages as if the glider was on fire. With well practiced skill they attached a rope yoke to the Hotspur's tail section and hauled together on a tow line, dragging the empty glider back and clear of the strip before the next one arrived.

### "Fernie, Quorn. Cast off. Over."

### "Quorn, Fernie. Cast off. Out."

### Henry lowered his microphone: "Natalya, there's a woman in amongst the men who are going to land in the next glider. Her name is Julie. I want you to tell her what you've told me about your fiance, she might be interested."

### "You send women out with your Army?"

### "Only on special occasions. She's a kind of an officer. Tell her everything you've told me."

### More time flowing like tar in sunlight. The first glider was back off the strip now, as far back against the field wall as it could be pushed. Vague movements were just visible around it as the aluminium snatch poles were unfastened from their exterior carrying positions underneath the centre sections of the glider, between the fuselages and the rudders. But they couldn't be erected until the other gliders were down.

### Right now Henry's raiding unit was totally off balance, one foot on the ground, another in the air, unable to move, unable to fight, everybody engrossed in the rehearsed landing routine. Oh God, let's get organised here, and quickly!

### "Fernie, Quorn. Expose now, over."

### "Quorn, Fernie. Exposing now, out."

### Henry pressed his switch and stared upwards.

### His heart jumped into his mouth as the second Hotspur emerged out of the moon gloom night too high and well to the right of the strip. Henry yelped in outrage as the black shape hung in the air whilst seemingly heading straight for the milking shed.

### "Down!"

### Henry grabbed Natalya and pulled her down as he fell on his back, the weight of his radio pressing down on his chest, Natalya's head somewhere around his waist. The plywood and spruce hulls heading towards them finally began rattling as the wheels eventually hit the grass, the noise getting louder and louder. There was a tremendous bang and something cart wheeled across the milking shed then fluttered down into the field a few yards away. Henry recognised it as one of the Hotspur's wingtips. It sounded as if a giant match box was being crunched up behind the shed, culminating in one final ominous crash.

### "Shit and shankers!"

### Henry pushed Natalya away, scrambled to his feet and ran around the shed. A trail of plywood and fabric led to the Hotspur. It had lost about six feet off the port wingtip in the collision with the milking shed, spun around in a complete circle and come to rest with its tail a few yards short of the farmhouse. Wooden formers were visible at the bottom of each fuselage like skeletal bones appearing in the decaying bodies of stranded whales, signs of further damage sustained in the crash. The port emergency hatch opened and the pilot hoisted himself out, sliding to the ground and leaning against the nose of the Hotspur.

### "Good evening, Captain. Did you spot today's deliberate mistake?" The RAF pilot was white faced with shock, holding one knee high as though it pained him to put any weight on it.

### Henry bit back the futile swear words he was boiling to lash out at the over educated ponce with. Nothing was going to put the Hotspur back together again. "What went wrong?"

### "I think it was a loose wire in the radio receiver. I kept getting intermittent bursts of static while I was listening to the controller. It was just about audible until the last minute or so, when it got so bad I couldn't hear a thing. By the time I saw the lights it was too late to get completely back on track."

### "OK then, an act of God."

### Somebody inside the glider was chopping away at the jammed door frame with the hatchet every glider carried for just such a situation.

### "Have you removed the transponder?"

### The pilot reached underneath his wool lined Irvine jacket and showed Henry the small bakelite box which held the transponder. There was nothing really secret about it except the fact that the gliders were fitted with them. With the transponder removed the only electronic device left on the glider was a standard RAF TR 9 transceiver and the Germans were welcome to it, especially this particularly useless specimen.

### "Captain, there's a girl here!" The pilot's eyes in the moonlight looked like Al Jolson's in black face.

### "They must have heard the Air Force has arrived," Henry said sourly. "Natalya, help him over to the barn and then come back immediately."

### He revolved around with his compass held up and then called the controller again: "Quorn, Fernie. Second cub is lame. Cub has been put down. We still have a hot scent. Over."

### "Fernie, Quorn. We are orbiting for final cast off. Are we clear for cast off. Over"

### "Quorn, Fernie. Cast off now, cast off now, over"

### "Fernie, Quorn. Casting off, over."

### "Quorn, Fernie. Casting off, roger. I anticipate being fifteen minutes late in leaving this location. Over."

### "Fernie, Quorn. Fifteen minutes delay to ETD. Roger. Out."

### By now the chopping noises had stopped. Three figures appeared from the direction of the wrecked glider. Henry challenged them: "Ham!".

### "Jam."

### Two of the arrivals were his men. Heppenstall was a skinny little Birmingham tyke who looked like an overloaded greyhound underneath his bike and the weight of the extra ammunition pouches around his neck -- Heap was a young giant who spoke with an odd accent, public school out of Broad Yorkshire. His father owned an engineering factory in Bradford.

### Between the laden carthorses was an elegant filly. Julie was wearing a short fur coat over a dark blue frock and carrying a large handbag, not an article usually seen in battle. Still, knowing her, it was no doubt loaded with lethal odds and ends. There was certainly no hint of nervousness about the woman: she was walking around like a duchess who had just stepped off the Blue train from the Riviera.

### She was equally nerveless in hauling up her frock, squatting down and pissing into the grass. The three men stood around in deep respect at the confirmation of her true status. Only a genuine member of the English aristocracy had such total contempt for what any inferior members of the human race thought of them. Still, it was perhaps an unfortunate time for Natalya to appear, staring at the scene with eyes almost as wide as the pilots had been.

### "Uh, Julie, this is Natalya."

### "Who? What?"

### Being an officer and a gentleman Henry helped Julie to her feet from her squatting position. He vaguely wondered if Joan of Arc had gone into battle without her knickers \-- well, of course she must have, she was French.

### "Corporal, what's the condition of the gun on that glider?"

### "Seems undamaged, sir. Shall I start unloading it?"

### "No, I've got another little job for you and Heppenstall. Open the first aid boxes on both gliders and take out all the morphine syringes. Take then to Reech. He's in the barn. Every German has to have a full syringe injected into him and to remain tied up as well."

### "Germans, sir?"

### "Yes, that's right, Corporal, Germans. You must have seen them on the newsreels from time to time. We've got a fine collection of them in the barn and I want them put to sleep and moved close to the gliders. But they are not to be injected or moved until they've been questioned by our German speakers. Have you got the gist of that order, the general nub of it, or shall I repeat it?"

### "No, sir, I've got it. Collect the morphine, give it to Reech, not to be given to the Germans until they've been questioned."

### Henry felt ashamed of his earlier sarcasm: "Because of changed circumstances there'll be some delay moving off whilst I hold an orders group in the barn. You won't need to hear it as your role with Heppenstall as flank guard party is unchanged. While I'm talking I'll want the both of you in the upstairs rooms of the farm house, on guard, front and back. Incidentally, there's some French women wandering around the place, I know about them. Tell Reech I want all the women in the barn for the orders group as well. Everybody has to know what's happening."

### "Yes, sir."

### "Captain! What the hell is going on here -- Germans, French women!

### Have you organised a brass band as well?"

### There was no doubt about it, even the usually unflappable Patrol Leader Braddock was showing signs of emotional turmoil.

### "Oh, and Corporal Heap. I'm sorry to have to tell you that Corporal Parrish has been shot and killed. His body is in the kitchen of the farmhouse. If you have time after collecting the morphine, please move it over near to the gliders. If we possibly can we'll take him home for burial."

### Heap and Heppenstall were both visibly shocked: "Yes, sir."

### "Captain! A man shot! How did that happen?"

### "It was a woman -- the farmer's wife -- like in the three blind mice." Henry took a deep breath and wondered if he was getting hysterical himself.

### "Not one of my women, of course. They're actually more Russian than French, except for Natalya here, who's a Canadian. A sort of Russian-French-Canadian. Natalya, this is Julie Braddock. She helps me kill people. Julie, this is Natalya. Natalya is -- is --." He was stuck for words to describe Natalya's status until he suddenly remembered a helpful song line from the Mikado.

### "Natalya is the Czarina of all the Russias \-- elect."

### "She's what?"

### "Well, that's what the Countess over there says. I have to dash now but why don't you ladies have a chat? You must have lots you can find to talk about."

### Probably, Henry thought, in later years, in the unlikely event I have any, I shall probably spend a lot of time regretting that I missed out this conversation. That's one of the drawbacks of trying to cope with more nasty kickbacks than a one armed farrier in the horse fly season.

### "Fernie, Quorn. Expose. Over."

### "Quorn, Fernie. Exposing. Out."

### Thankfully the third landing was as smooth as the first one, although the noise from the wheels still seemed loud enough to have every German sentry for miles around putting his fingers in his ears. Still, he now had two Hotspurs down safe and sound and already his men were putting up the snatch poles and laying out the nylon lassoes. And just to prove that things were finally back under control Sergeant McCaughan appeared out of the darkness, a more welcome appearance than any genie out of a bottle.

### "Sergeant, a job for you. Take four men including Private Cordery into the barn. Inside you'll find Jennings standing guard over four German NCO's. Their hands are already tied. Lash their feet then secure the bowlines round their neck to their feet. I want them totally immobilised. There's an old parachute canopy in there, rip it up and wrap up each Jerry so he can't see anything. Bring them out to the side of the milking shed and let Cordery interrogate them. If you'd like to drop each of them a couple of times on the way out I won't complain. Cordery?"

### "Sir."

### Cordery was one of his German Jews, a dark young man who had apparently had ambitions as a Cologne schoolboy to be a cantor at the local synagogue, the one his family had prayed at for generations. Now there were no synagogues in Cologne, nor any members of Cordery's family. At least he knew what had happened to his father, because he had seen a gang of brownshirts take turns at kicking him in the testicles until he'd died.

### "Cordery, I want any details these prisoners know about the guard posts around the chateau. I don't care what you do to get the information. Just make sure you gag each one enough to stop any screams. When you've finished with them, Reech has some morphine. A full syringe in each one, then leave them close to the gliders, triple lashed and watched at all times. One of the glider pilots is injured, he can do the job."

### "Yes, sir."

### For a few hectic minutes Henry worked off some of his tension extracting the luggage carrier and the gun from the wrecked glider through the extra large cargo doors fitted to it. One door had the glider's ramp set against it, next to a flat aluminum plate with rollers underneath it which allowed the plate and the lashed gun on top of it to be pushed out sideways and down the ramp under the control of a belaying tackle. After the gun had been untied from the plate the working party carried the ramp around the glider to the other fuselage and extracted the small baggage cart in the same way.

### Lines were unlashed, the guiding handle lowered and the button on it pressed. The battery powered baggage cart rolled forward smoothly, following the man guiding it like a faithful dog on a leash. Drag lines were stretched out and tied to a protruding eye bolt at the muzzle of the Smith gun where it was normally hooked onto an ammunition limber.

### In Home Guard use any ordinary civilian car could tow the limber and the gun into action and Henry had considered using his captured car as a towing vehicle. He had decided he wasn't prepared to risk the extra noise on the approach march though, so the gun would have to be man handled.

### The last job was to collect all the bikes from the gliders. Those men who didn't need theirs straightaway stacked and tied the folded frames on top of the baggage carts. Henry checked his own bike to make sure the correct ordnance stores were lashed to the frame and then unfolded the wheels and tightened up the various wing nuts. The only real problem with the airborne pattern bicycle was that it was easy to forget one of these nuts and have the thing fold up underneath you when it was mounted.

### The frantic preparations suddenly began to slow down as the men finished their work. They seemed to have no doubts about the situation, each moving quickly and silently in their canvas gym shoes, blackened faces merging into the gloom. The sooner he got them on their way the better. But there was no point in starting off half cocked, everybody had to be put into the picture. At least it still seemed peaceful, until an owl screeched nearby.

### An owl, with all this commotion around? Henry grabbed his carbine in panic. Then he saw a figure bent over a white bundle where the noise had come from. It had been a man screeching in agony through a gag, not an owl. He moved towards Cordery and the smell of shit. One or more of the Germans had obviously fouled themselves during their questioning. And, thought Henry, if I was a German with a Jew holding a knife at my balls, I'd shit myself as well.

### "I have some information, sir." Cordery said carefully.

### He looked up from his handiwork. Henry couldn't recognise the face under the knife, not with the blood pouring out of the missing eye socket. "There is an armoured car of some kind which is usually parked during the dark hours near where the road and the path above the chateau come together. There is also a guardroom in the stables at the back of the chateau. These men do not seem to know anything else. I think they are technicians who do not do guard duties. I have two more still to question."

### "No, we don't have time."

### Henry scratched his backside, thinking about the prisoner. Given his own choice he would have left them all dangling from the barn eaves but they were really too valuable for that. Who was going to guard them whilst his unit was away though? An old woman and an injured RAF pilot were all he could spare. Full of morphine and tied up, the Germans should be secure but this one certainly wasn't going to rest easy, morphine or no morphine, not after Cordery had finished with him. What's more he recognised him now as the Stabsfeldwebel with the observer's badge, one of the right sort if his medals were any guide. No, no way was he going to leave this Bavarian bastard with one chance in a hundred of getting loose along his line of retreat.

### Cordery watched silently as Henry carefully fired a round from his silenced carbine into the heart of the mutilated prisoner. The impact of the bullet sounded like an axe hitting a wooden block. Some of Henry's men nearby stood stock still, apparently shocked at what had happened.

### "The Germans will not like it when they find this," Cordery said, apparently without much interest. "I do not think they expect such things from the British."

### Henry took something from one of his pockets and dropped it onto the body.

### "That's a Royal Norfolk regimental cap badge, Cordery. The Waffen SS shot a hundred unarmed prisoners from that regiment near Dunkirk on the 27th May. I was going to leave it somewhere around tonight anyway, just to show the Huns that other people can play those games as well. Now put these beauties to sleep and staked out by the wall behind the gliders. If they get loose, we're all liable to get the same treatment this one did."

### "Yes, sir.

### The interior of the barn was rapidly filling up as Sergeant McCaughan rounded up the soldiers. Henry went in last, trying to find a way through the gloom to the centre of the shed without stepping on anybody's feet.

### "Mr Cunliffe-Brown."

### "Sir."

### "There's a half track parked thirty yards south of the bridge on the village side of the river. It's got a twenty millimetre flak gun on the back and is ideally located to cover the bridge. I'd expect there's a guard in that gun position at night as well as one or more sentries on the bridge itself. That means it's absolutely imperative you make as little noise as possible whilst capturing the bridge, otherwise that flak gun will tear you apart.

### "I suggest that once you've secured the bridge you move up to the half track using the dead ground provided by the river bank and kill the sentry with your De Lisle. Then dispose of the crew. They sleep in a bivvy next to the half track. Wire the gun and the engine with plastic explosive and blow the charges when you blow the bridge. I don't want that half track left mobile because I think it might just able to ford the river.

### "Yes, sir."

### "Remember the sequence. The RAF start dropping bombs on the aerodrome. The flak guns around the aerodrome are certain to open up and cover the noise of gunfire from the chateau. The sixth bomber is going to drop its load close to the village, but not close enough to cause French casualties. You blow when those bombs explode and the hope is that the Jerries in the village will assume the bridge was hit by a bomb. Of course they'll see the explosions at the chateau but I'm hoping it'll take them a while before they realise they're watching a ground attack and not a bombing attack. All clear?"

### "Yes, sir."

### "Everybody, two things we've just learned. There's a guardroom in the stables at the back of the chateau -- worst yet, there's supposed to be an armoured car posted on guard at the bridle path junction after dark. Is that understood?

### Voices around the shed muttered quiet assent.

### "For those of you who haven't heard yet, Corporal Parrish was unfortunately killed a short while ago. Private Jennings is transferred from the gun crew to the grenadier group to fill the gap. Jennings?"

### "Understood, sir."

### "RAF pilots, all three of you here?"

### "Yes, Captain."

### "OK, your injured man and the Countess guard the prisoners. Please don't ask me how a Commando unit has ended up with a Countess in its order of battle. Nobody gets that story from me from now on without buying me a pint of beer first."

### A ripple of laughter ran around the barn.

### "The spare Smith gun and twenty bombs and charges will be left at the gate, but off the road. Two of my men will move down the road a quarter of a mile in the opposite direction to my party. They will put out spikes and attempt to kill as silently as possible anybody who comes along. If something gets past them and there's still no shooting, stay put. Only when the shooting starts will you move the gun to a firing position on the road and use it to defend this locality. Is that clear?"

### "Yes, Captain."

### "If you feel you have to fire, no matter which direction the enemy is coming from, put out a bomb on each flank first. That'll confuse them and one of the advantages of the Smith Gun is that it can be spun around like a top. If you're firing towards the direction of Carnoules, listen very carefully for the enemy shouting back 'Stop firing, you stupid fuckers!'".

### Another snigger of nervous laughter ran around the barn: "Understood, Captain."

### "Right, Patrol Leader Braddock. This so called Czar of all the Russias, currently believed incarcerated in the chateau of Valbourges. Do we want him, or don't we?"

### The woman's voice was clear and strong. "We want him very badly indeed. His propaganda value in America could be extremely important."

### Henry was rather surprised to have his judgement endorsed so strongly. Perhaps he had the making of a politician in him after all -- a disturbing thought.

### "Right, well there's little enough I can do about it. I'm going to try to gain entrance through the back door of the chateau a few minutes before the action starts. Just myself and Cordery, my German speaker. He already has a Luftwaffe uniform and I can wear my battle gear, which is similar to the German airborne issue. Fortunately, German parachute troops are part of the Luftwaffe, not the German army, so I can wear a side cap taken from our prisoners. I think we can also risk carrying one of the De Lisle carbines, which only an expert would spot as being built on a Lee-Enfield action. Perhaps we can bluff or fight our way in to grab the Duke before the shooting starts."

### "Quite good for the spur of the moment, Captain. May I suggest it might work better if I came with you and demanded that the Germans hand the Duke over to us at the guard room." Mrs Braddock sounded as if she was going shopping at Harrods.

### "What?"

### "I speak German and French as well as I do English. I also happen to have a rather well forged identification disc in my handbag which claims I'm a field agent of Section Four of the Reichssicherheithauptamt, the Reich Security Office. I brought it along on the off chance it might come in handy. I shall say that the Gestapo has been investigating a plot to rescue the Grand Duke and to take him to Britain."

### Henry was beginning to feel he was outmatched. "You're going to tell them somebody wants to rescue the Duke?"

### "That's right. I shall say that some senior NCO's of KGr 100 were unwittingly seduced by female terrorists into helping the plotters. I will then go on to say that Luftflotte III headquarters in Paris has provided the Security Office with a platoon of paratroopers to arrest those Luftwaffe personnel mixed up in the plot, and also in case of armed resistance by the terrorists.

### "I shall produce the paybooks carried by your prisoners as proof of their arrest for questioning. I shall then say that the chateau is under observation by terrorists, which is why I've come to the guard room at night with my prisoner and an escort."

### "What prisoner?"

### "The Grand Duke's fiancee. She is going to help me persuade him to confess the details of the plot to the Gestapo."

### "You want me to go into that place -- forget it!" The American tinged accent of Natalya's voice seemed exaggerated by the emotion it held.

### "No help, no flight out," Julie said curtly. "Do you still want me to forget it?"

### "The Captain promised us a flight without saying anything about a deal like this!"

### Henry intervened. "In this matter I do as the lady wants. So will you. Look on it as just another audition."

### Natalya remained silent as Henry continued speaking: "I want to make it clear to all of you that this rescue attempt is completely secondary to achieving our main objective, the destruction of the chateau. If the rescue party is still inside the guard room when the shit hits the fan, then that's our bad luck. Cordery, are you willing to volunteer to come inside the guard room with us?"

### "Sir, always I wish to kill Germans, but I do not do it to save Russians. That is stupid."

### "You heard the Patrol Leader. This is to help us to get the Americans to help us. In three weeks' time the Americans vote for their next President. What we do tonight might get Roosevelt more support and more votes. That's the only reason I would consider doing it myself."

### Julie spoke up sharply: "I wonder whether there is any logic in your being part of the rescue attempt, Captain. Your lack of German is likely to make you more of a hindrance than a help."

### "I regard it as my duty to be part of it, Patrol Leader."

### "I understand what you are thinking of now, sir," Cordery said eagerly. "America is very strong. America is strong enough to kill many, many Germans. I will come with you."

### "Thank you." Henry held his watch up near his eyes to glance at the phosphorescent hands. "OK, we've got around ninety minutes before the RAF bombers arrive, so it's time we moved off. I've only got one more thing to say. The aircrews in that chateau have killed a lot of our women and kids and they're getting set to kill a lot more."

### Henry paused for a second before finishing.

### "Right, let's go and mallet the bastards."

### CHAPTER SEVEN

### Henry found the first barricade to his progress about a mile from the farm, where the narrow road had just begun to rise from the level ground in the bottom of the valley. It was a strip of white four by two weapon cleaning cloth tied across the road in the moon cast shadows under a hunched elm tree.

### The cloth was a marker left by Cordery and Julie to show the first boundary on the march to the chateau. Now the rest of the unit would bunch up again before moving off at their different speeds. The leading scouts on their bicycles, Henry and the bridge party close behind, also mounted on bikes, and then the chateau assault party on foot with the trolleys and the gun.

### Using unmistakable re-grouping lines helped to keep the disparate parts of Henry's unit within reasonable distance of each other. They also went a long way towards preventing one group using cold steel on another by mistake in the darkness. Even so, Henry's heart skipped a beat when he first saw Cordery's peaked hat, carefully shaped with a skillful application of hot towels into the smart high peaked style that the Luftwaffe favoured. The matching uniform was perfectly cut and fitted immaculately. Which was probably no surprise, it was a lot easier to find Jewish cutters and tailors in London now than it would be in Berlin.

### Henry dismounted and lifted his bike over the fluttering barrier. Julie's voice was barely audible against the creaking sounds of the branches being swayed by the strong breeze. "This seems like a good spot for one of your fireworks."

### Henry noted the slight bend in the road, the high earth banks on either side of the narrow road and the deep pool of gloom underneath the tree.

### "You're right. Hold my bike steady, please."

### He opened the 37 pattern pack hanging from the cross bar of his bicycle and took out a short section of steel tubing. With his fighting knife he carved a hole in the bank on the outer curve of the bend and fitted the tube inside with one end pointed down the road.

### "What is that, exactly?" she asked.

### "In the engineers, we call it a fougasse. A kind of improvised shotgun with scrap metal packed in front of an explosive charge. This is my own design. I've managed to get some of the latest RDX explosive because it has the highest rate of detonation, and I pack the front loosely with punchings of hardened steel to get the highest possible velocity. I usually reckon on the punchings picking up about eighty percent of the initial detonating rate when they get blasted out. Somewhere in the order of twenty thousand feet per second with RDX. At that velocity the punchings should make holes in three inches of steel fifty yards away. A normal soft skinned vehicle at point-blank range should certainly be stopped in its tracks."

### "If the Germans set one of these off further up, I doubt they'll stay on the road for another one."

### "Maybe, but if we can't move faster on bikes than men running through fields, we don't deserve to get away. This is just to stop any other vehicle which takes the chance of coming after us. Stuck between these banks it'll block the road nicely."

### Henry took out a small wooden cigar box with two meat skewers and a length of fine black cord held to the box with a rubber band. He carried it across the road and plunged a skewer deeply into the turf, one end of the cord attached to it, then discarded the rubber band and stretched the cord out loosely on the top of the road, so it wouldn't be caught up by the feet of his followers. To complete the booby trap the box would need to be moved back further to tauten the wire and anchored with the second skewer.

### For now he opened the box lid and checked that the wooden insulating wedge attached to the other end of the cord was securely jammed between the teeth of the clothes peg which carried the electrical connections for the firing circuit. He was equally careful in making sure that the safety switch in the circuit was fully open. Finally, he took two coils of wire out of the box and offered the bared ends up to the small crocodile clips dangling from the front of the fougasse tube.

### Having prepared the booby trap as much as he could, Henry looked around him. Julie was still close by. Other figures stood further apart, apparently in deep concentration as they strained their ears and eyes for any signs of life. Henry knew exactly the sort of apprehension they were feeling: where the hell was everybody?

### Of course there was probably a curfew. Of course there was probably very little traffic on this back road at night even in normal times. Of course there was no reason for the Germans to come here unless they'd suddenly noticed four of their men were missing. Of course all of those assumptions made sense. But it was still a very strange and eerie feeling to be travelling through an enemy occupied country like this. Since leaving the farm they seemed to have been taking part in an exercise where the mock enemy and the umpires had buggered off back to barracks without bothering to send a message that everything was cancelled.

### "Corporal Cantrell."

### The tall Irishman walked towards him, pushing his incongruously small airborne bicycle beside his towering body: "Good evening to you, sir."

### "Likewise, Corporal. Would you have happened to have done anything like this in the past?"

### "Sure, and I was a courier in Wicklow for several months, doing the rounds for the boys, sir. Walking across country sometimes, but usually on a bike. I've spent many a night at this game."

### "Well, is this usual in your experience? I mean, not seeing a soul around?"

### Cantrell chuckled. "Why, sir, didn't I do it week in and week out, and nobody the wiser, especially the bloody British? Thick as flies round a cow turd they were in the towns, but hardly a sign of them in the country. Nor hardly an honest Irishman either. When times are troubled, wise folk stay in their homes at night."

### "What about dishonest Irishmen -- surely there was a few of those around?"

### "Ah well, sir, that depends on who'd be doing the judging. But the truth of it is that there's always a power of empty land in the countryside."

### Henry shook his head in renewed bafflement.

### "Dam it, Cantrell, what are you doing here anyway? You were such a committed young republican that you broke with Collins and joined the Four Courts garrison to fight for total independence from the British. What are you doing in this army?"

### Cantrell chuckled again, as amused by his officer's sudden outburst as he had been by Henry's first question.

### "Ah, sir, if I'd only had the conniving gifts to be a politician, sure I'd be well suited now at home. But the way of it is that I'm one of those fellows who are only of any use during the fighting. So here I am, a lot older and not a tad wiser or richer to show for all my scars. Anyway, we didn't spend six hundred years getting rid of the English to become part of somebody else's new empire."

### The Corporal swung around as a soft padding noise approached. Everybody reached for their knives until they could distinguish the shape of a man with a loaded trolley following behind him like a tame donkey as he steered it with the tiller arm. Behind him came another trolley and driver -- or helmsman, if that was a more apt word. In the rear was the Smith gun, rolling along behind the double file of men hauling on the drag ropes. There was also another figure in there, pulling with a will and a swaying skirt. Natalya had clearly decided the only thing to do was to give the operation her best efforts and hope for the best.

### Sergeant McCaughan came over holding the cloth strip up in his hand. One of the vital two inch mortars was slung over his back.

### "Everything OK, Sergeant?"

### "Hardly raised a sweat yet, sir. No problems, although I don't know how we'll get on with this thing going down the bridle path."

### "I guess we'll manage, one way or another. Have a breather, then we'll move on."

### Henry moved back towards the bridge party: "Eric, get your boys to listen in while I have a final word with the scouts."

### A very few words was all he could usefully say to Cordery and Julie: "Alright, you two, this is where it's likely to start. If there is an armoured vehicle up there we've somehow got to dispose of the crew without a sound. It's not going to be easy. Go carefully."

### "We'll do our best to open the way for you, Captain."

### The Patrol Leader's voice sounded confident. Then she spoke to Cordery in harsh German, using his native language to confirm that he understood their orders.

### The guttural tones seemed very strange in a woman's mouth. It would be odd to have a German girlfriend, Henry thought. It was hard to imagine anybody trying to talk of love and affection in words that sounded so full of menace and bluster. Perhaps that was why the Huns were so keen on music as an alternative to their horrible language. He stopped musing as the scouts moved off, merging into the darkness with Julie giving a final wave of her right hand in salutation as she left.

### "One minute, Eric."

### Cunliffe- Brown and the other men of the bridge party waited impatiently in their saddles as Henry tied the strip of cloth to one of the tree's branches so he could find the almost prepared booby trap again. The next time he came along this road, if he ever did, it was going to be in a lung tearing hurry. The hanging strip danced in the breeze like a dying man on the gallows.

### "OK, off we go."

### Henry slung his carbine across his chest, then began pedaling after his scouts, the other soldiers following closely enough for him to hear the creak of their pedals. It was a raggedy arsed way to attack what was probably the most expensive and sophisticated unit in the entire armed forces of the Third Reich. But very economical and practical, conditions which he approved of thoroughly.

### In fact, in Henry's philosophy, it was economy and practicality which won wars. A good engineer was a man who did for ten shillings what any fool could do with ten pounds: a good soldier was a man who won a battle as cheaply as possible in scarce resources. It was just unfortunate that the resource which was usually the easiest to supply was brave men. Every army in history had plenty of those. It was talented and well trained soldiers you could never get enough of.

### While his mind followed long worn grooves, his stomach contracted around a small pool of acid which seemed to be accumulating somewhere inside it. This was a bloody frightening experience for him, however calm Julie Braddock or anybody else seemed to be. Dunkirk had been bad enough, but at least he'd been able to vent his emotions with a Bren gun fired up from the hip at any dive bomber which came within range. There was absolutely nothing like a machine gun and an endless supply of ammunition for psychological relief.

### Then Henry's concerns about his mental state were abruptly terminated by a figure stepping into his path. A figure wearing a pot helmet and a slung rifle. The bicycle's front wheel collided with the German. Henry half fell off his bike, the saddle jammed into his thigh, one leg caught in the frame, one arm in a desperate lock around his enemy's neck, and the carbine trapped between the two struggling men. The German seemed as strong as a bull, threatening to break loose at any second. Henry struggled to maintain his arm lock around the Hun's neck, stopping him from shouting for help. Then he grabbed the man's left ear with his left hand, trying to hold the soldier's head back and so relieve the awful pressure on his right arm.

### "Will somebody please kill this bastard?" he pleaded to the surrounding darkness in a desperate whisper.

### Another bike fell onto the road with a metallic clatter and a figure leapt forward with a slashing knife blade. It connected somewhere in the German's body with a tinny sort of a sound and the enemy soldier made a convulsive leap which broke Henry's grip around his neck.

### Gasping for breath and his hands held to his throat, the enemy soldier tried to run away. Because Henry was still continuing to hold desperately onto his ear lobe the German moved in a circle like a tethered goat. Behind him was his second assailant, repeatedly stabbing him in the side.

### Then Henry fell over his bike and dropped on his knees, the German gave the other man a push which sent the Commando staggering back and took the chance he'd been granted to run for his life, throwing his rifle aside in his haste. It was his third enemy who sealed his fate, appearing out of the darkness, neatly tripping the German soldier up and dropping onto his back to drive a knife into his heart. Then the killer stood up.

### "Were the pair of you dancing a jig with this fellow?" Cantrell whispered scornfully, wiping his blade on his sleeve.

### "I'm sorry -- I thought the knife would do the job." It was Cunliffe-Brown's voice, apologising contritely.

### Henry nodded weakly in agreement. On a fair to easy going assessment, the whole thing had been one total fuckup. How Julie and Cordery had missed the sentry was a mystery. Perhaps he'd been standing off on the side of the road for some reason, heard the bikes, walked over and straight in front of a dummkopf Englander. And why the hell hadn't Cunliffe-Brown put the man down with his knife?

### Henry rolled the body over and ran his fingers across it. A broken blade was jammed between two full ammunition pouches on the German's belt. Couldn't really blame Eric for that. But the stupid bastard hadn't improved the shining hour by not realising that his knife was only a broken stub. On the other hand it hadn't been Cunliffe-Brown who had practically run over an enemy soldier. The simple truth was that the whole episode would have been a disaster except for Cantrell's experienced efficiency. The IRA man had made the two British officers look like complete idiots.

### His nervousness now obliterated underneath seething anger at his own incompetence, Henry walked forward as quietly as he could, wheeling his bike with the carbine resting on top of the handlebars. A bar of yellow light shone ahead, just above the level of his eyes. A soft finger click and a smell of perfume guided him to Julie. She led him by the arm along the grass verge. Out of the darkness loomed a large flat fronted radiator belonging to a vehicle parked on the side of the road. They skirted the offside front mudguard which had a clearance knob on a stalk jutting up from it.

### Now Henry could see what kind of vehicle it was, an Adler 13, the first word in postwar German fighting machines. It dated back to the early thirties and looked like a mobile bathtub, an open topped thinly armoured scout car with two wheel drive, poor cross country performance and usually armed with a single machine gun on a flexible mounting. Probably relegated altogether now from front line service to internal security duties, where they might still be useful.

### This one mounted a bed frame radio aerial which was draped with camouflage netting, making a kind of tent over the bodywork. The light was spilling out of the half opened driver's hatch high upon the left hand side of the ungainly vehicle.

### Julie stopped him with the flat of her hand on his chest and held up the other hand in the light. She lifted one finger and pointed at the car. Then she lifted two more fingers and pointed lower down, underneath the vehicle. Henry nodded and knelt down on the road, then looked sideways. Yes, two of them, sleeping snug and comfortable, wrapped in blankets on the grass on the other side of the Adler, underneath ground sheets stretched out and down from the hull of the scout car. So it should be two off duty and two on, one sentry patrolling on foot and one man on radio watch inside the Adler. Since the sentry was already dead that left the duty radio operator as the biggest problem, then the two sleeping crewmen. Henry looked left and right out of the corners of his eyes and saw Cordery crouched by the nearest wheel, knife held ready.

### He stood up again and signaled Julie to wait. Then he went back down the road and issued some quick and very quiet orders to the bridge party before leading them towards the Adler. As they reached it, the party divided, two of them joining Cordery and moving around to cover the back of the scout car, the others standing near the front nearside wheel. Both groups had a crossbow and both crossbows were already aimed at the sleeping targets. Corporal Kelty knelt down by the offside front wheel for Henry to step on his back.

### Once his buttocks were on the mudguard Henry's legs lay comfortably on the backward sweep of the metal arch as he bent forward to peer through the driver's hatch. Sitting inside with his left profile to him was a young man with curly blonde hair wearing a lumpy blue civilian sweater over his uniform shirt. A single interior light was shining over his head and he was holding a large pad of white paper on which he seemed to sketching a building. Around his neck was a pair of earphones, and a microphone which brushed against the operator's throat.

### Henry found it absurdly difficult to push the fat barrel of the De Lisle through the hatch opening without rattling it on the top or the bottom of the gap. He could only do it by turning the weapon sideways so the foresight didn't hit the hatch lid. Having achieved that, he then found it impossible to look along the sights with the carbine held in the normal manner because the lid blocked his line of vision. Stifling an overwhelming desire to swear in frustration, he jammed his right leg against the driver's compartment, twisted over on his left side, turning the firearm with him, trying to squint down the sights as he fought to hold the carbine steady. He now had a clear view of the inside of the Adler, especially of the thick metal mounting post for the MG 34 machine gun underneath the netting. In fact his sights were aimed directly at the post, at least three feet to one side of his intended victim.

### Inch by inch, he wriggled out to the edge of the mudguard, trying to get as far as he could without falling off the side. The barrel of the De Lisle tracked across the interior of the Adler until it was aimed at the man inside. Or at least the barrel weaved back and forth across the German as Henry fought to keep his balance and his point of aim simultaneously.

### Abruptly, the radio operator swung round in his seat to face Henry, at the same time holding up his drawing pad to study some detail more closely. Henry heard the click of the firing pin hitting the round in the carbine, a neat little hole appeared in the pad suddenly surrounded by a red halo, the noise of the impact of the bullet again sounded like a side of beef being cleft open.

### The Luftwaffe man inside lowered the pad, looked at the smoking gun barrel pointing at him and frowned. Blood was spraying out from his chest in spurts as though it were leaking out of a high pressure fire hose. He dropped his chin onto his chest, the red stained pad now resting on his knees, the radio microphone untouched.

### Henry slipped off the mudguard and knelt down on the tarred gravel. His soldiers were dragging out the two men from beneath the ground sheets, each of the Germans with a bolt buried in him almost up to the feathers. The primitive crossbows seemed to be efficient enough at point blank range anyway.

### "Insulation tape -- who's got some, quick?"

### Sergeant McCaughan passed him a roll. Henry leaned in underneath the camouflage net and taped down the transmit button on the top of the microphone. If a station on a radio net failed to make a check call, or answered one with a strange voice, somebody would soon be along to find out what was happening. But a stuck button left down by a dozy operator was a fairly common problem. It was also a bastard of a one, because nobody else on the net could speak until the button on the offending set was released. The only cure was to physically go round to all the stations and find which idiot was responsible.

### Just before he pulled himself out from underneath the netting Henry picked up the drawing pad from his victim's lap. The blood soaking into the paper had almost obliterated the charcoal outline of a Norman towered church surrounded by oak trees. It was near enough a replica of Henry's own village church to make him look twice. The drawing was wonderfully styled in bold strokes, but what Henry could see most vividly was a mental picture of Huns strutting around the streets of Hallaton the way they were in Carnoules.

### He looked down at the blonde curls an inch or so from his face and spat into them. The cocky sods wouldn't like what they found here at dawn. Maybe he could do more a few more things before then to make it even more depressing for the war loving bastards.

### As soon as he was sure his leading elements were secure on the position he began arranging another booby trap. Except that this time it was designed to be an anti-personnel one. He stood a square one gallon petrol container against the bottom of the wall and draped it with a piece of camouflage netting and some grass stalks.

### It was noticeable how far away everybody else went away from him as he connected up the electric wires from another booby-trap cigar box to the crocodile clips on top of the tin. His men cared little about the dangers of high explosive, but these things terrified them. Inside the container was a wax egg wrapped in a three and sixpenny reusable rubber contraceptive sheath, the 'Workman's Friend'. At the centre of the egg was a core of plastic explosive surrounded by potassium chlorate and sugar: the rest of the tin was filled with a well stirred mixture of petrol, sulphuric acid and soap flakes. When one of these infernal devices went off they threw blobs of burning material up to fifty yards away, blobs which stuck to whatever they hit until they eventually burnt out, which was always far too late to be of any help to the poor buggers who had been fried. As angry and determined as any pursuers might be, one taste of a hell bomb like this should induce a modicum of caution.

### After preparing his trap Henry took the ignition key out of the Adler's dashboard and hid it underneath one of the radiator bars. Then the advance continued, though it was more of a rush than the previous deliberate movement. Everybody knew they still had surprise on their side and they also knew it couldn't last much longer. Now was the time to stake everything on speed. A few yards further on Henry found another piece of white cloth lying on the road next to the log gate opening onto the bridle path. Cordery was waiting beside it.

### "The lady is down further along this path. There is nobody else here."

### Henry nodded and checked his watch: 2312 hours. The air force was due to arrive at 0020, moonset at 0233. On present progress they seemed to have made up the time lost on re-briefing at the farm. Of course the original schedule had had a lot of spare time built into it, more than he'd found easy to justify to other would-be planners. But the people who had made such comments were the same idiots who talked about military operations being carried out with split second precision timing. The truth was that military operations were usually undertaken across unfamiliar country against an enemy of unknown strength at guessed at locations; military plans were the most imprecise type of plans imaginable.

### "Sergeant, call up the Albatross on the S-phone and tell them our progress. Also tell them we're now working to the original time-table again."

### "Yes, sir."

### Henry walked over to his second in command and spoke quietly.

### "OK, Eric, I don't think I need to keep you here any longer. Just secure my flank by blowing that bridge and we'll do nicely."

### "Yes, sir. Can I just mention something that's on my mind?"

### "Go ahead."

### "I just want to say is that I consider this idea of yours of actually entering the chateau guard room to be total lunacy. You'll get yourself killed for nothing. Forget about it: no political prisoner is worth what you are to us."

### "War is nothing else but politics on a grand scale, Eric. But thanks for your concern. OK, on your way."

### Cunliffe-Brown sighed: "Alright then, sir, you stupid sod, go ahead and get yourself killed. Good luck."

### He held out his hand and Henry grinned and shook it. Then he stepped back and waved the rest of Cunliffe-Brown's party on, trying to think of something appropriately encouraging to say, something the Duke of Wellington might have said. "Up Guards, and at them" didn't seem right somehow. Nor did: "England expects . . . "

### "Right, altogether now, girls, and we'll piss this."

### Two sets of white teeth showed in darkened faces as Cantrell and Reech grinned at Henry's impromptu encouragement before pedaling off after the Lieutenant. Three men were few enough to do the job -- but he had no more to spare.

### Before going through the gate Henry carefully placed another marker by his discarded bicycle. The gun party would drop off the bikes they were carrying on the trolleys before they followed down the bridle path, ready for a fast getaway when they retreated down the V road back to the farm and the glider. If retreat was the correct word to describe fleeing for your life.

### The path on the other side of the gate was partly grass and partly patches of sticky mud, leading off between a few large trees hunched underneath the cloud streaked moonlight, their bare branches stirring against the wind as if excited by what was about to happen.

### Henry took a deep breath of the sea crisp air and followed Cordery down the slope. He felt nakedly exposed out in the open, away from the cover of the road's banks and walls. Looking back it was somewhat comforting to realise that his men weren't quite as conspicuous as he had imagined. On the other hand any sentry who wasn't dealt with by his scouts would soon enough spot that something odd was going on. Better to move ahead quickly and get Julie and Cordery on their way again.

### On the other side of the field was another wall, another low gate. The Patrol Leader was kneeling behind the wall, checking the way ahead with a pair of compact night glasses.

### "That avenue of trees on the other side of the next field should be the last two hundred yards of the approach to the chateau."

### Henry borrowed the glasses, trying to pick out the details. "I don't suppose you'd see any movement down there from this distance."

### "No, although I expect that the area would be guarded. I'm more concerned about that building just this side of the trees, over on the right. That wasn't in the briefing."

### She was right, there was a dark square shape down near the beeches leading to the chateau. Not a glimmer of light nor sign of a vehicle nearby though, whatever it was.

### "OK, take it steady then. You've done well so far. Cordery had better take the carbine in case you need it."

### Julie put the night glasses back in her handbag, opened the gate and led Cordery through it. Then she put her arm around him, clinging close to his right side and masking the carbine he was holding behind her back. Together, they looked just what Henry wanted them to, an officer and his girlfriend.

### Of course it was a damn silly time and place to be doing any courting. Still, if you were a private or an NCO a lot of things that officers did were crazy. One of the brigadiers in Third Division had been famous for his habit of running through the fields stark naked at dawn looking for mushrooms for his breakfast. And in Henry's experience aircrew officers were generally the silliest and most unpredictable of all commissioned ranks. At any event, he had no doubt that a woman was the best sort of camouflage for this kind of open approach. Which led to another thought.

### He turned around and checked his men's progress. The trolleys were sliding around in places, although there didn't seem to be any problem in keeping them moving. The downward incline would certainly help to conserve their batteries, there was that much to it. The gun crew had divided themselves into two men at the front to steer and two behind using lanyards attached to the axle to hold its weight in check. Natalya was walking to one side, her arms wrapped around against the cold air.

### "Natalya."

### She walked up to him. Henry unbuttoned the German tunic he'd picked up at the barn and draped it over her shoulders.

### "That looks more realistic, I think. I want you to walk ahead with me and pretend to be my girl friend. Whatever happens, don't make a sound. I shall be carrying my knife and if it's the only way to keep you quiet, I'll have to use it."

### He took off his rubber helmet and put on a Luftwaffe side cap. Then he slung a cocked cross bow over his shoulder and tucked three bolts in his ammunition pouch. The sooner they got some more De Lisles the sooner this Agincourt rubbish could be relegated back to the museums.

### "Right, let's go for a walk. Sergeant, wait two minutes, then follow us."

### He pushed open the gate wide enough for the gun to follow and they walked through. Then he pulled his fighting knife out of its sheath, held it with the blade concealed in his right cuff and put his left arm around Natalya's shoulders.

### "I just hope to hell you know what you're doing," she muttered.

### "Let's put it this way, sweetie, I'm either going to get you killed or very famous. No more need to fight for publicity: it's all down to your luck now."

### Natalya sighed and put her own arm around him. "You think I'd be good in the movies?"

### "As long as you don't get any leading men who look like me. Now keep quiet, please."

### She did so, staring ahead as they crossed the field towards the double row of beech trees, straight trunks upright and facing each other like honour guards on either side of the chateau party's intended route.

### Henry turned his head sideways to improve his night vision, studying the walls of the suspicious building, which seemed to be built of irregular sized lumps of pale stone stuck together in rough layers. Then a white strip appeared, a length of cloth suddenly tied up to the nearest corner. It was a signal that the position was safely cleared. He increased his pace until Natalya was almost trotting to keep up.

### Mrs Braddock was waiting by the corner of the suspected building. Henry felt like laughing at their own stupidity when he saw that the construction behind her consisted of rows and rows of cut tree branches, the sawn ends facing outwards and the thinner branches stacked on the top like a roof, with a plaited straw covering to keep the rain off. Near her was a rough overhead shelter made of some of the branches and some straw. Hanging from one of the supports was a field telephone. A pair of jackboots stuck out from underneath the shelter.

### "The sentry stood there saluting until Cordery shot him. I don't think he even knew what happened."

### "Right, keep moving," Henry ordered. "I'm going to follow directly behind you now because you may need some help when you get to the stables."

### She nodded her understanding. Henry cut the telephone wires, put his arm around Natalya's shoulders again and followed Julie to the far corner of the log pile.

### It seemed a lot more than a few days since he had walked behind her into Petty Bowling, quietly laughing to himself at her melodramatic disguise. He was probably one of the few men who had found out what she was really like without paying for the information with his life or his balls. It would be an interesting experience to meet Mr Braddock. The man must either be a gold plated hero or the most hen pecked husband of all time. At any event, whatever the general value of women in the front, Julie Braddock was staying with his Commandos if he could possibly arrange it. When it came to getting rid of sentries a good female killer seemed worth any number of men.

### The interior of the beech avenue was spongy underfoot with decaying leaf mould and as dark as the proverbial cow's gut. They moved down it in single file, relying on their ears for any sign of trouble. At the other end of the avenue a pair of projections against the lighter shade of the night sky indicated the gate posts set in the chateau's outer wall. So close, so bloody . . .

### It was Julie who heard it first, who reached out and stopped Cordery. Henry halted behind her, head tilted. Admittedly no great shakes in anything to do with music even he could identify, borne on the wind, something which sounded very much like a dance band. In fact, if pressed, he would have been prepared to state with some confidence he was listening to 'In the Mood'. Not that he had a lot of time to think about it, because of the headlight which appeared just then between the gateposts and swept towards them at high speed, a massive engine behind it roaring at high power.

### Julie and Cordery dived out of sight to the right, Henry turned around, threw his crossbow away, grabbed Natalya, jerked her skirt up and pushed her back against the nearest tree trunk. Keeping their faces together, he jerked his hips against her, simulating a stand up shag. As the headlight grew brighter he pretended to ignore it while he tried to make his movements look as though he was getting onto the short strokes. He wasn't surprised when the engine stopped close behind him: neither was he surprised at the masculine shouts of approval he could hear over the noise of the machine -- what did surprise him was the female laughter he thought he could hear. Then the laughter was cut off abruptly by the heavy handed smack of the De Lisle.

### Henry spun around and leapt to one side out of the headlight's beam. A red shaded torch was shining out of the side of the road, about where he'd last seen Julie. The light was falling on the largest motor bike Henry had ever seen, a matching side car attached to it. Two figures were in the side car, another behind the handlebars wearing uniform. Leaning against the driver's back wearing a party dress pulled up over her knees was a plump girl with dark hair pinned up high on top of a shattered skull. Henry saw her fall to one side out of the pillion seat, the driver twisting around to look behind him, then part of the German's right shoulder seemed to explode as one of the big .45 rounds hit it.

### There was an eruption in the side car as another girl tried to scramble out and the man whose lap she was sitting on grabbed for his holster.

### Henry hit the girl in the face with his clenched left hand, dropping her back into the side car, then drove his knife point towards her companion's throat. The man flinched and the knife point slid along the side of his jaw, slicing the flesh apart. Again and again Henry drove for the neck, the only vulnerable spot he could reach. The muzzle of the De Lisle appeared in the edge of the torchlight; muzzle blast bullet slapped Henry's face, the driver jammed the throttle wide open as he arched up under the impact. A jet of scarlet liquid spurted up into the light as Henry cut an artery, his victim screeching at the sight of his own blood.

### Julie changed her position to better illuminate the sidecar while Cordery worked the bolt of the carbine. A smooth functioning team whose work finished with another shot down into the sidecar man's collar bone. After that there was nothing left except a corpse still twitching in a world which no longer meant anything to her.

### Henry dropped his knife, leapt for the bike and tried to throttle the screaming engine back. The right hand grip was unyielding, connected to nothing, instead of the usual right hand throttle control on British bikes. "Fucking, fucking, fucking German bastards -- ."

### He hauled up the body slumped over the handlebars by dragging on its hair until he could get his hand underneath it onto the blood slicked metal of the motor bike. The engine cut out and the headlight beam vanished as he flicked over the ignition key set in the handlebars. Julie's torch went out. Henry could hear the girl in the side car gabbling hysterically. He felt around, then heard her yelp in fear as he caught her hair.

### "Tell this bitch to shut up."

### Braddock translated into urgent French. Piss stink wafted up from the sidecar, either from the girl or the corpse underneath her. He put his blade against one of her breasts and she stiffened into terrified silence.

### "Can anybody see or hear anything?" They were all blinded after being so close to the headlight. Yet the music was still playing away and nothing seemed to be happening.

### "I think it's alright," Julie whispered. "Anybody down there would think the bike has stopped so the men can enjoy themselves with the girls."

### "Christ, they'll lose this bloody war yet. Use your torch to give McCaughan a couple of quick flashes so he knows we're OK. Shield it with your body as much as you can. Then let's push this thing into the side and see what we've got."

### The motor bike combination refused to move.

### "Natalya, give us a hand," Henry snarled, trying to push with one hand while keeping his knife pressed against the girl. He heard her come stumbling over, then she squealed in horror.

### "Oh God, I stepped on somebody!"

### "It is the woman who was riding on the back. Her foot is caught in the back wheel," Cordery reported calmly. "I will get it out."

### Free of the obstructing body the bike was finally pushed in between two trees. Henry went back onto the road, pulled the dead girl into cover, wrapped some four by two cloth round a clump of bracken to mark the rendezvous for Sergeant McCaughan, then rejoined the others.

### Julie's torch beam leaked out between her clenched fingers, passing inch by inch over the motor bike and sidecar. It was clear that the dead girl had been hit by Cordery's first shot, no doubt aimed at the man in front.

### Then the second shot had been fired to one side of her, wounding the driver, a very inadequate expression for even a passing blow from a .45 round.

### Cordery's third bullet had nailed him fair and square. The man looked to be in his mid twenties, dressed in all the finery of formal Luftwaffe mess uniform, though hatless. The yellow patches on his collar displaying two eagles and a laurel wreath proclaimed him as an Oberleutnant in the flying branch. Julie lifted up the officer's right arm and twisted the sleeve cuff around for Henry to see the Germanic script on it which formed two words: 'Legion Condor'.

### "We've got one of them," she said happily. "One of their best."

### Henry couldn't help chuckling. "The bastards must have been given a lifetime's supply of Spanish fly for helping Franco. Too oversexed for their own good."

### The girl in the side car was a thin face brunette with a complexion like dirty marble and the eyes of a terrified rabbit. She was still sitting in the lap of the other dead officer, blood dribbling out of her cut lips. Rather surprisingly, he was wearing the pink insignia and three bladed propeller of a senior engineer. It seemed unusual for an aircrew officer to be quite such good friends with a ground crew technician; possibly the motor bike had something to do with it.

### Henry whistled softly in sheer admiration when he examined the machine. The tank had the head of a red indian chief painted on it, the word 'Indian' lettered across the streaming back feathers. Underneath the tank was a massive engine, with cooling fins on the cylinder heads that ought to have been in an art gallery. In fact, the whole machine was a gleaming example of absolutely solid and meticulous workmanship.

### Judging by the styling it must have been imported from the United States just before the war. A toy for a lucky rich boy who had just run out of luck.

### Henry reluctantly gave the torch back to Julie. "Interrogate her," he ordered. "I'll be watching the road. Two minutes is about all I can give you."

### Incredibly, the scene within the avenue appeared just as calm as it had done before. Not an apparent flicker of interest in the bloody slaughter which had just taken place. Henry flashed his torch in McCaughan's direction. He was answered by a double finger click. He responded with a double click, then another double click. Behind him he could hear Julie snarling softly in French. The girl stuttered an answer.

### And still the band played on over at the chateau: still in the mood, but three lives less now to share it. God, it was strange how quickly you could leave this world with one little piece of bad luck. Fourteen years from cradle to walking out the schoolhouse door, put on your first pair of long trousers, learn to fly an aircraft, drop a few bombs, get on a bike with a mate, drive a couple of girls up a dark lane and suddenly that was your lot. It didn't seem like much in the way of memories to go into eternity with.

### More finger clicks, very close, but it was difficult to see with his eyes still dazzled. His night vision would be affected for a long while yet and he couldn't afford to wait for it to come back. Henry whispered, "Sergeant, can you see me?"

### "Yes, sir. What happened?"

### "Two German officers and French two tarts on a motor bike and sidecar. Killed three of them, one girl left alive. Patrol Leader's talking to her now. Can you see anybody at the other end of this avenue?"

### "No sir."

### "There must be some bastards somewhere close. It certainly seems as if the Huns are having a piss up. We'll have to play it as it falls. Maybe the Patrol Leader can get us some useful information."

### The smell of her perfume still managed to cling to Julie as she came from behind a beech. "Our information is correct, there is a party on. What's somewhat surprising is that she says the Grand Duke is drinking with the Germans and seems to be enjoying himself."

### "What!"

### "Perhaps there isn't going to be a free gift of White Russians to Stalin after all. Perhaps the whole story was wrong. Even if the story is true, it still makes sense. Luftwaffe officers aren't members of Stalin's fan club, even if he is supplying the petrol which keeps them flying. If the Duke was under house arrest, they'd make it as comfortable as possible for him."

### "Stuff it, we'll worry about it later. The next job is to get into the grounds. OK, McCaughan's party and Natalya follow on foot. You, me, Cordery and Sergeant McCaughan travel on the motor cycle. Straight through the gate, kill every sentry we find, while I rev the guts out of the engine to drown any noise. Nobody is going to take any notice of that with this party going on. Get the gun and the mortars into firing positions and we take it from there. Everybody clear on what we're going to do?"

### McCaughan and the Patrol Leader confirmed that they understood. "What about the girl -- any reason to keep her alive?" Julie asked.

### "No."

### CHAPTER EIGHT

### Henry sat astride the Indian trying to make sense of the controls, the hot engine ticking as it contracted in the cold wind. Left hand twist throttle, but no gear change mechanism there. So the clutch had to be the left side rocking foot pedal. Right, he knew where the throttle was, where the brakes were, where the clutch was: the only minor point left unresolved was how to change gears on this strange contraption.

### He patted the handlebars, the tank, felt around with his right foot for another pedal. Nothing: Christ, there had to be something. Then his knuckles brushed against a lever a few inches out from the right side of the petrol tank. He depressed the clutch and waggled the lever, feeling it click over. A column change gear lever on a motor bike! Trust the Yanks to do things differently.

### "Back on the road with it, quick."

### The Indian was rolled onto the roadway again, the passengers arranging themselves on it. Cordery took the pillion seat with the carbine, McCaughan got in the side car gripping a cross bow, Julie sat on the nose of the car holding a knife and torch, knees and legs tightly pressed against the streamlined shape with the poise of an experienced horsewoman.

### "Have you dealt with the girl?" Henry asked her somberly. It was a stupid question: he'd heard the impact of the bullet.

### "Yes. A bad business. But there was no other choice, was there?"

### No, there wasn't. He had nobody he could spare to guard a prisoner and he was taking enough chances with his men's lives already without the risk of having some trollop running around screaming to the Huns about the Commandos at the bottom of their garden.

### "OK, Corporal Cutforth, get your people moving up behind us at the trot. If you hear shooting you just keep on coming. It's neck or nothing now, understand?"

### Cutforth was another unlikely Commando, a handsome would-be actor from Norwich who had been accepted by the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art just before the war. With a chance like that spoiled it was no wonder he had a personal grudge against Hitler. At least he was now going to get a chance to make the most dramatic entrance of his life. The corporal made a mock bow.

### "After you, Claude."

### Cutforth's imitation of one of the favourite ITMA catch phrases was perfect, bringing grim chuckles from the rest of the men, their teeth quite literally bared in their darkened faces, like terriers scratching at a rat hole.

### Henry had heard of this phenomenon but never seen it before, British infantry closing to bayonet distance of the enemy with their blood lust running hot. It wasn't a factor which alone could guarantee winning an engagement, though it had done so times without number. At any event, the converse was certain. Without soldiers eagerly seeking close quarter fighting all the guns and tanks and planes in the world couldn't win the battle for you.

### Henry turned the headlight switch off, flicked over the ignition keys, took a deep breath and threw his weight down onto the kick start. The impact through his canvas sole as the big engine fired felt like a stroke from a bastinado. Thank God the bloody thing was still warm. It rumbled away underneath him as if he was sitting astride a lorry's bonnet. The thing must have at least a thousand cc's of cylinder capacity, certainly a lot more than his own 250 cc Velocette, a toy in comparison.

### Left foot down, right hand forward, ease the clutch in gently, pick up some revs and away . . . we go. The Indian rolled along in bottom gear with the same sort of stately grace as a Rolls Royce pulling away from the pavement outside the Dorchester. Henry felt a genuine pang of regret that he would never have the chance to try it out properly. A hot summer's day, the open road leading to some friendly village pubs, this monster belting along and a laughing girl in the side car -- ah well -- perhaps not, not with the memories this machine had for him.

### Now he could see the wall around the chateau, glimpse the tree tops above it, even hear the music above the noise of the Indian. What the hell was the RAF doing that the Huns could be so totally relaxed around these bloody airfields?

### All right, he could understand the sentries being slack; Air Force men, not real soldiers, in a country which seemed totally subdued, while the only enemy forces which hadn't yet formally surrendered were cowering in bomb shelters on the other side of the sea. The Luftwaffe guards were doing their duty conscientiously, though without any expectation of real trouble. But there should be trouble, at least from the air. RAF aircraft should be attacking these bomber bases every night instead of farting around over the Channel ports. Not even Hitler was audacious enough to launch an invasion across the English Channel in converted Rhine barges in October -- the RAF were killing themselves attacking the wrong targets, as usual.

### The gate posts appeared ahead of him, a large stone decorative ball perched on top of each one. Henry nosed the Indian between them and stopped, revving up the engine with the clutch out. He flicked his torch to the left while Julie scanned to the right. Nothing, not a soul, no sign of any guards, save for an ominous white line painted at waist height on the crumbling brickwork of the wall, probably for the benefit of foot patrols. Certainly there must be some good reason for it because a lot of ivy had been chopped away to make sure the line was continuous. Anyway, if there were such patrols, and it was highly likely there were, none of them were to be seen. The single iron gate, eight feet high to match the wall, was not only open, it looked as if it had been standing open since Napoleon had been a military cadet.

### As Henry eased off the throttle, Julie spoke: "What do you think, Captain?"

### "I think they have the outer posts we've already passed, an inner set of sentries around the moat, and rover patrols in between. There's no use in mounting a guard at a gate in a wall that's probably full of gaps. We'll find the next lot of Jerries at the stables. Get ready, this is the last lap."

### He waited until Cutforth's men were alongside again, then the bike's motor rumbled throatily as they moved off again, the trees on either side of the pathway looking as close grown and impenetrable as the forest surrounding the sleeping beauty's palace. But there was going to be no fairy story with a happy ending tonight.

### An open space on the right, a rectangular yard covered in more pale coloured gravel, a long handled pump next to a stone trough, a tiled roof above it on carved timber beams. The watering place for the horses, combined with typical French economy into the laundry house for the servants. Henry stopped alongside it while the Patrol Leader flashed her torch beam underneath the roof. A pale faced young man in a helmet that looked a size too big for him stared at them in puzzlement, his rifle still slung over his shoulder.

### The bolt from the crossbow hit the sentry on the left side of his stomach just below the rib cage, hardly ideal placement. Once again the De Lisle saved the situation with a muffled shot to the heart. The enemy soldier went down onto the gravel with the sprawling abandonment of the dead. God, these huge .45 rounds were absolute man killers at close range, just as they were supposed to be. The Americans had designed the round specifically to stop berserker native rebels in the Philippines. A hot cartridge case hit Henry on the side of the neck as Cordery reloaded.

### He let the clutch in again. On the other side of the yard was the stable building, although it looked more like a house, with a steeply sloping roof and two small turrets with pagoda styled tops. Cracks of light appeared at a door at the top of a small flight of steps. Julie suddenly reached out and turned down the throttle.

### "Switch it off!"

### Henry turned off the ignition, and found that the Patrol Leader and Cordery were already moving towards the light. He followed them, McCaughan in his turn following him. Instead of heading directly for the door Julie ducked around the corner of the stables. Then she stopped them and whispered her instructions fiercely. In the background they could hear the band whipping through 'Pennsylvania 6500' with great gusto.

### "I think that's the guardroom. I'm going to try out my Gestapo identification and see if it holds water. Captain Winfield and Cordery, you pretend to be German paratroopers, so get rid of those jackets. Sergeant, get your people into firing positions."

### "Yes, ma'am." McCaughan turned and headed back towards the Indian.

### This was all happening too fast for Henry's liking. On the other hand he had no better ideas. He discarded the ground crew jacket and re-positioned his captured fore and aft cap, wondering whether it was Luftwaffe custom to wear it centrally or tipped onto one side of the head.

### "How long have we got left before the bombing starts?" she asked.

### Henry looked at the luminous hands of his watch: "Less than ten minutes."

### "Right. Cordery, you're now a Fallschirmjagern Hauptmann. And you, Captain, are now a very dumb private who will keep his mouth shut. Let's have a look at you."

### Julie inspected him quickly but thoroughly with her torch heavily shielded.

### "The camouflage on your face is acceptable, but the blood on your hands is probably a touch too dramatic for the circumstances."

### Henry stood in amazed silence as she took a handkerchief out of her handbag, poured some kind of perfume from a small bottle onto it and wiped his hands clean. She then checked Cordery's appearance before they did the same for her, although it was hardly necessary. She seemed as smartly turned out as when she had stepped out of the Hotspur. Henry took the De Lisle from Cordery and they were ready.

### "Let's start, then," Julie said firmly, like a nanny dealing with a couple of nervous children. As far as Henry was concerned she had the truth of it, because his guts were about ready to squirt out through his arsehole.

### Julie Braddock took a second look at him.

### "Tell me, Henry, what will you do with your life if you survive this?"

### It was a good question for the time and place.

### "I'm going to give Adolf Hitler a huge kick in the balls by finishing off a military engineering project the Roman army started in 106 AD."

### The woman started as if he'd bitten her on the neck but her lack of understanding didn't matter. A triple sealed envelope with his initial research for operation 'STOP TAP' was already in Crampton's possession.

### Julie shrugged, tapped the other soldier's arm and nodded towards the guardroom. Cordery drew himself up, marched around the corner and towards the door. When he reached it he pounded on the thick wood with his fist and bellowed out an order in a way which probably caused consternation amongst Cutforth's approaching party. The reaction on the other side of the door was certainly swift enough, boots stamping around and the sound of a raised voice snapping out orders. The door swung open, revealing the outline of a man inside a white washed corridor, the only light coming from a room on the right hand side.

### Cordery broke into a sharp conversation which caused the man to stiffen to attention and salute, a salute Cordery promptly returned. Then the man turned and led them down the passage to the lighted room. Because the room was small and already crowded Henry stopped outside in the passage, looking in.

### It seemed very much like every improvised guard room used by all rear area troops. A table covered in a grey blanket, an open log book lying on it, a field telephone next to a pressure lamp, four stretcher beds along one wall, a packing case against another wall with a small paraffin stove on top, its red mica window glowing comfortably beneath a billycan giving off a fine smell of coffee.

### The man who had led them into the room turned up the lamp and stared at his visitors, too surprised by the sight of Julie to spare Cordery or Henry more than a cursory glance. He was tall and skinny, wearing the scarlet tabs of the Flak Artillery and the rank badges of an Hauptfeldwebel. Two fully dressed privates, also wearing Flak insignia, were standing to attention with their rifles held stiffly to their sides and their hair tousled because of the abrupt rousing from their beds. But their sleepy eyes opened like owls as Julie took an oval identity disc out of her handbag and showed it to the Hauptfeldwebel.

### "Die polizistin Schuld, Geheime staats polizei."

### Then she leaned forward and questioned him sharply.

### Henry couldn't follow it, except for one bit: "Herzog Paul -- Der Grossen Herzog Paul?"

### Even without any knowledge of German, the answer was plain as the NCO nodded and pointed towards the chateau.

### Julie spoke again, tapping the telephone. Henry picked out the word 'offizier'.

### It sounded to him as if she was talking about the orderly officer. She used the word 'chateau' as well, as if it were a question. Henry assumed she was asking the Jerry if the orderly officer was in the chateau and could he speak to him on the telephone?

### The Hauptfeldwebel looked unhappy, but seemed to be reluctantly agreeing that it was possible to do as she wanted. Henry could sympathise with him. If he'd been a guard commander at an RAF base, and an MI5 security officer and a paratroop captain knocked on his guardroom door without any of his sentries first alerting him as to their presence he wouldn't want to talk to any of his officers about the matter either.

### Julie snapped at him, throwing down the paybooks taken from Henry's prisoners. The Hauptfeldwebel stared at them, then at Cordery as the Jew spoke, apparently urging him to get a move on unless he wanted to join the list of those under arrest.

### Cordery pointed to the telephone "Fernsprecher!".

### The handle on the metal box whirred as the guard commander spun it around before began speaking urgently into the mouthpiece.

### It would be a neat trick if it worked. But this bluff wasn't going to last much longer. The two privates weren't being distracted like their NCO was, they were waking up and noticing things. They were looking at the strange cut of Cordery's battle uniform, the canvas shoes on his feet, the lack of rank badges on his sleeves. Most of all, there was something about the way Henry was standing at the doorway with the carbine across his chest which was making them very nervous. If the guard commander picked up their mood he might have enough sense and courage to shout a warning down the phone.

### For the moment the Hauptfeldwebel was still intent on his conversation, apparently having some trouble in explaining the situation to the person on the other end of the line. Something about 'die polizistin' seemed to cause a minor explosion in response.

### Cordery took the hand piece from the guard commander and snarled into it.

### Henry picked out 'Hauptman Placke', 'Luftflottehauptquartier', and 'Gestapo',which suggested that Cordery was bringing out the big guns in order to get some action. There was certainly another mention of 'Herzog Paul, bitte." Then some 'Ja's', and a 'nun'. Then Cordery said, in apparent satisfaction, "Danke sehr, Leutnant" before replacing the handpiece.

### Everybody looked at one another. Tension seemed to building up inside the room with almost palpable force. Henry tried to decide when Julie should give the signal for the killing to start: would she wait for the Duke to arrive or not? Somebody was going to make a move here soon one way or another. But her next action astonished him.

### She walked over to one of the beds picked up a magazine lying on it and lifted it up to the light. Large black and white photographs showed a very buxom young girl sitting on the end of a table, her wrists tied with pieces of cord to the table legs underneath her. Three men were taking advantage of her helpless state to remove her lace trimmed underwear. Julie chuckled, slowly leafing through the pages and studying every detail as the girl was subjected to several further indignities of a very personal nature.

### Then she turned her head and spoke to the fresh faced young soldiers in a tone of mock censure. It threw both of them completely off balance, totally unsure of how to react to this sophisticated woman whom had identified herself as a secret police officer, yet who enjoyed sharing a joke about dirty pictures with a couple of young soldiers. When Julie eventually dropped the magazine back on the bed she winked at the two of them and said "Beften dank im voraus, soldaten!".

### The two soldiers both seemed to be on the verge of laughing, before their discipline reasserted itself. But they appeared to be reassured in a way they had not been before. Julie had settled them down with wonderful deftness. She began talking to the Hauptfeldwebel in an easy conversational manner which was rather spoilt by a blast of sub-machine gun fire outside, immediately answered by the heavier bark of at least two Thompson guns.

### Julie was still smiling as she drove the heel of her palm into the Hauptfeldwebel's nose, collapsing his body over the table. Henry swung the De Lisle down and fired across the room into one of the soldiers. As he fell down the lamp on the table was knocked onto the floor and promptly extinguished itself in a cloud of paraffin stinking smoke. Henry frantically worked the bolt of the carbine, stepping aside at the same time as he heard the other German matching his movements with the action of his own rifle. Henry fired first -- the response was a shower of sparks in the darkness and a spray of brick fragments as a return shot from the Mauser went through the wall near his head.

### Henry dropped flat and worked his bolt again, while somebody over on his right opened up with a pistol, emptying the magazine as fast as possible. The low powered bullets bounced around the room, whining like high powered mosquitoes as somebody screamed in fear: Henry had an idea it might be him. There wasn't time to think about it because a door further down in the passageway was flung open and a man with earphones on his head burst out into the pool of light from the doorway, a Schmeisser sub machine gun held at his hip.

### Henry rolled over on his side and fired while the other man was still unsure of whether he was facing a friend or foe. The German was hit in the stomach and doubled up with the breath literally knocked out of his body by the impact.

### A torch beam flickered through the room, picking out the soldier inside. He was bleeding from the neck and chest, though still trying to lift his rifle up. Henry shot him as another couple of pistol rounds were fired from the right, at least one of them hitting the German again. Henry used his own torch and saw Julie and Cordery getting up off the floor, both holding smoking pistols. Cordery was white faced with pain, clutching with his other hand at his thigh, blood dribbling past his fingers. It looked as if he'd been hit by one of their own ricocheting pistol bullets. Another rifle boomed out further down the passage. The passing round was close enough to make Henry twitch in fear. He threw his torch aside, took a 36 grenade from his pocket, tugged out the pin with his right hand and threw it along the corridor floor.

### "Get ready to run!"

### Noise smashed against Henry's ears and met the vibration coming up from his soles, great pieces of whitewash fluttered off the walls like giant butterflies, a hundred years' collection of dust and chaff came boiling up between the floor planks into the torch beams.

### "Outside! Now!!"

### Cordery and Julie dived past him into the passage, Henry at their heels and screaming in frustration at the stumbling pace of Cordery. He pushed the wounded man out through the opened door, sending him sprawling, then leapt to one side before throwing another grenade back into the stables. As soon as it detonated Henry swung around to see one of the most beautiful buildings he'd ever beheld in his life illuminated by a flash of lightning directly above its turrets and window casements. He was standing about eighty yards away from the chateau and somebody had just dropped a mortar bomb off its roof.

### Almost as soon as the light had died away there was a smaller flash in the same area, like a giant spark, immediately followed by another explosion which smeared an image across his eyes of tiles starting to cascade off the forty five degree angled roof. At least both the mortars were in action, even if they pitching their shots too short and the bouncing bombs were landing on the roof. The Thompson fire had stopped, although there was plenty of shooting going on inside the chateau, muzzle flashes at several windows and bullets droning across the graveled yard, though without the mind numbing velocity of high powered rounds. Mostly pistol or sub-machine gun 9 millimetre parabellum, Henry guessed.

### Then there was another noise, a sullen boom as the Smith gun was fired. The low velocity bomb thumped past and Henry stared after it, his heart in his mouth. There was a micro second of harsh light, apparently from behind a large window on the bottom floor, then fragments of all sizes were flying out to splash into the previously calm surface of the moat.

### Julie tugged at his sleeve and pointed to a figure running towards them, a Bren gun hanging from one hand and two packs bulging with magazines dangling from the other.

### "Sergeant! Over here!"

### One of the small mortars and the Smith gun beat out a fast double beat, the mortar yapping like a terrier, the gun a deep growl. McCaughan crouched down beside them, shouting. Henry's ears felt as if they were stuffed with cotton wool after the grenade explosions.

### "Two sentries came up as we were getting into position. We used the cross bows but only wounded one of them. Then the other one started shooting, so we had to finish them off."

### Julie cut in: "Did you see anybody come out of the chateau before the shooting started?"

### "Yes, I saw some light when a door was opened about a minute beforehand."

### "The Duke might still be on the bridge," she snapped at Henry.

### "And he may stay there for me" was the first unbidden thought to come into Henry's mind.

### He raised his head and stared at the chateau. In the glow of flames appearing inside the building he could see shattered windows and smoke starting to roll out of some of them.

### Another tremendous crash echoed as Cutforth used a high explosive bomb to blow out some more windows in the side of the building before firing white phosphorous rounds through the resulting gaps. The Germans were still shooting back as hard as they could, trying to disable the gun crew, though without any signs of success so far. With hardly any muzzle flash from the Smith gun they'd find it hard to pick their target.

### Both of the two inch mortars were firing hard, with brief flashes behind the chateau showing their bombs were now on target to seal off the other side of the building.

### "Julie, you help the Sergeant. I'll look for the Duke."

### He jumped up and ran across the yard, wondering whether he was more likely to be hit by an enemy bullet or a friendly bomb. What bullets came close he didn't know; somebody over by the Smith gun saw him because a voice bellowed "Get out of the fucking way!".

### Whoever it was must have had his hand twitching on the firing lanyard because he cut loose again while Henry was still skipping across the line of fire like a startled rabbit. The wind blast from the bomb actually smacked him across the back of the knees.

### Cursing with a madman's fervor Henry jumped onto the Indian, kick started it and headed for the bridge, the ornate virginal white balustrades on either side of the footpath across it shimmering in the growing firelight from the chateau. Henry aimed the Indian between them and opened the throttle. Screaming in low gear the motorbike combination lumbered onto the bridge and swayed along the path, a few inches clearance on either side. Henry crouched over the handlebars and stared along the thin beam of light coming from the slitted hood covering the headlamp. A bullet spat past his head, another bounced off the stone banister on his left, whining away.

### Two bodies appeared in front of him crouched down below the stone handrails, one on either side of the bridge, a civilian on the left in a dinner suit, a Luftwaffe officer in dress uniform on the right. In the officer's hand was a pistol, aimed at Henry but not being fired. Apparently the officer knew the sound of the Indian and wasn't sure whether it was being ridden by friend or foe. The German lifted himself up, as if to get a better look. As his head and shoulders appeared over the handrail a burst of Bren fire lashed within inches of his fair hair, making him duck down again. Sergeant McCaughan was giving a helping hand. Henry aimed the nose of the sidecar at the officer and tried to scrape him along the balustrades without hitting the civilian.

### The German screamed as his head and shoulders vanished out of sight under the sidecar; he fired a pistol shot which went God only knew where, the sidecar snagged on the body or one of the posts, the Indian spun to the right and stalled, and Henry fell off, wondering if the wrench on the front wheel had broken his wrists. He lay on his back between the bike and the sidecar, looked up at the sparks and smoke drifting overhead and thought it would be nice to have a very long rest. But this wasn't a good time for it --

### Henry rolled over, grabbed his carbine, saw the Luftwaffe officer trying to pull his legs out from underneath the sidecar and fired a round into him. The man's head drooped down like a dying rook shot on the nest as Henry turned to look at the Duke who was going down the side of the footpath on his hands and knees, fat arse up in the air and wriggling along at an excellent rate of speed. Then the Bren opened up again, snap bursts, answered with Teutonic screams of rage from the chateau.

### The Smith gun had stopped firing, probably because there was no need to carry on. The strong wind blowing through the shattered windows of the chateau was spreading and joining all the small fires inside the building into a single mass of roaring flames. The bottom floor already looked like a gateway to hell: Henry hoped it was.

### He lifted his head up over the top of the Indian. Groups of men were leaping out of the second storey windows above the small terrace at the back of the chateau and dropping into the clouds of smoke coming from the ground floor. Flames were starting to lick out of some of the upper windows as the fire swept up, no doubt helped by the draught from the hot air rising through the holes the bouncing mortar bombs had made in the roof. Henry wondered why the Germans were deliberately jumping down onto the bullet lashed terrace when they could have easily opted for softer landings in the moat instead.

### He understood why when an officer, two waiters and a bandsman loomed out of the smoke about thirty yards away, screaming with rage as they ran down the bridge towards him. Only the officer was carrying a pistol, one of the waiters held a broken chair leg and the musician was waving a trumpet over his head, hobbling on an injured leg. There was nothing to laugh at though, this was the reason why German soldiers were so bloody good. Somebody had realised the only way out of the burning trap was to get across the bridge and counterattack, the word engraved on every German commander's heart. So the order had been given, the Luftwaffe boys were queuing up to jump down to the terrace and those that hadn't broken any bones doing it were forming up and charging. Even the Bren wasn't stopping all of them, though it must be making the terrace a death trap.

### Henry saw the frenzied faces coming towards him and knew there was no chance at all of holding them back with the carbine. He stared over the slewed around motor bike at the burning mansion at the end of the bridge and the yellow moon above it dropping towards the tops of the willow trees. In his head he could hear some lines of poetry being recited with strange clarity:

### "There's a wheel on the Horns o' the Morning,

### And a wheel on the edge of the Pit,

### An' a drop into nothing beneath you as straight as a beggar can spit."

### He pulled the last 36 grenade out of his map pocket, jerked out the pin and dropped the grenade into the sidecar. Then he turned and ran with paces which would have left Jesse Owens still crouched at the blocks.

### "Thousand and one, thousand and two, thousand and fuck it -- "

### The fat Grand Duke was too inviting to go past. Henry hurled himself on top of the Russian, crushing him under his weight. Then the grenade exploded, like God's fist swinging down out of the sky and smashing everything flat.

### Chunks of metal whined past, the Indian's petrol tank detonated into a huge fireball which licked around Henry's feet, the officer scrambling over the motor bike was blown twenty feet into the air and ignited like a log at the apex of his flight, the Bren gun began chattering again in one continuous hysterical burst as if gloating over this new example of destruction.

### Henry jumped up, pulling the Duke with him by his collar. The wreckage of the Indian and its sidecar were the centre of a bonfire blocking the bridge, circles of scarlet ribbons chasing themselves around the wheel rims.

### "Move, you bastard!"

### Black rubbery smelling smoke everywhere. An outburst of firing away over on the left somewhere. Bullets were flying in all directions and the two inch mortars were still tolling as regularly as funeral bells.

### Henry and his companion fled through it all, coughing, staggering, fleeing. As they neared the end of the bridge it shuddered underneath them as an underwater detonation slammed against the supports, wave tops slopping through the balustrades and streaking the white stone carvings with stinking mud.

### Both of them ran out straight into a blast of concentrated machine gun fire. Fortunately, it wasn't aimed at them. McCaughan was lying underneath a bush near the stables, hammering away towards their left with the Bren, the barrel glowing cherry red. As soon as he saw Henry McCaughan shouted "Barrel change."

### Next to him, on her belly, on top of her discarded coat, Julie flicked open the quick release lock, whipped out the hot barrel by the carrying handle, replaced it with a spare barrel, closed the lock and clipped a new magazine to the gun. McCaughan recocked the working parts and opened fire again. Henry had never seen an immediate action on a weapon carried out any more smoothly by any gun crew.

### He looked in the direction they were firing and saw muzzle flashes from the bushes opposite the eastern corner of the house. Near the corner, on the path surrounding the moat, was a body with a round rubber helmet on it. Turning to his left Henry ran without hesitating along the path towards his fallen soldier.

### It wasn't a matter of thinking, it was a matter of knowing that this was a chance which was never going to be repeated.

### It was clear that McCaughan had sent out the men with the grenade launchers once the chateau was alight, and that the grenadier on the left flank must be OK judging by the underwater detonations which had rocked the bridge.

### It was also clear that the man sent out on this side had been shot down by a group of well armed Germans in the undergrowth, probably a patrol of prowler guards brought running to the chateau by the shooting. But just now those Germans had suddenly been brought under accurate and fast machine gun fire, which should keep their heads down for a few seconds. After all, it was probably their first taste of ground battle. So it was just possible that Henry might get close to them in the clouds of smoke coming from the chateau and survive long enough to finish the job the dead Commando had started.

### Henry had to cover about fifty yards to the body. If anybody was shooting at him he couldn't distinguish their bullets from the continual sonic cracks of the Bren bullets drilling holes through the air close to him. The vital covering fire which was keeping the Germans' heads down.

### Drawing fresh energy from somewhere for the sprint, he finally dropped down by the body, grabbed the rifle and grenade box, then slithered down into cover in the dead ground where the grass sloped down to the water. When he caught the downed soldier's leg and started dragging him off the path a sub-machine gun opened fire, the impacting rounds blowing chips of gravel into his face and hitting the fallen soldier again.

### Henry flattened himself, coughing as clouds of acrid smoke caught at his straining lungs. There was the familiar thumping noise of the Smith gun behind him and a three inch mortar bomb exploded in the tree line somewhere between him and the Germans; debris of all kinds came spattering down, blasted out from the core of liberated chemicals.

### Henry's skull felt as though it had been hammered like a tent peg. Somewhere in the ringing caverns underneath it was an oak paneled Cambridge lecture room and his Director of Studies holding up a one inch blasting cartridge and saying that it contained 60,00 megawatts of energy -- more than the total power station output of the United Kingdom at any given moment. But you had to get close to a few big bangs to understand how big they really were.

### Astonished he hadn't been sliced to ribbons, Henry jumped up and ran straight towards the nearest bushes, hoping for the second time that night he wasn't going to get shot by his own side. Again he was lucky, Sergeant McCaughan letting him cross over without killing him. Nor did the Smith gunner risk a second shot, a very wise decision in Henry's opinion.

### Once inside the trees Henry dodged around the drooping branches, peering out towards the moat until he got to where he wanted to be, at the corner of the chateau. The Bren had settled down to firing short bursts of two or three rounds at a time, the bullets impacting somewhere further along the trees, where he could hear a voice shouting in German. Bugger the noisy bastards; what interested Henry was the side view of the chateau, burning from end to end now.

### It was like looking along the length of a sinking ocean liner, smoke clouds hanging above the black surface of the moat and figures dropping out of them to splash around in the water, many of them wearing fancy long dresses, men and women alike screaming and yelling blue murder in high German and low French.

### Henry grinned wolfishly, took a grenade from the box, checked that the special base plug with the flat disc was screwed on tightly, and then dropped it into the rifle cup. When he pulled the pin out of the grenade the cup held the hand lever in place, preventing the spring loaded striker head slamming down and igniting the fuse. Then he worked the bolt, loading in a blank round from the magazine. When he fired the rifle from his hip the hot gases from the blank round hit the disc underneath the grenade, blowing it out of the cup with the lever falling away.

### The Mills bomb vanished into the smoke, travelling at an angle which Henry hoped would bounce it down off the wall to sink among the thickest cluster of survivors. He already had another grenade ready to fire when the first one blew a column of water into the air like a miniature depth charge. All around the boiling white patch of foam bodies threshed among the water lilies as if they were gaffed tuna, bones shattered and muscles pounded to soft pulp. Henry screamed in exultation and punched the air in triumph.

### "That's for Dunkirk, you bastards!"

### Almost absent-mindedly he noticed the thump of another grenade going off on his right and another outburst of Germanic shouting. It sounded as if some silly bastard must have tried throwing a potato masher in his direction and landed it in a tree branch instead. Reluctantly, he knelt down and fired his second grenade through the undergrowth, trying to find a gap between the willow trunks. The grenade went off well away from him, somewhere near the Germans. After that he decided the Jerries could have him if they were lucky enough, as long as he didn't lose his chance in the moat first.

### In fact, he'd managed to fire off another four bombs into the water before he heard somebody crashing around close behind him. By then it looked as if there wasn't many people left in the water worth the effort; any men who were still alive would have crushed testicles from the shockwaves and the women would have experienced the sensation of a lifetime. Nobody was jumping now from the flame belching second story windows and the ones dropping out of the third floor seemed to be having trouble surfacing with their various assortments of broken bones.

### Henry pulled out the last five grenades from the box and began bowling them underarm underneath the branches, a manoeuvre easier to do with the Mills bombs than it was for the Germans with their stick grenades. Not that he was happy about doing it: the fragmentation range for a 36 grenade was supposed to be around ten yards, but the base plug usually flew off as a single piece of metal and could be lethal out to two hundred yards. A problem compounded on these ones because of the attached propelling discs. Not only did converted grenades leave a rifle quickly, the base plug flew away from the grenade explosion just as quickly. It was to be hoped the screaming scraps of steel were frightening the Germans as much as they were frightening him.

### "For Gaud's sake, let's gan 'yam, sur."

### Henry turned and gaped at Rosedale's face peering at him through the bushes. 'Let's go home.' What an excellent idea.

### He ran towards the Geordie, out onto the path. Rosedale had a Thompson gun in his hands and held out another one with a big drum magazine underneath to Henry. He grabbed it as he ran past, hearing Rosedale triggering off single shots into the trees. Thirty paces further on he turned, dropped down on his stomach, and began firing the same way himself. Rosedale immediately jumped to his feet and ran back. A rifle flashed among the trees and Henry put five rounds into the area as fast as he could pull the trigger. There wasn't much point in trying to fire bursts out of a Tommy, the muzzle always lifted straight up into the sky, whatever the gangsters in Chicago seemed to be able to do in the films. The rifle didn't fire again anyway, so the man using it was either hit or lying low.

### Rosedale was firing again behind him, letting Henry race back another bound. Before he moved he fired twice into the head of the British soldier sprawled on the path. He was almost certainly dead already, but the rule against no prisoners meant Henry had to be certain about it. Then he began running back, past Rosedale and getting into another covering position.

### One more flurry of shots at the trees and Rosedale was running past again and then a Smith bomb exploded in the same area Henry was aiming at, lighting up the bushes with a beautiful display of sparkling lights before the burning phosphorous smeared everything with smoke, enough smoke to protect them from any more aimed fire from that area. Both of them ran back into the Commandos' fire position by the stables.

### The only man there was Sergeant McCaughan, crouched underneath the mushroom shaped nearside wheel of the Smith gun. He pushed another bomb and charge into the breech and swung the gun around smoothly on the stand which was its other wheel. Then he fired again, straight up the length of the footbridge. Another shower of twinkling phosphorous erupted in the smoke clouds. Henry grabbed the Very pistol lying by the Sergeant's side and fired it into the air, sending up a brilliant green fireball. It was the signal for everybody to start running.

### "Who was it who got hit on the path?"

### "Cutforth. And Siddons was killed by a mortar bomb which went off just above his head -- a premature burst."

### Siddons, one of his few regulars, a freckle faced Bernado's orphan, a cockney who had carried London's revenge against the Luftwaffe on his trigger finger and been killed by a simple matter of a faulty fuse.

### McCaughan kept shouting. "Cordery can't walk. I've sent him back on a trolley with the Patrol Leader and that fat civvie."

### "Right."

### Jennings came running up from the left flank, his rifle at the trail with the clumsy grenade launching cup making it wobble in his hand. A continuous roll of thunder drifted towards them on the fresh wind with the rolling smoke clouds. The ridge line to the north west was dimly silhouetted by flickering lights behind it and a vertical torrent of multi coloured anti-aircraft fire clawing at the sky.

### Henry lifted up his watch and gaped at it. Surely to God it wasn't possible that everything could have happened so quickly? But the hands said 0020 and that must be the air force starting to bomb the aerodrome.

### Anyway, so much for his deception plan: half of Brittany must know by now that British troops had been shooting up KGR 100's dinner party. If that bridge over the Arguenon was still standing some very angry Germans were likely to be waiting at the top of the bridle path for them. In any case the race for the Commandos' lives was on. There was only one order to give.

### "Right -- let's fuck off!"

### They each grabbed a 37 pattern pack from the last trolley, pre-packed 'escape' packs. Each one contained the explosives and ammunition Henry expected his men might need to fight clear of the trap they'd made for themselves deep in enemy territory.

### He took one final look at the chateau. A man, stark naked, dove headfirst out of one of the burning top windows, hands in front of his head like an olympic champion coming off a high board, vanishing instantly out of sight into the smoke. Henry fervently hoped the German bastard would break his neck when he hit the water.

### Henry's last memory of the scene was of Julie's fashionable fur coat still lying on the gravel with a littering of brass .303 cases scattered across the top of it. For some lunatic reason he picked the coat up and ran off with it clenched in his hand as though it were a trophy of the battle that he deserved to keep.

### CHAPTER NINE

### Henry was surprised to find that they all managed to get past the chateau gates without being shot at. There must be other Germans in the vicinity and some bright sod amongst them should have worked out by now that the bridle path was an obvious line of retreat. At any event he had Jennings leading the way with his keen eyes and Julie stretching out her legs as she tried to match her paces with the trolley she was steering at its top speed.

### Cordery was lying on top of it, apparently still unconscious, while the overfed young man trotting alongside was panting already. The Duke didn't seem to be fit enough to be a runaway Romanov. Henry giggled and then quickly stopped when he noticed McCaughan was looking at him oddly. He realised he was still carrying the Julie's coat in his hand -- fortunately the ideal excuse was at hand by dropping the fur across the wounded man. Unless he stopped behaving like a frightened schoolboy the next irrational act might be harder to explain away.

### Another thunderous roll of explosions came over the flickering ridge line interspersed with the rattle of flak guns raking the sky. If those stupid bastards in the bombers had listened to him they would have been using ordnance which would have killed a lot of the flak crews and smashed up KGR 100's aircraft far better as well. Still, if the computer guidance worked as well for them as it had for him they should still do plenty of damage. A Wellington fitted with a transponder was the pathfinder, working under the control of the Albatross. At regular intervals it was dropping a container holding eighty individual four pound incendiary bombs onto the hangars while relays of Wellingtons laid sticks of five hundred pound bombs on top of the burning markers.

### Whatever happened at the airfield, this had been a victory, a tremendous victory, even if none of the Commandos ever got home. And it was Crampton's computers which had made it possible. A computer had broken the Luftwaffe codes to provide the intelligence needed to mount the assault; a computer had landed his scouting party at exactly the right place and the right time in the dark of the night: it was the computer which had steered the attack group gliders in like a champion darts player pegging a bull's eye. A lot of hard thinking would be needed to even begin to sort out the implications of what had happened. Warfare was about to go through a change at least as radical as that caused by the introduction of the internal combustion engine.

### Henry's own thoughts were abruptly broken into by a bullet slamming past. The two men that were left with him took cover on the sides of the bridle path as more rifle shots were fired from near the chateau gates, about a hundred yards behind them down the tree lined avenue.

### "Two inch mortar HE!" Henry yelled.

### McCaughan set the mortar baseplate down in the middle of the path while Henry began a mad minute with his Tommy gun, firing rapidly on semi-automatic to draw the enemy fire while he hid as much of his body as possible behind a large tree trunk. More rifle shots replied, obviously aimed at his muzzle flashes, and quickly gaining in accuracy, ripping off tree bark and leaving white scars.

### The mortar snapped back as Sergeant McCaughan dropped three bombs into the muzzle with one hand and held the barrel steady with the other. He had a good eye: each bomb landed near the gates. The explosions sent shock waves sweeping up the avenue towards them in flurries of dry leaves knocked from the trees. A two inch mortar had no sights, no way of judging its elevation except by feel and eye, so the sergeant's aim had been pretty good.

### "Run!"

### They jumped to their feet and raced off towards the end of the avenue. No shots followed them and the pursuit seemed checked, at least for the moment.

### It had been dangerous work to use a mortar with so many trees so close; if one of the bombs had hit a branch and fallen back the whole rearguard could share the same fate as Siddons, literally hoisted on their own petard. But mortar fire and smoke screens were the only means immediately at his disposal to keep the Germans hanging back. And when it came to creating smoke the wood pile was too inviting to pass up.

### Henry still had one of his incendiary bombs and he was going to use it, even if he didn't have the time to make a proper booby trap.

### Out of his escape pack he took a half gallon tin that was filled with his usual mixture of petrol, acid and soap. Next he produced a roll of safety cord with a rubber contraceptive sheath stuffed full of cotton wool at one end. Henry slashed off three foot of the cord, took a deep breath and slipped the sheath and cotton wool off the blasting cap crimped onto the safety fuse. Then he fumbled around in his pack to lift out a bakelite soap dish, both halves taped together in a way that also held two small magnets against the side of the dish. He gently pushed the blasting cap through a hole in the top of the dish into the plastic explosive inside. The magnets clattered against the tin as he clamped the soap dish on it.

### Sergeant McCaughan whispered urgently at Henry's side. "Sir, I think there's a vehicle back there, coming towards us."

### "Then we'd better stop it, because if it manages to follow us onto the road we're stuffed. Get into an ambush position behind the next wall."

### Henry stripped some rounds out of a Thompson magazine, throwing handfuls of the stubby brass cylinders into the wood pile. Then he lit the fuse of his home made special and started running again. No shots were being fired from the avenue but over the blood pounding in his ears he could hear an engine note getting louder as it got closer.

### In fact, and he twisted his head from side to side trying to confirm it, he thought he could hear two engines, one behind him and one somewhere higher up the slope. Well, he knew the one behind was certainly German manned, so that was the one to worry about. If the vehicle coming down from the path from the V road was also an enemy one they were trapped finished, it was as simple as that.

### As soon as he reached the wall the remnants of his party spread out along it, staring back towards the trees at the dimmed headlights which had appeared in the avenue. Whatever kind of vehicle was behind those lights it was moving at a fair speed. Henry had a feeling the only sort of driver who would be moving that confidently in this sort of situation would be one sitting behind armour plate. Perhaps another Adler. Anyway, the possibility of pursuit by armoured vehicles was one which crossed his mind often enough during his planning. Which was why Rosedale was carrying the Lee-Enfield now instead of Jennings.

### Henry opened Sergeant McCaughan's pack and took out an object which looked like a baked bean can cut in half and mounted on a short metal stand terminating in the same two and a half diameter disc that was used to convert Mills bombs into rifle grenades. He carefully inserted the disc into the cup discharger on the rifle muzzle and eased out a safety pin from underneath the flat nosed warhead.

### "Our secret weapon, Sergeant."

### Henry was scarcely exaggerating. As far as he knew, this was the first time the 'Grenade, Rifle, No 68/AT' had been used in action. It was a very unusual weapon. The drum at the top contained a powerful explosive and behind that was a gaine and a detonator set off by a firing pin on a spring loaded slug of metal.

### The impact of the grenade on the target drove the slug forward against the spring's resistance and detonated the grenade. All that was straightforward enough. The odd thing about the 68 grenade was what it didn't have. A large section of the explosive underneath the top of the grenade had been removed and replaced with an empty cone of metal. The reason dated back to the 1880's, when the so called 'Monroe' effect in high explosives had been discovered, that recessed explosives made deeper holes than a plain face to face connection between any hard material and an explosive charge.

### Faced with the powerful threat of German tanks, British designers had rushed into production the world's first anti-tank grenade using the Monroe or 'hollow charge' effect, although nobody seemed to be quite sure how it worked. What was known was that the cone somehow focused the high temperature gases from the explosion of the 68 grenade enough to burn a small hole through two inches of armour and spray the interior of a tank with the molten metal. If those sort of test results could be duplicated in the field then panzer crews were going to find life a lot more difficult in the future. So interested had Henry become in having a chance to try out the 68 grenade that he would have even have been slightly sorry to have discovered he was only being chased by a soft skinned vehicle.

### As it turned out, he wasn't disappointed. The headlights where scarcely past the woodpile when the incendiary exploded inside it, a white-red ball of light sending out a shower of flaming lumps with comet tails that started twenty different ground fires. But Henry had seen and identified the armoured car in the time it had taken the commander in the turret to slam down the hatch.

### Having once closely examined a vehicle of the same type with tremendous admiration, Henry was quite capable of recognising a Panhard 178 when he saw one. Nor was he surprised that it was wearing German markings: given the chance, he would have been delighted to take as many as possible of the French built vehicles into British service.

### The 178 was an excellent design with its four wheel drive, hundred and five horsepower rear mounted engine and twenty five millimetre high velocity cannon. But what was interesting about this one was a large white letter G painted on the front. Henry had already met the users of that identification before. Indeed, it was engraved on his memory, as it was the tactical sign of General Guderian's XIX Panzer Corps -- the troops who had spearheaded the dash to the Channel and cut the Allied armies in half. Which meant that this was an Army vehicle which had sprung up from somewhere, not a Luftwaffe one. He sincerely hoped there weren't any others nearby.

### The Panhard had stopped for a moment after the initial detonation of the incendiary. When it realised it was in no danger from the ring of fires it surged forward again. As it came closer it seemed to merge into the ground contours until only the turret and the upper half of the hull stood out against the flames behind. Blue-grey clad figures appeared on the edge of the lit up area, then the Luftwaffe men emerging from the avenue dropped into cover as the bullets Henry had left in the woodpile began to cook off inside the huge bonfire.

### In response the car immediately halted again about thirty yards in front of the Commandos and its turret swung around, apparently under the impression it was being attacked from behind. Rosedale rested his rifle on the top of the wall, squinted down the sights and fired the 68 grenade. It hit the front glacis plate, detonating in a vivid yellow flash as though a giant electric welding torch had briefly touched the steel. Then the screams began inside it.

### Engine roaring, the Panhard shot backwards at twenty miles an hour, demonstrating the value of a back seat driver who also faced backwards with a second set of controls. As the vehicle roared away the turret hatch flew open again and a shadowy figure leapt out in a cloud of smoke and sparks like a stage genie.

### Sergeant McCaughan knocked the man down with two aimed rounds of Thompson fire before Henry had even lifted his own weapon up. The Panhard swerved to the left and vanished from sight into a dip in the ground, trailing a red halo above it.

### "Excuse me, but would any of you fine gentlemen be interested in a taxi ride home now that you've had your fun shooting the natives?"

### Henry spun around and saw somebody crouched down on one knee a few paces behind them, white teeth revealed in a grin on his darkened face. The accent was unmistakable.

### "Christ, I never thought I'd be so glad to see an Irishman," Sergeant McCaughan said with profound relief.

### They ran back another hundred yards to where the Citroen had appeared, Cantrell jogging alongside with gentle squelching sounds coming from his canvas shoes. His clothes were soaked with water. Jennings and the three girls were lifting Cordery onto the mattress on top of the car. Henry stopped in surprise at the sight of them.

### "Natalya -- I'd forgotten all about you. How'd you get back here?"

### Her voice was as sharp as honed steel: "I got here by running away as soon as all the shooting started down there, and the only reason I've stopped running now is because I aim to go the rest of the way in the car."

### Henry turned to Corporal Cantrell: "Where's Lieutenant Cunliffe-Brown?"

### "He's dead, sir, and Reech," Cantrell said. "But we blew the bridge and smashed up that half track. Would you be wanting to hear about it?"

### "There's no time now, Corporal. Patrol Leader, I'll get you on your way in the car. Take the girls and the Duke. You'd better have Jennings with you as well, to make sure Cordery doesn't fall off. I'm going to follow up in the Adler if I can get it running."

### "Very well, Captain. Good luck."

### The Citroen bounced off slowly up towards the road, the Commandos running along behind and then giving the car a push to get it through a patch of mud and out onto the V road. It swung round sharply to the left with Jennings on the running board having to bend far forward over Cordery to prevent him slipping off the mattress. Then he quickly waved his hand at them before the Citroen disappeared into the darkness.

### Rosedale had already claimed the keys of the Adler. Henry blessed his luck in having a strongly built driver to handle the clumsy Adler. He opened one of the side doors, grabbed the cold hands of the radio operator he'd shot and dragged the body out to drop on the road. The engine turned over, fired and stopped. Rosedale tried once more, keeping the self starter churning until the engine caught again. This time it kept running.

### "Get this tarpaulin off."

### His men slashed at the securing ropes with their knives, pulling away the cover from the hoops over the open top of the armoured compartment.

### Henry ran over to the bank, removed the cloth marker strip and opened the cigar box lid. Pushing two fingers down in front of the clothes peg he held the wooden wedge in place as he moved the box back to tauten the wire. Once the right tension was achieved he drove an anchoring spike at the back of the box into the grass. After that he gently closed the lid again to prevent any moisture shorting out the electrical system prematurely. Finally, he held the trip wire steady between his thumb and forefinger as he gently threw over an arming switch at the back of the box, completing the firing circuit except for the tiny gap between the connectors on the jaws of the clothes peg. One they sprang together it would be fry up time.

### Henry took his fingers away from the trip wire as if he was withdrawing them from underneath a sleeping King Cobra. Every pulse of blood through his head felt like a train rushing through a tunnel. For some reason he suddenly noticed his feet had been hurting him for some time. Not that he had any hesitation about hobbling away from the booby trap on them as quickly as he could. Perhaps he'd been closer to that burning motorbike than he'd thought.

### It was a tight squeeze inside the scout car. Not that anybody was going to complain. An engine and armour plate provided a better means of escape than push bikes.

### The slits of illumination from the headlights seemed to grow brighter as they drove into the denser darkness of the valley floor, a darkness spreading upwards as the sliver of moon sank towards the horizon. Henry felt an impression of exhilarating speed, although they were probably doing no more than thirty miles an hour. But any distance between them and the Germans was very welcome. Henry pulled Cantrell down out of the wind.

### "What happened at the bridge?"

### "Well, we found a sentry there, just like you said, sir, and we killed him with the silenced rifle. There was some kind of a barrier further up the road with a tiny sort of a lamp hanging from it, but nobody seemed to hear anything. So we let down the charges under the bridge and wired them up. Then the Lieutenant said we had to knock out the half track. The sentry had a couple of those potato masher grenades on him, so I wrapped some plastic explosive around both of them and pushed in some loose gravel from the side of the road for luck. Then myself and the Lieutenant decided to work our way along the dead ground by the river bank to get at the halftrack.

### "We'd got about halfway there when the shooting suddenly started over this way. So we jumped up and ran forward and threw the grenades into the sleeping bivvies before the crew was properly awake. When they went off they started a fire -- from the way of it I'd say there was a petrol stove in the bivvie that went up. We saw the sentry come running over and we shot him. So everything went alright until then, save for the fire. You'll be understanding the place was lit up like O'Connell Street on Saturday night.

### "Anyway we got out one of those soap dish devices of yours with the magnets and put it under the breech of the gun. Then we stuffed in a handful of plastic around it. The Lieutenant lit the fuse and we started running back to the river. Halfway there a Jerry machine gun opened up from the road. It knocked the legs from under the Lieutenant. And then the bridge blew up. I'd guess Reech saw some soldiers coming down from that barrier and decided he had to set off the charges."

### The Irishman paused before speaking again.

### "Sir, there was no way I could pull the Lieutenant to the river bank before the charge under the gun exploded. And even if I could I'd never be able to swim over the river with him. And even and betimes all that, I was sitting out there for all to see in the firelight -- so once that fellow behind the Spandau got over the shock of the bridge blowing up he'd soon have his sights on me. Taking it all in all, I decided to jump down behind the river bank while I still could. As soon as I hit the water that Spandau was working overtime again and I was wishing I'd taken De Valera's advice and stayed at home in the Republic. Then the charge on the half track went off.

### "Sure, and twas a beautiful sight, sir. The gun barrel landed twenty feet away from the half track. But that machine gunner must have used up the rest of the belt in one burst after that, and most of the shit landed around the Lieutenant. He just about got cut to pieces, sir, I'm sorry to tell you."

### "What about Reech?"

### "Ah, the pity of it. I was swimming back over the river and the Jerries must have guessed what was happening because the bullets were hitting the water like hail. And then Reech started up with the Tommy gun. Clever he was too, sir, a couple of shots from here, then from somewhere else, teasing the machine gun like a fellow showing a red rag to a bull. Well, I got to the other bank and started climbing up it -- and wouldn't you know it, just then a Jerry flare went off overhead. I was only a few yards from some trees then, so I up and ran behind one of them and looked back.

### "Sir, the truth of it is that Reech should be getting the VC, for he'd gone out into the water and there was an old log floating in the water there. I'm sure he thought in the darkness it was me and he'd gone to pull me out. But when the flare went up he was in a terrible way of things. He stood quite still and he might have got away with it for the machine gun was a fair way off. But what happened was that there was a Jerry patrol running up on the other side of the water and one of them spotted Reech. They all opened up on him and the bullets were kicking up spray all around him. He cut loose with the Tommy and then he got knocked down. The Jerries kept on shooting at the same place and putting up more flares. I'm thinking they were as mistaken as Reech about that log because they hammered it until it floated away."

### "Did you see Reech come up again?"

### "Never a sign of him, sir. The weight of his equipment must have kept him down under the surface. He's surely drowned even if the bullets didn't kill him outright. At any event I had no chance to take a closer look, not with flares going up all the time and those fellows on the other side of the river with their itching trigger fingers. So I sneaked away through the trees, got my bike out from where we'd hidden them and came away as fast as I could. When I found the girls waiting by the bridle path I told them I was coming down here on foot and they were to follow me with the car in case you needed it."

### Henry nodded: "Alright, Corporal. You'll have to write all this down when we get back."

### "Sure and if we back from this, sir, I'll be happy to write as much as James Joyce ever has done."

### The Adler coasted to a halt underneath a tree with a piece of white cloth tied to one of the branches. Henry reached up and untied his marker.

### "Sergeant, give the recall signal for the flank party."

### While Henry was tightening the trip wire across the road and then arming the fougasse mine Sergeant McCaughan fitted a white painted magazine to the Lee-Enfield, stepped out into the middle of the road and fired across the valley, again and again, working the bolt with fluid skill. A green tracer flew high into the darkness, followed by two red ones, then the same sequence again.

### As soon as the Sergeant was on board again the heavy scout car began moving, following the faint glimmers its shielded headlights cast on the grass verge. Henry prayed for just a few more minutes without a major cockup. Just a few minutes and God would see the fastest embarkation and takeoffs in human history. He wrenched open the restraining strap on his water bottle, pulled it out and twisted the cork out of the neck. The feel of the water inside his mouth was the most wonderful thing in his life, all he wanted to do for ever more was to just keep on drinking the metal tainted fluid . . .

### "When it comes to slaughter,

### You'll do your work on water,

### An' you'll lick the bloomin' boots of 'im that's got it."

### Then Henry almost dropped the bottle as a huge black shape roared low overhead with lights flashing at wingtips and tail. The Wellington swept on over the farm, its navigation lights still going on and off.

### "Stop the car," Henry snapped. "S-phone, please, Sergeant."

### Henry had an arc pre-drawn on his map talc which showed him the compass bearing he needed to face the Albatross. While he pulled on the radio straps a brilliant red light flared up behind them on the ridge. Somebody had just stumbled over the trip wire by the bridal path junction. The burning woodpile and the sharp fate of the Panhard must have checked the Huns for a few minutes. If half a dozen of them were on fire now they might take even longer to get moving again. He aligned himself on the estimated compass bearing.

### "Fernie, this is Quorn. Sunray on set. Over."

### "Quorn, Fernie. What is your situation? Over."

### "Fernie, Quorn. One mile from snatch area on V road. Jerry's treading on my tail. Over."

### "Quorn, Fernie. We have information that an armoured reconnaissance battalion on exercise near Rennes has been ordered to deal with British forces in your area. The unit commander's ETA at Carnoulles suggests that you may expect him at snatch area in about figures ten minutes. I say again, figures Toc Edward Nuts minutes. Over."

### "Shit!"

### "Quorn, Fernie. Proper radio procedure, please. I have more information for you. Over."

### Henry unconsciously scratched his right buttock as his mind raced. Although he'd been told nothing officially about the British code-breaking activities it was logical that for the last day or so a lot of effort would have been spent in locating and listening into radio channels used by German units in Brittany. It was also clear that the presence of a reconnaissance battalion so close to the chateau had only recently been discovered from the signals traffic or he would have been told earlier. Or, at least, he should have been. Of all the Hun units the one he most feared was an armoured recce unit. Its lavish equipment of armoured cars and motor cycle troops gave it a better mix of mobility, firepower and communications than anything else in the enemy order of battle.

### So, somewhere in England a listening post had picked up orders to this reconnaissance battalion. Presumably the code had already been broken by a computer, or more likely, the orders had been issued in clear language because of the urgency of the situation.

### At any event the message had been overheard and passed to the Albatross and the airborne controller had then sent the Wellington down the valley flashing its lights to let the Commandos know he wanted to speak to them urgently.

### "Fernie, Quorn, send. Over."

### "Quorn, Fernie. I have one spare marker aircraft and four loaded bombers that I have kept back from the attack on the airfield. They're at your disposal. Over."

### Thank God for that! The controller was an RAF squadron leader but he seemed to have some understanding of the problems of the men on the ground. And because of his common sense Henry still had one card left to play. But it was a strictly limited card. The problem was that the guidance programmes loaded into the controller's computer could only allow very limited offsets from the original planned routes.

### "Fernie, Quorn. Can you use marker aircraft over my back stop picket's position? Over."

### That saved messing around with grid references. Corporal Heap's expected position was already marked on the controller's map.

### "Quorn, Fernie. Affirmative -- we can cover that. Over."

### "Fernie, Quorn. Mark and bomb that position in figures ten minutes. Over."

### "Quorn, Fernie. Bomb your picket's position in figures ten. Understood. Be advised that first snatch will be in figures eighteen minutes. Is that a roger? Over."

### Henry slapped his knuckles against the steel plating of the car. The controller didn't know the Commandos had some captured transport - he was still working on the original timings. But who could say what extra problems were going to crop up? In any case better a plan that everybody understood than a better plan only half understood by everybody.

### "Fernie, Quorn. Roger that. Carry on. Over."

### "Quorn, Fernie. Out."

### Henry pulled off the S-phone headset: "Straight to the farm, Rosedale, and don't spare the horses. There's an armoured recce battalion coming towards us but the brylcream boys are going to bomb the road to hold them up."

### "Turned out nice again then, sir," Sergeant McCaughan shouted back ironically.

### "Yeah, the things you see when you're cleaning windows!"

### McCaughan laughed. Odd that, Henry thought, he wouldn't have believed that George Formby's kind of humour would have been popular with a dour Scotsman. Still, this was no time to be fussy, any kind of a joke was better than none. The wind in their faces and the roaring of the engine were the finest feelings he'd ever had in his life, probably because they were going to be the last feelings in his life. They were babes in the wood, deer in an aroused jungle, helpless prey fleeing from killers emerging behind every tree. The white tape which marked the gateway to the farm loomed out of the deepening darkness

### "Stop here, Rosedale."

### All of them stared down the road in the direction from which Heap and Heppenstall should be coming on their bikes as fast as they could pedal the wheels. It was impossible to hear anything over the noise of the idling engine. Henry bent forward to tell Rosedale to switch it off. Before he could open his mouth the landscape in front of them was lit up by a sheet of lightning which sprang from the ground up, separating out into a shower of falling fire. Somebody had just bumped into an incendiary booby trap, one that Heap must have set.

### Something moving incredible fast appeared in front of them, something which skidded to a halt and then apparently disappeared from their dazzled eyes. Cantrell and McCaughan had their guns up. Henry suddenly realised what was happening and bawled out the password: "Ham. . . ham!"

### "Jam!"

### A figure scrambled out of the ditch and picked up the bicycle which had been dropped on the road. Out of the gloom came another man, a big one wobbling on his too-small airborne issue bike. Corporal Heap stared up at Henry in reproach as he stopped alongside the scout car.

### "You frightened the hell out of us when we saw this Jerry wagon, sir."

### "What's happening?"

### "We saw the recall signal and came back. We set a fougasse trap and an incendiary one on the way back but somehow the fougasse hasn't worked. I'd no idea the Jerries were so close behind until that incendiary went off just now."

### "Fucking hell!" McCaughan cursed, pointing towards the burning hedgerow.

### In the firelight a lumbering great armoured car was suddenly visible about four hundred yards away, at the far end of the field next to the one the Hotspurs were in. Henry felt black despair at the speed with which the Germans were closing in on him.

### "Alright, you two ride to the gliders. Tell the Patrol Leader that we have strong enemy forces coming up this road but it is going to be bombed very soon. My main concern is that an armoured car has bypassed the fire and is in the field next to her. I am going down the road with the scout car to fire on the car from the flank and to distract it from crossing the field towards the glider. You understand?"

### "Yes, sir." Heap answered.

### "You will tell the patrol leader to take the Citroen to the road wall directly opposite the glider and to wait there for us. Remind her the snatch planes will drop a blue flare to the south three minutes before each snatch. If we're not there when the second flare goes down she's to drive to the glider and get aboard. Is that understood too?"

### "Yes, sir."

### "OK, off you go. Rosedale, down the road about three hundred yards and then do a three point turn."

### The Adler lurched forward again while Henry ran his hands over the MG 34 on the pintle mount in the centre of the scout car. Two 'saddle-drum' magazines were mounted on either side of the receiver. In situations when it was awkward to have a loose belt of ammunition dangling from a belt fed weapon the drum magazines were provided, typical German ingenuity ensuring that rounds were fed alternatively into the gun from either drum, thus keeping the weight of the magazines in balance. Together, they held seventy five rounds. Henry whipped the bolt back and then let it fly forward to chamber a round. The safety catch was on the left hand side of the pistol grip and easily released.

### Cantrell tapped Henry's arm and pointed back towards Carnoules. Brilliant lights were coming over the ridge, doubtless unmasked headlights being used to look for any signs of further booby traps in front of the moving vehicles. Whoever was leading them was clearly willing to take great risks to catch up with the Commandos.

### "Here, sir?" Rosedale called.

### "Yes, here. Corporal Cantrell, use your torch to guide us back. And if you put us in the ditch, Rosedale, I'll never forgive you."

### The Adler's squeaking brakes slowed the heavy vehicle to a halt. Cantrell leapt out and stood on the edge of the ditch waving his torch with his fingers almost hiding the light, Rosedale grunted with strain hauling on the heavy steering wheel as he reversed. Henry stared over the top of the thick hedgerow, trying to see some signs of the German armoured vehicle. Flames were still visible where the incendiary trap had gone off further down the road and an engine over there was roaring at high pitch as though it was trying to drag something out of the way. The problem was that from this position the enemy in the field were no longer in line with the dwindling fire and couldn't be seen.

### The leading pair of lights on the ridge suddenly blinked out and the pair behind vanished from sight almost as quickly. The sound of the explosion came rolling down the hill. That was his final booby trap, set off far sooner than he had expected by the unexpected vehicles and the mad courage of the Germans in hot chase. With some luck the mine should have blocked the road with the wreckage of the vehicle that had triggered it off, which would hold Jerry for a few minutes longer. Although it seemed increasingly likely that he was going to have to die here - which was a pity. He'd had his heart set on seeing Korda's latest film, 'The Thief Of Baghdad' before he got killed. The special effects were supposed to be fantastic.

### Anyway it was time to see if he could get any response from the field. He pointed the Spandau loosely over the hedge and pressed the trigger. A single shot went off and the gun stopped. Henry said "Cunt". He'd forgotten the MG 34 had a rocking trigger. Squeezing it at the top fired a single shot. It had to be pressed at the bottom to fire bursts. He began tapping out searching bursts of three or four rounds, moving the Spandau's muzzle around to provoke some response.

### A voice bellowed a challenge in German somewhere to his right. He swiveled the gun round and fired a longer burst in that direction. An answering burst of machine gun fire lashed overhead. Henry aimed at the muzzle flash and fired a short burst at it. The other gunner was just as quick on the trigger -- the hedgerow quivered as if a strong gust of wind had hit it, bullets clanged like the blows of a blacksmith's hammer against the Adler's armour. Rosedale swung back onto the road and drove thirty yards before stopping. The German gunner was still chopping away at the hedgerow with random bursts. Then he stopped, probably in surprise as the countryside around began to be lit up.

### Hurtling down out of the sky were seven hundred and twenty nine chunks of magnesium, each weighing four pounds, and as each one hit the ground it began to burn with a intense white light at over a thousand degrees Fahrenheit. The aiming point was about half a mile from where the Adler was now, but the incendiaries had the ballistic qualities of house bricks and many of them fell wide. None more so than the one which landed in the field only a few yards from the German armoured car and the dismounted infantry walking beside it.

### "Smoke grenades!" Henry shouted.

### This time he kept his finger on the trigger in one long burst as he swept the Spandau's muzzle back and forth over the soldiers lit up around the car. The Germans fell, either hit or seeking cover as sparks flew from the side of the armoured car. It was the latest model heavy armoured car of the German Army, a 231 8-rad. Which meant that it had eight wheels, all powered and all steered, and with a cross country performance comparable to a tank. It also had the same armament as a light tank.

### The flicker of sparks around the muzzle of the car's 20 millimeter cannon and the crunching impact against the Adler were simultaneous. A small round hole rimmed with red hot metal appeared next to Henry and the man standing beside him fell down. McCaughan's voice screamed in fear.

### "Grenade! The fucker's dropped a smoke grenade! Get out!"

### Henry instantly realised that Cantrell was the casualty and that a live phosphorus grenade had fallen into the bottom of the Adler. McCaughan already had the side door open and was scrambling out while Rosedale leapt up over the front lip of the crew section, took one step over the bonnet and jumped off. Henry didn't bother waiting for the door either. He went over the side in one great leap which didn't seem to touch anything on the way out but smashed him down awkwardly on top of the road, wrenching his knee in a wave of pure pain. Hardly able to move, he rolled over and over underneath the scout car, to bump into another body.

### A thumping noise came from overhead and a cascade of burning fragments fell all around the vehicle, each piece throwing out streamers of smoke. White phosphorous, the same stuff as he'd fired into the chateau, and Henry almost gibbered with fear at the thought of getting any of the hellish stuff on him. The scout car rocked on its springs as another cannon round from the eight wheeler hit it. Now he couldn't see anything because of the enveloping smoke, but his nose told him that at least one of the Adler's tyres was on fire.

### "Fuck my luck," the man next to Henry snarled -- McCaughan.

### "Get your webbing off -- crawl forward with it!"

### Holding his breath in the spreading smoke, Henry unbuckled his webbing, shrugged himself out of the harness and started wriggling forward with his hands on the two ammunition packs, using them on the road like a charlady scrubbing steps with a big brush. As soon as he had enough room he stood upright. The smoke made the air unbreathable and the stench of burning rubber was overlaid now with a worse smell of burning flesh. Somebody moved beside him, he reached out and caught hold of a fold of tunic, then a hand. The other man -- McCaughan, it must be -- began dragging Henry with him as they staggered forward. The pain in his knee was so bad he wondered if it was because of the injury or because some phosphorous was burning through it.

### The ground started vibrating and Henry thought a tank was coming towards them until he understood the tremors were from a stick of five hundred pound bombs exploding nearby. Merciful, blessed gaps appeared in the smoke curtain.

### Henry let out the pressure in his lungs in a great bellow of exhaled air. A machine gun's rounds were slashing over their heads, the gunner's point of aim lost in the smoke. More bombs were coming down, so close he could hear one of them whistling before there was the flash of the explosion and the clouds of smoke twitched in the shock wave passing through the air. Above the horizon a blue flare had sprung into existence.

### "Your feet, your feet!"

### McCaughan was slashing at his shoe laces with his fighting knife. Both of his thin gym shoes were smouldering around the edge of the soles. Henry pulled the thin blade from his own scabbard and cut away his own shoes, one of them actually catching fire from the embedded phosphorous as he pulled it off. The enemy machine gunner fired another burst, lower this time, but just behind them. A Thompson gun nearby fired a short burst with its distinctive throaty sound.

### "Rosedale!"

### They saw him jump up from the hedgerow. He was holding the Tommy gun in one hand and bare chested. His tunic was gone and his shirt was wrapped around his left arm.

### "Got some of yon fucking phosphorous shit on me, so I wrapped ma shirt over it and put it in t' ditch water."

### "Run like fucking long dogs =- get back to the gliders!" Henry bellowed.

### He began trying to run himself, though it turned out to be more like a frantic series of hops. He tripped and fell over, to be scooped up in arms that seemed built of overlapping hawsers. Rosedale dropped him over his shoulder as if he were a sack of coal. Henry vaguely wondered how a journalist had ever acquired such a physique. The Spandau fired again and this time Henry heard the bullets ricocheting off the tarmac. That meant the 8 rad must have come a lot closer to the hedgerow, close enough for the gunner to fire down and over it. An engine began bellowing, presumably because the driver of the eight wheeler was trying to get over the steeply banked hedgerow. His chances of crossing it were about evens in Henry's opinion.

### But at least the gunner had stopped firing now, probably being too busy hanging on. Henry could understand how he was feeling because being carried on the back of a running man was a rough ride too -- not to mention Rosedale's body odour problem. Although that was something you probably shouldn't think about when a man was going through agony to save your life.

### Another pattern of bombs came crashing down, but further away, flickering through the darkness like summer lightning. If the rest of the Jerry battalion were under that lot it should take them a while to get re-organised. There was the roar of an approaching aero engines, a huge double wing bat flitted overhead and then a set of red, green and white lights was lifting up into the sky, slowly, for a second, before climbing at a tremendous pace.

### A trail of wildly aimed tracer bullets drifted up from the next field and the glider pilot instantly turned off his wing and tail lights now they were no longer needed to help the snatch pilot line up on his target. Henry yelped with joy -- joy which immediately curdled into fear as the engine of the armoured eight wheeler rose on a note of triumph, its various gearboxes whining with eagerness for the kill. A pair of dimmed headlights appeared on the road a hundred yards behind them, a pair of yellow slitted eyes that spelt death. Rosedale suddenly stopped running.

### "Stuff me!" he gasped.

### A huge square shape loomed up on the other side of the wall, there was another engine bellowing in full power, a crunch like a locomotive hitting a set of buffers and a pile of loose stones were spread across the grass verge, the white walled wheels of the Hispano Suiza resting on top of them. The car hesitated for a second, then moved forward again, the wreckage of the silvery twin bumper bars rubbing against the tyres in teeth setting squeals until the huge car was completely blocking the small road. One of the RAF glider pilots jumped out, waving the ignition keys in triumph.

### McCaughan moved towards the gap left by the Hispano, only to meet other men coming the other way, men who toppled the reserve Smith gun onto one wheel with the barrel poking through the gap and aimed up the road.

### A refined female voice called out urgently: "Drop flat, you dumb shits!"

### Henry fell down and looked back, to see the 8-rad's headlights at a stand thirty yards away, the commander apparently baffled by the sudden appearance of the huge civilian car directly in his path.

### "Gun crew, fire!"

### The Smith Gun coughed and the ten pound bomb sailed over Henry's head and exploded almost instantaneously. The entire scene was lit up momentarily from a brilliant flash, all the windows in the Hispano shattered, the protective plate in front of the gun crew was pockmarked by flying fragments. McCaughan yelped in pain but got to his feet again. The headlights on the armoured car had gone out.

### "You lovely, lovely, cunning bitch."

### Nobody heard Henry's voice -- he lifted his head up. The 8-rad's shape seemly altered somehow with the turret askew and a German voice wailing in pain. A rifle shot sounded and a 68 grenade flew through the air, landing wide of the 8-rad and exploding in the hedgerow. Not that it mattered. Henry was sure that the blast from the mortar bomb must have blown enough interior fittings loose inside the car to disable the crew, or at least stun them for a moment or two.

### "Move, you cunts!"

### Another blue parachute flare hanging over the horizon gave even more emphasis to the command. Darling Julie still giving the orders, and not a soul was going to complain -- certainly not Henry. If she'd been the one who'd thought of using the Hispano Suiza as an extemporised road block to give the gun a clear shot at the stopped 8-rad then she was fit to give orders to Napoleon. Nor had her organisation stopped there because the Citroen was waiting to provide transport back to the salvation of the glider.

### Rosedale helped Henry to the car -- carried him to the car -- and dropped him on his belly on the bonnet. Then the Citroen was screaming in low gear across the field. The drystone wall must have been stout enough to protect the tyres: as it had protected the people crouched behind it. It was Henry's party which had been left out in the open with cast iron fragments from the mortar bomb flying around. Not that he wouldn't have done exactly the same thing himself in Julie's position. He looked towards the driver's seat. As he'd half expected, it was her white face behind the broken windscreen as the men on the running boards hung on to the overloaded car bouncing across the tussocks.

### Christ, Boadicea and her chariot weren't in it compared to this mad bitch!

### The car slid to a halt by the glider, stopping so sharply Henry slid off the front onto the grass. He felt as if he'd never be able to move in his life again. Broken glass in the car was crunching as people jumped out of it and off it to pile into the Hotspur with desperate speed. An eerie mixture of colours was cast over the twin fuselages as the navigation lights were switched on. Henry started dragging himself towards the glider, encouraged by the fingers which had grabbed his right ear and seemed to be trying to pull it off his head.

### As he expected, it was his beloved comrade in arms, Julie: "Move, you prick!" she snarled.

### He had no breath to argue, nor the opportunity. The lumbering figure of Rosedale grabbed him by the scruff of the neck and literally threw him through a hatchway. Henry tried to protest that he was in the wrong fuselage, he was in the port one instead of the starboard one he'd been assigned to, but it was too late. He dragged himself along the cramped floor on his hands and knees.

### Rosedale's voice: "Shut tha fooking hatch, quick. . ."

### Everything seemed to balance on a tiny frozen moment of time. Now Henry could hear the approaching Swordfish, see gaping faces in the faint battery powered lights glowing in the fuselage, Rosedale and McCaughan were the only ones moving as they secured the hatch. Then the whole universe seemed full of noise before it suddenly toppled forward as if they were in a high speed lift going sideways. The lights went out amidst yells and curses as a soft body smelling of French perfume and burnt cordite slid over the top of Henry.

### "Fly, you bastard thing, fly. . ." Henry prayed. It did, the Hotspur was flying, he could feel the sensation of flight through his backbone, as though he was on board a speed boat travelling at full power on a choppy sea.

### Somebody was whimpering in agony. Somebody else turned on a torch. Rosedale was down on his knees in the centre of the walkway, sobbing with pain and clutching his shirt, now drying out and starting to smoke as the phosphorous fragments underneath began to burn again. Henry's waterbottle was with his abandoned equipment on the road. Nobody else seemed to have a bottle handy either. He wearily shouted his last order of operation "GOATHERD" down the draughty wooden fuselage.

### "For God's sake, will somebody please piss on that poor bastard?"

### THE END

