On the Edge of Darkness Read online

  “What’s this supposed to be?” asked Wyatt of O’Neill a pained expression on his face after one tentative mouthful.

  “Duff.”

  “I can see that, can’t I! What sort of duff?”

  O’Neill looked up from his plate, “Take a good bite and bloody well find out. Am I a fucking menu?”

  Wyatt spat his mouth-full back onto his plate, “Well you ain’t a fucking cook that’s for sure!” He wiped the back of his hand across his mouth and added, “Disgusting, bloody disgusting that is.”

  “You mean discustarding,” quirked Wilson, reaching for Wyatt’s plate.

  ‘Tug’ Wilson, was a barrel of a man, short in statue, broad in the chest with laughing eyes. Heavily tattooed, he sported a beard that he was justly proud of. He could always see the funny side of any situation. A fact that endeared him to most but which infuriated others beyond belief, especially Wyatt. His favourite line of ‘If you can’t take a joke you shouldn’t have joined’ would guarantee that Wyatt would ‘lose his rag’ to the point where he was often speechless with rage, but it could stop a moan dead in its tracks. It was Wilson’s honest held and much aired opinion that people with no sense of humour had no place in the Navy.

  O’Neill was not one to take anything lying down, “There’s nothing wrong with that duff, I'll have you know I were renowned for my duffs on me last ship.”

  “Yeah, but renowned for what, not for their bloody taste that’s for sure…renowned for giving everyone a dose of ‘Malta Dog’ more like.”

  “I wish I was in Malta now, anywhere to get away from your bloody moaning.” O’Neill turned back to his duff; pushed it to one side, admitting to himself that it wasn’t one of his best.

  Wilson, thinking it was time for a change of subject, stepped manfully into the breach, “Where are we making for? Anyone heard? I heard we’re taking that Norwegian bloke, the ‘Royals’ brought with ‘em…

  * * *

  At that very moment, in the cramped and cold Asdic hut, Lieutenant- Commander Barr, was about to brief three men on just that subject.

  In front of him lay the Admiralty chart for the Norwegian coast. He leaned over it, as a draught from the open door rippled it like silk.

  “Get the door will you please, Number One.”

  Beside the tall thin figure of his second in command stood the stocky marine corporal, Bushel, and to his left the stark blond hair of Olaf Kristiansand reflected the dim light from the range finder. The incessant and hypnotic ping of the Asdic transmissions punctuated Barr’s words as he spoke.

  “My orders are nothing if not imaginative, gentlemen. I am to find a secure base, anywhere north of Trondheim from which we are to harass the enemy’s supply lines. We will be getting most of our supplies from Scapa Flow so it will need to be within a fast night’s passage of there. That means our base must be somewhere within this radius” He indicated a pencilled semicircle with one gloved finger.

  As you can see there are hundreds of small deep water coves which look suitable for our purposes, at least on paper.

  Jerry has, at the last estimate, over a thousand planes committed to this campaign. Wherever we chose as a hideout must enable us to stay out of sight of aircraft during daylight hours. Secondly, this coast is plagued by storms, as you know; we will need somewhere that will shelter us from the prevailing westerlies. So we are looking for a small bay, with perhaps an island, or islands to the west and preferably, with something that will give us some cover from the air, a cave, an overhang of rock, at the very least something to secure a camouflage netting to.

  As I say, on paper there are plenty of likely spots. Our problem is which one. Luckily we have Mr Kristiansand to advise us. Bushel you and your ‘Royals’ will provide the escort and help in the selection of the site from a military standpoint?”

  Barr stood for a moment, scratching the stubble on his chin and studying the chart.

  “We’ll stay on our present course, heading away from the land. If we are spotted by the enemy they won’t know our true intentions. As soon as it’s dark we’ll double back and drop off the landing party. How long will it take to survey this section of the coast on skis, Mr Kristiansand?”

  “No more than a day I have some likely sites in mind, so there will be no need to look into every Inlet on your chart”

  “Very well. I’ll give you twenty-four hours. Then we’ll rendezvous here, at the southernmost end of the section, pick you up by boat. Any questions… No?…Right then! Thank you, gentleman. You may return to your duties.”

  The three men filed out of the cabin and Barr absentmindedly whistling a tune from an obscure Gilbert and Sullivan opera, turned back to his consideration of the chart.

  * * *

  The port lookout, Ordinary Seaman Goddard slowly swept his one hundred and twenty degree sector of the sky for what he thought would be the last time before his relief arrived.

  Nothing, as usual…or was that something…a speck on the lens of the binoculars, he checked the glass, nothing, he raised them to his eyes frantically searching the east again…Christ! He swung round yelling at the top of his voice, “Aircraft! Aircraft! Aircraft! Red one seven oh …Angle of sight four five!”

  As he yelled the first word of the warning, the bridge crew froze; by the second the alarm klaxon began its jarring belch, before he’d managed to release the safety from the Hotchkin gun the whole watch below were moving fast towards their action stations. Metal ladders rang to the frantic and continuous stream of men emptying from the mess decks, plates left, food forgotten, their hastily acquired foul weather gear flapping about them, as they donned lifejackets and anti-flash gear on the move.

  Even before Goddard had finished his report the guns were swinging around and onto the port quarter. Before the first men from starboard watch reached their action stations the guns opened fire.

  The Messerschmitt 109 came in low, barely clearing the wave tops. The tracer from its wing mounted cannon drifting almost lazily towards the ‘Nishga’; closer in they seemed to increase speed, ripping through the sea, crashing up the ship’s side, punching their way across the bridge. The fighter flashed over the ship drowning the noise of her guns with the manic scream of her engines, speeding away fast, climbing higher, twisting and turning in a maelstrom of tracer and exploding shells.

  The ‘Nishga’s’ eight machine guns gave a last spurt of white-hot tracer and fell silent. But the greater range of the Pom Poms enabled them to continue the bombardment, the sky to starboard blossomed with exploding black mushrooms.

  Impossibly the 109 emerged on the far side of the smoke, high in the clouds now, unscathed and turning gracefully, almost majestically in a slothful curve. Then back down it came, roaring for more.

  This time the gun’s crews were ready, this time there was no hurry, they tracked the enemy with practised precision. Calm as an opening batsman who had survived the trauma of the first over. Practised professionals make the worst of foes. This was the lesson the Messerschmitts young headstrong pilot was about to learn.

  In range of the awesome aerial firepower of the destroyer his plane lasted only seconds. It began to disintegrate under him, ripped apart by a swarm of half- inch bullets from the heavy machine guns. Finally, as he wrestled with his smashed controls, a two-pound Pom Pom shell hit the cockpit and he became, in an instant, part of one of the black mushrooms he had been flying through.

  * * *

  The ‘Nishga’ stole in towards the darken shore, her sea boat slowly craned out from its davits and was lowered towards the wave crests until they were slipping by just beneath her keel. Ashore a lonely light flashed in the inky darkness.

  A voice whispered “Out pins” In the sea boat, three arms were raised in silent reply. “Slip” whispered the same voice.

  The sea boat fell three feet into the waiting sea in a crash of iridescent spray and veered wildly out from the destroyer’s side under its lashed tiller. O’Neill sliced through the lashi
ng with his rigging knife and lifted his other hand palm up to his shoulder. In the gloom for’ard Wilson saw the expected signal and yanked on the towing bollard, the bow rope slipped silently into the cold sea. Free of the mother-ships umbilical cord, alone in a coal-black sea, the six-man crew pulled for the shore.

  O’Neill’s face glowed momentarily as he bent to the faint light of the boat’s compass. He eased the tiller a little and the boat settled on a more easterly course, lifting and yawing to a stern sea.

  Chapter 3

  Olaf’s Inlet

  Norwegian Coast, Monday 2200 hours 15th April 1940

  Olaf Kristiansand and the three marines knelt together in a tight defensive circle, Kristiansand and the NCO looking out to sea to where a darker shadow marked the slow but steady progress of the ‘Nishga’s’ sea boat.

  They had carried out the reconnaissance without contact with the enemy and found two inlets that they agreed were suitable for Barr’s purposes.

  All four men were glad to be returning onboard. It had been a cold twenty-four hours during which they had covered thirty miles of the rugged coastline, mostly at night and in truly bitter conditions.

  The NCO tapped both his marines on their shoulders, gaining their attention he pointed to his own chest and that of Kristiansand’s, and then pointed towards the boat. The two marines nodded and resumed their silent watch.

  During their period ashore together Kristiansand had grown accustomed to the silent marines, they hardly spoke and when they did it was in a whispered clipped fashion as if they paid for every word in gold.

  The ship’s boat gradually materialised out of the night-gloom; the coxswain waved an arm and his crew lifted their oars clear of the water and stood them on their ends in the’ toss oars’ position while the boat drifted silently in towards the shore. Did these Englishmen ever talk? Kristiansand longed for the sound of a human voice uttering properly completed sentences. He had learnt his English in the United States; now there was a nation who knew how to hold a conversation no matter what the circumstances.

  He clambered aboard the boat and watched as the NCO jumped the gunwale behind him. Turning, Bushel pointed to the two remaining men ashore and tapped the top of his Balaclavaed head with an open palm. The Norwegian shook his head slowly. There they go again.

  * * *

  ‘Nishga’

  The group of officers and marines were gathered round Kristiansand and the chart, which he held open in front of him. The Asdic hut had barely enough room to hold them all but at least it was out of the bitter cold wind now blowing in from the north-west.

  The Norwegian removed his thick gloves and rubbed his frozen hands together, “We’ve found two suitable Inlets, both deep enough for your purposes and both sheltered from the west. They are about ten miles apart,” he stabbed at the chart. “The first is here and the second, farther to the south… here.”

  Barr scratched at the day’s growth that shadowed his lantern jaw. “In your opinion which of the two will serve our purposes best?”

  “The one to the south has the better overhang, almost a cave.”

  “Right…We’ll use that and keep the other in our pocket, should the first becomes compromised in any way… Pilot.”

  “Sir?” the respectful reply came from an ascetic looking two-ringer on the far side of the Asdic hut.

  “Set me a course for this Inlet of Olaf’s… Has it a name?” he asked the Norwegian.

  “Not that I know of.”

  “Well, it has now…” He turned back to Lieutenant Usbourne. “Calculate a course for ‘Olaf’s Inlet, Pilot. I want to be close inshore by first light and I mean first light…Number One I want… who’s got the Middle Watch?”

  “Starboard, sir,” replied Lieutenant Grant promptly.

  “Right, I want men from the starboard watch of seamen and a good signalman in the boat, in this Inlet, at dawn… you’re in charge. I want thorough soundings made… I want marker buoys… I want the sea boat to lead us in there… I don’t want to take any chances inshore. I intend to warp the ship into her new berth as soon as we have sufficient light. See to it so that the Chief Bosun’s Mate has the gear laid out in time. Port watch remains at steaming action stations until we are safely in.”

  The First Lieutenant, who had been writing on a dogged eared note pad, looked up. “We’ll need to be pretty quick hiding the ship away, sir. Jerry planes will be up with the dawn. Shall I arrange for camouflage netting to be brought up on deck before I leave?”

  “Yes…I’ve a few ideas, myself concerning camouflaging the old girl, I want ‘Chippy’ and his mate ashore as soon as is practical to cut wood, have him meet me in my cabin after this briefing.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And last but not least… the marines.” the Captain looked up at the corporal, “Corporal Bushel, you and your team will go in first before first light. Make sure Jerry’s not waiting for us. Signal us to that effect as soon as is practicable.”

  The big corporal nodded.

  “I want you to draw up plans for shore defences. I want them hidden from the land, from the sea and from the air.

  If an enemy patrol does turn up I don’t want them to know we are here. No footprints, no fag packets and, regretfully, no fires. But then you know the routine better than I.

  If, despite our precautions, we are discovered form landward, it will be your task to keep them away from the ship for as long as it takes us to get her safely out to sea.”

  The corporal nodded again, “How long would that be, sir. I mean how long would we need to hold them off for? In your estimation.”

  “Hard to say, practice will speed things up, of course, say an hour, hour and a half.” The marine grimaced.

  “Corporal, I want to stay a thorn in the side of Jerry’s coastal shipping for as long as is humanly possible. If we are discovered I want to escape intact to carry on the work from the second base. Your job will be to hold the enemy off while we retire… It may be that we need more time than you can spare…It may mean you and your men being killed or being taken prisoner, but the ship must come before everything else.… All I can offer is that we may be able to pick you up from the second inlet the next night, if the worst should come to the worst.”

  “If the worst comes to the worst there won’t be anybody to pick up,” Bushel said grimly.

  Barr looked away from the corporal’s unblinking eyes, “I’ve the lives of two hundred and nineteen men to consider, corporal…Anyway… get something down on paper as soon as you can, all going well, we will hold another briefing here, same time tomorrow. Any questions?…No?… Good. Carry on please.”

  * * *

  Down the forward seamen’s mess deck, a long supper time argument was in progress over which of the gun’s crew had shot down the German fighter the day before.

  The outcome was a stalemate, with Leading Seaman O’Neill, by virtue of being in the Gunnery Director, and so controlling all the guns, claiming the majority of the credit.

  O’Neill won most of the heated discussions entered into at tot times due more to his own weight than to that of his arguments for O’Neill was a man of huge proportions everything about him was large.

  He was a big drinker, fond of saying that ‘too much is just enough’. He could down twenty pints of his beloved Guinness at one sitting and was ready, though seldom able, to ask for more. Once he had won, outright, the coveted ‘Prick of the Far East Contest’ held spasmodically in the dockyard canteen in Singapore. He was, indeed, a man of legendary proportions in every respect.

  As the disagreement had become more heated it was, as usual, Wilson who stepped in to calm matters with a change of subject.

  “Is that a crucifix round your neck, Nervous?”

  “Of course, my mother gave it to me at my confirmation.”

  “You ain’t religious though are yer, I mean you don’t go to Prayers or anything?”

  “Too many bloody officers there for me.”

/>   Wyatt, who had led the opposition against O’Neill over the question of the German fighter, was still up for it, “Religion! It’s a load of rubbish invented by the rich to hoodwink the poor. I don’t believe in God.”

  Nervous leant on the hammock netting, “Bejappers! Won’t he be gutted when he finds out?”

  Wilson waited until the laughter had died away but before the verbal cudgels could be picked up again, said. “I remember some writing on a wall somewhere, one of the railway stations in ‘Smoke’, I think it was. It said ‘God is dead’.

  “Now, that could be true,” said Wyatt theologically

  “Yeah, but underneath, in that fancy writing you find in the bible, someone had wrote, ‘Oh, no I ain’t’.”

  * * *

  Lieutenant Grant pointed over the starboard bow of the sea boat, “That looks a good spot.”

  O’Neill leaned forward, “Oars!” the emphasis on the word made it sound more of an insult than an order. The four oarsmen jerked their blades clear of the water and the boat slid in relative silence towards the craggy face of the rock.

  Deep under the overhang a series of caves could be seen burrowed deep into its stony face. “Hold water.” the heavy ash oars dropped as one and the boat instantly lost way.

  They lay there, still in the water, bobbing in the sheltered cathedral-like grandeur of the inlet. All around the rock face rose sheer to a neck-arching height, claustrophobic in its immensity.

  “Right you two,” said O’Neill pointing at the two nearest oarsmen, “Boat yer oars and grab a hold of this little beauty,” he slapped the heavy warp anchor at his feet, the noise echoing around the rock walls like a gunshot.

  Between the three of them they wrestled the anchor up onto the gunwale, the boat listing alarmingly.

  At a nod from Grant, it was eased over the side until it hung fully submerged, held in place by a stout rope attached to a warping bollard set in the pointed stern of the whaler.