On the Edge of Darkness Read online

  By nine o’clock the ship was ready for anything, in perfect working order behind its thick camouflage.

  * * *

  By nine the marines ashore had also completed their preparations, the tent and other equipment had disappeared from sight beneath a blanket of snow.

  It had taken them longer than Bushel had thought to erase all the footprints and ski marks from the tree line back as far as the cliff edge. He skied out to where the path emerged from the trees to take a last look round.

  He nodded his satisfaction. There was no sign that the site was occupied even though he knew exactly where Stilson lay concealed in the observation hide.

  He sidestepped into the trees and drawing a saw-toothed knife from its leg strap, reached up and cut a fresh conifer branch, rubbing the cut mark with moss to conceal it. With his ski sticks under one arm he slid slowly down the track, back towards the camp, using the branch to carefully remove his tracks as he went.

  Back at the camp he and Blake helped each other into their backpacks and set off across the snow field towards the inlet entrance.

  A bitter wind had come up out of nowhere, gusting from the northeast sending a dusting of fine snow swirling in front of them as they skied. Beyond the cliff, out to sea, milky green waves had begun to appear leaping and dancing to the wind’s call.

  They set up the first of the lights on the south side of the entrance, positioning the shutters so the lanterns, once lit, would only be visible from a limited sector. When they had finished they covered them with small rocks and a thin dusting of snow. After a short rest they skied back into an icy wind that conveniently obliterated their tracks as they went.

  They passed the invisible camp and veered out around the eastern end of the inlet to put the second lamp in place on the north side.

  * * *

  O’Neill

  In the trees, to the south of the marines, the ship’s logging party worked, felling the timber for the raft. Chief Petty Officer Graves and his men were sheltered from the wind, but it swayed the tops of the trees and sent snow and cold air tumbling down to settle about them as they worked.

  Deep in the tree cover it was surprisingly dark. Chippy had chosen the site where, as he had put it, the branches were ‘thin and far between’.

  He had chosen well, there were fewer branches to remove and those dead were easy to deal with; consequently the work was progressing well.

  They soon had a routine going, Chippy cut out the ‘gob’, as he called it, that directed the fall of the tree, while the rest cleaned the trunks of side branches and dragged them away to the water’s edge. Graves cut the ‘V’ of the ‘gob’ with the care he usually reserved for cutting a dovetail joint back in his workshop on board. It had to be right; he explained, so once the back-cut was made the tree would fall clear and not get hung up in the other trees. The trees fell slowly, almost gracefully, like a ham actor in a death scene.

  All morning they worked, systematically felling and dragging the trees to the water line. By ten o’clock they had cut half the wood they needed and O’Neill broke off from the felling party and with Goddard in tow, made his way back to the shore to begin lashing the trees together to form the raft.

  After a further hour’s work they took a rest in the cover of the trees.

  Goddard blew on his hands his gloves tucked under one arm, “My problem is I can’t tie bloody knots with me gloves on,” he stared at his hands, “me fingers look like a string of sausages.”

  “Don’t mention food, I’ve a terrible hunger on me. You wouldn’t be having a bar of ‘nutty’ about your person, now would yer?”

  Goddard was renowned for his sweet tooth, spending all his spare cash buying chocolate from every source, legal and illegal. He reached deep inside the warmth of his duffel coat and pulled out a bar. He broke off a few squares and passed them over to O’Neill.

  O’Neill stuck the chocolate between his teeth while he pulled his gloves back on. “Cheers decent of yer I’ll…” he broke off as he heard the snarl of a revving diesel engine. “ Shite! That’s a Jerry!” He grabbed Goddard by the sleeve and dragged him unceremoniously into the cover of the trees.

  “Put that fag out.” he whispered quickly, crushing his own into the snow.

  * * *

  The two marines had reached the northern side of the inlet and were about to set up the second lamp when they too sighted the German E-Boat moving slowly in from seaward. They dropped down behind the ridge out of the line of sight.

  “Blakey get back to the ship warn them we’ve got company… Leave the Bren. Keep below the skyline… Get moving!”

  While Blake’s white clad figure skied rapidly away in the direction of ‘Nishga’, Bushel crawled carefully forward on his elbows until he reached the cliff edge. Laying out full length in the snow he set up the Bren. As he worked he noticed movement out of the corner of one eye. Off to the southwest he could see the ‘Nishga’s’ sea boat, a half-assembled raft and what looked like a pile of conifer branches that seemed to be moving slowly towards the boat. “Bloody Matloes!” he hissed, “they’re going to give the game away.”

  Chapter 4

  Surprise

  Olaf’s Inlet, 1040 hrs, Tuesday, 16th April, 1940.

  From his position, high above the entrance, Bushel studied the E-boat as she clawed her way across the sheltered water, gulls wheeling and planning in the sky above it. It had been modified at some point for although it still had its original crosstrees mast its torpedo tubes had been boxed in, streamlined to replicate the high fo’c’s’le of the more up to date versions.

  As she drew nearer he could hear that all was not well with the sleek craft. The animal purr of its powerful engines did not sound quite right, the revs were dying away and then picking up again. He couldn’t be sure at first; it might have been a trick of the wind. If she was in trouble and perhaps coming in to carry out repairs it would make life very difficult. He thought of reporting the possibility straight away but quickly abandoned that idea. Blake would give an initial warning, far better to wait and watch, see exactly what she did and where she made her landing.

  * * *

  From his hiding place in the trees Goddard watched O’Neill crawl across the frozen ground towards the boat and the half-finished raft, behind he dragged a huge bundle of conifer branches.

  Goddard sniffed and slowly shook his head the way he’d seen his mentor Able Seaman Wilson do on many an occasion. They should have hidden the boat when they first landed. He knew what Wilson would have said, ‘Leaders of men eh? I’ve shit ‘em.’ He popped another square of nutty into an already chocolate smeared mouth.

  * * *

  O’Neill was sweating, that in spite of the freezing snow he was crawling through. He couldn’t see the E-boat from where he was, had no idea what sort of progress she was making towards the shore. He expected any minute to see it tower above the rocks in front of him, rocks that hid him from view for the time being. His plan was to use the branches to break up the outline of the boat and the raft.

  Crouching at the side of the boat he peeped cautiously over the gunwale.

  The E-boat didn’t seem to have made much progress. Curious; in his experience E-boat skippers like the ‘Andrew’s’ gunboat skippers, mad bastards who liked to charge about everywhere at a rate of knots.

  He crawled flat-bellied over the gunwale and into the boat. Keeping one eye on the still distant E-boat he eased the branches into place one by one.

  Satisfied he peered over the gunwale of the sea boat and studied the other vessel, ugly looking things, more like the barges he seen on canals; but they had a fearsome reputation. They said they were better fighting boats than the British equivalent …bigger anyway.

  He sneaked silently back over the boat’s gunwale and belly-crawled back as fast as he could to the shelter of the tree line.

  * * *

  Blake skidded to a halt in a shower of powdery snow. Across the c
old expanse of water the ‘Nishga’ lay quiet behind her camouflage netting.

  He was searching for his torch to signal her when he heard a thump below him. Leaning out he could see the ship’s cutter unloading gear on the rock shelf below the cliff.

  “Below!” he called; half a dozen red faces looked up at him. “Get back to the ship; tell them there’s a Jerry E-boat coming this way.”

  The coxswain of the boat cupped his hands around his mouth,” You coming back with us, ‘Royal’?”

  “No, I’m getting back to me mate,” he waved and turning quickly dropped back down the slope as fast as his skis could carry him.

  * * *

  “Is that all he had to say?” asked Captain Barr.

  “Yes sir, he seemed in a hurry to get back.” said the cutter’s coxswain.

  “Very Good, thank you, Leading Hand, carry on…” he stayed exactly how he was, deep in thought. After several moments he turned to Grant who had been patiently waiting beside him.

  “Number One, go to action stations… quietly, no alarm, no pipes, use the gangway staff to call the watch below. Train all the guns that can bear, out to starboard in readiness. If she comes round that corner I want her blasted out of the water before she can get a signal off.”

  “Aye, Aye sir, shall I get the men on the depth charges to man the tackles on the nets, we don’t want to set them alight… if we have to open fire.”

  Barr nodded, “Good point, Number One, what would I do without you.”

  “Warm yourself at the fire, sir?” But Barr hadn’t heard him he had started pacing the day cabin, hands clasped behind his back, chin on his chest.

  * * *

  O’Neill

  The E-boat was now spluttering her way pass O’Neill’s hastily camouflaged sea boat, “‘erh engines don’t sound too healthy, ‘Nervous’.”

  “No, you’re right…If she breaks down now, she’ll be between us and the bloody ship!”

  “She’s turning in towards the shore”.

  They could see a man, in a white jumper, working his way for’ard coiling a rope in one hand as he went.

  “She’s going to tie up…Look!

  “Bloody hell, she’s got between us and the ‘Nishga’. We got to get word to them.”

  “She’s too close to us for my liking. Only wants someone to take a stroll…”

  “You get back to ‘Spooky’ and the rest of the mob, tell them what’s happened and tell ‘em to keep quiet and stay where they are, out of sight, you got me?”

  * * *

  Bushel

  “You see what’s happened?” whispered Bushel, as Blake crawled to his side. He was pointing to the E-boat, now almost directly below them on the far bank. “She’s got engine trouble by the sounds of her, and she’s pulled in there, right next to our bloody sea boat. She’s probably going to make repairs, or worst still, wait for help”

  “Blimey! What are you ganna do, Corp?”

  “I’m going home to me mum, I don’t know about you”

  Blake grinned, “Thought you were too old to ‘ave a mum, Corp.”

  The thirty-year old chose to ignore the remark. “You stay ‘ere; if they get wind of us, or those silly bastards in the sea boat, do the best you can with this,” he patted the Bren, “Aim for her bridge, get the officers and knock out their wireless so they can’t let on to their mates. I’ll get back to the ‘Nishga’, let them know the latest. I’ll probably have to stay there for a bit, wait for the ‘salts’ to make up their minds, that bit could take some time.”

  “Something’s got to be done and quick, the E-boat’s between the sea boat and the ship… and between the ship and the sea.”

  * * *

  “As I see it”, the Captain was saying, “we have two options, the easy one… do nothing and hope they’ll go away… or take her by boarding her.

  If we do nothing and she leaves, we won’t know if she knows we’re here or not. She might come back with more friends than we can handle. Mind you, if we board her and she manages to get off a signal… same result.”

  “We could just blow her out of the water, sir,” said the Navigating Officer.

  “Two thousand tons of destroyer creeping up on an E-boat, I think not.”

  “There’s only one option really, sir,” said Grant. “We’ll have to board her and make sure she has no chance of raising the alarm.”

  “And how do we do that, Number One?”

  “Surprise, sir”

  “What shout boo!” laughed the Navigator.

  “No, we board her tonight or early tomorrow morning using our marines”

  * * *

  The corporal stood at ease in front of the Captain’s desk, staring straight ahead his eyes riveted to a photograph of a ‘Nishga’ leaving Portsmouth harbour.

  “I’ll send Stilson in, sir, there is no better at that sort of work, at least no one I’ve met.”

  “What if there’s more than one sentry?” asked Barr.

  “We’ll be with him, sir, if needs be we can take out three. If there’s more than that, which I doubt, it’s a non-runner anyway.”

  “Is that what you think?” said Barr surprised at the certainty in the corporal’s voice.

  “It’s not what I think sir, it’s what I know. There’s not a man alive who can surprise a mob.”

  * * *

  Behind the German sentry’s back, a minute grey shadow moved, indefinable, even in the glowing white of the snow. When he turned he saw nothing, nothing but the snow and the swaying shadows of the trees.

  Matrose Alfred Becker had been looking at the snow and the trees for three hours now, so long that the only thing he saw was the cold hour he had left before his relief arrived.

  Marine Stilson waited while the young German sentry turned again, waited while he walked to the other side of the bridge. Only then did he move, when he moved it was slowly, imperceptibly. He had been in full view of the sentry since the man had come on duty. He expected to be there for another half-hour. Thirty minutes of cold and pain before he reached the E-boat’s bridge. He smiled; in fact he expected to be there for the rest of the young sentry’s life.

  Stilson moved like a snake, he thought of himself as one in these situations, it was the secret of his success, why the men in his section called him ‘Snake’; ‘Snake’ Stilson. He was proud of that and of the way Bushel always chose him for a job like this. He was the ‘someone’ to guard the camp, the ‘someone’ to take out the sentry or to stalk the stalker. He believed in himself, he was good, dedicated for, to him, killing was an art; the hardship, the cold, the cramp that assailed his limbs, they were all part of what he was. It was foreplay; anticipation, the mother of delight. The real art was to create the ‘Snake’ to truly believe you were it. He had become addicted to his calling, the danger, yes, but something else, the power. At times like this he knew the future; he knew that the sentry was going to die. He would only die when he, the ‘Snake’ wanted him to die, die, the way the ‘Snake’ wanted him to die, the three ways; ‘The Snake’s’ holy creed.

  * * *

  Sloth-like the white shadow moved on the bridge ladder.

  The German sentry was leaning on the screen; he ducked into its shadow to puff at the illicit cigarette cupped in his gloved hand. He never straightened up. He died in the shadow and by the shadow. As he dragged at his cigarette the ‘Snake’ dragged at his throat with a serrated knife. Even as his lifeblood drenched the snow at his feet and he instinctively tried to turn to face his assailant, ‘Snake’ broke his back and his neck. He was smiling behind the white face mask as he eased the thrice dead man tenderly, almost lovingly, to the bridge deck; as gentle as if he were a baby. The white figure turned quickly wrenched the wires out from below the radio aerial and raised an arm above the bridge windscreen before merging once more into the background to wait and to gloat.

  * * *

  The crouching and silent First Armed Gua
rd, saw the raised hand from the boat’s bridge, and moved swiftly and quietly across the snow and up the darkened gangplank.

  No one spoke, there was no need, they each knew what had to be done. All the possibilities had been covered. The Navy had been covering possibilities for hundreds of years; nothing was ever left to chance because nothing was new. Contingency planning was the thing they did best. At each of the upper deck hatches, a group of Balaclavaed men quietly assembled. From the group on the bridge one figure emerged, his hand reached out in the darkness and pressed a brass button.

  The silence was abruptly shattered by the jarring beat of the Schnellboote’s alarm system.

  Below the crew woke, wrenched from their deep slumber, scrambling from their bunks, falling over each other in a fully-clothed rush for the ladders. With a much practised and automatic reaction they charged still half asleep to their stations.

  At the top of the ladders, one by one, they were suddenly lifted, swung clear of the hatch and knocked unconscious. The next in line had no time to think. No time for a sleep befogged brain to register surprise that the man in front had gone through the hatch so quickly. As he reached the top he only had time for amazement at the ease with which he had cleared the hatch. By the time he realised he had help; it was too late. The crack of the pickaxe handle and the exploding pain heralded the dark that enveloped him.

  It had taken minutes, no cry of alarm had alerted the men still below. They knew nothing until cork-blackened faces suddenly appeared from nowhere.