On the Edge of Darkness
Anthony Molloy
ON THE EDGE OF DARKNESS
Book One in the Orca Series
By Anthony Molloy
Copyright © 2013 by Anthony Molloy
All Rights Reserved.
Characters
Vice Admiral Sir Walter Mackenzie Chief Special Operations Group
Lt Commander Alexander Barr CO HMS Nishga
Lieutenant Robert Grant CO Eddy
Lieutenant Grey Gunnery Officer
Lieutenant Benjamin Crosswall-Brown
Petty Officer Stone
Leading Hand ‘Hasty’ Hastings
Leading Seaman Patrick Benjamin ‘Nervous’ O’Neill
Able Seaman William ‘Tug’ Wilson,
Able Seaman ‘Earpy’ Wyatt
Ordinary Seaman Peter ‘Blur’ Goddard
ROYAL MARINES
Bushel
Blake
Stilson
CIVILIANS
Charlotte Crosswall-Brown
Olaf Kristiansand
Jennifer Mott
Maude Wilson
GERMANS
Leutnant Sieg
Oberjager Hoffmann
Prologue
Following an heroic part in the Second Battle of Narvik, Captain Barr puts the marines, his ship and certain captured enemy vessels to such good use that their exploits come to the notice of the First Lord of the Admiralty. Churchill sees how the ‘Nishga’s’ exploits dovetail so well into his own fledgling tactic of ‘Butcher and bolt’. He orders the new unit to carry out clandestine missions behind enemy lines. Already Churchill has seen that commando raids will be one of the few means by which a beleaguered Britain will be able to take the fight to the enemy. Soon Orca becomes an elite fighting unit, codenamed ‘Orca’ with a far reaching remit to harass the enemy held coast of Norway.
Chapter 1
First Blood
The Norwegian Sea, 0100 hours, Wednesday, 10th April 1940.
It was getting too rough for mine laying. With the long regular rhythm of the swell, the minelayer sank below each crest, allowing the sea to surge in ankle deep across the cold metal of the quarterdeck. As each wave passed under the ship, she rose up cascading water back into the sea from every scupper.
Silently and without a word of command a group of oilskin-clad figures worked in the dark, the wet, the bitter wind. Their glistening black oilskins clung like second skins flapping about their legs giving them the appearance of scavengers bent over a bloated kill. They strained, pulling and pushing at the mines moving them slowly along the greased tram-rails. For’ard, concealed in the gloom, other mines waited snug in their wheeled carriages, waited as their fellows dropped from the stern into the heaving waters of the Norwegian Sea.
Across the swell, the ‘Nishga’ and the ‘Glowworm’, the escorting destroyers, were darker shadows in the moonless waste, rolling their way relentlessly south.
The men at the guns huddled in their foul-weather clothing, watching the skies and the sea for signs of the enemy. Below, their shipmates listened for the submarines that were known to be in the area.
The next mine in a long line, serial number Manx. 309 /40, moved slowly towards the stern and the waiting sea, the carriage screeching its senseless protest along salt wet rails. To the men, it was just another weight to be moved, its fate as unknown and as uninteresting as the hundreds of others they had sown into these treacherous northern waters. It went over the side just the same as all the rest, opening the surface of the sea in a great foam-framed ‘O’ before being swallowed up by a hungry sea. It sank towards the seabed, three hundred feet below the surface. Its carriage was released, plunging on, trailing fathom upon fathom of oily chain behind it, an umbilical cord linked to the horned and lethal belly of the mine itself. Unseen it hit the seabed, and the mine, trailing its chain, rose slowly towards the surface.
* * *
HMS Nishga was steaming close inshore. To port, the Norwegian coastline slipped by unseen. The destroyer, sleek and graceful, cut through the water like a hot knife through dark chocolate sending creamy waves rippling out astern.
She was making her way south from the mine laying duties, abandoned as the weather worsened. Her clandestine mission to extract a party of Royal Marines put ashore earlier in the week by submarine. The landing party’s task had been to find one Olaf Kristiansand, a Norwegian mountain guide who knew the fjords and mountains like the back of his hand. Using the man’s extensive local knowledge Army Command hoped to find out the extent of German penetration into this sector of the mountains.
Just two days before, the Navy had fought a fierce battle at the port of Narvik, along the coast to the north; five British destroyers had engaged ten German destroyers. Despite a great victory in which the British had sunk two of the enemy’s destroyers as well as nine other ships, they had been too late to stop the invasion. Now it was vital to know how far the enemy had infiltrated inland.
The conifer-covered and snow capped mountains loomed darkly to port, breaking waves underlining them in white foam like an old man’s moustache. The warship seemed dangerously close to the lee shore for the weather conditions, but she was protected from the worst of the storm by the Skerries, a mass of islands to seaward.
A little after two bells in the middle watch, she heaved to, head to wind, bobbing her acknowledgement to the choppy sea as her crew prepared her sea boat for lowering.
Whispered commands brought the boat level with the iron deck and ten heavily armed seamen clambered over the guard rails.
Now, fully loaded, the boat continued its jerky progress to the water line where she was silently slipped, dropping the last few feet into the water in a welter of spray.
The boat’s crew leant back throwing their combined weight behind the long ash oars and the heavy boat turned in a slow laboured arc towards the shore.
As they drew away from the noise generated by the destroyer’s engines, the men in the boat could hear the occasional burst of small arms fire and the rapid staccato Brrr of a Bren.
The muffled oars lifted clear of the water as she nosed in towards a battered wooden jetty. The basket fenders along the structure screeched in protest as they slid alongside and then they were up, out of the boat and running, crouched double over their Lee Enfields.
Lieutenant Grey slid in behind a stand of empty drums at the edge of a cluster of log buildings.
“Spread out and take cover! Signalman!”
“Sir!”
“Make the call sign.”
The signalman’s hand held Aldis chattered out, the beam illuminating the trees to their front making their long shadows jump in alarm.
No reply was received. In fact nothing moved except the shadows, no sign of the reconnaissance party they had come ashore to extract; only the ominous rattle of gunfire.
Able Seaman Wilson pulled his helmet round straight and looked to see who his neighbours were. Wyatt lay spread-eagled to his right and Stubbs to his left.
“Fuck this for a game of soldiers!” whispered Wyatt.
Wilson grinned and pointed at him “Ha! Game of soldiers…Good one!”
“It wasn’t supposed to be a joke… What's up with you?”
“Quiet you men!” hissed Grey. “Keep your eyes to your front and stay alert. No firing unless I fire first.”
As if on cue, two figures broke cover to their front running in short bursts towards the waiting seamen.
“Hold your fire!” called Grey.
Wyatt looked to the heavens before squinting down the sights of the Bren.
“Can’t you tell them that’s born to command”
The two marines, weaving from side to side as they withdrew turned and kneeled on the frozen ground. A third and then a fourth figure
emerged from the trees and sprinted, heads down, past their companions.
The marine with the Bren ran past another fifty yards and spinning round, lay prone in the snow covering the withdrawal of the others.
Suddenly all hell broke loose, bursts of fire erupted from the tree line, flickering and flashing along its length, tracer arcing in towards the running marines, spurts of snow shot into the air around running feet, they spun round, dropped to the ground and returned the fire.
“Signalman make to the ship, ‘Request support fire, engage the tree line’…You men! Keep the enemy’s heads down… Fire into the trees… Fire at will!”
“Who’s this bloke Will anyway?” asked Wilson of no one in particular. “No one seems to like him.”
Branches and leaves flew into the air as the ten man landing party commenced their covering fire
A whistling noise overhead heralded the arrival of the barrage. The tree line erupted into orange flames as the enemy’s positions took accurate fire. A ragged cheer went up from the seamen as the conifer plantation burst into flames and great fireballs rose lazily into the night sky.
Under cover of the bombardment the marines joined the shore party and they withdrew, scrambling along the icy jetty and down into the waiting boat. Oars hurriedly shipped they pushed off. But the enemy was not finished with them. Bullets whipped about them as slowly, sluggishly the overloaded boat made its way back out to sea.
Gradually, the firing died away and the ‘Nishga’ shifted her fire to the jetty. The exploding shells sent great beams of rotting timber high into the air. The small fishing boats, secured to the jetty, became blazing beacons glowing through dense, acrid smoke.
The boat reached the safety of the destroyer moving round into the lee she had provided. Alongside, under the falls, the crew wrestled the heavy blocks of the hoisting gear into place and the boat rose clear of the water.
The ‘Nishga’s’ twin propellers started to turn and the sea astern churned into a grey froth, she began to move slowly ahead. Swinging sharply under full rudder she turned her stern to the smoking destruction ashore and headed out into a tranquil darkness.
The sea boat jerked to a stop, level with the ‘iron deck’. Men ran from the rope falls to hold her glistening side in snug against the ship’s side. One by one the landing party stepped back onboard grinning in reply to a cheer from their shipmates. They handed in their arms to the waiting gunner’s mate and clattered down the metal ladders to the welcome warmth of the mess deck.
* * *
Leading Seaman Patrick Benjamin O’Neill, known to all as ‘Nervous’ nursed the rum fanny down the steep mess ladder with practiced ease and placed it on the long table.
“Did you hear about the ‘Glowworm’?” The men around the table looked back at him with blank expressions.
“What you mean that bloke, the one she lost overboard in the roughers?” asked Wyatt.
“No, that’s old hat,” said O’Neill dismissively, “No she gone… sunk!” Now he had their attention. “When she was looking for that bloke she ran into two Jerry destroyers. She showed ‘em a clean pair of screws and they eventually turned back. Her skipper wonders why Jerry’s suddenly lost interest, follows them and they lead him straight onto the guns of the bloody ‘Hipper’. For them that don’t know she’s a bloody great Jerry cruiser, eight eight-inch guns!”
“Bloody hell!” said Goddard.
“Bloody hell’s right The ‘Worm’ she goes in and attacks the lot of ‘em, the ‘Hipper’ and her escorts!”
Wyatt shook his head, “Officers eh? … The lot of ‘em's mad as ‘atters”. The mess nodded its agreement.
O’Neill shrugged, “Sure you’re right there, you wait until you hear the rest. The ‘Worm’ zig zags in, sticking up some smoke, fires her torpedoes, they miss so she goes in again through her own smoke and rams the ‘Hipper’!”
“Blimey…said Wilson, “ ‘Ow big’s one of their cruisers, sixteen, seventeen thousand tons, she must’ve bounced off the bastard. I reckon ‘er skipper’s lost ‘is rag.…Was there anyone left alive?
“No one seems to know, she sunk that’s all they know, no word of casualties yet” O’Neill splashed the rum into a mug and handed it to Wyatt for ‘sippers’.
‘Earpy’ Wyatt took the offered glass, as ‘ticker-offer’ it was his job to tick off each man’s name as they drew their ration. A sip of every man’s tot was his payment for the arduous task. He was a short thickset bull- necked man with red hair and a beard. There was a long-running dispute as to the origins of his nickname. Some said it was because his surname recalled a famous Sheriff of Tombstone, others, less charitable, perhaps, held that it was because he had caught a disease, of the same name, whilst serving on his first ship.
“We’ll ‘ave no bloody ships left at this rate,” he said, “I ‘eard the ‘Gurka’ gone with all ‘ands”.
There was silence around the table, the ‘Glowworm’ was one thing but the ‘Gurka’ she was sister ship to their own ‘Nishga’. A Tribal just like them it brought it all uncomfortably close to home.
“I had a couple of oppoes on board ‘er,” said Wilson.
“All hands you say?” asked Stubbs.
Wyatt nodded, “Sunk by Jerry off Bergen. So the ‘Bunting Tosser’ told me. It was only a couple of months ago she got that U Boat off the Faeroes… you remember?”
* * *
As night fell and concealed the ‘Nishga’ from inquisitive eyes, she turned north- east and increased to her maximum speed.
The cloud cover was total, the ship darkened, no lights showing above decks, below only the red warm glow of the night lights guided the men to their stations as the watches changed. The loudspeaker clicked in a fog of static.
“Do you hear there, this is the Captain speaking.”
Men all over the ship, closed up at their Steaming Stations, stopped to listen.
“I am taking this opportunity to update you on events unfolding in Norway. You’ll all be glad to hear that, since I last spoke, we’ve bagged two more Jerry destroyers bringing the tally to four. Ashore things are not looking so good. The Germans have landed paratroopers at all the main airfields and are, as I speak, attacking many of the large cities.
For our part, we are proceeding, under new orders to Vest Fjord, as you may or may not know that’s quite close to Narvik. There we will join up with the battleship ‘Warspite’ and her escorting destroyers.
We will remain at Steaming Stations for the time being, I advise you all to get as much rest as possible. That is all.”
* * *
The watches changed again at midnight, port watch swinging up, fully clothed, into the still warm hammocks recently vacated by their opposite numbers.
Up top Hogg, the ship’s only midshipman, paced the bridge, lost in thoughts of the glories of a possible battle to come, he passed by the array of voice pipes; the bridge end of the ship’s internal communication system.
He noticed one of the lids was hanging by its chain. How long had that been off? He glanced quickly at the Captain in his bridge chair.
As the second officer of the watch he was supposed to keep an eye on such things. Just as well the ‘Old Man’ was asleep. He put his hand out to replace it and heard someone humming a tune. It came from the wheelhouse… he instantly recognised it, ‘The Girl I left behind me’… One of his dad’s favourite songs, he could remember the words. His dad used to sing it as he worked in their potting shed. It seemed a long time ago now. The quartermaster on the wheel was whistling, melodiously and… illegally! He suddenly remembered with a frown…No whistling allowed aboard one of His Majesty’s Ships. He was about to call down the tube when the whistling stopped and the rating burst into song.
“Ooh! I don’t give a fuck for the Officer of the Watch,
Or the ‘Killick’ of the fo’c’s’le party
‘Cause I’m off ashore at ‘alf past four,
I’m Jack me fucking hearty!
Lieutenant Commander Alexander Barr, slumped in his bridge chair, smiled from under the peak of his battered cap. He was a man of indeterminable age, his face deeply lined and deeply wind-tanned. His long frame ill formed for a uniform of any kind, he managed to look more like a badly dressed art teacher than a commissioned officer in His Majesty’s Navy. He was, however, living proof that you should never judge a book by its jacket which unfortunately the Navy invariable did. The result was there for all to see, two and a half rings on his sleeve where at his age and with his unquestionable abilities there should have been a lot more.
* * *
Ofotfjord
“Interrogative, sir!”
“Very good, make the reply, Yeo.”
The Yeoman of Signals nodded to the visual signalman and the Aldis chattered out their call sign.
Saturday had dawned furtively behind an early morning mist that hung about the ‘Nishga’ eerily like a wet shroud. The visibility in Ofotfjord was down to a few hundred yards. The guard ship, posted close to the entrance had done well to spot them at all.
“Guard ship’s pennant number is … Foxtrot seven five, sir; she’s the ‘Eskimo.’
Barr raised his binoculars to study her; she was a fellow Tribal.
He looked for damage; the majority of ‘Warspite’s’ escorting destroyers had been engaged in the fight at Narvik three days earlier. He could see no visible damage. He noticed her cable was shortened in readiness to weigh anchor and proceed, it seemed they had arrived in the nick of time.
