Cast No Shadow, Peter Sharp [books to get back into reading txt] 📗

The young sergeant coloured, and muttered “I never said that Sir.”

“Of course you didn’t, Sergeant Arnold,” said Foley, joining in the ripple of laughter.

There’s a good spirit here, thought Kelly. He knew that as a fact, acquainted as he was with some of these men. These were marines from 40 Commando, men he had fought alongside at Dieppe.

“Unusually,” said Foley, “I will also have a third-in-command on this show as Lieutenant Kelly will be detached for part of the operation and will be working with his comrades in SBS making sure we have a nice safe landing.”

The respect generated from the assembled marines was almost audible. Despite their desire to remain anonymous, the exploits of this elite group had become legend and, as an offshoot organisation of the Royal Marines, the rest of the corps had become fiercely proud of them.

Kelly himself was slightly disturbed by the respect. He felt he hadn’t earned it. In the three months since he had graduated from his training course, he had been stationed in the SBS base and had not taken part in any of the ‘tasks’ given to the section. He was effectively untried.

Foley was introducing Marine Captain Gareth Owen, Troop Commander of Two Troop, as his third-in-command. Kelly of course knew Gareth well by now, and they exchanged brief smiles.

“The rest of the appointments are as normal within the respective troops, namely one troop, Captain Pete Jackson as in-command and Sergeant Taff Williams second-in-command. Three troop, Lieutenant Jack Nash in-command, Colour Sergeant Bill Taylor second-in-command. Five troop, Captain Ashley Dunn in-command, Sergeant Tom Arnold as second-in-command. Any questions so far?”

A murmur, accompanied by shaking heads.

“Good! Let’s get on with the orders”

Pencils hovered over notebooks.

“Ground!” Foley emphasised the word, as he did with each key heading of his briefing. “We will be operating in the very north of Norway in the area of Grense.” As rehearsed, Kelly dropped down a map of the general area and pointed to Grense. As Foley continued his description of the ground, Kelly pointed out the salient features.

“Note this bay here,” continued Foley, “as we will be anchoring there prior to the assault. It’s called Volokovaya Bay. Now the land. This village is Grense. More later. This pass leads up to a chemical plant. Take note of that; it is one of our objectives. This line is the Russian border. Any questions so far?”

There were none.

“Now let’s look more closely at Grense.” Kelly dropped down a detailed map of the village. “This information comes directly from the Norwegian Resistance. This slipway is in the northwest and is a good approach; in the northeast we have the fishing quay. The Bosch have their HQ in this building here, previously a crèche. God knows what the kids do now. This is a factory. There is a detachment of Germans in there, approximately ten at any one time. The rest will normally be in the crèche or loitering in the village. Total detachment strength is one troop of about twenty-five men led by a Hauptman Jürgen Meyer.”

“Christ! Are we on first name terms with them now?” interposed ‘Colours’ Taylor.

Foley laughed along with the rest. “You can’t beat first-hand intelligence, eh Dan?” Kelly smiled and nodded. The others looked at him quizzically, but he said nothing.

“Onward!” said Foley. “Situation! This chemical plant here,” Kelly pointed, “is producing something we don’t like. This factory is making components for this plant. We don’t like that either.”

Nods.

“Mission! To impair the operational capacity of the factory and to destroy the apparatus in the production department of the plant.”

Foley repeated the mission, speaking slowly and clearly.

“Any questions?” he asked.

“Why does the RAF not just blast it out of existence?” asked Sergeant Arnold.

“It’s a good question,” answered Foley. “There are a number of issues.” He numerated them using his fingers. “One: difficult to find, quite well camouflaged. Two: lots of civilians, and the Government is at pains not to upset the Norwegians; we need their support now and after the war. Three: we need to be sure that the production end of this plant is totally destroyed; there can’t be any half measures. Four: the distance from Blighty is a problem for the Lancasters; they’d be struggling. Of course, we could possibly go in from Russia, but then icing becomes an issue.”

“Talking of the Ruskies,” said Colours Taylor, “don’t they want a slice of this?”

“Absolutely not!” said Foley. “They are very weak in that area, rather preoccupied elsewhere as you are aware. Any activity by the Russians in that area could bring the Hun hordes bearing down and expose their weakness.”

“That apart,” Foley added hesitantly, “we don’t actually want them to know what the Germans are producing.”

“What are they producing?” asked Pete Jackson.

“If I told you it was water, would you believe me?” asked Foley.

“Of course not!” Jackson answered.

“Fine,” responded Foley smiling. “Let’s just leave it at that. Trust me, we don’t want the Germans to have the substance they are producing there.”

Foley then went on to describe the execution of the raid, first in outline, then in detail. In essence, his plan was that they would go out in an Archangel convoy in a merchant ship carrying raiding boats. They would anchor up in Russian waters where they would rendezvous with a submarine, which would take Kelly and his SBS team back to the waters off Grense. The team would disembark and reconnoitre the possible approaches. The SBS team would then return to the main convoy, make their report and prepare for the assault.

The merchantman would then make its way, under cover of darkness and completely alone, into the Grense waters. After his previous experience, Kelly felt this part of the plan was very risky, but he accepted the logic. A single merchantman would be less likely to be detected on its own than if it was surrounded by a fleet of warships.

The SBS team would go in first to disable the telephone exchange. Their intelligence contacts had assured the WD that this was the only