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

but otherwise the ground was fairly open. He felt confident that his team could reach it without being discovered, but not tonight. Being spotted tonight could jeopardise the whole assault.

They moved back down the slip, stowed away their weapons, retrieved their fins and re-entered the water. Kelly swam around the shore to the left of the slip looking for other landing areas, whilst Allen and Smith went off in the opposite direction. When he reached the end of his search area he had found nothing. He returned to the slip to find Allen and Smith waiting. Allen shook his head, indicating that their search had also been fruitless.

Kelly submerged and swam to the reef, knowing the other two would follow. When he reached it, he turned to face the shore and raised his head out of the water to check that there was still no activity.

Silence and stillness.

The other two joined him and took up positions giving all round observation. None of the other groups had returned by that stage, but now, at intervals, they did so. No words were spoken, but as each leader returned, they gave a thumbs up to indicate that their task had been completed successfully.

All of Kelly’s team had now returned and were resting against the reef, waiting. Kelly strained his eyes as he peered into the dark in the direction he knew the sub to be. Ten or fifteen minutes passed, then the faintest of light for the briefest of periods. It was the signal he was waiting for. He made a hand signal to those nearest and waited to check that it was passed on to everyone, then he kicked out, quietly and slowly, in the direction he had seen the light signal, using a star as a marker. The distance was not sufficient to worry about the relative motion of the stars. After a while he sensed rather than saw a bulky shadow against the horizon and altered direction slightly towards it. Soon he could see the outline of the conning tower against the stars.

A rope ladder had been let down from the hatch and Kelly and his marines removed their fins and climbed into the relative safety of the submarine. Only when the sub was battened down, submerged and underway, did they allow themselves to relax, shaking hands and patting each other’s shoulders, but still speaking in whispers. It was a release of tension known to all combatants who have successfully returned from a dangerous mission.

Kelly felt a huge sense of relief and achievement. He had successfully completed his first real mission as an SBS leader, had gathered the information needed for the raid, remained unobserved and hence maintained the element of surprise. Most importantly he had returned with all his men. It was a good night’s work.

Once in open water away from the shore, he debriefed each of the three-man sections in turn, writing down their verbal reports. What they had observed, what landing sites were available, what the approach was like, what would be the field of fire from the opposition; anything that might conceivably help Tom Foley plan the details of the next phase of the operation.

By the time they reached the convoy, Kelly had his report ready.

“Thanks for that, Dan. Right, you’ve heard what Lieutenant Kelly and his SBS team found at the objective and clearly this has a bearing on how we go in.”

Kelly had just completed his briefing to the assembled officers and senior NCOs of the Commando Force. He had briefed Tom on the previous night to give him time to prepare for this ‘O’ group. Tom had suggested that everyone heard his briefing; they needed to know from the horse’s mouth so to speak. “Any questions to Lieutenant Kelly on the ground briefing?” Tom Foley continued.

There was silence for a while before ‘Colours’ Taylor piped up, “Did you bump into Jürgen this time, sir?”

“Not this time,” replied Kelly without thinking. There was chorus of “Aha!” and “I see!” accompanied by tapping of noses and winks.

“We figured you had been here before, Dan,” said Captain Ashley Dunn. “Care to share your previous experiences?”

“Perhaps another time,” said Kelly smiling. No one pressed him.

“Right then,” said Foley, “let’s see how this affects us. Originally, I had intended to go with two waves, each with six rigid raiders. However, because of the limited landing places we will opt for three waves of four raiders, each raider manned by ten marines. Not ideal, but the best we can do.”

Kelly, acting as map man again, rolled down the detailed map of the Grense area. He pointed out the key elements in turn as Foley referred to them.

“The landings will take place as follows; one raider in at the slip, two on the quay and one in the north east. We won’t be able to get the rigid raider right in on that last one, so some of your marines will get wet feet. That will be repeated twice more for the other two waves.

“Dan and his friends will be going in first to sort out the telephone exchange and the crèche building. We dare not warn the Norwegians who work in the telephone exchange so there will be some local casualties.”

He looked around at the gathered faces. “Final details of deployment tonight before we go in.”

The day seemed to last forever. They had some protection within the stationary convoy, lying as they were in Russian waters, but were still too close to the Norwegian border to relax. The rest of the seamen had to be on tenterhooks too, raring to get to the relative safety of Archangel.

Just before last light, their merchantman weighed anchor and moved slowly away from the convoy. They arrived off the coast of Grense in the early hours. Kelly and his SBS team had transferred to the submarine for the journey and had arrived ahead of the merchantman, again close into shore to avoid the use of kayaks. They waited for