A Game for Heroes

A Game for Heroes

PROLOGUE

A Fine Morning to Die in

The bodies started to come in with the tide just after dawn, clustered together, bobbing in through the surf to the beach a hundred feet below my hiding place.

The bay was called Horseshoe for obvious reasons. As a boy, I had swum down there on more occasions than I could remember and there was an excellent beach when the tide was out. An inhospitable shore now though, seeded with mines and choked by barbed wire strung between rusting steel lances. No place to be, alive or dead, on a cold April morning.

It was raining slightly and visibility was not good in the dawn mist so that even Fort Victoria on its rocky point a quarter of a mile away was barely visible.

I took a cigarette from my waterproof tin, lit it and sat there watching more bodies float in, but not from any morbid curiosity. It was impossible for me to leave the shelter of those gorse bushes before nightfall. If I attempted to move in daylight, capture was certain on such a small island, especially now that my presence was known.

Five years of war had left me indifferent where death was concerned, even to its uglier aspects. The time when a body had any emotional effect was long since gone. I had seen too many of them. The fact of death was all that mattered. Down there, British and German floated together and at that distance, it was impossible to distinguish between them, which proved something.

Another wave slopped in, flinging a body high in the air, casting it farther up the beach than the others. As it landed, a mine exploded, tossing it up again, arms flailing wildly as if there was still life there. What was left was flung across the wire to hang like raw meat.

It was perhaps ten minutes later that the next one floated in, supported by a yellow life-jacket. The sea retreated with a great sucking noise, leaving the body face down. It seemed to move slightly. At first I thought I was mistaken. A trick of the light or the fact that even in shallow water, it behaved differently from the others because of the inflated life-jacket.

But I was wrong, for as the curtain of green foam slopped in again, an arm was raised to claw at air and I seemed to hear a faint cry as the man was pushed towards the wire.

For the next two or three minutes, succeeding waves failed to reach him. He lay there as if exhausted, then tried to push himself up as a great comber roiled in and flattened him. When it receded, he was still alive, but there could only be one end to the game that was being played down there.

I crouched in the shelter of the gorse bushes, waiting for something to happen. Anything that would make it unnecessary for me to play at heroes. It came from an unexpected quarter, the fold in the cliffs on my right from which a narrow track dropped to the beach.

I heard voices first, calling excitedly, then half-a-dozen men appeared and paused on the brow of the hill about fifty feet above the sea. They were Todt workers, a few of the poor wretches brought over from France to labour on the island’s fortifications. This lot were a road gang from the looks of them and carried picks and shovels. There were no guards, which wasn’t unusual. The island, after all, was as effective a prison in itself as could have been found anywhere.

They seemed to be having an argument, then one of them moved ahead and started to slide down the slope to the beach below. He dropped the last ten or fifteen feet into soft sand, picked himself up and approached the wire. He was a brave man, and closer to death than he perhaps knew.

Another great wave rolled in, washing a second body into the minefield. There was a sudden eruption and for a moment, the sea boiled. When it drew back, I was surprised to see that the man in the yellow life-jacket was still alive.

But not for much longer. He needed a miracle now and from the looks of it, it would have to be a miracle called Owen Morgan. I realized that with a kind of weary fatality as the Todt worker on the beach, who had thrown himself flat on his face, got up and paused uncertainly. He knew about the mines now and only a fool would venture into such a death trap – a fool or someone who didn’t particularly care whether he lived or died.

I took the Mauser with the SS bulbous silencer from the clip at the rear of my belt and slipped it into the pocket of my reefer coat. Then I took the coat off and pushed it into the crevasse at the back of the overhang under which I was sheltering. I transferred my knife to my right-hand pocket. The spring blade action meant that I could open it with one hand which might be useful there in the water.

What else was there? My identity discs. I checked that they were safe in the secret pocket of my belt, not that they were likely to do me much good where I was going. And the black patch which covered what was left of my right eye – I almost forgot about that. It was hardly likely to remain in place in the kind of surf that was coming in and I pulled it down around my neck on its elasticated band.

In the country of the blind, the one-eyed man is king. God knows why I thought of that as I went down a narrow crevasse for twenty or thirty feet and emerged on to a shoulder of rock. The Todt workers on the hillside saw me at once, but the man on the beach was back at the wire looking for a way through.

‘No good – too many mines,’ I shouted in French. ‘Leave it to me.’

He turned and looked up in surprise, staring dumbly, so I gave it to him in English and German for good measure. Some little way below, a rock jutted out thirty feet or so above deep water. When I was twelve, I had jumped from it to impress Simone. She had refused to speak to me for a week for the fright I had given her. It all came back so clearly as I paused there for a moment.

A good morning – a fine morning to die in. I took a quick breath and jumped.

It was cold – cold as only the Channel can be with the Atlantic roiling in all the way from Newfoundland. I went deep and kicked with all my strength as the current caught me.

I was wearing canvas rope-soled shoes, denim pants and a Guernsey fisherman’s sweater and all these things I had retained by design. If you are swimming in cold waters, clothes help to retain body heat and so it was now. I surfaced and started to swim the hundred yards that separated me from Horseshoe.

The great tidal surge that drives in through the Channel Islands raises the level of the water in the Golfe de St Malo by as much as thirty feet, and I could feel the implacable force of it pushing me forwards, lifting the waves into whitecaps in a great unbroken progression to crash in across the beach.

The swimming in itself was no great feat. All I had to do was stay afloat and the tidal current did the rest. I was aware of the Todt workers up on the hillside in the green fold between the cliffs, of the man on the other side of the wire and then a great wave took me in its iron grip and carried me in at what seemed like a considerable speed.

I touched sand, reached out for some sort of secure anchorage and found myself high on the beach as the sea drained away. The man in the yellow life-jacket was no more than ten yards to my left. Another wave washed in as I got to one knee. As it receded, I was already on my feet and moving to join him.

He was perhaps seventeen, a young German naval rating, a telegraphist according to the badge on his sleeve. His left shoulder and arm were a bloody mess which certainly explained his inability to help himself.

He was actually reaching out for the wire as I got to him and I dropped to one knee and turned him over. His eyes were dark glass, staring through and beyond me, no comprehension there at all and he was obviously in deep shock. I got an arm around him as another wave washed over us. When I shook the salt water from my eyes and looked across the wire, the Todt workers were moving down the path in company with three German soldiers, two of whom carried machine pistols.

One of them called to me, but his voice was drowned by the roaring of another incoming wave. And then, in the silence that followed, a horse whinnied and I looked up and saw Steiner sitting on a grey mare on the brow of the hill.

He called to the men below, telling them to stay where they were and they obeyed instantly which didn’t surprise me for he was that kind of man. He went down the path to join them, there was a quick conversation and then one of the soldiers scrambled back up the path to where the mare grazed peacefully and disappeared over the brow of the hill.

The other two herded the Todt workers back and Steiner came down on his own carrying three stick grenades in his left hand. He wore a three-quarter length coat with a black fur collar which I happened to know was standard issue to Russian officers of staff rank only and his Brandenberger forage cap was tilted at the exact regulation angle and no more.

He smiled as he stopped on the other side of the wire. ‘I had expected you long gone by now, Owen Morgan. What happened?’

‘The best laid schemes and all that,’ I said. ‘Does it matter?’

‘Not really. What have you got there?’

‘One of yours – a telegraphist from the E boat.’

‘Will he live?’

‘I should imagine so.’

‘Good. Stay exactly where you are.’

He moved twenty or thirty yards away along the beach and another wave crashed in. It was a big one – large enough to have us both across the wire and I hung on grimly with every thing I had.

The boy was unconscious. I was aware of that as I surfaced and at the same time saw Steiner toss the first grenade over the wire. There was a double explosion, followed by a third as mines started to detonate each other. He had turned his back briefly and I lost sight of him through a curtain of smoke and sand. As it cleared, he moved in closer, examined the ragged gap in the beach defences he had created, then tossed the second grenade.

The waves washed in again, stronger than ever and I was beginning to tire. It had been a long night and this was a hell of a morning to follow. As I came up for air, the third grenade landed. There were four quite distinct explosions and, as the echoes died away, sand and smoke lifted in a dense cloud.

Birds called, wheeling high above, rising from the cliff face, razorbills, shags, gulls and a lone storm petrel came in low through the smoke like a bomber on its final run, straight and true, skimming the waves as it turned out to sea.

Steiner was standing at one end of the ragged path he had blasted through the wire to the water’s edge. He waved and I called out to him sharply.

‘Careful – no guarantee you’ve got them all.’

‘Only one way of finding out.’

He walked through as calmly as if he were taking a Sunday afternoon stroll in the park, pausing only to kick a ragged nest of wire out of the way and splashed towards me.

There was a sudden roar of an engine as a VW field car appeared and braked on the brow of the hill. Several soldiers got out and started down towards the beach. Steiner ignored them.

‘I’m sorry about this, but there is little I can do now, you understand that?’

‘Naturally,’

‘Have you any weapons?’

‘My knife only.’

‘Give it to me.’

He slipped it into his pocket and got a hand under the young sailor’s arm. ‘Let’s get him out of here before he dies on us. This business might help you considerably.’

‘With a man like Radl? You must be joking.’

He shrugged. ‘All things are possible …’

‘In this worst of all possible worlds,’ I misquoted. ‘You look after Simone, that’s all I ask, and forget that last night ever happened. Just keep her out of this. Don’t waste your time on me. I’m a dead man walking, we both know that.’

‘You sacrificed yourself to save a German seaman. That must count for something. Even Radl has been known to listen to reason on occasion.’

‘From a sergeant-major?’ I laughed. ‘Not a habit of many colonels that I’ve known in most armies, including my own. He’ll show you the door and more than that.’

‘Oh, no,’ he said softly. ‘Never that, my friend,’ and he was no longer smiling.

We ploughed through the surf, the boy between us, and stumbled through the gap. The men who waited on the other side were military police, as conspicuous in their brass breast-plates as British army redcaps. There were four of them, three corporals and a major. Two of them took the boy from us, laid him down carefully on a stretcher and gave him some quick first-aid.

Steiner had walked a yard or two away, brushing sand from his coat. The major came forward and looked me over. ‘Who are you?’ he demanded in bad French.

I suppose he didn’t know what to make of me which was hardly surprising considering the clothes I was wearing and the jagged scar, that cut across the empty socket where my right eye had been and bisected the cheek, didn’t help much. I adjusted the eye patch.

Steiner answered for me. ‘Major Brandt,’ he said, ‘this gentleman is a British officer who has just sacrificed his freedom to save the life of a German sailor.’

And Brandt took it without a murmur, including the tone of voice. He hesitated fractionally, then turned to me and said in quite reasonable English. ‘You will please identify yourself.’

‘My name is Morgan. My service number is 21038930. My rank is Lieutenant-Colonel.’

He clicked his heels and produced a silver cigarette case. ‘May I offer you a cigarette, Colonel? You look as if you could do with one.’

I took it and the light which followed and drew the smoke into my lungs with conscious pleasure. It might, after all, be close to my last.

‘And now,’ he said politely, ‘I must ask you to accompany me to the Platzkommandantur in Charlottestown where Colonel Radl, the acting governor of St Pierre, will no doubt wish to speak with you.’

A nice way of putting it. I started forward and Steiner got in the way. He had the Russian field coat off and was holding it ready for me. ‘With the colonel’s permission,’ he said, a slight, ironic smile on his mouth.

It was only when I pulled it on and felt the warmth of the fur lining that I realized how cold I was. ‘Thank you, Sergeant-Major,’ I said. ‘For this among other things.’

His heels clicked together and the salute he gave me would have warmed the heart of the most demanding drill instructor the Brigade of Guards could have supplied.

I turned and followed the stretcher up the hill.

The drive into Charlottestown was the strangest experience of all so far. There were the cobbled streets, the houses that were a mixture of French Provincial and English Georgian, the gardens high-walled against the constant winds. Everything was the same as it had always been and yet not the same.

It wasn’t the concrete pill boxes, the barbed wire, the bomb damage down at the harbour, the more obvious signs of war. It was the signposts in German as well as English, the incongruity of seeing an SS man pausing to light a cigarette outside the old post office with a sign on the wall that still read Royal Mail and the sight of grey-green uniforms and cars with swastikas painted on them parked in a square with a name like Palmerston. It all combined to give a curious air of unreality to things, that I found difficult to shake off.

The field car dropped us in the square and departed with the injured sailor and we walked the rest of the way, climbing the steep cobbles of Charlotte Street, past shops that stood empty now. Windows were broken everywhere, paint peeling, and there was a general air of decay. Not surprising after five years of occupation.

The Platzkommandantur, headquarters of the German civilian administration, although there were few enough of them to administer on St Pierre, was housed in what had been the island branch of the Westminster Bank before the war. I’d had an account there, still had by all the rules, which made it an interesting experience to go in through the arched granite porch to the cool interior.

Three uniformed clerks worked industriously on the other side of the mahogany counter. The two sentries on either side of the door to what had once been the manager’s office were SS paratroopers and as hard-bitten a looking pair as I’d seen in many a long day, with an Iron Cross second class apiece and the ribbon for the campaign against Russia. They’d come a long way from Stalingrad or wherever it had been.

Brandt went in first and we waited. Steiner made no attempt to speak and stood at the window looking out into the street. Within a couple of minutes, Brandt called for him and he went in. I waited and the two SS men stared beyond me into space and then the door opened and Brandt reappeared.

‘Please to come in, Colonel Morgan,’ he said in English, and as I went forward he called the two guards to attention.

I think it was Radl’s physical presence that was the most astonishing thing about him. The sheer bloody size of the man. He must have been six foot three or four at least and couldn’t have weighed less than sixteen or seventeen stone.

My impression was that he had been working in his shirt sleeves for he was still buttoning his tunic as I entered. I noticed several things in that first swift glance. The SS insignia on his collar and the medals, which included the Deutsches Kreuz worn on the right side in gold which meant it had been awarded for courage in the face of the enemy, and the Gold Party Badge which was only awarded to those who had been members of the Nazi Party before its accession to power in 1933.

And his face, with the great jutting brow and deep-set eyes, was the face of some fanatical Roundhead, the kind of man who could cry on the Lord with fervour, pray out loud on his knees and in the same breath, cheerfully interpret the master’s word as burning young women alive for witches.

He stayed in his seat, both hands on the desk. ‘Your name, rank and number.’

His English was poor and I replied in German. He showed not the slightest surprise and continued in the same language. ‘You can prove this?’

I fiddled about on the inside of my belt and produced my identity discs. I passed them across and waited as he examined them gravely. He put them down and snapped a finger at Brandt, not Steiner.

‘A chair for the colonel.’

I shook my head. ‘I’ll stand. Let’s get it over with.’

He didn’t attempt to argue, but got to his feet, I suppose because it offended his sense of what was fitting that two senior officers should not be on terms of perfect equality, even if he did intend to have me shot that same afternoon.

He sat on the edge of the desk. ‘Owen Morgan? Now that I find interesting. Did you know that the lifeboat on this island bears that name?’

There seemed no reason to hide the fact. ‘After my father, I was born and raised here.’

‘So?’ He nodded. ‘That explains a great deal. You were here to find out what you could about the Nigger project.’

It was a statement of fact, well-timed and delivered in a perfectly normal conversational tone as he took a cigarette from a sandalwood box and lit it.

I didn’t bite. ‘Was I?’

‘Four of your companions are alive and in our hands. Two more were recovered from the harbour. One of them spoke a little before he died and what he said was informative.’

‘I’m sure it was.’

He carried straight on. ‘I presume you were landed separately somewhere on the south-east comer of the island, especially as two of my sentries have disappeared in that area. I am not asking, you notice, I am simply thinking aloud.’

‘Your privilege,’ I told him.

‘Allow me to continue, then. Your companions are in uniform, you are in civilian clothes from which I deduce that your task was to attempt to contact the local population for information.’ He almost smiled, which for him must have been quite a feat. ‘There are exactly five islanders left here, Colonel Morgan, and I happen to know that one way or another, they were all under surveillance last night. You wasted your time, your men made a mess of the business in the harbour and your gunboat, such a very British term, I always think, is at the bottom of the sea. Mission a failure.’ He said those words in English. ‘Isn’t that what they will stamp on the cover of the file?’

‘Something like that.’

He straightened, placing his hands behind his back. ‘You are familiar with the Kommand- obefehl?’

‘Naturally.’

‘Then you will know that under its provisions, all members of the so-called commando units must be executed as soon after capture as may be.’

‘You’re certainly taking your time about it.’

I didn’t even strike a spark. He nodded gravely. ‘As it happens this action is the responsibility of the commanding officer in the particular area and I am not he, Colonel Morgan. General Muller, the last governor, was killed by a mine four weeks ago.’