Commando- The Complete World War II Action Collection Volume I Read online

  But there hadn’t been any bloody combat, and that was driving Lynch mad. He had signed up for the Commandos because he knew they would be the first back over the Channel, the first Englishmen to have another crack at Jerry. But instead of setting charges on tank bellies or slitting German throats in the dark, they were running about in the frozen North blowing up vats of fish oil and flirting with young Norwegian women. It wasn’t what he wanted; it wasn’t paying Hitler back for poor Edwards, or Rourke’s missing leg, or all the other men left behind dead on the ground during those miserable four weeks of headlong flight from the fury of the blitzkrieg.

  The sound of booted feet striding down the barracks floor shook Lynch from his dark thoughts. Looking up, he saw Lance Corporal Charlesworth, Colonel Durnford-Slater’s batman, walking towards him.

  “Well hello, Charlesworth, what brings you to my corner of the barracks today?”

  “The Colonel’s asking for you, Tommy. He wants you up in the castle’s library on the quick.”

  “Library, you say? I’m not much of a reader.”

  “No books today, Tom. Someone’s there to talk to you. Quality from London, matter of fact. I think he’s a Lord.”

  Lynch shook his head. “No idea what the fellow wants to talk to me about. I haven’t been through London since before the BEF went over the Channel. No wronged daughters or angry barkeeps behind me, I daresay.”

  Charlesworth shrugged. “I’ve no idea myself, just doing what I’m told. Come along then like a good chap, would you? And cover up that bit of non-regulation kit before someone steals it away from you.”

  Lynch tossed a spare shirt over the pistol parts, stood and straightened his uniform, put on his barracks cap, and followed Charlesworth outside. 3 Commando was currently based out of Largs, in Scotland, and their facilities sat on the grounds of Kelburn Castle, home of the Earl of Glasgow. Lord Glasgow was a very friendly fellow, and he always admired the Commandos and gave a kind word whenever one of the men passed his Lordship during their duties. Charlesworth had once told Lynch that he’d overheard Lord Glasgow saying to the Colonel that he wished he was still young enough to serve with Durnford-Slater’s men, and Lynch believed him.

  Lynch and Charlesworth trudged across the grounds, a chill wind reminding Lynch that winter wasn’t too far behind them and summer still a ways off. Although it was the first week of April, this was Scotland, and the weather was far from mild. Walking across the Kelburn estate, Lynch saw men doing calisthenics, led by a senior NCO, while another group of men grappled and tussled with each other nearby, familiarizing themselves with Captain Fairbairn’s unarmed combat techniques. Further along, he saw near the edge of a field a lone figure armed with an English longbow, sending feathered shafts into the bole of a tree from a hundred yards’ distance.

  “It appears Mad Jack is at it again,” Lynch said.

  Charlesworth just shook his head. “Captain Churchill is a queer fellow, but one can’t deny he’s got the right sort of fighting spirit we need.”

  “Did you know there’s a bet going on amongst the men as to whether he’ll actually feather a Jerry with that antique?” Lynch asked.

  Charlesworth gave out a laugh. “Put me down for five quid. I say he’ll plant one in a Hun brisket the first chance he gets.”

  Soon enough the two men found themselves walking into the main hall of Kelburn Castle, seat of Clan Boyle since the 12th century. Polished hardwood furniture and masterfully crafted stonework greeted them as they ascended a flight of stone steps, passing gilt chandeliers and beautiful tapestries along the way. Although the castle might seem small and austere by continental European standards, Lynch was always mesmerized by the weight of authority and power that emanated from the castle walls. More than seven hundred years of history surrounded him, and all of it for nought, he reminded himself, if the blitzkrieg made it to the British Isles.

  Charlesworth led him to a library deep within the third floor of the castle. It was not particularly large, more of a study really, with several sitting chairs, a fireplace, and a small roll-top desk in the corner of the room. A low coffee table sat between two of the chairs, occupied by a silver tea set, a pair of cups and saucers, and a tray of small biscuits. In the room, Lynch discovered Colonel Durnford-Slater standing over by one of the windows, looking out over the estate. Another man, elderly but with the poised look of a gentleman, sat in one of the chairs and nibbled at a biscuit while reading a typed sheet of paper, presumably taken from the folder sitting across his lap. The old man noticed them arrive and turned to Durnford-Slater.

  “Ah, John, the boys have arrived.”

  Durnford-Slater turned around. A pleasant man in his early thirties, the colonel was tall and fit, with a slightly receding hairline and a small, trim moustache. Lynch and Charlesworth gave him a brief salute, which the colonel returned.

  “Ah, Lynch, there you are. Thank you Charlesworth, please go fetch yourself lunch, I’ll send for you in a bit. Lynch, have some tea and a biscuit.”

  Lynch glanced over at Charlesworth, whose only reaction was the briefest raising of an eyebrow before turning and closing the library door on the way out. Seeing no other choice in the matter, Lynch walked over, nodded to the elderly man, and helped himself to a sugar biscuit. The man gestured to the other chair next to the table.

  “Sit down young man, have a cup of tea.”

  “Thank you, my lord,” Lynch replied.

  “You hear that John? ‘My lord’ he says. Keen fellow you have.”

  “Corporal Lynch distinguished himself at Arras, Lord Pembroke. Fought off German skirmishers with nothing but a pocket pistol and rescued his captain, who was wounded and unable to escape with the rest of his company. Mentioned in dispatches, Military Medal. We didn’t see a lot of those pinned to the chests of men coming back from Dunkirk.”

  Lord Pembroke nodded and glanced down at the paper in his hand.

  “It says here your specialty is ‘Weapons’. I thought that was part of every Commando’s training.”

  “I have been trained in a variety of weapons and weapon types, my lord. Especially enemy support arms, such as MG-34s, mortars, anti-tank guns, and artillery. Commando troops are light infantry, so being able to employ captured armaments is a useful skill to have,” Lynch explained.

  “You were also picked to go on the Guernsey and Lofoten raids, I see. You seem like a man well-suited to action. Tell me young Thomas, why did you join the Colonel’s Commando troop?”

  “I wanted to be back in the fight as soon as possible, my lord.”

  “And have you found yourself...back in the fight, as you put it? Be honest boy, John won’t take offense to anything you have to say.”

  Lynch glanced at the colonel, who nodded.

  “No my lord, I haven’t. I understand the mishaps at Guernsey and I know Lofoten was an important mission for the war effort, but I’m a fighting man, and I want to fight, not sail around blowing up fish oil. Begging your pardon, colonel.”

  “No need, Lynch. You’re an eager lad who wants to get stuck in, there’s nothing to apologize for with that spirit,” Durnford-Slater replied.

  Lord Pembroke pulled another sheet of paper from his folder and scanned the page.

  “As best as the War Office can tell, your family has fought for the English for a number of generations. Your father was in the Royal Ulster Rifles, correct?”

  “That’s correct, my lord.”

  “You may even have an ancestor who marched against Napoleon?”

  “Several more than likely, my lord.”

  Lord Pembroke looked at Lynch over the rims of his spectacles.

  “But your father was killed by Englishmen during the Rebellion. How do you feel about the English, my boy? Doesn’t it bother you to fight for the government that killed your father?”

  Lynch tried to keep himself calm. “My personal feelings in such matters aren’t of any importance, compared to the war effort. I may disagree with the government on many thing
s, but no one can deny the threat of the Nazis.”

  Lord Pembroke chuckled. “Did you hear that John? The boy could take my place at Parliament with that speech.”

  “Most eloquent, Lord Pembroke,” the colonel replied.

  “It says here,” Lord Pembroke continued, “that after your father was killed, your mother was arrested, and you were sent to an orphanage, raised as a ward of the state until your majority, where you joined the Royal Irish Fusiliers. Got into a number of fights before you went into the army, didn’t you? Bit of a trouble-maker? Or just restless?”

  “All of the above, I suppose, my lord. I like a good scrap.”

  Lord Pembroke chuckled again.

  “A good scrap, he says! John, the boy likes a good scrap!”

  Durnford-Slater gave Lynch a patient smile.

  Lord Pembroke took a sip of tea and nibbled on a biscuit.

  “Young Corporal Lynch, do you know where the Commandos trace their lineage?”

  “From the Boer guerrillas, my lord.”

  “Quite right son, quite right! I was in the army when I was your age, and we went up against those crafty fellows time and time again. Men would drop dead, shot through the heart or head, and we would go to give as well as we got only to find the bastards had melted away into the veldt. Never a stand up fight, and because of that, we would lose five or ten men for every one of theirs we’d manage to run to ground.”

  Lynch didn’t know how to reply. He had a bit of tea and ate a biscuit. Lord Pembroke leaned forward, hands on his knees, and looked at Lynch closely.

  “My dear boy, if we sent you fine young chaps against the Germans again and again, threw you against the walls of Fortress Europe, eventually there’d be nothing left of you. Britain doesn’t have an inexhaustible supply of talented young men such as yourself, and what few we possess, they take time to train, money to equip, space to bivouac, food to feed. You are a razor blade, a surgeon’s scalpel, meant to cut where even a shallow nick can bleed badly. We can’t take that scalpel and beat it against a breastplate, expecting to eventually slash through it; we’d wind up with nothing more than a dull sliver of metal. That is why we don’t just send you into a good scrap whenever we find one.”

  Lynch was growing frustrated. “Then my lord, what is the point? If I am a razor, give me something soft to cut. I need to get into the thick of it again, or I’ll start clawing at the walls like a mad dog!”

  Lord Pembroke sat back and crossed his fingers over the folder of papers in his lap. He looked to Durnford-Slater, who gave Pembroke the slightest of shrugs, as if to say, ‘all up to you’. Nodding, Pembroke turned back to Lynch and smiled.

  “Very well, boy. If it’s a scrap you want, by God, I’ll give it to you. As much as you can handle and more.”

  2

  Merlimont-Plage, France

  April 4th, 1941

  Hauptmann Hans Krieger was in love with the nation of France. He found Deutsche Bier made him bloated and gaseous, but French wine was pleasing to the palate and only a glass or two was enough to give him a peaceful mellow glow. He loathed wurst meats, he found cabbage atrocious, and the heavy black bread his mother used to make was like clay in his mouth. But the French...ah! The French! Pastries so light, food so delicate and savory. He had put on seven kilos in the last year, to the disapproving looks of his aide, Leutnant Bieber. The boy was young and foolish and over-disciplined, and didn’t yet understand that when a soldier is on campaign, it is his duty to himself to live each day as if it was his last.

  For Krieger, that meant plenty of French wine, plenty of French food, and most importantly, plenty of French women. Krieger even found the women of France to be superior lovers compared to the cold, austere frauleins of his homeland. This was in a large part due to his position as garrison commander in Merlimont, which meant, in practical terms, that he held the power of life and death over every person within his area of responsibility. If Leutnant Bieber informed a young lady that Krieger would very much enjoy the pleasure of her company that night for dinner “and other entertainments”, it behooved that young lady to show up on time and in her nicest dress. If not, she was in danger of her father, brother, or other family member being “caught” as a spy or saboteur. And once that happened, Krieger’s punishment for spies and saboteurs was short, swift, and assuredly terminal. These days, the young ladies never refused an invitation.

  Tonight Krieger lay in bed, the sheets kicked aside, and he sipped from a glass of brandy while smoking a French cigarette. The young lady he had picked for this evening, a sweet and savory wisp of a girl, was in the bathroom washing herself. Krieger smiled and took another sip of the smooth liquor. There was nothing like it in Germany, either. Schnapps was for riotous young men and bleary-eyed old goats. But brandy was the drink of a sophisticate, someone who understood the finer things in life. Someone like Krieger.

  He could hear the quiet sound of weeping coming from the bathroom. Disgusted, he slipped out of bed and padded naked to the balcony of his room. When he had arrived as commander of the garrison, Krieger had taken over this little seaside inn as his headquarters. It afforded him a wonderful view of the ocean and the beach, and the owner’s wife was an excellent cook. There was also a cool, refreshing sea breeze always blowing that felt wonderful on his naked skin after he had made love to a woman. Krieger might only be thirty-eight years old, but he had made love to many women over the years. Well, most of them in the past year, since his Wehrmacht regiment has swept through France like a cleansing storm, blowing away the pitiful French army and the naive Englishmen who thought their Expeditionary Force stood the slightest chance of standing up to the relentless war machines of the Third Reich.

  The door to the bathroom opened, and Krieger could hear the young girl hesitantly stepping up behind him. She was still weeping and sniveling, and although he always found their fear and their tears intoxicating before he took them, once he had exhausted his passions their cowering and weeping made him sick. Krieger simply waved his hand in dismissal; he heard the patter of the girl’s feet as she rushed to the door and fled the suite. No matter, for he had to meet with his Oberleutnant in the morning to discuss the rumors of more organized French resistance taking root in the area. Information was making its way back to him, hints and messages that a guerrilla leader of some persistence was setting up a base of operations nearby.

  That was not what concerned him. Farmers and butchers running around with hunting rifles and the occasional petrol bomb could be dealt with readily enough: line up a dozen civilians for every soldat killed, and riddle them with machine gun fire. If that didn’t work, use twice as many civilians and employ a flammenwerfer - a flamethrower - instead. Sooner or later, the petty uprisings would come to a halt.

  No, what worried him was the rumor that accompanied this news, the rumor that this guerrilla leader was seeking the aid of British Commando troops. Many of the Wehrmacht officers scoffed at the idea of British raiders scrambling about in Norway setting fire to fish oil and sinking rowboats, but Krieger wasn’t a fool. If the civilian populace of France came to believe that the British were coming to their aid, coming to French soil in strength to blow up bridges, disrupt supply lines and communications, assassinate German officers and supply resistance fighters with explosives and incendiaries, all in preparation for an Allied invasion...then there would be no end to the uprisings, no stopping the guerrillas no matter how many he sent to the wall.

  The dirty little secret of any occupying army was that you really couldn’t just kill all the locals; the Wehrmacht needed the French people to continue to grow grain, bake bread, milk cows, pluck chickens. You cannot hold a country as big as France, occupy it and guard its borders and its coastlines from an inevitable invasion, while at the same time using those same soldiers to till fields and tend livestock. If Germany was to hold onto its new-found territories, it needed to convince the cowed populaces that they were alone; no one was coming to save them, no one was going to drive the Ge
rmans out, and in the end, their only option was to bow down to their new Aryan masters and submit themselves willingly to the rule of the Third Reich.

  But that would never happen if the British came here and were successful. Which is why, if the British did land their Commando troops at Merlimont, Krieger would kill them all and throw their mangled bodies back into the ocean.

  3

  Boxhill, England

  April 7th, 1941

  The canvas-topped lorry bumped and jostled its way down the worn farm road, finally reaching its destination after two days of travel. Corporal Lynch sat in the bed of the lorry, his backside sore from seemingly endless hours perched on the hard wooden bench seats. He was one of ten men in the back of the lorry, all from 3 Commando, but the only man he knew personally sat across from him. Corporal Rhys Bowen was formerly of the Royal Welch Fusiliers, a sister regiment to his own RIF and another veteran of the British Expeditionary Force.

  Bowen was a keen marksman, and served in 3 Commando as one of its snipers. He was the only man in the lorry who was allowed to bring his service weapon; Bowen’s rifle case leaned against the seat next to him, one arm wrapped protectively around it to prevent the case from toppling when the lorry hit a rut. The weapon, Lynch knew, was an Enfield Pattern 1914 rifle, a design slightly younger than the Short Magazine Lee-Enfield (SMLE) carried by the BEF troops and the Commando riflemen. More carefully manufactured and built to far more precise tolerances than the SMLE, the Pattern 1914 was often employed as a sniper’s rifle, fitted with a telescopic sight or used with the rifle’s own superior iron sights, adjustable out to a staggering 1600 metres.