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Now Destroy

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St Pierre is the most outlying of the Channel Islands and fourth in size. During the eighteen-fifties the British Government, alarmed by the development by the French of a strong naval base at Cherbourg, embarked on a plan which was designed to make Alderney into the Gibraltar of the North. Most of the workers imported to labour on the fortifications were Irish fleeing the effects of the famine in their unhappy country.

A similar scheme, though on a less ambitious scale, was mounted in St Pierre. A breakwater was constructed to enlarge the harbour at Charlottestown and four naval forts were built at various points on the coast.

The labour force, as far as St Pierre was concerned, was imported from South Wales which explains that strange mixture of Welsh and French and English to be found on the island and accounts for the fact that my father, and I following him, had a name like Owen Morgan although my mother, God rest her soul, had been born Antoinette Rozel and spoke French for preference to me until the day she died.

Standing there now on the Lizard cliffs, I stared out to sea south-west to Brittany beyond the horizon, to the Golfe de St Malo and St Pierre and for the briefest of moments, a fugue in time, I saw the grey-green island again, those granite cliffs splashed with bird lime, sea birds crying, wheeling in great clouds, razorbills, shags, gulls, oyster-catchers and my own especial favourite, the storm petrel. And there was laughter, too, faintly on the wind and I seemed to see again a young girl, skin browned by summer’s heat, long hair flying as she ran from the barefoot fisher boy. Simone. I could almost reach out and touch her.

Instead, a hand on the arm brought me back to life. I turned and found Henry at my side, a slight, quizzical frown on his face. ‘Will you go, Owen?’

For five and a half years I had done this man’s bidding, had lived in constant danger of my life, had lied, cheated, killed, murdered, until my very nature seemed to have changed. After that final bloody business in the Vosges Mountains, the eight-day battle with crack SS fighting troops that had left me maimed for life, I had thought such days over, gone for ever. And now, my heart was beginning to pound, my throat to go dry.

‘I’m going to tell you something, Henry,’ I said, and when I lit a cigarette, my hands were trembling. ‘I’ve been lying here in the sun for some considerable time now, trying to write and failing, trying to love one of the finest women I’ve met in my life and failing at that also. I’ve got a good friend up the road who supplies me with all the pre-war Scotch I can drink, but I seem to have lost my taste for it. I slept better on the run in France, in the blackest days of ’41, than I do now. Would you say that any of that made any kind of sense at all?’

‘My dear Owen, it’s quite simple. You enjoyed every single minute of it. Walking the knife-edge between life and death was meat and drink to you. You have lived more in one day working for me, really lived with action and passion as a man should, than you could have in a lifetime of writing bad poetry and popular novels. That’s why you will go to St Pierre now. Because you need to go. Because you want to go.’

And at that he had miscalculated, had gone too far and I shook my head. ‘Like hell, I will, Henry, and there’s damn all you can do about it.’ I tapped my eye patch. ‘Medically unfit for further service. You even got me a civil list pension. Send our American friend. It’s more his style.’

He produced a buff envelope from his inside pocket, took out a letter and handed it to me. ‘I hope you’ll find that explicit enough. When I discussed it with him, I did point out that there was always the possibility you might feel you’d done your share.’

The letter was from Downing Street, hand written and bore the usual signature. It informed me that I was returned to the active list forthwith and must consider myself to be under the order of Section D and Professor Henry Brandon in connection with Operation GRANDE PIERRE. A nice touch that for Grande Pierre had been my field name in the Vosges. The letter was stamped Action this day.

So that was very much that. I held the letter up. ‘The first personal one he ever sent me. Can I have it?’

He took it from my fingers. ‘Afterwards, Owen, when you come back.’

I nodded and sat down on the rock beside him again. ‘All right, Henry, you’d better tell me about it.’

‘According to our information, the island’s been reasonably heavily fortified,’ Henry said. ‘There was at one time a garrison of something like sixteen hundred, but during the last couple of years, it’s been drastically reduced. The airstrip never amounted to much and after it had been bombed half-a-dozen times, they abandoned it and withdrew the Luftwaffe personnel.’

‘What about the Navy?’

‘They tried to use it as an E-boat base for a while, but it never really worked out. I don’t need to tell you how dangerous those waters are and the tides are a law unto themselves. Plenty of times the harbour is completely unusable so the Navy pulled out as well, although they use it on occasion. That left mainly Artillery units and Pioneers.’

‘How many now?’

‘We think six hundred. Mainly old men and young boys. Things have changed since that glorious romp through France in 1940.’

‘How many islanders?’

‘Apparently you can pretty well count them on the fingers of one hand. Most of the population, as you know, chose to be evacuated to England in 1940 just before the occupation.’

‘Sixty or so stayed,’ I said. ‘Including the Seigneur and his daughter.’

‘Ah yes, Henri de Beaumarchais. He’s dead, it seems. Killed in the naval bombardment.’

I stared at him blankly not quite taking it in. ‘Dead – Henry de Beaumarchais? What naval bombardment?’

‘Ours last year. They had a go at the harbour from three miles out. His daughter is apparently still there, but almost everyone else was moved out six months back. I’m really not quite sure why she hadn’t gone with the others, but there it is.’

‘She will be Seigneur now,’ I said. ‘Lord of St Pierre. They had a woman once before, back in the thirteenth century. She used the male title. Simone will do the same. She has a great respect for tradition.’

I thought of her for a moment, out there beyond the horizon in the old manor house that had been the Seigneurie for untold generations. It had been a long war. She must have been lonely. Lonelier still, now that her father was gone.

It was almost five years since I had seen her. On a dark night in July, 1940, to be precise, a fortnight after the German occupation of the Channel Islands. I had gone in by submarine and landed from a rubber boat at La Grande Bay at the eastern end of the island. It had been as abortive a business as most similar exploits were at that time. I’d seen Simone and her father at the Seigneurie and discovered there were no more than two hundred Germans on the island. I was to be picked up a couple of hours before dawn and had begged them to come with me. They had refused, as I had known in my heart they would, but Simone had insisted on accompanying me to the beach. I remembered that now, and her face a pale blur in the darkness.

‘The thing is,’ Henry said, ‘we’re losing rather a lot of ships in the Channel area, starting six months ago. The same time most of the remaining population was evacuated, you’ll notice. Quite a shock when we discovered what it was.’

‘Secret weapons at this stage of the war?’

‘Good God, no. We knew about this thing as long ago as Anzio. The Germans were late getting into the underwater sabotage field of things with frogmen and so on. Rather surprising when you consider the Italians really started it all. Anyway, they did come up with a lethal little item called Nigger which they used with some success at Anzio.’

‘And now they’re trying it in the Channel?’

‘That’s about the size of it. All they’ve done is take a normal torpedo, scoop out the warhead and fix controls. There’s a glass cupola to protect the operator who sits astride the thing with a live torpedo slung underneath. The general idea is to point it at the target, release the second torpedo at the last minute and try to swerve out of the way.’

‘And where did they get the men to play that kind of game?’

‘The Brandenberg Division mainly. They seem to have provided the nearest thing the Germans have to our own Commandos. Some are survivors of Otto Skorzeny’s Danube group. Those frogmen of his gave the Russians hell up there.’

‘And you think they’re operating from St Pierre?’

‘Until three weeks ago at least.’

‘You’re certain of that?’

‘We’ve got someone who was there until then who says so. A man called Joseph St Martin. Turned up on the French coast near Granville in an open boat. Says he knows you.’

‘Oh yes, he knows me all right.’ I touched the bridge of my nose gently where the bone showed crooked. ‘He broke this for me when I was fourteen.’

‘Did he then?’ Henry said softly. ‘As a matter of interest, I’ve got him up at the house now.’

I frowned. ‘You’re moving fast aren’t you?’

‘No other choice. You must go in the day after tomorrow. The Navy tell me that if we miss that particular tide, conditions won’t be right for another three weeks.’

‘Let me get this straight. The general purpose of this affair is for me to get ashore, find out as much as I can about the Nigger operation and get off again, presumably during the same night?’

‘That’s about the size of it. I’m hoping the information St Martin can give you will help you to find your way about. There are still people on the island you could contact. Miss de Beaumarchais, for example.’

I sat there frowning as I tried to take it all in. ‘And you really think that this is important, Henry, at this stage in the war?’

He held up the famous letter. ‘The Government evidently does. If the Germans decide to fight in the Channel Islands instead of surrendering, this Nigger installation could wreak havoc with the ships of any invading force.’

‘And what about Fitzgerald? Where does he fit in?’

‘He’s a good man, Owen. Decorated three times. He’s been on the staff of the 21st Specialist Service Raiding Force for the past couple of years. They’re a mixed bunch. American Rangers, French and British Commandos. They specialize in small boat work, underwater sabotage and so on. Fitzgerald has raided across the Channel on twenty-three separate occasions.’

‘Are you including the time they blew up the empty lighthouse in Brittany and all those landings on uninhabited islands off the French coast and deserted beaches where they never saw a soul and no one saw them or was that another unit?’

‘Now you’re being bitter again.’

‘Oh, don’t get me wrong. I’ve as much respect for the genuine Commando units as anyone. Those boys who just hacked their way through to Luneberg yesterday, for instance, but outfits like Fitzgerald’s are something else again. The nearest thing to private armies we’ve had since the Middle Ages, living off the fat of the land and operating out of country houses. Put them all together and what have most of these special service units really achieved?’

He smiled. ‘Well, for one thing, they’ve provided employment for some very awkward customers.’

‘Like the King of the first four hundred?’ I shook my head. ‘The family must be proud of him, fruit salad and all and still time for his Medal of Honour, don’t forget that. All right, tell me the worst. What’s he supposed to do?’

And I couldn’t believe my ears when he did tell me. Fitzgerald and five companions were to enter the harbour at Charlottestown in two-man Rob Roy canoes. The intention was to fix limpet mines on everything in sight and to get out again without being discovered.

‘For God’s sake, Henry, what’s the point? It’s raiding for raiding’s sake,’ I said when he’d finished. ‘They’ll be lucky if there’s anything in the harbour worth bothering with.’

‘Perhaps so and you’re entitled to think that if you want, but let me make one thing clear. Originally this wasn’t our party. Combined Operations are behind it. I only heard about it quite by chance and made immediate representation through channels. I thought of you, naturally, and your unique knowledge of the island and persuaded them to modify their plan.’

‘Well that was nice of you. May I ask who’s in command?’

‘You are by virtue of seniority, but no situation is likely to arise in which you need to exercise such authority. You will land alone and will have your own task to perform. Major Fitzgerald and his men will look after themselves.’

‘As long as he doesn’t start to hear bugles blowing faintly on the wind,’ I said. ‘He looks the kind who wants to die, sabre in hand, trailing clouds of glory if you ask me.’

‘Oh, I think he’ll be sensible. No intelligent man would want to put his head on the block at this stage in the war, would he?’

I laughed out loud – I couldn’t help it. ‘Your sense of irony always was one of your most endearing traits, Henry.’

‘Good, it’s nice to see you smiling again.’ He stood up and rubbed his hands together. ‘And now for a spot of the excellent lunch Mrs Barton and your daily were preparing when I was up there. She gave us forty minutes.’

‘Not me.’ I shook my head, ‘I’ll stay down here for a while, I want to think. One thing you can do – send down Joe St Martin. I might as well get that side of it over. He was never one of my favourite people.’

‘All right, Owen.’ He appeared to hesitate and had the grace to look ever so slightly ashamed as he took another buff envelope from his pocket. ‘You might as well have your D-Section Operation Order.’

I took it from him. ‘Made out in advance I see.’

‘I’m afraid so.’

‘Enjoy your dinner, Henry.’ I watched him go up the track and disappear over the brow of the hill before opening the envelope. Inside was a typical D-Section Operation Order, the entire business reduced to sparse Civil Service English.

Operation Instruction No D 103

For Lieutenant-Colonel Owen Morgan.

Operation: GRAND PIERRE

Field Name: Not necessary.

INFORMATION – Phase 1.

We have discussed with you the possibility of your landing on the island of St Pierre in the Channel Islands to obtain as much information as possible regarding the scope of the enemy project noted in files as NIGGER. You have made it clear that in your view, nothing prevents you from returning to this island which was originally your home.

We feel that information provided by Joseph St Martin should make it relatively easy for you to get in touch with sources on the island from which the information you seek may be readily available.

INFORMATION – Phase 2.

During the time that you are on the island, Major Edward Fitzgerald, Master Sergeant Grant, Sergeant Hagen, Corporals Wallace, Stevens and Lovat, will enter the main harbour at Charlottestown in three Rob Roy canoes with the intention of fixing limpet mines to any vessels they can find. This is the sole purpose of their mission and they must NOT repeat NOT attempt to land or provoke any incidents of a kind liable to alert the enemy to their presence.

In any circumstances calling for a drastic re-appraisal of the situation you, as senior officer, are considered to be in command.

METHOD

It is our information that under the provisions of Hitler’s Kommandobefehl, special service troops falling into enemy hands are still being executed, but we also know of instances where they have simply been put to work in chains. On balance, therefore, if captured, there is a better chance for survival as a soldier than as a spy. For this reason we have decided, in this instance, not to give you a cover story. You will use your own name and rank and identity discs will be provided.

You will be taken to St Pierre on the night of the 25th on MGB 109LT and off-loaded by surf boat at approx. 22.30 hours. Major Fitzgerald and party will be off-loaded half a mile off the harbour entrance at 23.00 hours.

You MUST repeat MUST be picked up first at approximately 02.00 hours and the other party will rendezvous as soon as may be with the MGB after that.

INTERCOMMUNICATIONS

There will be no W/T communication whatsoever. Hand-lamp signals only to be used during pick-up.

WEAPONS

At your discretion, but only that which you consider essential for hand-to-hand combat.

CONCLUSION

You have been sufficiently familiarized with the situation to realize the importance of this mission. Nothing should be allowed to prevent you from obtaining the information you are seeking and if the situation should warrant it, your own mission MUST repeat MUST take precedence over that of Major Fitzgerald’s to the extent of abandoning him and his men if necessary.

NOW DESTROY … NOW DESTROY … NOW DESTROY …

NOW DESTROY.

I struck a match, held it to one corner of the sheet and let it burn. It drifted to the ground and I stamped it to ashes, grinding it into the grass with my heel, then I went back down the track to the beach.

It was plain enough, including the juicy item about the Kommandobefehl, not that it bothered me particularly. My only question for the past five years had not been would they kill me when they got their hands on me, but how. For a memorable two days at Gestapo headquarters at II rue de Saussaies at the back of the Ministry of the Interior in Paris, I had thought my time was up but I’d played small fish and they’d fallen for it. Two days later, I’d jumped from a train taking me to Poland to labour for the Todt Organization along with thousands of other poor wretches.

I went down through the wire and walked along the sand to the water’s edge, thinking about it all, but mainly about Simone out there across the sea, alone in the old house in the hollow among the beech trees lonely from the beginning of time until now.

The line circled in my brain, no end to it. Lonely from the beginning of time until now. It was from a poem she was particularly fond of. Chinese originally and translated by Ezra Pound. By the North gate the wind blows full of sand. I stared out to sea, my heart and brain filled with memories of her and someone called out behind me.

Joe St Martin stood on the far side of the wire and waited and I called to him, ‘You’ve nothing to worry about – come on.’

He came reluctantly, treading on eggs for the first few yards, then seemed to get his confidence back all at once and came on at a quickened pace. He had five years on me, which would make him thirty-one or -two now, a big, boastful ox of a man. I’d disliked him all my life and he, in his turn, had always had a strange kind of contempt for me. Little Owen – little Owen Morgan, that’s what he had called me, his fingers twisted into my hair. Dance for us, then, little black pig. The Welsh side of him coming out in the famous old song.

And then, when I was fourteen, I caught him up on the top meadow, rolling in the hay with Simone who was doing her level best to put his eyes out. I hit him with everything I had and got a broken nose for my pains. Not a very gallant showing, but when he had gone, she cried over me and kissed me for the first time, which seemed to make up for everything. She was seventeen then, two years older than me and at that age it can seem an insurmountable gap normally, but from then on there was no one else in the world for either of us.

He was wearing a blue serge suit a size too large, a white polo neck sweater and army boots and the combination somehow made him seem clumsy and uncouth. He was frowning uncertainly and paused about five yards away. ‘Owen, is that you?’ I didn’t say a word and he shook his head in a kind of wonder. ‘A colonel they tell me you are.’

‘That’s right,’ I said.

He grinned suddenly, the same old familiar leering grin. ‘Little Owen – little Owen Morgan. I’d never have recognized you.’

‘Dance for us little black pig.’

The smile left his face and he stared blankly. ‘What’s that?’

‘Never mind,’ I said. ‘They tell me you were on the island till three weeks ago. Tell me about it.’

‘Not much to tell.’ He shrugged. ‘I saw my chance of skipping in a fishing boat and took it. I knew most of Brittany was in Allied hands now, see?’

‘How did you know?’

‘Ezra told me, Ezra Scully. Kept his radio right through the occupation. Listened to the BBC regular.’

‘I understand that most of the locals were moved to Guernsey six months ago?’

‘That’s right. It was after they went that the frogmen moved in.’

‘Why were you kept on?’

He shrugged. ‘They needed a couple of pilots for the harbour and the passage. You know what Le Coursier can be like. They was always losing boats, see.’

‘So they kept you and Ezra?’

‘That’s it.’

‘Who else?’

‘Jethro Hughes is still on his farm with his son, Justin. The Jerries need milk, just like anyone else. And old Doctor Riley – they’ve kept him ’cause they don’t have enough Army doctors to go round.’

‘And the Seigneur?’

‘Killed in the shelling last year, but she’s still there – Simone. She’s Seigneur now.’

‘Is that why they’ve allowed her to stay? Because she’s Seigneur?’

‘Maybe, I don’t know.’ He shrugged. ‘Whore would be a better name for her, her and her fancy man, Steiner. Seigneur? Jerrybag more like.’

My own voice, when I answered him, seemed to belong to someone else, to come from outside of me. ‘What are you talking about?’

‘Simone – Simone and this fancy man of hers – Steiner. A sergeant-major, that’s all he is, but they treat him like he was the Führer himself.’

‘You’re lying,’ I said.

‘Lying, is it? I’ve seen them plenty of times, I can tell you, and her posing for him with nothing on and there’s a sight for you, believe me.’ And then he remembered and a slow, sly grin seeped across his face. ‘I was forgetting, wasn’t I? You was sweet on her. Poor Owen – poor little Owen Morgan. You’d like to have a go at her yourself, eh? And I don’t blame you, boyo. By God, I could give her something to remember.’ He started to laugh and gave me the same old half-contemptuous dig in the shoulder I remembered so well from boyhood.

I slapped him hard across the face and my voice, when I spoke, was my own again. ‘People don’t really change, Joe, do they? You always had a foul mouth.’

He touched his face in astonishment, a kind of wonder there and then rage broke through like hot lava bubbling to the surface. He came in with a rush, intent on the kind of beating he had been fond of handing out in the old days.

But times had changed and if he hadn’t, Owen Morgan had. I didn’t give him any kind of chance. My right foot caught him in the groin, a blow that could have crippled him for life had I not been wearing rope-soled beach sandals. He doubled over with a cry and my knee lifted into his face, straightening him again.

He lay on his back, knees-up, writhing in agony and I squatted beside him. ‘Don’t look now, Joe, but I seem to have broken your nose.’

He glared up at me, hating still through the pain and I got to my feet, turned and found Master Sergeant Grant standing on the other side of the wire. When I got close enough he sprang to attention. ‘The lady sent me down, Colonel. She says if you want to eat, you’d better come now.’

‘Fair enough.’ I nodded towards St Martin who was sitting up, both hands between his thighs. ‘Stay with our friend there till he can walk, then bring him up. We’ve still some talking to do.’

His hand flicked up in a superb salute, his iron face showed nothing as he turned and went through the wire and I left him to it and started up the path.

I paused half-way, my heart pounding, but not from fatigue. Was it true? Could it possibly be true? No, I could never believe it – never. Hatred for Joe St Martin rose like bile into my mouth. I think if I had gone back to the beach I might have killed him then, for the black Celtic rage that was a heritage of the Welsh side of me took possession as it had done before on occasions of great stress. It required a real physical effort to keep me climbing up the track towards the house.

A Game for Heroes

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