SATISFIED THAT THE ROYAL NAVY, THE ROYAL MARINES, AND the Dartmouth cadets had things well in hand on the Paris, Major John Randal, Major Lawrence “Larry” Grand, and Captain Terry “Zorro” Stone decided to pay an impromptu call on the Surcouf to see how the boarding operation was going there. They had seen the French sub’s captain come on board the dreadnought hoping to confer with his admiral, only to be unceremoniously whisked off squawking like a startled chicken to a waiting truck. A trickle of prisoners from the submarine had already begun moving up the plank to the Paris. From all outward appearances, the seaborne assault party had been successful.
Everything on the French sub was quiet as the three observers worked their way down the plank from the Paris. They climbed up the conning tower ladder and went down into the command post. It was empty. From there they proceeded down the ladder to the wardroom, Major Grand leading the way.
Suddenly the intelligence officer pulled up short, exclaiming, “Bloody hell!”
Instantly Major Randal went from being a tourist to clicked on full. He stepped around Major Grand with his Colt .38 Super at the ready, conjured up as if by magic in both his hands, moving fluidly like a big stalking cat. What he saw was a massacre. Dead and dying men were strewn everywhere. At the sight of the armed Commando, the French sailors dropped their weapons, raised their hands, and promptly surrendered. For them, the war was over.
Captain Stone brushed Major Grand aside, his Colt automatic leveled. He moved up to where he could help cover the line of Surcouf men wedged in tight along the opposite side of the table. The Frenchmen had expressions on their faces that ranged from outright horror to what could best be described as the cat that ate the canary.
By now Major Grand had his Enfield .38 revolver out to back up the Raiding Forces officers, who to his mind had responded with remarkable sangfroid. The unmistakable sound of the slide on a pistol slamming into battery came from behind one of the two canvas curtains behind the captured Frenchmen. With two tiny compartments side by side in the immediate vicinity of the sound of the automatic being charged, it was impossible to tell which one contained a Frenchman with a loaded weapon. Major Randal made eye contact with Captain Stone and cocked his head toward one of the cabins; then he immediately moved around the table and prepared to step through the curtain of the other.
Without hesitation, Captain Stone pushed through the curtain and found a nightmare scene more macabre than the one in the wardroom. A wounded British sailor leaned against a bulkhead, bleeding from multiple head wounds. Another British sailor was frozen in death, lurching forward in the long thrust and hold position. He was clutching a rifle with his bayonet sticking into and protruding out the back of a dead French officer who had a startled look on his face. The French ship’s surgeon was trying frantically to reload his miniature little pocket pistol and making a bad job of it.
Again without hesitation, Captain Stone took one short step forward and slapped the doctor across the face with the flat of his Colt automatic, obtaining a most satisfying result. He would have preferred to use some of the exotic gutter-fighting techniques Captain William Ewart Fairbairn had taught them at the Special Warfare Training Center, like the “tiger claw” or the “thunder clap.” But since not one of Fairbairn’s hand-to-hand combat techniques involved holding a loaded pistol, he had had to improvise.
Just as Captain Stone struck the French surgeon, Major Randal stepped through the other canvas curtain to face three French officers with pistols drawn standing-to. If the trio were expecting a speech from him like Commander Sprague’s, they were badly mistaken. Major Randal did not speak French, he did not have a card to read from, and he did not care to make threats.
“Blammm, Blammm, Blammm,” the Colt .38 Super roared in the close confines, dropping all three armed officers to the ground before they got off a single round in return. “Blammm, Blammm, Blammm,” again, after the pistol-toting submariners were down. “Blammm, Blammm, Blammm,” to make absolutely sure they wouldn’t get up again. “The first rule is there ain’t no rules.” Major Randal said through clenched teeth, looking down at the dead men.
The French sailors covered by Major Grand in the wardroom visibly flinched at the roar of each gunshot. A flash lit up the draped compartment with the blast of every round. Then came the metallic sounds of the Raiding Forces officer leisurely changing the magazine on his weapon.
“Any of you other men,” asked Major Randal causually, ducking back out through the curtain, pistol in hand, “feel the need to defend the honor of France?”
Apparently not.
After that there was no more armed resistance on board the Surcouf. The price of glory has its limits.
“Events did not have to unravel the way they did,” Captain Stone commented as they made their way off the submarine. “A tragic waste of good men on both sides.”
“Even the French sailors agree the first shots should never have been fired,” Major Grand concurred; he was equally troubled by the carnage. “But then some of our survivors admit the Frenchmen were provoked. Why Commander Sprague chose to give his ‘shoot to kill’ order in French will never be known. What a debacle.”
“Once the genie gets out of the bottle in a gunfight,” Major Randal said, “it’s hard to put it back in.”