3

‘We don’t stand on ceremony in the SBS,’ said Captain Magnus Larssen of L Detachment, SBS. ‘The chaps just call me skipper.’

Tiller studied Larssen discreetly. He was fresh-faced, fair-haired and looked appallingly young. But Tiller discerned there was something razor-sharp about him, too. Touch him and you’d cut your finger.

Tiller’s salute snapped up and down. He registered Larssen’s Scandinavian accent, the absence of any badges of rank on his blue shirt, the fact that his feet, clad in disgracefully dirty desert boots, were propped on the ramshackle table which he presumably used as his desk.

‘Yessir,’ Tiller replied loudly. Marines didn’t call officers by their nicknames. Especially scruffy army officers without pips on their shoulders, especially foreign-sounding officers, especially ones who had crossbows hanging on their walls. What was he, frigging William Tell or something?

Larssen’s eyes, a piercing, very pale blue, caught Tiller’s and bored into him. Tiller grinned lamely.

‘Good,’ said Larssen briskly, leaning forward to shake his hand. It was, Tiller couldn’t help noticing, like shaking a piece of particularly tough leather and the grip was vice-like.

‘So that’s settled, then. Sit down, Sergeant. Let’s have a gossip.’

Gossip? Tiller gingerly lowered his six-foot frame on to the edge of a rather rickety chair.

‘So,’ Larssen said softly. ‘You are Sergeant Tiller. I call you Tiger, is that right?’

Tiller nodded. He stifled the ‘yessir’ that was on his tongue, but he couldn’t bring himself to call this extraordinary individual ‘skipper’. He had too many other unusual things to get used to.

Tiller took off his beret and wiped his face. The tiny island of Castelrosso seemed hotter than Hades, hotter even than Athlit had been, and the crumbling house that Larssen had requisitioned as headquarters for L Detachment was like an oven.

‘I’m glad you catch up with us at last,’ said Larssen. ‘We were ordered to move quickly.’

Tiller had been travelling non-stop for five days. It felt like five years. At Athlit no one appeared to know where his detachment had vanished to, so they had sent him to the ‘Killer School’ for a refresher course while they tried to find out. The school was in the old police station in Jerusalem and was run by a major who wore two pearl-handled revolvers. Until he had shot the ace of diamonds out of a playing card at twenty paces with one of them Tiller had thought him a bit of a comedian.

When they still hadn’t been able to find his detachment they had sent him to Haifa on an aircraft identification course – why he never knew – but before he had had time to savour the delights of the city he had been bundled on to a plane bound for Akrotiri airbase in Cyprus, so he hadn’t even had time to collect all his new kit.

His one evening in Limassol had proved entertaining but abortive as, for some reason, the Turkish belly dancer had proved unresponsive to his approaches. Perhaps he was losing his touch. Then at dawn he had been flown to Castelrosso by a jovial RAF type in a captured Italian Cato floatplane which, with its load of ammunition and food supplies for the SBS, had seemed inordinately reluctant to become unstuck from the waters of Limassol harbour.

‘Underpowered,’ the RAF pilot had shouted cheerfully at him as they had bucked across the waves. ‘Bloody useless, really. Like everything Italian. Still, it’s better than warming a chair in some Cairo office.’

Tiller, who would not have minded being in Cairo at that particular moment, had shut his eyes. A fortune-teller Sally had taken him to had predicted he would have a watery grave, but he had never supposed his coffin would be a clapped-out Italian seaplane. He had never been more glad to step on to terra firma after the two-hour flight, even if it was a bare, hot, miserable rock like Castelrosso.

‘You know anything about the SBS, Tiger?’

‘Not much, sir. You were part of the SAS at one time?’

The forbidden sin had slipped out. Larssen scowled but let it pass. ‘That’s right. We were D Squadron SAS. In April, after Colonel Stirling was captured, we became SBS – Special Boat Squadron. Full establishment is three detachments each of seventy men and seven officers, but we are still recruiting. We’re part of what is known as Raiding Forces, controlled operationally by GHQ, Cairo. A few of the men served with Courtney in the Special Boat Service, but they’ve spent a couple of years attacking Kraut airfields in the desert, and have probably forgotten everything they learned. Anyway, techniques and equipment have changed. You will have to instruct Corporal Barnesworth, the man we have given you as your swimmer.’

‘Here?’ Tiller asked. He had already met Billy Barnesworth and had taken an immediate liking to the lugubrious, powerfully built guardsman.

‘Yes, here. We are ready to move but the navy takes a little longer to get ready. We’ll be here for a couple of days at least.’

A couple of days! He hoped Billy was a quick learner. To help him get the picture of how he might be used he asked what the SBS did exactly.

‘We were formed for raiding operations in the eastern Mediterranean. Quick in-and-out affairs to harass the enemy. Blow up a few ammunition dumps, cut a few throats. What Mr Churchill calls a “butcher and bolt” policy. You get the idea?’

A jolt of excitement ran through Tiller. ‘Sure,’ he said.

‘So we’ve been training in Palestine for the past few months to mount that sort of operation. But instead of jeeps taking us to our targets, as the Long Range Desert Group took the SAS, we have caiques of the Levant Schooner Flotilla doing the same job.’

Larssen pronounced the word ‘kayik’. Tiller shifted uncomfortably in his seat. He felt he was getting out of his depth, but Larssen quickly came to the rescue. ‘Caiques are the locally built sailing vessels for fishing and inter-island trade. They vary in size but the Flotilla’s are mostly between ten and thirty tons. They’re armed and have engines, but to the Krauts and Eyeties they look Greek or Turkish. Very useful.’

‘Useful?’ Tiller queried.

‘They just run up a Greek or Turkish flag. Then they are left alone. Very useful.’

And illegal, Tiller guessed.

‘You look doubtful, Tiger?’

‘Is that allowed?’ Tiller asked uncomfortably. Tasler had made his men learn all about the Hague Convention, which laid down the rules of warfare, in the hope that if they were captured they could argue their case with their captors. A fat lot of good it had done Dick and Terry: the Germans had shot them out of hand.

Larssen’s eyes opened wide and then he burst out laughing. ‘No, of course it’s not. The caiques also hide out along the Turkish mainland when necessary. That’s illegal, too, as Turkey is neutral. Does that worry you?’

Tiller shook his head. It didn’t worry him at all, but it confirmed his opinion that he had joined an unusual unit.

Larssen looked at the latest addition to his detachment with approval. He liked Tiller’s open face, his determined jaw, his movements, deft for such a large man. He could be a very useful addition. But Larssen wondered if Tiller would fit into the Special Boat Squadron, whose unofficial motto ‘sink or swim’ reflected not only the operational medium in which they were going to work but the individual nature of the way the unit operated. There was no one to tell an SBS man what to do. It was up to him. Individual initiative, it was called, and if he was unlucky, well, he sank alone.

Tiller, with his dark, short-cropped hair and immaculate uniform, looked to Larssen like one of the thin red line the British Army was so proud of. Brave, no doubt, and superbly trained to obey orders unquestioningly, but did he have the ability to act and think on his own? Larssen knew the task of the SBS wasn’t going to be about charging the enemy trenches with bayonets fixed, of bravery over and above the course of duty in the face of the enemy. On the contrary the SBS had to make sure the enemy was facing the other way so that they could be outmanoeuvred, bypassed, or simply stabbed in the back. The SBS was all about silent infiltration of the enemy’s position, not of storming it with banners flying, amid blood and guts.

How was he, Larssen, going to convey such a concept to this immaculately turned-out Marine who had obviously had centuries of tradition and discipline drummed into him?

‘I’d remove all that shiny brass if I were you,’ Larssen said in a friendly way. ‘We don’t have the spit and polish in this detachment.’

Tiller looked awkwardly down at the glistening globe and laurel badge in his blue beret, the gleaming brass of his belt, and the brilliant shine on his boots.

‘At Athlit there was only sand,’ Larssen explained. ‘Can’t parade on sand. So we didn’t try.’

He leant forward. ‘The first thing we always ask volunteers is whether they will jump. But I see you have already jumped.’

‘Jumped?’

‘A parachute course.’

Tiller grinned. ‘Oh, yes, that. I did it at Ringway.’ He now saw that Larssen wore the spread wings of a parachutist over his left breast pocket.

Larssen grinned back at him. ‘It’s a good way of sorting out the sheep from the goats. If anyone refuses we RTU them immediately. Not, I suspect, that we’re going to be doing any parachuting for the time being.’

‘So we’re here to raid?’ Tiller asked.

‘Castelrosso is our forward base,’ Larssen said. ‘But God knows what we’re doing here.’ He glanced at his watch. ‘The boss will tell us soon enough. Any other questions?’

Tiller hesitated. ‘Yes. What’s the crossbow for?’

Larssen glanced up at the wall behind him. ‘You have never used one? It is a wonderful weapon. Accurate, without noise, kills a man instantly if you hit him in the right spot.’

Tiller was intrigued. ‘You’ve used it in action?’

Larssen just grinned.

‘If it’s so effective, why aren’t all the special forces issued with them?’

Larssen sighed. ‘Ah, rules and regulations. Nothing but damned rules and regulations. They were used by the Carlists in the Spanish Civil War, you know. They killed quite a few Republicans on night raids using bows and arrows. I recommended to the bigwigs in London that they were used. You know what they told me? I couldn’t use it because it was an inhuman weapon.’

He bent forward again and his voice suddenly changed from being light-hearted, flippant, to one of great intensity. His blue eyes were like ice. ‘I tell you, Tiger, me, I have only one rule of warfare. You kill the other man before he kills you. You have killed a man, yes?’

Tiller shook his head. Larssen said softly. ‘But you know all the different ways because you went to the Killer School. But did they tell you where not to knife a German?’

‘No. I wasn’t there long.’

‘I tell you. With the German army uniform the water bottle is worn so that it protects the kidneys. Also, the braces, where they cross over, they protect the vulnerable part of the spine. So don’t try either place. Go for the subclavian artery. Here.’

Larssen pointed to his collar-bone. ‘You pull the man’s chin sideways and put the knife in here. He is unconscious in three seconds, dead in four. Silently. He drowns in his own blood. So when I can I use my knife. It’s quick and silent – and not classed as an inhuman weapon.’ He laughed lightly. ‘Tell me, what is a human weapon?’

He did not seem to expect an answer to that conundrum. Instead, he swung his feet from the table and stood up with a speed that surprised Tiller. ‘Come, I show you around before the boss’s briefing.’

‘Right, gentlemen.’ The thickset, donnish figure rapped the stick he was going to use as a map pointer lightly on the table before him. ‘I’ve not had time to meet any newcomers yet, so I’d better introduce myself. I’m your CO. Jarrett’s the name.’

Corporal Billy Barnesworth leant over and whispered in Tiller’s ear: ‘Major the Earl of, Sarge. Just in case you didn’t know.’

Tiller didn’t, but he was already sure he had joined a unit unlike any other. He was far from certain he was going to enjoy it. Captain Larssen’s appearance and demeanour had rather shaken him. His detachment officer had looked and talked – and no doubt behaved – more like a brigand than an officer of His Majesty’s armed forces. Billy was one of the few survivors in the Middle East of the Special Boat Section. He had informed Tiller he had been a professional swimmer before the war, but it hadn’t been Billy who had told Tiller that the guardsman was so at home in the water that he could eat bananas and drink beer while submerged. Quite how he managed this Tiller had yet to find out.

It was Billy who had also told him about Larssen, that he was a Danish merchant seaman who had escaped from his country to fight the Germans. ‘Don’t ask him why he hates the Germans so much,’ Barnesworth had advised him. ‘Otherwise he’ll give you a twenty-minute lecture on how the Danes lost Schleswig-Holstein to Germany in the Middle Ages. Just take it from me that he does.’

Barnesworth had added that, because of his knowledge of the sea, Larssen had somehow become involved in the pinprick cross-Channel raids during the early years of the war. He had been picked to ferry ashore members of the Small Scale Raiding Force on a Channel Islands raid in 1941 and had distinguished himself by covering the raiders as they had re-embarked. He had been commissioned more or less on the spot and had been in the special forces ever since. A good man, Barnesworth had said, but a bit of a head case. ‘He’s had no military training whatsoever.’

Tiller had looked dumbfounded. ‘None?’

‘None. He couldn’t march to save his life. But he knows more about weapons than anyone I’ve ever known. He’s apparently killed more Germans than the rest of us put together.’

‘Never been on a parade ground?’

‘Never. But he’s already got the Military Cross and bar. Not bad, eh, for someone who doesn’t know what “port arms” means?’

Tiller had looked surprised. ‘But he wasn’t wearing any ribbons.’

‘Nah,’ Billy had replied casually. ‘Our Magnus doesn’t bother about things like that.’

Jarrett tapped the map. ‘Here’s our objective. Or rather, here they are: the Dodecanese islands. Not far from the Turkish coast, as you can see. The population’s nearly all Greek, but the Italians were given the islands in 1919 after the Great War and they garrison them. However, Jerry has also set up shop on some of the strategically more important ones.’

He paused and a voice interjected from his audience: ‘We can take care of them, sir. No problem.’

Jarrett smiled. ‘Possibly. But as there are only about fifty of us at the moment I don’t propose a confrontation. No, our task is to secure the other islands and to persuade the Italians to help us defend them. We also have to mount reconnaissance patrols and set up a communications network to prepare the way for army units who will be sent in as proper garrisons. We’ll be ferried around by courtesy of the Levant Schooner Flotilla. Since they brought you here, they don’t need any further introduction from me. If the Italians co-operate I’m sure we can thwart any attempt by Jerry to take over the islands should he try to do so.’

‘But why should the Eyeties help us, sir?’ asked a voice from the audience.

‘We don’t want them on our side, for Gawd’s sake,’ said another man. ‘They’re much more useful to us fighting with the Germans.’

There was ribald laughter. Jarrett smiled and raised his pointer, but silence had fallen before it ever touched the table. ‘Anyone heard of the 10th Light Flotilla?’

No one had.

‘An Italian unit. Its men blew holes in our only two battleships in the Mediterranean a couple of years ago. Right under our noses in Alexandria harbour. It was the Italians who invented – and used – midget submarines in the Great War. And it was an Italian who first sunk a warship with explosives by swimming into the harbour where it was anchored. Don’t knock them. They can be as brave – and as foolhardy – as any of you lot. We are going to need them to secure these islands against the Krauts.’

There was a murmur of appreciation as this sank in. Jarrett decided not to dwell on the cowardice of Admiral Campioni, who earlier that morning had surrendered his 35,000 men to 10,000 Germans without firing a shot. Instead he just said briskly: ‘The bad news is that my mission to Rhodes failed. We have just heard that the island is now in German hands. This means that unless we can retake it quickly they will have three airfields at their disposal, though I doubt if they have either the aircraft or the fuel to make maximum use of them immediately.’

Jarrett paused while this piece of unpleasant news was digested. It was received in glum silence. Raiding airfields in enemy territory was what those present knew and did best, but obviously that was not what their CO had in mind now.

‘We have every reason to believe the Germans may try and seize the other islands, too, if they think they can get away with it,’ Jarrett continued. ‘So the good news is that my orders still stand. I therefore propose to send out preliminary patrols of three or four men to find out the disposition of the Italian garrisons. I shall be going to Leros in the north. We will land a couple of you on Stampalia, the most westerly of the group, to act as an observation post, and Captain Larssen will go to Simi, in the south. He will support any of the nearby islands which may have Italian garrisons on them. These patrols will sail tonight at dusk. The remainder of you will stand by to be ferried wherever you’re needed. You’ll be reinforced by some members of the Greek Sacred Squadron, who should arrive tonight.’

Tiller glanced at Barnesworth, who whispered: ‘Fancy name for a handful of Greek bandits Colonel Stirling picked up somewhere. They’re part of Raiding Forces now.’

‘Those of you who were with us in the desert will also be pleased to hear that our friends from the Long Range Desert Group, fresh from their Mountain Warfare course in the Lebanon, will also be joining us,’ Jarrett announced. ‘They will be working in the more northerly of the Dodecanese. Oh, yes, there’s just one more thing I should mention. Just to complicate things the Greeks, as you probably know, have several different guerrilla organizations. Andartes, we call them. The two main ones are ELAS – pro-Communist, anti-royalist – and EDES, which is apparently working with the objective of restoring the King of the Hellenes to his throne. The Allies have been trying to work with both, but they’re at each other’s throats as much as they are at those of the occupying forces. We have no idea which group might be working in the Dodecanese, or even if there are any there at all. Now, any questions?’

‘What’s the chance of a good scrap, sir?’ a voice asked from the back.

Jarrett smiled. ‘Pretty high, I’d say. Though quite who we’ll be fighting is another matter.’