Approach by Stealth

By Cliff Hitchen

It’s 1942 and a fleet of German mini-submarines are loose in the Mediterranean wreaking havoc on Allied shipping, sinking urgently required supplies destined for Malta and Alexandria and the new invasion beachhead in Algeria, thus jeopardising the squeezing of Rommel out of North Africa.

Awaiting an ETA regarding a large American convoy, they are re-arming and refuelling at their base in Vichy France near the Spanish border.

Can the British commandos en route in motor gunboats reach the port in time to destroy the vessels or will they fall foul from information supplied by a suspected spy at the War Office in London and die like so many Special Operations Executives, agents and resistance fighters in various recent missions?

Perhaps the best chance of success lies with S.O.E.’s secretly arranged mission involving their French agent Pierre Duvalle, seconded to a special boat section of the Royal Marines and transferred by submarine to within striking distance with five experienced and lethally efficient men of that elite force. Three two-man folboat canoes would see them to their target.

But what does the informer in London know? Will Duvalle, who has a very sad and personal reason to see him exposed, find a chink in the spy’s armour?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Austin Macauley Publishers
• Release date: Oct 31, 2022
• ISBN: 9781528990295

Cliff Hitchen

Cliff Hitchen was born and raised in Merseyside. On leaving school in Huyton, he joined the Liverpool Daily Post and Echo in 1962, just as the ’60s music explosion occurred, which seemed to start in Liverpool, before rapidly spreading across the world. Cliff’s first inclination to write a novel was at the age of 13, but only got as far as the third chapter! However, he likes to travel, and the rekindled urge emerged on a visit with his late wife and three sons to Port Vendres, in France, on the Mediterranean coast, adjacent to the Spanish border. The embryo of Approach By Stealth became a reality when pen was put to paper on his retirement in Weymouth, where he now lives with his second wife.

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About the Author

Cliff Hitchen was born and raised in Merseyside. On leaving school in Huyton, he joined the Liverpool Daily Post and Echo in 1962, just as the ’60s music explosion occurred, which seemed to start in Liverpool, before rapidly spreading across the world.

Cliff’s first inclination to write a novel was at the age of 13, but only got as far as the third chapter! However, he likes to travel, and the rekindled urge emerged on a visit with his late wife and three sons to Port Vendres, in France, on the Mediterranean coast, adjacent to the Spanish border. The embryo of Approach By Stealth became a reality when pen was put to paper on his retirement in Weymouth, where he now lives with his second wife.

Dedication

To my family, both those I have loved and lost, and those I rely on for love and inspiration today.

Copyright Information ©

Cliff Hitchen 2022

The right of Cliff Hitchen to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by the author in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.

Any person who commits any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

ISBN 9781528990288 (Paperback)

ISBN 9781528990295 (ePub e-book)

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First Published 2022

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20230112

Chapter 1

Port-Ventris, South of France

September 2015

Brenda Smallwood eased herself onto the bench seat as her husband, Brian, walked the final hundred yards past the church of St Francis to observe the unloading of the small fishing trawler that had just tied-up at the end of the quay.

Aged 72 and not in the best of health, suffering breathing problems due to heart failure, she was there to fulfil a promise made to her recently deceased father. In 1943 during World War Two, whilst serving in covert operations within a secret canoe division, re-named after the war as Special Boat Service (SBS), her father, Graham was involved in one such mission to Port-Ventris Harbour. During a fierce retreating gun battle with the German garrison, his canoe partner, Terry, was killed and Graham vowed he would one day return to pay his respects at the place he had to leave his friend. He also pledged to take care of Terry’s sister with whom he was dating when leave time permitted. Graham married Babs on his next leave, which meant Terry would have become their off-springs uncle.

Brenda’s knowledge of the events regarding her relatives and their colleagues at Port-Ventris were sketchy but the plaque written in French on the church wall may cast some light and her husband had promised to translate it for her on his return. She closed her eyes and took in the warm sunshine.

Good morning, a priest said as he sat down beside her. She nodded her acknowledgment and smiled at the warmth in his soft Irish voice. A truly beautiful day. Do you mind if I sit with you? She’d not seen a full-length cassock on a priest for many a year and with his round, slightly tanned smiling face, his presence was comforting.

Not at all, Father.

The ‘Woman’s Own’ magazine in your bag gives you away, my dear. On holiday?

Sort of, and told him about her promise.

Yes, courageous men on a hazardous journey. As a priest I cannot condone all that happened but to be sure, it was for the better in the long run. It started in December 1942.

Chapter 2

Vichy France, December 1942

The thin slivered moon cast eerie shadows through the trees as six patriotic Frenchmen pressed through the pine forest. The cold, clear sky was a twinkling canopy of stars above them. A carpet of fallen leaves and pine needles spread out like flattened fern on a hillside cushioned their footsteps, and except for the occasional snap of a dried twig and the unintentional kick of the huge fir-cones, half the size of footballs that littered the ground, it was deathly quiet.

The warmth of the isolated woodcutter’s cabin seemed more than the hour it actually was behind them. Its location was deep into a forest in the South of France, about five miles from the Mediterranean Sea and a similar distance from the foothills of the Pyrenees mountain range that separated France from Spain. More of a refuge for forest workers than a dwelling; it contained two roughly made wooden bunks on a wooden floor with an iron-constructed wood burner that doubled up as a stove for basic cooking. It was barely big enough for two men, never mind the six who had taken turns in sleeping on the bunks and floor, snuggled into course blanket-made sleeping bags for the past ten days. Cramped and overbearing, they were glad to be on their way.

Pierre Duvalle, the leader, besides reconnoitring their target, had stocked enough food and drink for two weeks whilst he had waited for his colleagues to descend upon him from the German occupied region of Northern France. Even in Vichy, so called Free France, food was scarce and he had done well to accumulate his hoard without arousing suspicion from the local villagers living on the edge of the forest. Vegetables and fruit grown in the area he had bought from various farms, careful, for fear of raised eyebrows, not to deal with anyone more than once. Meat, because of storage problems he could not buy in the quantity required but to supplement the larder, the men later snared a few rabbits and stole two chickens from the roadside at the edge of a village, for which the culprits were severely rebuked by Duvalle.

No one had ventured near the cabin. No inquisitive people and certainly no German soldiers.

With the Allied invasion of North West Africa only a month before, German troops had been surging through Southern France to secure the Mediterranean ports and take possession of the Vichy French Naval Fleet that was anchored out of the war in Toulon, but naturally keeping to the main routes for speed, had posed no threat to Duvalle’s preparations.

Duvalle and his younger brother, Jean-Paul, also one of the group, knew this forest area well. When their wealthy parents died in a boating accident, they had left their home on the coast of Brittany and gone south to live with their maternal grandparents in Gien, a small and very old village five miles north of Port-Ventris and a few miles east of their present position, not far from a great bridge that spanned the ravine to provide the only good access into the port.

From the tender age of twelve and ten, the two boys had walked the foothills of the Pyrenees. They had fished and swam in the waters of the Mediterranean and listened to tales of the sea from fishermen mending their nets in Port-Ventris harbour. On two or three occasions, they went out collecting lobster pots with one fine old fisherman. All in all, despite losing their parents, they enjoyed their adventurous teenage years as good friends as well as brothers in a loving home.

At school-leaving age, Jean-Paul, despite the money left by their parents, was content to become an assistant to his grandfather in the family blacksmith business but Pierre was more academic, with itchy feet and wanted to move away and saw languages as the key. Besides their native French, both boys spoke German from childhood, firstly through their mother and latterly their grandmother, who was a Berliner that met her French husband before the Great War. Pierre’s ambition was twofold, to improve his English, which he had studied at school and also learn Spanish. To accomplish his wish, he felt travel was necessary and so with the political unrest in Spain which would eventually result in civil war, he chose England as the safer option.

With help from his Liverpool-raised English tutor, he sourced accommodation and twelve months private English tuition which put him in good stead to secure a two-year place at Liverpool University where he obtained an Honours Degree in Spanish.

During his three-year spell in Liverpool, he did return to home on a few occasions to see his family, the last visit sadly to attend his grandmother’s funeral. Her death, the grandfather believed hastened by the tragic events unfolding in Germany, and her fear of its escalation across European borders causing the prejudice and hate she’d witnessed throughout the First World War some twenty years earlier.

So, Pierre returned to England where his multilingual status earned him a warm welcome at the French Embassy in London as an interpreter for visiting dignitaries, and whilst translation of some very boring letters was his brief, he also on occasion dealt with some highly classified documents.

Pierre was happy, now aged 24, well paid, tall, broad shouldered with fair hair and piercing blue eyes, he enjoyed life in England, even to the extent of enjoying a pot of tea and of course dining in fine restaurants and theatre visits with attractive lady friends – life was good, until two years later, Britain declared war on Germany and he was transferred to Paris in The Office of Foreign Affairs. However, with the occupation of France by the Germans, this was short-lived so he, with a handful of other men, went underground in the hope of achieving something positive in defiance of the invaders. Alas, without equipment or experience in these matters, the benefit of their local knowledge was of little use, so he decided, with the help of a fisherman in Le Touquet, to get back to England to make contact with a friend he hoped could possibly assist them.

Fortuitously at this time, Winston Churchill had ordered the formation of ‘Special Operations Executive’, a department that was to specialise in the recruitment and training of people to engage in guerrilla warfare in German occupied countries and Duvalle, with the help of his friend David Beresford, was enlisted and sent to various private Stately Home Estates around England, training grounds for agents, where he learnt the art of weaponry, explosives, sabotage and communications.

On his return to France, by parachute much to his horror, he formed his own section of men and became extremely proficient in the art of sabotage in the Paris region. Railways, bridges, roads and buildings were targeted and on occasions, isolated troop vehicles, which unfortunately often brought serious reprisals from the occupying forces.

Only four men now remained in Duvalle’s section, two Parisians, Denier and Albert with David and Rene formerly of Normandy, but like the original eighteen operating in small groups under his leadership, for security reasons, none knew each other’s background or family. Because of the nature of their clandestine activities, some had been killed, though fortunately none were captured by the Gestapo, the hated German Secret Police, so no information about the section had been extracted, yet it was alarming that on occasion, particularly with special targets indicated by London, the Germans seemed to be aware, possibly pre-warned of impending resistance activity and Duvalle was becoming suspicious. At first, he thought it was just bad luck, but to lose fourteen men in three separate raids he felt was more than that.

The four, in their late twenties, had all volunteered from diverse occupations, a plumber, electrician, newspaper reporter and a printer and now, following recruitment by Duvalle shortly after his return to France, had become highly skilled in a new deadly, covert activity. They moved cautiously on behind him and his brother. Jean-Paul was not supposed to be on the raid but had persuaded his elder brother to let him tag along and Pierre, thinking that in this new area there was very little chance of any trouble, believed the experience would be good for him. At only a couple of inches shorter than Pierre, he was certainly big and strong enough, particularly with the long hours spent at the anvil.

The ground became a little rocky as the forest thinned out with sporadic trees offering virtually no cover at all. There shouldn’t be anybody about to see them but vigilance was essential. Jean-Paul in particular was nervous, as this was only his second positive action against the German occupation. His first was to bring south to the woodcutter’s cabin, the requisite weapons and explosives via country routes avoiding the Vichy border guards. The others travelled openly, albeit with false documents, safely and individually by train to Toulouse where they were met by Pierre Duvalle.

The woodland was well behind them now as they edged cautiously across an open meadow, which stretched to a gentle sloping vineyard overlooking the river that flowed beneath their target – the bridge providing the only rail and road access to Port-Ventris.

Near the bridge, the ravine was craggy and difficult to descend, and Duvalle knew that the only possible approach would be a mile trek from the corner of the vineyard, along the riverbank cluttered with rhododendron bushes and huge rocks which had in times past tumbled down from above.

Had it been June; the group would have been a great deal warmer and less conspicuous amongst the foliage of well-laden vines, but mid-December offered no such benefits as they padded their way between the thin stalky rows. This mission could not wait one month, never mind six for the luxury of cover.

At the edge of the vineyard they stopped and crouched down. There in the distant dim moonlight, they could see the bridge for the first time. Two great towers with a sixty-yard span between which supported the narrow road and a single-track railway line.

Beautiful and peaceful, with the calming sound of rippling water in the shallow river as it brushed over partially submerged rocks on its way to the sea, and the occasional hoot of a distant owl. Happily lost for a few moments in this idyllic paradise, until a sudden screech, possibly from some unfortunate nocturnal creature meeting its demise broke the calm and prompted a fearful sense of foreboding in each man’s mind.

Their hearts were pounding furiously. It was just them and the bridge now, nothing else mattered, and it stood menacingly before them – just one mile to go.

Right, check your weapons and kit, instructed Duvalle.

It won’t take long to check this one, Jean-Paul complained looking at the Enfield .38 calibre revolver in his hand.

You’ve never used a machine gun before so they’re best left with those who have. And besides, you’re not supposed to be here, remember! So, stay by me and no heroics. Your job is to keep watch while we set the charges. Now, all of you listen. See that large rock on the rising ground by the riverbank? Keep to the left of me at that point, as there’s a crevice, which could be quite nasty if anyone stumbles into it. Any questions?

I could do with a pee, John-Paul said.

Good idea. And everyone urinated. From now on, no talking. You all know what to do, so let’s do it.

The riverbank was easy to walk along but they felt terribly exposed despite clumps of the evergreen bushes and isolated rocks. In single file, about five yards apart, they edged along toward the rising ground and the rock formation, which was much bigger than imagined when viewed from the vineyard.

When Duvalle reached the summit of the hill by the great rock he signalled with his arm and they all dropped to the ground. They crawled up and peered at the magnificent sight of the towering cantilever bridge before them which, like the rock beside them, was magnified beyond belief.

Denier whispered to Duvalle, Hell’s teeth, it’s bloody huge! I hope you’ve got your calculations right.

It’ll blow alright, we only need to take one tower out. Now keep quiet, Duvalle said as he raised his binoculars to scan the bridge for sentries. Looks like it’s still two at each end. Right, let’s go and stay to my left.

And so, they crept over the crest and started down the other side.

Jean-Paul took the first burst full in the chest and slammed into his brother knocking him headlong against the rock to his right.

The tripod-mounted Spandau machine gun swept to the right away from Duvalle and annihilated the remainder of the group, cutting them down from fifty yards before they could return fire. The noise was deafening and almost as soon as it started, it was over. The quiet that followed was equally frightening to Pierre Duvalle who had escaped with a cut head from the rock and a bullet which had passed through his brother and lodged in the fleshy part of his upper arm.

He lay there, completely stunned in the crevice where he had fallen. His weapon, knocked from his grasp lay on the ground about ten feet above him. Racked with pain he tried to climb up but on hearing German voices, pressed his body further into the rocky fold.

The voices became louder and clear as the ambushers approached the killing ground.

On your feet. Get up and raise your hands, said in a mixture of German and French.

Wriggling even further into the haven that, with the help of his brother’s hurtling body, had saved his life, he waited, wondering if they had seen him and were calling to him, or had anyone else survived the fearsome onslaught?

They’re all dead, Herr Major.

How many?

Five.

Check the weapons.

I have already. Five machine pistols, Sten guns I think the British call them and one revolver.

That’s six. Are you sure there are no more men?

We’ll look around but I can’t see anyone surviving from that range.

Yes, I agree. Don’t bother, it was supposed to be five of them anyway. You can come back in the morning to clear up and look around in daylight. I’ve spent enough time down here waiting for these bastards to turn up.

Chapter 3

London, December 1942

Relatively bomb proof, two floors below ground level in a government building opposite St James Park and just a short walk from Downing Street, a cluster of offices housed the ‘think tank’ of the war – the Cabinet War Rooms.

Stella Barron tapped on the heavy oak door of the primary meeting room with her shoe and put a tray of tea down on the heavy oak table which dominated the small, dimly lit space. A brass chandelier hung down providing some light. Picture lights on the two longer walls illuminated huge maps, one portraying the whole of Europe, the other the theatre of war in the Far East. The fireplace on the shorter wall between them, and facing the only door into the room looked as if it was never used, and equally so, the neatly positioned mixture of leather-bound books on the shelves either side of it looked too tidy. From his portrait above the mantle-piece, King George VI presided over all as Stella served the tea to each of the men sat in six of the fourteen leather seated oak chairs around the table.

Mr Churchill’s chair was unoccupied today but he was very well aware of the gathering. He had given specific instructions to the Foreign Minister and Lord Mountbatten who was Head of Combined Operations, to delegate a suitable candidate to organise a plan of action to combat a problem recently discovered – midget submarines operating in the Mediterranean Sea.

Brian Herbert, ruggedly handsome with fine white hair and smartly dressed in a charcoal grey suit, was a man in his mid-fifties and chaired the meeting whilst peering over the top of tiny reading glasses perched on the end of his nose. He had, for three years before the outbreak of war, been the British Ambassador in Berlin and his secretary, Stella Barron was also with him there.

Mr Herbert knew personally two of the five officers sat before him, as his role as Second in Command of Combined Operations had taken him in close association with Special Operations Executive (SOE) and the Royal Marine Commandos on numerous occasions.

Stella, the only other civilian beside Herbert working at the War Rooms, was not really just his secretary as she also worked in liaison with other officers, where her secretarial skills were much appreciated. She was also very pretty with shoulder length blonde hair, penetrating blue eyes and high cheekbones that seemed to emphasise the beautiful shape of her lips. Tall and wonderfully slim, her shapely 38-year-old body even looked good in the not so elegant brown two-piece suit she wore for work in the office. A permeating fragrance accompanied her.

Stay in please, Stella. I want you to take minutes.

Certainly, sir. She excused herself briefly, returned with a note pad and pencil and sat down at the end of the table nearest the door, just to the rear and one side of Mr Herbert who continued.

Firstly, before I tell you the purpose of our meeting, I would like you, for the benefit of those not acquainted, to introduce yourselves to the chair, starting on my left.

They did so.

Commander David Beresford, Special Operations Executive (S.O.E.)

Captain Ian Phillips, RMBPD Royal Marine Boom Patrol Detachment – a special boat section from the Royal Marines using two-man canoes known as folboats.

Wing Commander Trevor Smyth, RAF Special Duties Squadron.

Major Neville Hastings, Royal Marine Commandos.

Captain Brian Jones, Royal Navy.

Now to the point, gentlemen. After a sticky time in the Atlantic we are at last getting the upper hand against the U-Boats. A great many have been sunk or damaged with depth charges because of improved sonar technology and greater experience with search patterns amongst the escort ship captains. The RAF has played their part as well.

As a result, we are getting more tonnage through to their destination, especially as the convoys now are much larger, because we’ve learned that the losses are about the same regardless of convoy size anyway. So, what’s the problem you may ask? The problem is, gentlemen, we are getting ships into the Mediterranean, not only to Malta and Alexandria but also to support the landings of ‘Operation Torch’ in North West Africa and the most important ones like oil tankers are being picked off by a new menace – Midget Submarines. And believe me, gentlemen, these really are a bloody menace. They pose a serious threat to our supply lines and in particular to a massive American convoy due to sail through the Strait of Gibraltar in four weeks’ time carrying desperately needed supplies for the North Africa campaign. Without them, we could lose our foothold there and the opportunity to invade Europe via Italy from the African ports.

What do we know about these vessels? asked Jones, the naval captain.

They’re about thirty feet long, two-man crew and carry two, twenty-one-inch torpedoes. So small they’re difficult to detect and they just slip in amongst the convoy, pick out their target and bugger off. To my knowledge, we haven’t hit a single one yet and they are wreaking havoc.

Are they fast?

Speed doesn’t come into it. They are towed in threes, usually by an E-Boat, to probably within fifty miles of their operational area and then they set their course of interception, fire both tubes and disappear, obviously a lot quicker on the run because they’ve lost half the weight. We never get to see them and it seems that they return to base under their own steam so they must have a range of 350–500 miles.

Do we know how many there are and where they operate from? asked Major Hastings of the Royal Marine Commandoes.

Port-Ventris, South of France, chipped in Commander Beresford of SOE indicating with a pencil the position on the wall map, "and