Forster Norway Mission

The Dark Mountain
1. Auflage 2014
ISBN: 978-1-4835-3790-0
Verlag: BookBaby
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: Adobe DRM (»Systemvoraussetzungen)

E-Book, Englisch, 165 Seiten

The story is set in Norway during WW2. A squad of army misfits have been sent under the command of their officer, an archaeologist in civilian life, to investigate strange events in a remote mountainous area. The Strategic Operations Executive section of British intelligence think it may be the Nazis continuing their efforts to develop an atomic bomb or something even more sinister. Their assignment is to ascertain what the threat is and report back. Aided by a mysterious Lapp shaman our heroes have to combat Nazis, Russians and dark, evil forces to try and complete what seems to be a hopeless mission.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Forster, Bill

Leseproben

Chapter Two Kirkenes Is The Most Heavily Bombed Area In Europe After Malta! (Apparently) What did happen next was a shock to both the squad and the Germans as mayhem erupted with the staccato sound of gunfire emanating from the area near the SS troops. There were mixed reactions from the two groups; the Germans soldiers although startled at the unexpected development did not panic. As veteran combat troops of many a fire-fight they unslung their rifles without delay and dropped onto one knee facing the conflict to present smaller targets to any potential enemy. Calhoun followed the Germans’ example reaching for a nonexistent weapon in the process, Sam threw himself flat onto the ground in panic and Alec, after a slight hesitation, ran towards the darkness of the nearest warehouse followed closely by Julian. Jessica was rooted to the spot in fear until Randi grabbed her arm and pushed and dragged her in the same direction. The firing continued for several seconds until it became obvious that no one was actually shooting at them and the German NCO came to a decision. “Hans, Klaus, you come with me. We will go and see what is happening. Josef, you make sure they get back on their boat.” Hans and Klaus did not seem too happy at this idea as it was much safer here where no one was actually shooting at them. On the other hand, if it was discovered that they were in the vicinity of the incident and did not make an effort to support the other Germans then they could be in serious trouble; at least this was the NCO’s reasoning. “Still,” he was thinking to himself, “we could move very slowly, perhaps it will have sorted itself out by the time we get there.” As the Germans moved away, maximising the cover of the warehouses, Calhoun looked down with some amusement at the prone figure of Sam and said, “Ye’d better get up laddie. I’m not sure but I think ye might just have scored a bulls-eye on that wee puddle of spit of yours!” “Aah knaar, yeh’re kidding me like!” Sam groaned as he cautiously lifted his head to see what was happening around him. Slowly he levered himself up looking at the ground as he did so and quickly realised that the spittle was in fact nowhere near him and he looked up into the grinning face of Calhoun. “Yeh knaa, yeh’re a right wind up merchant Sarge!” he said with a hint of ire in his voice, getting to his feet as he did so. “Oh it’s just a little bit of humour Sammy boy!” interjected Alec as he made his way over from the shadows. “What is this ‘Sarge’?” asked a questioning voice heavily accented but in quite passable English. There was a deathly silence as the squad members turned to the source of the question. The German, Josef, who had been left with the task of getting them back on the boat, was standing facing them with his rifle to his shoulder and very carefully swinging easily from side to side to aiming at each of the squad in turn to cover them in the most efficient way he could. It had not occurred to them that any of the Germans would be able to speak English, although it possibly wouldn’t have mattered as terms of rank would probably be knowledge to an enemy soldier anyway. Alec was the quickest to react to the sudden threat. As the German swung away from him he leapt forward and smashed a left hook into the side of his head. It was so quick the German did not react at all and went down with a thud to the ground as if pole-axed. Private Alec Jones was, as it happens, the best person to carry off this particular feat. Born into a family of dockers in Cardiff, he followed in what was in many ways a protected hierarchy for this profession as son followed father for generation after generation. It was a good life as the earnings for dockworkers were very good for the time plus there were additional perks which passed into their possession by accident and/or design from damaged crates and “spoilage”. The families of these workers could almost be classified in social and economic terms as middle class, though they would never see themselves in this category. No, they were working class and proud of it. He found quite early in life that he was very useful with his fists and his father made sure that he learnt the correct way to use them by way of training at the local boxing club. When he entered the docks at the age of fifteen he settled in quickly and for the next five years was content with his life. He continued boxing as an amateur and was the dock’s light-heavy weight champion; there was even an offer from a local agent for him to become a professional which he was thinking about accepting. This changed abruptly when he became smitten with a beautiful young girl who was travelling with a circus visiting the city. She was a trapeze artist and they became lovers; when the time came for the circus to leave Alec decided he had to go with them. The circus owner would only allow this if he was able to convince someone to take him on in some capacity; spare baggage in the circus he said was of no use to him. Not sure what to do next, he wandered around the various stalls and booths on the periphery of the main tent till he happened upon one which to his mind was perfect. It was a bare-fist fight booth; the owner he thought would jump at the chance to take him on. The owner didn’t however as he had a full complement of fighters and unless something happened to one of them there wasn’t an opening for anyone else. Alec decided the best way to convince him was to show what he could do and he did this by turning up at the booth for a number of consecutive days to challenge the incumbent fighters. He won every fight and in the end it was the fighters themselves who decided that enough was enough and persuaded the owner to take him on. As he was so much better than the average punter they felt it was preferable to have him on their side rather than against them. The romance with the trapeze artist soon cooled as she looked for pastures new, both in a man and a job. This was why the circus owner had been reluctant to take Alec on as he knew how fickle the girl was. Alec was aware of how disappointed his father had been with him for throwing away a good job to take up this itinerant life so he did not want to go back to the docks and stayed on with the fight booth for the next two years. It was a hard life as he was expected to take on all comers many of them much heavier than his own twelve stone boxing weight. The fact that much of the time the opponents were drunk didn’t help either as they could take a lot of punishment before they were beaten. The boxers were also hampered by the fact that they could not knock the punters about too much in case this led to trouble from the police but on the other hand didn’t want them winning too often as this cost the booth money. Sooner or later this life did catch up with the fighters and they had to give it up or suffer serious long term injury both physical and mental. Although Alec’s training and natural skill enabled him to avoid much of the damaging pummelling suffered by his booth mates, he realised this could not last and decided to leave the circus. There was a recruiting stand on site at the time for the Welsh Guards so, after a brief talk with the recruiting Sergeant, he enlisted as a Welsh Guards Infantryman in 1938 at the age of 22 years. The Welsh Guards soon discovered that Alec as a boxer was physically well co-ordinated; but when it came to drill routines he was absolutely hopeless and could not march in step to save his life. A succession of Drill Sergeants tried every trick in the book to get him to accomplish the simplest of manoeuvres on the parade ground but it just seemed to be beyond him. It wasn’t as if he did not try, he really did want to be to be a normal and integrated part of his squad. The harder he tried however the worse he became. Both the carrot and stick were used with blandishments and punishments liberally applied but to no avail. It was his sporting prowess which saved him from being discharged as the Regiment did not want to lose him. What he could do without any problem was drive vehicles and a niche was found for him as a driver. His regiment, the First Battalion Welsh Guards, was part of the British Expeditionary Force to Belgium which was subsequently evacuated during the retreat from Dunkirk. He was then transferred to the Second Battalion Welsh Guards as an armoured fighting vehicle driver. During subsequent operations in Europe the tank he was driving took a bad hit and he received a head wound. Apart from this wound which healed quickly, he had no other obvious injuries but rather bizarrely he was totally paralysed and remained in this condition for nearly four years. Until the early part of 1944 the only movements he was able to perform were with his eyes, which at least showed he was not in a coma. The doctors had more or less given up on him as they could find nothing wrong physically although it was obvious to all that there was a problem and he was not shamming his immobility. An incident in the hospital where he had been incarcerated triggered his recuperation. With little else to do he had taken to travelling in his “other body”, as he thought of it, and found that he could leave his physical body behind and travel at will in and around the hospital and the local environment. This ability was the only thing which kept him sane. On his travels he would meet other spirit travellers many of whom claimed to be dead in their physical forms; others he thought must be people dreaming who were not aware of what was really happening. There were some who shone brightly...