Chapters

Sunday, 28 October 2018

Two miles south of the island of Sicily a team of four MI6 specialists are in the middle of a daring rescue and recovery mission. The four extraordinary individuals are Mademoiselle Mimi Dubois, La Résistance fighter and mistress of skills; Miss Madeline Forsyth, SOE operative and a living shadow; Sven Hyse, Norwegian Resistance soldier and shapeshifter; and Doctor Jackal, timid physician with his less than timid friend Mister Hades.


Hut 17B, Hanslope Park, Buckinghamshire was the closest thing that I had to a real home during 1942. We had been away almost six weeks and I had forgotten just how much I had grown to like its simplicity, its security, and its Englishness. It was good to be back. I lay back on my bed and marvelled at the fact that just four days beforehand I was rowing hard to reach the Blackburn flying boat...

Mediterranean Sea, Two miles south of Sicily, August 1942
With the German motor launch closing in on our position I put my back into the oars and row hard for the flying boat. Madeline positions her cloud of darkness between us and the launch to try and cover us from their search light. As soon as we come alongside Doctor Jackal climbs up into the plane while Sven and Madeline pass up the prone figure of the Blenheim’s navigator. I jump up and talk to Captain Almond, I ask him if we can ditch the dinghy and he gives me the thumbs up.

By the time the I have jumped back down into the boat, Sven and Madeline are passing up the Blenheim’s gunner so I grab both camera rigs and get ready to pass them up next. In under a minute we are all onboard and the doors are closed. Madeline shouts to the pilot;
Get us out of here!
Captain Almond doesn’t need to be told twice and he opens the throttles on the planes engines and we lurch forwards. As we begin to pull away the motor launches search light finds us and is followed by the chatter of machine gun fire. We glimpse tracer rounds flying past our starboard wing just as we begin to lift up into the air, and I am sure that there was a twitch in Henry’s eye, but we escaped without incident.

Just under thirty minutes later and we are taxiing towards a dock outside of the Port of Valletta. We are met on the dock by a gaggle of medics, doctors, and military personnel including Captain Hurleman. Doctor Jackal makes sure that his patients are handed over and well cared for, and Sven passes the camera rigs to Captain Hurleman who has them loaded onto one of the waiting trucks and driven away.

Hurleman is genuinely pleased with what we achieved and thanks us profusely, he then drives us back to our barracks. Once we arrive Doctor Jackal heads for the shower block to clean up while the rest of us head for the Officers Mess and a well earned night cap.

Late the following morning, just as we are all sat together having breakfast, Captain Hurleman arrives and hands us all blank report forms. Lieutenant General Dobbie wishes to have a full written report from each of us before the end of the day. We spend the rest of the morning pulling together four stories that are based heavily on the truth, but omitting any incriminating statements. When we are finished Doctor Jackal cross references them and declares himself satisfied but Madeline, who has passed her keen analytical eye over them too, gets us to change the timings to make them more realistic.

With our forms completed and signed, Doctor Jackal heads for the hospital to check in on his patients. Sven says that he is heading out to investigate the island once again. That leaves Madeline and I to carry on with our recent exercise regime. When Doctor Jackal gets to the hospital he finds Airman Smith is conscious. Smith thanks Henry for rescuing him and for saving the life of his friend Jones. Henry tells Airman Smith to get some rest and as he is leaving he is greeted by a man who introduces himself as Doctor Parsons. Doctor Parsons is the hospitals Assistant Director of medicine and he tells Henry how impressed he is with his work last night. He asks if Henry wishes to stay on at the hospital. Henry declines politely, but does stay on for the afternoon to help out.

The next morning Captain Hurleman visits us again and tells us that we will be leaving at dusk this evening. We will be travelling of the submarine HMS Undine under the command of Captain Robinson, we will then rendezvous with the destroyer HMS Porcupine under the command of Captain Stewart and be transported to Gibraltar. Hurleman tells us that we should be packed and ready to move by twenty hundred hours. We all get packed up and visit the bases paymaster and draw out our pay.

At the appointed hour a truck arrives at the barracks and a Private greets us and hands Doctor Jackal our orders. He then drives us to the docks where we transfer to a motor launch and are taken out to one of the small islands in the mouth of the harbour. The submarine base was a hive of activity, there were two docked subs and one of them was being prepared for departure. We boarded and were greeted by Captain Robinson, as he was showing us to the officers mess he said that he had heard about our rescue of the two aviators. He actually thanked us, his cousin was a pilot on the island and he was impressed with our actions.

Captain Robinson told us that our journey should take approximately ten hours, Doctor Jackal asks the Captain if he can have a tour of the submarine and Captain Robinson says that he will get his Second Officer to show us around. At the end of the tour we are shown up onto the top of the conning tower and watch as the submarine pulls out of the harbour. Eventually, the Captain asks us to go below and so we return to the officers mess just as the boat begins to dive.

After an uneventful ten hour journey we feel the submarine begin to slow and surface. The Second Officer collects us and takes us up on deck to meet with Captain Robinson, when we get on deck we can see a large British destroyer just off of the port bow. They launch a boat and we say farewell to HMS Undine. One the deck of HMS Porcupine we are met by Captain Stewart who asks us for our orders, Henry hands them over and the Captain gives them a brief glance. He tells us that we will be shown to quarters and that we are due to arrive at Gibraltar in twenty five hours.

At oh eight hundred hours we are met by a Private on the Gibraltarian dockside who hands us another set of orders, this time from Captain Ledman. The orders state that we are due to fly back to England first thing tomorrow morning. The Private drives us to the local barracks and issues us with rooms for the night.

Hanslope Park, England, August 1942
We are met at the airfield by Captain Ledman, who is very pleased to see us, and we are driven back to Hanslope Park. Captain Ledman drops us off and informs us that we will be joined by Major Hoffman for a full debrief first thing in the morning. And so we head home, Hut 17B. It was good to be back.

In the morning we are joined by both Captain Ledman and Major Hoffman and they begin the debrief. Doctor Jackal delivers a perfectly accurate description of everything that has happened since we left England. They are very interested in every use of our powers, and ask us several questions about how we used them and through questioning it becomes apparent that Sven needs to examine a wider variety of animals to maximise his powers potential.

The debrief takes all day and by the end of it both of the MI6 men are impressed by how well we have gelled together as a unit. At the end of it all Major Hoffman looks around and says;
Tomorrow we will get back to our main mission. Looking for the source of your powers.

After breakfast the next morning Captain Ledman tells us what MI6 know about the mysterious chemicals that gave us our enhanced abilities. MI6 had discovered through its network that there was something important on a train travelling through northern France, they had an agent in the SNCF codenamed Duplix, who diverted the train to a preordained ambush site and that is how the British captured the wolfshead barrels. They knew that there was a high risk that Duplix would be discovered but it was a risk they had to take. Duplix was captured by the Germans before he could relay any of his information.

Which means that MI6 have no idea of the wolfshead barrels departure point or destination. They believe that Duplix is being held in northern France and they are coordinating with the local resistance to try and locate where he is being held. Once that information has been discovered the plan is for our unit to fly into northern France, link up with the local resistance leader, either rescue Duplix or at the very least debrief him and then escape across France to a port on the west coast where we can be exfiltrated.

We all sit back taking in the scale of the task in front of us, but the only thing going through my mind is that I will be going back to my beloved France. And even better, I might get to kill some Germans there. Major Hoffman leans forwards and interrupts my reverie;
You will be flying in by glider. Dubois, that will be your responsibility. But you will all be required to complete basic parachute training. Just in case! You know!
The next few days are filled with training, we are either jumping out of planes or I am flying gliders using the abilities ‘borrowed’ from my instructor. At one point I am even driven to a place called Biggin Hill late at night and am given the opportunity to pilot a General Aircraft GAL.48 Hotspur glider, landing it at night was fun! We also put in a request for supplies including sidearms, silencers, explosives, detonators, and Doctor Jackal completely stocks up his medical supplies and cooks up a large batch of sleeping drafts.

Hanslope Park, England, September 1942
In the first week of September Captain Ledman visited Hut 17B to check on our progress and to give us some more news. Duplix, who’s real name is Claude Dhomas, is likely being held in the Lorraine region of northern France, somewhere near Bar-le-Duc.

The plan is for us to take off at twenty two hundred hours and be towed for three hours, we will be released at oh one hundred hours and glide for fifteen minutes before landing in the Bois de Maurupt. It is then approximately a fifteen mile hike to the pig farm of the Fortefane family north of Bar-le-Duc in the Foret de Massonge. There we will make contact with the local resistance leader who is known as Le Blaireau.

Captain Ledman then issues us with the required statement and response for contact with the resistance;
Le Blaireau est un adversaire redoutable! 
Il est aussi fort qu'un bœuf!
We all smile at the ego of it all, all of us except Sven. It is at that moment that I realise that Sven can’t speak French, so I translate for him;
The Badger is a formidable opponent! 
He is as strong as an ox!

Sunday, 21 October 2018

On the island of Malta four enhanced individuals are impatiently waiting to find out how they can leave and get back into the war effort. They are Mademoiselle Mimi Dubois, La Résistance fighter and mistress of skills; Miss Madeline Forsyth, SOE operative and a living shadow; Sven Hyse, Norwegian Resistance soldier and shapeshifter; and Doctor Jackal, timid physician with his less than timid friend Mister Hades.


Valletta, Malta, August 1942
Having spent our first day on Malta mostly sleeping and our evening enjoying what her eateries and bars have to offer, we all awake late into the morning and head for the mess hall to get some breakfast. Over our meal we discuss what we are going to do while we wait, and how long we think that the process will take. The one thing that we all agree on is that we will try and keep a low profile and stay out of the way of Lieutenant General Dobbie. That would prove to be difficult.

Henry says that he wishes to visit the library that we briefly glimpsed in the Parliament building when we arrived and Madeline, who wishes to carry out her own research, agrees to accompany him. Sven says that he is going to explore the area, that normally means that he is going to get up close and personal with nature. I decide that I need to work on my strength levels, I had discovered on our adventures that if you wish to make every knife blow count you really need some power behind them.

The library in Parliament House was a large and impressive room with the high windows common in ancient Mediterranean architecture, and it was being used as a typing pool during the siege of Malta. It was easy for Madeline and Doctor Jackal to gain access, when they asked another officer if they could look through some of the books he just told them to help themselves. They both spend a couple of hours browsing the shelves and leafing through the books, the majority of which are connected to the laws and histories of the island itself.

Doctor Jackal selects a number of texts and Madeline points out the large, leather bound tome that needs to be completed for borrowing items. They then spend the afternoon strolling around the town of Valletta looking for local book sellers, returning back to the barracks in time for an early dinner. I join them, my body aching from pushing myself all day, and not long after we have sat down Sven arrives in the mess looking very calm and relaxed.

It is obvious to any outsider observing us that we had finally begun to unwind from several weeks of back to back missions, we sat around in the mess laughing and joking while just enjoying not being at full alertness. Just after dark our calm is disturbed by the islands air raid sirens, some people run for the shelters. Others, including us, just sit and watch the ceiling while listening for the tell tale sounds of aircraft getting too close. Not long afterwards we can make out the sounds of carpet bombing in the distance, not our turn tonight then.

The following day we once again all sit down for a late breakfast and discuss what we are planning for the day. Sven is going to head out and about once more, while Madeline decides to join me in my exercise regime. Henry says that he is going to find himself a nice quiet spot and settle in to read. However, his plans are disturbed when we are joined by Captain Hurleman who asks how we are. Madeline makes a point of telling him that we are very keen on getting back into the war effort.

Hurleman says on that front that there is good news. Lieutenant General Dobbie has been convinced to let us leave Malta on a submarine that is based out of the island. The submarine is due to leave in three days time. Hurleman then wishes us well and leaves us to our breakfast. I look around the table and say;
Oh good! Doctor, how do you feel about travelling in a confined submarine. I suggest heavy sedatives!
Henry considers this for a moment, and then nods.
I shall head to the hospital and replenish my doctors bag!
When Henry arrives at Valletta’s hospital and introduces himself they quickly ask if he has any time to help out. As always, Doctor Jackal is more than happy to assist. By lunchtime he has dealt with multiple low level injuries and has consulted on a more serious case. It then becomes obvious to the hospital’s staff that Doctor Jackal is a very good doctor, and by mid-afternoon Henry is in surgery saving someone’s life. At the end of the day Henry heads to the hospital’s pharmacy to restock his bag, but he finds that they are very low on stock and so he does not take any supplies.

That evening we all meet up once more for dinner and settle in for another relaxing evening in the mess. Once again our relaxation is interrupted, but this time it is not the Luftwaffe but a very flustered Captain Hurleman. He informs us that there has been an incident and that Lieutenant General Dobbie has ordered our team to meet with him immediately. Finally, some action, after all it has been three days. We scramble to quickly grab our kit and jump into the back of Hurleman’s jeep. He drives us at speed up towards Parliament House.

As we enter Dobbie’s command centre we find him leaning over a map table and tutting loudly. We get closer and throw up a salute, from nearer the table we can now tell that he is looking at several maps of Sicily. He turns around and looks us up and down;
Well! Major Hoffman rates your team's abilities. I, personally, have my doubts about women and foreigners. But I am in a bind and I don’t have any other options at the moment so you can bloody well do your duty for me!
I believe that we were all keen to get back to being useful, but I would be much happier if it wasn’t for this blustering buffoon!
One of our planes was shot down over the coast of Sicily. It was a Bristol Blenheim with a crew of three, and more importantly it was carrying some specialist photography equipment. It was tasked with capturing images of potential landing zones for a future deployment. These images can not fall into enemy hands. One of the crew was able to radio their approximate location prior to their crash landing.
Dobbie went on to explain that he does not believe that there are any Axis defences close to the area, but that they will undoubtedly be converging on the crash site. The Blenheim went down approximately forty minutes ago and therefore speed is of the essence.

Lieutenant General Dobbie tells us that he has a Blackburn B20 Flying Boat ready to fly us to the mouth of the river that leads inland to the approximate crash site. Once dropped off we are to take a boat upriver and locate the plane, we are then to recover the film, cameras, stabilise any crew still alive and get out. In that order! When we have made it back to the mouth of the river we should radio for the Blackburn to pick us up. He tells us to give a list of any equipment that we might require to Captain Hurleman and waves us out.

Hureleman makes a quick call outside of Dobbie’s command room to the Quartermaster and tells him to get everything that we have requested to the dockside immediately. He then ushers us back to the jeep and we race down to the harbour. We pull up next to a large seaplane where a man is fastening a large dinghy to the underside of the plane. He stands up and introduces himself as Captain Almond, our pilot. I ask him about the finer points of sailing the dinghy and as he is pointing stuff out I gently touch his neck and ‘borrow’ his ability with boats.

A few minutes after we have arrived a military truck pulls up and our requested kit is unloaded from the truck and loaded onto the plane. Just over an hour since the Bristol Blenheim went down we are taking off from Valletta harbour with myself in the co-pilots seat and Madeline, Henry and Sven prepping the kit in the back of the plane ready for our drop off.

Twenty five minutes later we are coming in to land on the sea approximately a mile south of the coast of Sicily. As we are descending it is obvious that there are no lights along this part of the coast, it looks like we may well have made it before any Axis search parties. Once we are down I unleash the dinghy and we all climb onboard, I start to row for the mouth of the river but it is hard going. We hear the Blackburn take off behind us and as soon as it does, Sven slips over the side of the boat and transforms into a dolphin. He grabs the mooring rope in his mouth and begins to tow the boat forwards. With myself rowing and a dolphin powered tow we start to make good time and are crossing the sandbar at the mouth of the river in no time.

Once we are on the river proper Sven transforms once more and climbs back into the dinghy, as I continue to row, he transforms into a hawk and leaps into the night sky. Hawk Sven follows the river as it winds its way inland, and about two and a half miles upriver he spots the wreck of a plane on the sandy foreshore of a bend in the river. It is obvious even at a distance that the plane has nose dived into the sand and has come to rest with the tail up. Sven flies in for a closer look and lands on the skywards pointing tail fin of the plane. He spots that there is definitely a soft light coming from inside the planes fuselage.

Sven lands a little way down the riverbank and transforms back into himself, he then approaches the plane very carefully. When he is within earshot of it he calls out to the occupants, he is greeted with the business end of a rifle and the question;
Friend or foe?
Sven issues the correct response and approaches the plane, the man holding the gun is Airman Smith, the crews gunner. As soon as Sven gets close enough he can see that Smith’s leg is badly damaged. Airman Smith tells Sven that Captain Hamish died in the crash and that Navigator Jones sustained a serious chest wound that Smith has tried to patch up. Sven tells Smith to rest easy and that help is on the way, at which point Smith passes out from blood loss.

Sven transforms once more into a bird and flies straight back to us, he tells us what he has discovered and suggests that we beach the boat and drag it upstream as it will be quicker. As soon as I beach the boat Doctor Jackal and Madeline leap ashore and run towards the downed plane. Myself and Sven tow the boat along the riverside making slower progress. Two hours have passed since the plane was shot down.

Doctor Jackal reaches the crash site first and begins to carry out triage on the crew’s gunner Smith. He takes a couple of minutes assessing Smith and then moves onto the navigator Jones. By this time, Madeline has arrived and Doctor Jackal requests her assistance as a nurse. Jones has a life threatening chest wound and needs instant medical attention if he is to live. Henry gets cracking.

By the time Sven and I anchor the dinghy and step into the wrecked plane Doctor Jackal is bloody up to his elbows but believes that he has saved Jones’ life. I step over to Jones, touch his forehead, and ‘borrow’ his photography skills so that I can locate and remove the planes camera rig. Meanwhile, Sven once more takes to the air and starts to circle outwards checking to see if any ground forces are closing in on our location.

I now know that the camera rig is located in the nose of the plane, and that is buried in the sand of the riverbank. Lucky that still have knowledge of digging for artefacts in the deserts of Egypt, I set to and start uncovering the planes nose from the inside. From the air Sven spots a large vehicle closing in on our location from the north, it appears to be searching the riverbanks as it drives along. Sven circles in closer and can clearly make out that it is a German troop transporter. He quickly flies back to the crash site.

Two and a half hours after the initial crash I have managed to uncover the camera rig, Doctor Jackal has moved on to set Airman Smith’s leg, and Madeline is rigging up a makeshift stretcher. I easily remove one of the cameras and its film, but the other has a buckled casing and I have to start knocking it back into shape to be able to get the camera out. Doctor Jackal finishes splinting the leg of the plane’s gunner and gives both of his patients a healthy shot of morphine just for good measure.

Madeline and Henry move the navigator to the dinghy using the stretcher and then lift the gunner aboard. Just as they are finishing I manage to free the second camera and begin to hoist them out of the plane nose. Sven lands and tells us about the German troops closing in on us, Madeline quickly checks with Henry that we have completed everything that Dobbie asked us to do, Henry looks thoughtful for a moment and replays the moment word for word in his mind before agreeing that we have.

Sven lifts the cameras onto the dinghy and then transforms once more into a dolphin. We all clamber aboard and Sven tows us rapidly downstream, as we go Madeline creates an area of darkness just behind the dinghy to hide us from view.

As we begin to clear the hills Henry grabs the radio and signals Captain Almond;
Swordfish calling Nut Cracker! Swordfish calling Nut Cracker! Come in Nut Cracker!
Captain Almond responds and gives us an ETA of twenty minutes. He also tells us to use the red flare for pick up and location.

It is just under three hours since the initial crash and we are moving quickly towards the mouth of the river, as we do Henry spots a Kübelwagen moving slowly down a hillside road towards the beach that is adjacent to the river mouth. Madeline angles the darkness in that direction and we all hunker down in the bottom of the dinghy. Sven continues to swim powerfully forwards, towing the dinghy behind him and we manage to put just over a mile between us and the shore. It is at that point that we see the motorised launch searching along the shoreline.

We urge dolphin Sven further out and we are approximately two miles out from shore when he finally climbs back into the dinghy shattered from his exerscion. For the last ten minutes of our journey we had been hearing the sound of a plane in the sky, but it wasn’t getting closer, Henry surmised that it was circling us at a distance awaiting the signal flare. So I passed him the loaded flare gun. He pointed it into the night sky and boom! The sky was lit up with a red flare.

It doesn’t take long for the motorised launch to spot the flare and turn towards our direction. As they are closing the plane comes into land on the water. I start to row towards it as Sven lifts his rifle to his cheek. He takes very careful aim. Just as he gently squeezes the trigger a large wave hits the side of the dinghy and his shot goes wild. The motorised launch is still closing.

Sunday, 14 October 2018

The cargo ship Orpheila is under the control of four MI6 agents, for now. They are Mademoiselle Mimi Dubois, La Résistance fighter and mistress of skills; Miss Madeline Forsyth, SOE operative and a living shadow; Sven Hyse, Norwegian Resistance soldier and shapeshifter; and Doctor Jackal, timid physician with his less than timid friend Mister Hades.


Cargo Ship Orpheila, Eastern Mediterranean Sea, August 1942
I remember the day that I met Lieutenant General William Dobbie, the Governor of Malta. Mon Dieu, quel salaud! He was a hidebound, misogynist who, despite what we had achieved for his island, could not see beyond our methods, nationalities, or gender. Less than twenty four hours earlier…

On the recommendation of Madeline, who reasoned that it will make Captain Garcia believe that there are more of us than there really are, Sven enters the bridge disguised as different people. Unfortunately, Sven got a little carried away with his role and at one point Captain Garcia was very surprised to see what appeared to be the Fuhrer walking onto the bridge practicing one of his Nuremberg rally speeches.

I’m stationed in the ship’s engine room and am instructed to check in with the bridge every thirty minutes. Sven also dictates a message to me that I write out in Spanish and stick to the wall at the end of the crew corridor. The letter states that the ship has been captured and that no one will be injured if they follow instructions. By oh six hundred hours Madeline and Sven have searched the cargo hold thoroughly and we are all at our stations, Madeline and Henry on the bridge, Sven atop the bow in the guise of a seagull, and myself in the engine room, when the crew start to awaken.

It all starts with a single crew member coming out of his cabin and walking along the corridor directly towards the letter. He fails to notice it and turns left into the head. A few moments later he reappears and heads back into his cabin. I get on the intercom and let Madeline know what is happening, she heads to the locked hatch in the galley. Five minutes later, and now fully dressed, he heads for the staircase leading up to the galley.

There follows several minutes of banging and shouting at the locked stairway hatch as the crewman tries to get someone’s attention. When he realises that no one is coming he heads for the engine room door. I slip backwards into the shadows and watch through the engine room door porthole. When he finds that locked and can see his crewmate tied up with a bag over his head in the middle of the floor he starts to shout alarm. Crewmen in various states of dress tumble out of their cabins and mill about shouting at each other in Spanish.

Eventually, one of them notices the letter and it is handed to the Second Officer. He reads it and then moves towards the stairs once more. He then starts shouting to speak to Captain Garcia. Madeline heads towards the bow of the ship to let Sven know what is happening, and then both of them head for the bridge. Meanwhile, after a few minutes of shouting the crew head into one of the cabins and I can hear the sound of banging coming from inside. I inform the bridge, and Henry tells me that Madeline and Sven are escorting Captain Garcia to the galley.

The crew reappear from the cabin with a makeshift battering ram and head once more towards the locked stairway hatch. After a couple of hefty hits with the ram against the hatchway Sven shouts at them to move back, and with Madeline covering the stairway with her MP40, he unlocks the hatch and opens the cover. The crew momentarily begin to move forwards, that is until they spot Madeline with her submachine gun pointed at the front rank. Captain Garcia talks to his men and tells them to cooperate with us and that they will get out of this alive.

The hatchway is sealed once more and then Sven and Henry then escort Captain Garcia to see the injured crewman in the fore cabin. Captain Garcia is pleased that he has been cared for but is obviously upset that he was assaulted in the first place. Captain Garcia asks Sven what our intentions are and where we are going? Sven replies that it is of little significance to the captain.

Captain Garcia is then escorted back to the galley where he is told to make the crew breakfast, which he does under the watchful eye of Madeline. By oh eight hundred hours all of the prisoners have been fed and watered and are once more under lock and key. And so begins a long day of a small team keeping control of a big cargo ship and all of her crew. We believe that we have convinced them that there are more of us than there really is and so we hope that they will not try and overpower us. We set up a four hour rotating watch with one of us in the engine room, one in the bridge, one on constant patrol, and one sleeping.

Just after ten hundred hours, Sven is on patrol around the deck of the Orpheila when he hears the unmistakable sound of an airplane's engines. He rushes to the cabin and wakes Madeline who heads straight to the radio room and replaces the missing valve and she is joined by Henry while Sven takes up position on the bridge. A twin engined German spotter plane flies towards us from the north east and once it is within range the radio crackles to life;
Unknown ship. Unknown ship. State your name, port of departure and destination. Over!
Henry, speaking in his best German with a Spanish accent, relays the response. There is a moments static, and then;
Confirm destination! Over!
Henry repeats himself once more. The tension in the radio room is palpable, and Madeline starts to think about moving towards the anti aircraft gun at the stern of the ship.
Are you suffering technical issues Orphelia? Over!
Thinking quickly, Henry tells them that there was an issue on the bridge and that we are trying to correct for it. Again there is nothing but static from the radio for what seems like an age and then;
Details confirmed Orphelia. Safe travels. Over and out!
There is a collective sigh of relief around the radio room as the German plane continues its journey.

Around sixteen hundred hours, Henry remembers that he hasn’t checked our baring since we first altered course, when he checks he discovers that we have drifted north by a significant margin. No wonder that the spotter plane believed our story, from their point of view it would have looked like we had only drifted west from the correct route. Henry resets the ship’s course and I steer us onto the new baring, Henry believes that we have added approximately an additional hour to our journey.

The rest of the journey passes uneventfully, Captain Garcia is allowed to talk to his crew once more and convinces them to remain calm and follow our instructions. The prisoners are fed and watered once more and by twenty one thirty hours Madeline and Henry can see the twinkling lights of Malta on the horizon. Henry heads to the radio room and starts to broadcast;
Falcon calling Castle! Falcon calling Castle! Come in Castle!
Eventually, the correct response is issued and out ETA is requested.

Ten minutes later and the drone of aircraft engines can be heard moving towards us. Minutes later three Spitfires fly by off the starboard side. They bank and give us a low level pass before climbing and positioning themselves into a covering formation.

By twenty two thirty hours a tug from the Port of Valletta is steadily moving towards us and once again the radio crackles to life;
Cargo ship Orphelia! Cargo ship Orpheila! This is the Maltese tug Rozi preparing to come aside. Captain Hurleman in charge. I wish to speak to whomever is in charge. Over!
Once again, Henry gets on the radio is tole that the tug will fire a line and that we should stand ready to make secure. Madeline makes me a cup of coffee and brings it to the cabin to wake me up. As she is heading along the deck she hears a shout of;
Line ahoy!
A rope is fired across our deck and Madeline gently steps over it and continues on her way. The tug reels in the line and is surprised to find that it has not been attached.
Orphelia! Orphelia! Do you require assistance with securing the line? Over!
Henry requests assistance and several Maltese sailors launch from the tug and secure the Orphelia for towing into harbour.

On the bridge Captain Garcia, who has worked out that we are docking in Malta calls Sven and Henry traitors. He is very surprised to learn that we are English, well Henry and Madeline, and that we are not the Germans that he believed us to be. As we are docking Henry pays Captain Garcia the rest of our bribe money for the journey. The Captain is very surprised, but Henry tells him that a deal is a deal and that we are now settled.

As soon as the Orphelia is docked Captain Hurleman comes on board. We all meet him at the top of the gangplank and he snaps off a brisk salute to us all. We return the salute and then are surprised by the fact that he then shakes us all by the hand. He seems genuinely pleased to see us and the ship. He asks for a very quick debrief and if the ship is secure. Madeline gives him the bare facts and he waves on a troop of soldiers to remove the crew.

We then take Captain Hurleman to the bridge, where Captain Garcia immediately surrenders to him. Madeline makes a point of informing Captain Hurleman that Garcia and his crew cooperated throughout the entire journey and should be treated accordingly. Captain Garcia gives Madeline a nod of respect for this gesture. He is then escorted off of the ship with the rest of his crew.

Captain Hurleman tells us that Lieutenant General Dobbie wishes to see us straight away. We quickly gathered our belongings and climbed aboard the waiting truck on the dockside. We were driven up into town and taken to the parliament building, we were instructed to leave our kit in an antechamber and then shown into a very grand office lined with books.

We must have looked a sight. Sven in his Norwegian outdoorsman garb, all rollneck sweater and heavy cloth; Madeline dressed head to toe in black commando garb; Henry in his civilian suit carrying his doctors bag; and myself in an ill fitting pair of mechanics overalls with a grease smeared face. Even so, the way in which he spoke to us, I thought that Sven might attack him there and then.

He completely ignored me, he looked at the others with disdain and said;
Well I suppose that I should say thank you. But I am very unhappy with the nature of this operation, and the fact that I have been kept in the dark. I have no idea how foreigners and women have managed to do this, and it is just not how war is carried out by gentlemen.
I could see Sven’s face darken and my mind flashed back to images of a man with his face bitten off. I think that look would have suited Dobbie.

Fortunately, Madeline stepped in and politically took control of the debrief. She deftly supplied Lieutenant General Dobbie with facts and half truths and answered any questions that he raised with consummate ease. When asked about the drugging of the bridge crew Henry stepped in with long chemical names and a detailed explanation of how the drugs interacted with the subjects body in order to achieve the goal. When Madeline gets to the fact that we actually paid Captain Garcia for the use of his ship, Leuitenant General Dobbie is almost purple with anger. Yet again he barks about this not being the way that wars are fought.

In the end he remarks that our superiors have asked that we are allowed to leave the island of Malta as soon as possible. I put in that we can probably all agree that getting us off of the island is for the best, and even Dobbie agrees.

We are dismissed and Captain Hurleman shows us to the barracks where Sven and Henry are given quarters, he then takes Madeline and myself to the servants block and we are given a room there. We all fall into a very deep and exhausted laden sleep.

Valletta, Malta, August 1942
Late the following morning we meet up in the mess hall. Captain Hurleman has sourced us uniforms and makes sure that we have everything that we require and he tells us that we are free to come and go as we please. As soon as he has any news for us he will contact us. So, we make the most of the day and head for a bar.

Sunday, 7 October 2018

In the middle of the Eastern Mediterranean four individuals are preparing to hijack the  cargo ship Orpheila. They are Mademoiselle Mimi Dubois, La Résistance fighter and mistress of skills; Miss Madeline Forsyth, SOE operative and a living shadow; Sven Hyse, Norwegian Resistance soldier and shapeshifter; and Doctor Jackal, timid physician with his less than timid friend Mister Hades.


Cargo Ship Orpheila, Eastern Mediterranean Sea, August 1942
Just before eighteen hundred hours I leave Captain Orleff’s cabin and head for the galley to help prepare dinner for the crew. Captain Orleff once again strolls around the deck of the ship talking loudly in German at the Argentinian sailors, they humour him by smiling and nodding but they have no idea what he is saying. By nineteen hundred hours I am serving the hungry crew and singing a lilting Spanish ballad. The crew are very appreciative and call for more so I launch into a more up tempo Italian tune, by the end of which I have them eating out of my hand.

I leave Captain Orleff in the saloon drinking with some of the crew and slip into the chart room so that I can look into the ships radio room, it is empty and so I check out the radio set. I confirm that it can be disabled by removing one of the valves. It would be quickly identified and repaired, but it should buy enough time if we need it to. As I step out of the radio room I hear someone walking down the stairs from the bridge. Without any time to hide I just stand there and am met by the ship’s Second Officer. He looks momentarily suspicious as to why I am there, but I quickly ask him to escort me to my cabin and all suspicion is forgotten.

As we are strolling back to my cabin, the Second Officer seems desperate to engage me in conversation and so I ask him what time he is due to finish his shift. He tells me that he is working until midnight and then will be relieved by the First Officer. He also tells me that he is just below decks and in the first cabin on the left. I gently kiss him on the cheek and wish him a good night. He walks away with a spring in his step. If only he knew what was in store for him and the rest of the crew.

Not long after the Second Officer leaves I notice a tapping on my cabin door. When I open the door I find a large seagull outside, I stand aside and he hops in. Madeline, Sven and I settle down in the cabin and wait. Meanwhile, Henry sits in the saloon pretending to read and watching the crew slowly drift away to bed. Just before midnight the First Officer meets with his shift in the saloon, they sit down at the table next to Henry and the First Officer goes through the orders for the shift. Henry listens in, and once they have headed off to their posts, he gets up and walks back to the cabins.

Henry knocks on my door and enters. He lets us know that there are four men on the night shift, two will be on the bridge, one in the engine room and one has been dispatched to the bow of the ship to stand on watch. We wait until twenty minutes after shift change and then leave the cabin. Sven seagull flaps up to the top of the foremast and watches the bridge, while Henry and myself stroll towards the saloon. If anyone was watching closely they may have noticed that the moon seemed to be casting three shadows off of the two people walking the deck.

I make two cups of coffee and Henry then doses them librley with strong sedatives. I loosen the top button of my blouse, pick up the two cups and head up the stairs to the bridge. I smile demurely as I pass the two sailors their coffees and look on encouragingly as they start to drink. I make small talk with the First Officer and listen intently as he rattles on about what everything on the bridge is for and how adept he is at piloting the Orpheila.

Madeline, who had slipped onto the bridge behind me as I was distracting the crew, starts to lower the temperature gently to encourage them to finish their drinks. After about twenty minutes Henry joins us on the bridge, as soon as he enters it is obvious to him that the crewman manning the ships wheel is fast asleep and the First Officer is yawning expansively while settling his head on my shoulder. A couple of minutes later, he is also sound asleep. Henry and I search the sailors and tie them up while Madeline heads back down to the radio room.

Henry puts on the crewman’s jumper and hat and I show him how to steer the ship towards the new heading. Sven seagull, who has been watching from his perch, flies down to the lifeboat where he had previously hidden his equipment. Sven changes his appearance so that he is now the doppelgänger of Captain Orleff and stealths towards the bow of the ship. Sven silently steps behind the sailor on lookout at the bow and clubs him over the head with the butt of his pistol. The sailor drops to the floor poleaxed. Sven lifts his unconscious form up and hides the body out of sight.

With the bridge crew secured and Henry slowly altering our course for Malta I head down the stairs towards the radio room. As I get to the bottom of the stairs I meet Madeline stepping out of the radio room holding one of the radio valves. I guess that great minds really do think alike. I grab another cup of coffee from the galley and head below decks towards the engine room. All is quiet in the crew area with nothing but the sound of the occasional snore and the throb of the engines to be heard. I open the door to the engine room and step in, I take my time allowing Madeline to slide through in shadow form, when I turn around I am faced by a dumbfounded engineer.

I offer the engineer the cup of coffee and he almost falls over in his rush to get to me. I engage him in polite conversation, mostly just pouting and smiling, while Madeline solidifies behind him. I tell the engineer that he probably wants to look behind him, when he does so he finds himself starting down the barrel of Madeline’s gun. He drops the coffee cup and puts his hands up. I quickly tie him up and gag him, as an extra precaution we place a sack over his head so that he cannot see. We then wedge the engine room door closed and leave the engine room via a porthole in shadow form.

Sven, in the visage of Captain Orleff, knocks on the cabin door of the Orpheila’s Captain. Captain Garcia invites Captain Orleff into his cabin and asks how he can be of assistance. Captain Orleff says that he wishes to discuss some business and, noticing a bottle of drink on the table, suggests that they do it over a glass of something. Garcia pours two glasses of very fine brandy and hands one to Orleff. Captain Orleff says that he would like the Orpheila to collect something from Malta. Whilst surprised, Garcia just answers that Malta is not in the hands of the German’s. Orleff continues to suggest that certain sections of Malta are friendly to the German cause and that he can pay handsomely for the trip.

Madeline and I head back into the galley and shut the hatch above the stairs leading below decks. We lock it in place and have now effectively trapped the remainder of the crew below. While Madeline stands guard I head to the stores in the bow of the ship to find more chain to lock the engine room door leading to the crew section. I find what I am searching for and, turning once more into shadow form, slide back into the engine room and chain closed the engine room door. The crew are now definitely trapped within their sleeping quarters. I then pick up the intercom;
Engine room to bridge! Engine room to bridge! All secure below decks. Report?
Henry responds that all is quiet on deck. He states that the crewman in the bow has been dealt with by Sven, he then says that he strangely thinks that he saw himself enter Captain Garcia’s cabin. I head back out of the porthole and Madeline and myself head for Captain Garcia’s cabin.

Captain Orleff offers Captain Garcia a large sum of money to head for Malta, but Garcia is now beginning to get suspicious and refuses. In the blink of an eye a silenced pistol appears in Captain Orleff’s hand. Garcia looks surprised for a moment but quickly gathers his wits;
If you believe that by holding me at gunpoint the crew will take you to Malta you are very much mistaken.
Your crew is currently being dealt with.
By who? Your secretary? HA!
There is a PHTT! sound as Captain Orleff fires his pistol. The bullet ricochets off of the wall six inches to the right of Garcia’s head. Captain Garcia looks serious once more;
As soon as my crew discover what is happening it will not go well for you.
As I have said, your crew is being dealt with as we speak.
There is a knock on the cabin door.
Now Captain Orleff I suggest that you surrender. Come in!
I open the door with Madeline stood behind me pointing her MP40 straight at Garcia. I will never forget the expression of shock on his face. It still makes me smile to this day.

Madeline and Captain Orleff escort Garcia to the bridge while I go and check on the crewman in the bow. He is still unconscious, and is badly injured, so I drag him into my cabin and tie him to the bed. Captain Orleff leaves Captain Garcia under the watchful eye of Madeline at the bottom of the stairs and climbs up into the bridge.

For the first time in his life Doctor Henry Jackal stares into his own face and not just a reflection in a mirror. Mister Hades stirs deep inside Doctor Jackal. Seeing the strange look in Henry’s eyes, Sven quickly transforms back into himself and calls up Madeline and her captive. The secure the Captain and Madeline informs him that his crew have been captured and secured below decks and that his cooperation will keep them alive. Sven leans forwards as if to drive home the point and utters;
Compliance means life! Defiance means death!
I once more turn into shadow form and enter the engine room via the porthole and keep an eye through the engine room door’s window into the crew quarters. Sven questions Garcia as to the whereabouts of the ship’s gun locker, Garcia keeps quiet until Sven threatens the life of the First Officer. Madeline takes the Captain’s keys and heads for the chart room and the gun locker, when she opens it she finds four rifles and two pistols. She removes all of the ammunition and hides it.

It is oh one thirty hours and the Orpheila is effectively under our control.