There was the familiar roar, the sudden flutter and the blue flames from Perdix' engine exhausts, as she swung across Icarus' bow towards Arnoy and the Sound of Kaag. A couple of hours to unwind, and then Icarus would be on her way back to rejoin STANAVFORLANT, to keep the Red Banner Fleet's head down, until Glorious and Furious could resume their ASW roles.
Hob Gamble lifted Perdix from Sorkjosen's brightly-lit airstrip. He hauled her up and away, then steered north for the gap in the hills. He was orientated now and Rollo was happy, so he could short-cut by flying across the neck of the peninsular and following the western shore which showed sharply against Kaagen Island. This, the last of the lifts, was satisfactorily completed.
'That's it, then,' Rollo chipped in. 'Breakfast, shave and shower.'
'More than our poor old bootie'll get,' Hob replied, grinning inside his bone-dome — but Corporal Burns had seemed in good nick.
'No nonsense about him,' Rollo said. 'He's done well while Dick's been away. Burns was last out of the final lift.'
Hob nodded: ' Pity we couldn't have found the time to sort the mail for them,' Hob said, nodding towards the bag at the back of the cab.' Would have done the booties good.'
'There she is, the lovely girl,' Rollo said. ' Dear old Ic shows up well on the screen, even amongst this lot…' He nodded towards the sheer faces of the mountains which hemmed in the fjords from all sides. The peaks were concealed by those lowering clouds, where the mountains reared to six thousand feet — truly alpine terrain. Dick Stoddart and Corporal Bums would be out in that lot, battling to survive in this arctic cold, waiting for the attack which, please God, would never come…
'Here we go.' Hob revelled in throwing this machine about. The toy ship beneath them lunged into shape, magnifying each second as he allowed Perdix to fall from the sky — and then he was swooping into the hover for the landing.
There were the blue lights of her flight deck, dimming as Bernie Towke, the flight deck officer, switched on the glide path indicator and the horizon bar. Bit of old rope this, after the recent ocean flying, Hob thought, resisting the temptation to relax his concentration. He glanced through his window, pushed her gently, held her, then plonked her down on to the grille, before stabbing at the harpoon button.
Outside the cockpit, the freezing wind snatched at his ears when he levered off his helmet. Bernie Towke was waiting for him, a message pad in his hand — not a bearer of good news, by the look of him. Without a word, Bernie shoved the pad in Hob's hands.
The signal was ' Immediate' and from MoD. A hairline crack had been discovered in the tail unit of another Lynx at Yeovilton. All Mark VIIs were grounded.
'Bloody disastrous,' Hob said. 'A tail failure is catastrophic enough, Bernie. But what's the Old Man going to say, now that his ship's lost her main armament?'
19
They watched the Lynx's flashing light, until she disappeared behind the shoulder of the peninsular.
'We've work to do, Corporal.'
While they loaded the Land-Rover and trailer Corporal Rodney Burns realized how vital his nine years' training in the Corps had been: the next few days, out on his own and in charge of his section, would show how thorough the training had been….
Burns accompanied his captain on the first trip to the fishing haven of Hamneidet, tucked into the mountain side under the lee of Kaagen Island. The little port was still drowsy from another winter's night, but sleepy Norwegians were already about their daily errands and shuffling along the snow-packed road which joined the E6, fifteen kilometres to the south. An old fisherman was gazing bemusedly at the pile of gear which Icarus' crew had dumped on the rickety, ice-encrusted jetty. Gulls screamed overhead as a solitary youth, muffed to the eyebrows, tried to brush down the decks of his fish-scaled inshore boat. He looked up as he heard the doors of the Land-Rover slamming above him.
And that was the moment when things began going right: the fisherman grinned beneath his fur hat, tried out his schoolboy English… ten minutes later, the old boat's decks were laden with the weapons and gear of Icarus' RM detachment.
'I'll take the signalman and four, Corporal. If we get to Skibotn before you, I'll start my recce of Zulu position. Keep in touch on the working frequency.'
The corporal saluted, watched the cloud of exhaust condensing above the Land-Rover's roof as its headlights snaked like glow-worms along the twisting road. The fishing-boat's diesel was thumping and, as Burns jumped down across the gunwale, the young Norwegian flicked off the for'd warp.
The moon had not yet set behind the film of high cirrus which was spreading across the bowl of the morning sky. As the boat chugged to its maximum eight knots, the breeze bouncing off the slab sides of the islands brought down the temperature: Burns and his men congregated in the warmth of the saloon below. The forty-year-old skipper spoke no English, but they grinned at each other and knocked back the ritual tot. An hour later they were into Rotsund and at 1130 were well into Lyngenfjord. The pale brightening of the sky behind the overpowering backdrop of the mountains, which plunged sheer into the hundred fathom depths of the fjord, cheered the rumbustious marines who were now beginning thoroughly to enjoy their escape from shipboard monotony.
Burns was glad to be among them, secretly chuffed at having the responsibility of his own section. But it was reassuring also to know that the captain was at his back, in position Zulu overlooking Skibotn. From Zulu, Captain Stoddart's section could cover the £78 which linked up with the E6 on the only road to the north. The ambush was a prepared, mined position and easy to blow. Stoddart was keeping the signalman at Zulu because Burns' communications training would stand them in good stead up at Sierra…
Burns could not stomach the smoke, the stink of fish and diesel oil, so he climbed out to the letter-box wheelhouse where the skipper had taken over from his young crewman. With the engine thundering below them, the tough Norwegian pointed out the landmarks, while the boat chugged up the sheer-sided fjord, a minuscule water beetle in these majestic surroundings. The islet of Aroyholmen slipped down their starboard side and then they were crossing the head of Kaafjord, where its deep waters, ebony black, gleamed from the lights of Olderdalen which nestled under the mountainside. The western side of Lyngenfjord was much steeper and the immense scale of the fifty mile fjord was awe-inspiring. The skipper was pointing again through the starboard window. Even after three winters in Norway, Burns had never seen such majestic beauty: a glistening glacier drifted like a silvery curtain down the Wagnerian cliffs which plunged into the black fjord.
'That's Storfjord,' the skipper grunted, as Lyngseidet, a town nestling high on a plateau which was covered by Christmas-card chalets, slipped past them on the western shore. The two smiling fishermen insisted with that they should all share their midday meal. As they munched the salted fish, Kvalviknes passed to port, and then, five miles south, the vibrations ceased as the diesel died. They slid past a black spar buoy marking the dried out bank. Burns could see the white surf of the boat's wash breaking across a rock a couple of hundred yards from the beach. Seconds later, the boat was nudging alongside the stone quay, where the headlights of the Land-Rover were flashing a welcome.