The American Rangers were set the task of organising home guard units throughout the country as their more mundane daily duties at Scapa Flow were taken over by a huge influx of security-cleared staff brought in from the mainland. For days on end they’d travel out by transport plane in twos and threes to various parts of Britain, visiting Land Defence Volunteer groups and instructing them in the basic theories and tactics behind conducting an effective guerrilla war against an invading and/or conquering army. They too were good at their job, and were able to pass on an important set of skills that a previous generation of American soldiers had learned the hard way from a capable enemy in the Viet Cong.
During that warm and reasonably uneventful July, Thorne also began to train Alec Trumbull in flying the F-35E, a serious and intense expression never leaving the young man’s face as the pilot listened carefully and took in everything Thorne taught him. He quickly picked up the ‘knack’ of operating the aircraft in most of its flight modes, quickly overcoming his awe regarding the advanced technology and discovering that forty years hadn’t altered the basics of flying so much that he was unable to adapt. Although Davies was loath to admit it, the pilot was nearing the point where Trumbull might even begin flight training on the F-22: the young man had at the very least progressed to the point that he was able to begin instructing others in flying the Lightning II, thereby leaving Thorne free to deal with the mountain of administrative problems that were the day-to-day bane of a CO.
In global terms however, it could certainly be said that the month of July through to the end of August was, generally speaking, a quiet time during which little activity occurred on either side of The Channel.
There were, of course, several significant exceptions…
Hindsight Training Unit, HMS Proserpine
Scapa Flow, Orkney Islands
Wednesday
August 14, 1940
It’d been difficult for him to slip through the night piquets undetected, but he’d managed it all the same. Continuous exercises and rigorous training with Kransky and the rest of the security unit had brought his long-dormant talents and skills back to the fore and honed them considerably. In truth, it hadn’t been as difficult as it probably should have been that morning, but he wasn’t about to complain. He carried a silenced pistol inside his camouflage jacket, but he was fervently hoping he’d not need it: that’d be the end of him there at Scapa Flow, and he might well be needed again before Berlin could afford to sacrifice him, if necessary. He had no illusions as to that fact either: sacrifice him they would, if the need was great enough.
Following the Flanker recon flight at the end of June that had caught them napping, Hindsight had broken out every radar set they’d brought with them, including one built up from spares, and the units had been set up at four ‘points of the compass’ on Hoy Island, mounted atop four of the numerous fortified gun emplacements dotted about the coastline and cliffs as protection for the approaches to the Home Fleet’s main anchorage. It was the one at Rora Head on the island’s cliff-edged western coast that he’d approached unnoticed in the dark of that early morning before sunrise. The guards and night crew were all tired — they were only minutes away from being relieved — and he’d timed his arrival for exactly that reason.
It’d taken a little longer than he’d have liked to slip past the guard near the steel door at the rear of the emplacement, and he’d carefully and silently climbed up onto the broad, concrete roof where the radar set was positioned. He wore soft-soled running shoes rather than his standard-issue boots: any sound at that point would raise an alert and bring about his undoing, and he made sure was as silent as a mouse.
Crouched by the rear of the large, white BRT — mounted as it was on a heavy metal tripod and bolted to the concrete — he rested his back against the bulk of a ventilation stack for the gunroom below and checked the time as he shivered at the dawn chill. He could clearly hear the apparatus within the dome-shaped casing whirr as it scanned the sea and sky off to the west in search of danger. He’d arrived with a few minutes to spare, and waited until exactly the moment specified by Berlin before carrying out the next part of his mission. As his watch ticked toward four that morning, and the first rays of sunlight reached out across the tops of the nearby hills on that side of the island, he took the time to cast his eyes about the general area.
His position was completely safe from detection by the guards posted at the actual emplacement — the width of the roof itself precluded any chance of anyone that close actually spotting him — but as he scanned the surrounding landscape, a single silhouette stood out clearly in the distance, black against the dawn sky at the crest of a set of low hills to the east that led back toward Hindsight. He instantly ducked down completely behind the metre-high ventilation stack, suddenly feeling very exposed, and drew a small pair of field glasses from a large pocket of his field jacket.
The stance and the man’s sheer height alone instantly identified the distant figure as Richard Kransky, and he silently cursed his luck. The Yank had been out on one of his lone patrols that night as usual, and had been able to approach the emplacement stealthily, much as he had, albeit for far more benign reasons. He could also see that although Kransky was clearly visible from his elevated position, the lie of the land meant the Hindsight security chief probably wasn’t visible to the guards below him on the ground. Kransky’s presence concerned him, but he kept his cooclass="underline" it wouldn’t be long before everyone’s attention was focussed elsewhere, and there’d be enough time in the ensuing confusion for him to make good an escape from the area… or devise an excuse for his presence.
He checked his watch once more, taking care to keep behind the cover of the air vent, and waited until the correct moment to reach down and take hold of the BRT’s insulated power cable. Pulling it taught between both hands, he stretched it across the straight edge of the ventilator’s metal frame, carefully exerting a steadily-increasing amount of strength until the copper wire inside finally separated and the whirring of the unit’s operation abruptly ceased. He’d taken care not to overtly tear the outer covering of insulation, and as he allowed the cable to fall to the surface of the roof once more there was no mark that couldn’t be explained as some kind of accidental breakage during installation.
Kransky watched as the morning gun crew changed over at Rora Head. He was less than three hundred metres away as he squatted on the crest of the slope down to the coast and stared through his heavy binoculars, none of those at the 8-inch emplacement ever suspecting his presence. Those coming in had only been awake a few minutes and those they were replacing had been awake all night… in both cases, their attentiveness was low and even the guards by the door weren’t truly alert to the environment around them.
As Security Chief, he suspected he should be angry about the situation but he preferred to be realistic, and human nature was what it was whether he liked it or not. The situation still wasn’t good enough however, and he’d certainly have to reprimand the crew at some stage, although he mightn’t be particularly enthusiastic in going about it. He didn’t appreciate excessive authority himself — one of the reasons he’d remained a ‘free-lance’ mercenary rather than a member of an organised armed force — although after a few weeks at Scapa Flow he could happily say that if more commanding officers were like Max Thorne, he could probably cope with army life. Most weren’t, unfortunately.