Chapter 358
“You do realize that we can't make the Army go faster, do you?”
Felix was torn from his thoughts and saw that Ian was still looking at the road in front of them. He opened his mouth to reply, but was cut off by Ian before he could form a word.
“Normally I wouldn't mind you moping over that girl, but don't let it influence our work.”
Felix was about to give a heated reply, but then realized that Ian did have a point. Besides, even if he ever saw her again, the chances that she did anything but hate his guts was beyond slim.
And anyway, Ian deserved better from him. They knew each other far too well for Felix to hid his feelings, but at the same time Ian saw no reason to tell anyone much of Felix' normally cheery exterior had become so much of an act.
“Fair enough.”
And for the first time in weeks, his smile was genuine and really reached his eyes.
“So, we there yet?”
“Almost, my child.”
“Good. Wake me when we get there.”
With that, Felix leaned as far back as the Landy's seat would allow, pulled his Royal Marine beret over his eyes, and was snoring loudly within less than a minute.
Ian just grinned. Felix was not only his best friend, but also quite literally family, if only by marriage. Because of that he had been worried about Felix since they had returned from Germany. Felix wasn't yet back to his old self, but that was only to be expected in a war that went on and on, and showed no signs of ending. Emotional entanglements couldn't help at all, but it was better than falling into combat fatigue, or shellshock or whatever it was called this year, like so many people Ian knew. Far too many of his school friends suffered from it, if they were still alive in the first place.
Felix at least had one more reason to live, and Sandra would never know just how much Felix' recovery after his time in German captivity had depended on Sean, her and his parents. Ian didn't pretend to be a psycho-analyst or even any sort of doctor, but he had known the nightmares that Felix had tried to conceal from the rest of the world and how they had slowly, and almost completely, disappeared during the time they had spent in Britain.
He chuckled to himself and would have almost missed the turn-off to the camp where the 4th Battalion of the South-Essex Light Infantry was encamped.
It would take him another half hour along this secondary country road to reach camp, but there would be no more forks, so he drove the Land Rover on auto-pilot and went back over the briefing.
Even with all that had happened since he had witnessed the announcement of the unholy alliance between Germany and the Soviet Union, this had to be close to taking the cake.
Even with the entire battalion, taking a Bavarian castle thirty miles behind the front had to be among the craziest ideas. When Ian, with all due respect, had pointed this out, the Officer from the Field Marshal's staff had replied that the orders had come straight from London, unusally even by-passing most of Alexander's staff.
What had worried the both of them even more was that no one knew just what exactly the Nazis were doing there.
Or why this fell under the responsibilities of Paperclip and not the SAS.
That at least had yielded an honest answer. The SAS was otherwise engaged, and before he suggested a Squadron of Lancasters with ten ton bombs, he needed to know that someone in London desired to know just what exactly the Germans were doing there, as with all the secrecy, even certain...sources knew almost nothing at all.
The castle and even the town around it was under complete, direct SS control, going so far as to evict the local population and use the village to house...someone. High-altitude reconnaissance Mosquitoes had taken pictures several times over the last three months and had shown considerable construction going on, including a direct high-capacity power connection to a powerplant and a smaller one, presumably oil burning, nearby.
Ian could still remember what the Brigadier had said.
“Therefore you will take the entire battalion. Major Gordon will accompany you, as he is the Battalion Commander, but you will lead this mission.”
For once it had been a clear division of labour.
Still, this whole thing was...
Felix interrupted his train of thought. “I agree with you, it really isn't.”
“What? Ian asked.
“This whole thing. Within what you could normally expect from our current posting. We both promised Sandra we wouldn't do this sort of thing any more.”
Oh yes, Felix was indeed almost back to his old self. “Your father was in the U.S. Army. She should know better.”
“Oh I agree, but I also think that the both of us are not looking forward to her wrath descending upon us when she finds out that we are taking a battalion of Her Majesty's Light Infantry on a suicide mission behind the lines. Again.”#
Ian laughed at the all to accurate description of his wife's wrath. “I won't tell her if you don't.” Felix just grinned and nodded, while his friend merely thought of his family. Felix knew that Ian was debating with himself about pulling some strings to get them to Italy, but each time he was close to doing it, either he, via a very winding road, asked Felix to talk him out of it, or did it himself.
“Well, your theory that somewhere there is a puppet master hell-bent on sending us into the most ridiculous of situations, in and around this bloody war, seems to hold true.”
“It most certainly does. As for your earlier question, the camp is about a mile up the road.”
Felix sat up straight in his chair and re-adjusted his beret. “What else do we know about this Gordon?”
“We will need to hold onto our tempers.”
Felix sighed. “I thought as much when I read his file. Luckily for us, you outrank him, and as far as he knows, we both are Royal Marines and not with the Andrew.”
The file they had both been given two days ago showed that Gordon would hate the assignment, he wanted a combat command and not one to, as Ian was sure he would put it, shepherding a bunch if spies around the German countryside, a place where the battalion would most certainly run into the enemy and shortly be overwhelmed.
At least he was not a glory hound, but that had to be expected, as one would never be assigned to a posting like this, or so he hoped at least.
Then again, he did outrank that officer in any case, and most of the men had worked with Operation Paperclip for quite some time now, so would know what sort of work the mission would entail.
Turning into the camp after being checked by the sentry, Ian could see that Gordon was supervising the loading of ammunition and supplies. Ian stopped the car.
“Say Ian, that castle isn't called Wolfenstein by any chance?”
Ian was taken aback by the apparent non-sequitur and only looked at Felix. “Where the bloody hell is that coming from, and no.”
Felix shrugged. “Don't really know, just seemed like the thing to ask.”
“Fair enough. And it's not the Castle of the Eagle either. That is very clichéd, and frankly, I dislike those old invasion panic novels anyway.”
“I see,” Felix replied, and the tone of voice he had told Ian he didn't need to look around to see the satisfied smirk, “so that's why you have about two dozen of them on your bookshelf in London, right?”
“Those are purely for research, old boy. On how not to write a novel.”
Felix said nothing more. He knew of the manuscript that Ian was working on in his all too rare free time, and also that he had started it while thinking that Felix was dead. He had yet to read it, but he knew that Ian had been doing it to keep a hold on his sanity and, judging by the way he talked about it, because he had fallen in love with that island.
The vehicle they were in stopped near the command post and they prepared to get out.
“Well, let's go earn the Queen's shilling.” Ian reached for his rifle while Felix shouldered his shotgun. Thus armed, they stepped out of their transportation and walked towards Gordon.