The Nazi Hunters (5 page)

It was the ‘freemasonry of the Turf’ that had come to his rescue. Upon hearing of his predicament, a jockey friend had invited Hislop to join the Phantoms, a little-known unit that would prove to be the making of him. The GHQ (General Head Quarters) Liaison Regiment, as the Phantoms were more formally known, was a small, secretive outfit tasked with embedding themselves amongst the most forward-fighting troops, relaying vital reports about the state of front-line operations direct to GHQ, via wireless.

As with the SAS, officially the Phantoms remained posted to their parent unit and wore its regimental insignia. The only thing that marked them out as anything different was a distinctive shoulder flash – a white ‘P’ over a square of black. Hislop had been posted to the Phantoms’ A Squadron, which was populated by several high-profile racing acquaintances, including Maurice Macmillan, son of the future British prime minister, and John ‘Jackie’ Astor, of the super-wealthy and titled Anglo-American Astor clan.

Somehow fittingly, the squadron was commanded by the actor David Niven, who was fast becoming a household name. Niven had been in America when war broke out, working on a clutch of movies. At that stage, America was two years away from joining the conflict, but even so he had returned to England forthwith and signed up with the Phantoms.

Shortly thereafter he’d been dining with a party that had included Winston Churchill. Churchill had placed a companionable hand on the famous actor’s shoulder. ‘We are all, I am sure, very pleased and proud that this young man should throw up a brilliant and lucrative career in Hollywood to come back to fight for his country – but wouldn’t have thought much of him if he hadn’t!’

For Hislop, his posting to the Phantoms proved doubly fortunate. The squadron had its ‘country headquarters’ at the glorious Stourhead House, in Mere, Somerset, then owned by Sir Henry Hoare and his wife. Somehow, the privations of the war seemed to have passed Stourhead by; imperial peacocks strolled the grounds, and lithesome hunters graced the stables. Hislop was soon riding out over the glorious Somerset countryside.

By the spring of 1942 he found himself back in the racing saddle, riding Overseas in a chase at Cheltenham. He coaxed his horse into the lead, only to fall at one of the final fences. Hislop was thrown, badly breaking his leg. Nine months on crutches followed, after which he was invalided out of the Army. But Hislop refused to go quietly. Instead, he fought his way back to physical fitness and rejoined the unit that he was coming to love.

Hislop was taken into F Squadron, commanded by his friend and long-time racing buddy, Jackie Astor. Astor ran a ‘happy Squadron’, Hislop remarked, one ‘devoid of discontent, mistrust, depression or apathy; a light-hearted enthusiasm pervaded.’

Recently, the men of F Squadron had been asked to join forces with the SAS, which had found itself short of skilled signallers. Since it would doubtless involve parachuting, for which one needed to volunteer, men were asked to step forward.

At the start of the war Hislop had been very much the reluctant soldier. He wasn’t any more; he was amongst the majority of the F Squadron men who did step forward.

Time and again the Phantoms had proved themselves superlative wireless operators, especially during exercises on the remote Scottish moors. Unlike the Royal Corps of Signals (the regular Army’s communications specialists), the Phantoms combined a relentless training regime with a relaxed attitude, and an
esprit de corps
that encouraged self-starters and those of an independent mind.

There was little saluting or rank-consciousness in the Hon. Jackie Astor’s company. Instead, men were given free rein, being urged to experiment with aerial lengths, frequencies, the positioning of wireless sets and so on. No one minded how unorthodox the methods might be, as long as the Phantoms got the message through.

And, on the coming mission in the Vosges, doing just that would prove of paramount importance. In order to arm the Maquis, details of drop zone coordinates, dates and timings of drops, plus weapons requirements, would need to be radioed through to London. Unless effective communications could be established and maintained, Op Loyton would be finished before it had even begun.

Just prior to mission departure, Hislop had been invited to visit the SOE’s unremarkable, grey-faced 64 Baker Street headquarters in London to pick up some of the specialized gadgetry that the coming mission might call for. He was introduced to a slight, dark-haired man, who squinted at him from behind thick spectacles.

‘Ah, Captain Hislop . . . So very nice to see you! So, you’re going on a little foreign trip? Well, let’s have a look to see what we’ve got that might be useful to you . . .’

The SOE’s gadget man produced a fountain pen which, upon scratching its paint off, proved to have a tiny compass embedded in one end. Alternatively, Hislop could opt for a compass disguised as a button and sewn onto his shirt. ‘It’s attached to you, so you won’t lose it as easily as a pen,’ the SOE man enthused.

Then there was a handkerchief that you had to urinate on and – eureka! – it revealed a map of northern France. Or another in white silk with a number of hidden, coded phrases written upon it, such as: ‘Surrounded by the enemy; expect no more messages.’

‘They look nice with a dinner jacket,’ the gadget man added, somewhat unnecessarily.

Hislop was offered a pen that wrote in invisible ink, paper he could eat ‘in case of emergencies’, plus an escape pack loaded with ‘boiled sweets, Benzedrine and one or two other comforts’. Benzedrine is a potent amphetamine, one that was then popular in London’s swankier nightclubs. With its euphoric stimulant effect, it could keep an operator alert and energized for long periods, an obvious advantage for behind-enemy-lines operations.

And so, weighed down with SOE gadgetry, Hislop and the three fellow Phantoms he commanded had joined the Op Loyton advance party. Corporal Gerald Davis, Hislop’s second in command, squatted at the Whitley’s exit. Davis suffered from a slight speech impediment and he had a somewhat cynical outlook on life, but all of that was offset by a strongly independent nature. He was tall, lean and athletic, and of bulletproof reliability, and he wasn’t overawed by anyone, no matter who they might be.

Once Davis had been on an exercise and his military car had broken down. An officer had arrived on the scene, only to find Davis staring at the vehicle, hands on hips. ‘Hullo, Corporal Davis, why are you standing about doing f-all?’ the officer had asked. Davis had turned and answered casually: ‘’Cause there’s f-all to do!’ In short, Davis was calm, steadfast and utterly dependable, and Hislop had come to like and respect the man.

Squatting beside Davis was Private ‘Jock’ Johnston, a quiet, dour Scot. Johnston was slow of speech but he had a cool, clear head, and he was a demon with a wireless set. No matter what the situation, he could be relied upon to get the signal through, and Hislop could ask no more of the man.

Hislop’s third Phantom operator was somewhat less predictable, though through no fault of his own. Prior to joining the Phantoms, Sullivan had seen serious action with the commandos, and it had served to put his nerves on edge. Never lacking in courage, he became noticeably tense and jumpy in moments of real danger, which Hislop found somewhat disconcerting.

And, in truth, Hislop found the entire Op Loyton undertaking rather daunting – largely due to their present company. His first impression of the SAS had been that they were some kind of rabid, warmongering ‘Foreign Legion’. During operations overseas they seemed to have acquired soldiers of every nationality, including a smattering of Germans. Upon the Regiment’s 1944 return to the UK, there had proved to be no official record of many of their number ever having served in the British Army.

‘All the time I served with the SAS I never quite overcame the impression that I belonged to a species of banditi,’ Hislop recalled. ‘The enterprise of the SAS troops on exercises shook the local authorities accustomed to the more staid practices of home-based troops. On one occasion they held up a train in order to get a lift.’

Following his racing injuries, Hislop’s jockeying exploits had been sadly curtailed. He’d opted instead to start breeding and training racehorses. He’d just started getting serious about it, acquiring two promising steeds, Orama and Milk Bar, when the D-Day landings had taken place, after which he’d been ordered to deploy on the present mission.

Normally, dwelling on such thoughts of ‘the Turf’ served to put steel into Hislop’s soul – a steel that he didn’t quite believe was innately his. As he tensed himself at the Whitley’s bomb-bay exit, lining up with the SAS ‘banditi’, the words of a favourite poem flashed through his mind.

So the coward will dare on the gallant horse

What he never would dare alone,

Because he exults in a borrowed force,

And a hardihood not his own.

All thoughts of cowardice were driven from Hislop’s head as the Whitley began its run-in to the DZ. Within moments, a forest clearing hove into view, one marked by a series of blazing fires. Even from this altitude the bonfires looked massive, as if groups of French villagers had somehow decided to celebrate Guy Fawkes.

Hislop found himself wondering whether maybe the Maquis hadn’t overdone things a little. Surely, as well as being visible from the bomb bay of the Whitley, the conflagrations would be seen by the enemy, drawing them towards the DZ. He comforted himself with thoughts of their RAF Fairford briefing, at which they’d been told that only a handful of German troops were stationed in the area, and even those were of a low calibre.

The timbre of the twin engines dropped to a throaty grumble as the plane descended. The flames could be seen illuminating the whites of upturned faces, as whoever was below scanned the skies for the aircraft they could now doubtless hear. The pilot began his final approach, the red ‘action stations’ jump light flickering on. Moments later it switched to green, the dispatcher yelling: ‘GO! GO! GO!’

The first stick of six – led by Druce – threw their legs forward, leading with the one weighed down by the leg bag, and, as one, vanished through the floor. The second stick – including Hislop and his Phantoms – lined up beside the windswept, empty grave as the aircraft climbed again, swinging around and aligning itself for a second run.

Hislop felt his heart pounding like a jackhammer as his stick shuffled closer together. The tighter the pack at the moment of the jump, the faster they would get out and the more likely they were not to miss the DZ. The wait seemed to last for an age, and Hislop could feel the tension spiking.

By the time the jump light flashed green for a second time he was shaking with nerves.

Chapter Three

A second row of stick-like figures plummeted through the gaping maw of the bomb bay and tumbled into the dark and howling void. The Whitley’s engines had been throttled right back, but still Hislop was sucked into the churning maelstrom of the aircraft’s slipstream, the pummelling taking his very breath away.

He was spat out on the far side. Hislop sensed himself falling for just an instant, before the static line pulled taut, ripping away his parapack and releasing his chute. A split second later, there was a distinctive crack in the night sky above him, as if a powerful gust of wind had caught a yacht’s mainsail, and a canopy of silk blossomed grey-white in the darkness.

Hislop felt as if a giant hand had pulled him up by the shoulders, leaving him suspended in mid-air. As the oscillations of the chute diminished, he became aware of the vast and arresting silence and stillness of the Vosges night. After several hours cooped up in the aircraft’s suffocating hold, the emptiness felt deafening, but at least no one seemed to be shooting at him.

He reached down to pull the cord that was supposed to release his leg bag and let it fall away. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the mechanism failed. One strap unfastened but the other did not, leaving the heavy bag dangling awkwardly, as if a rabid dog had grabbed one trouser leg and would not let go. With over 50 pounds of kit unbalancing him, there was a good chance that he would land badly, breaking a leg.

The flare of the bonfires was growing ever brighter as he reached down, grabbed the release cord and hauled on it for all he was worth, trying to wrench the dead weight into something like a vertical position. But, even as he was doing so, a sharp burst of gunfire cut the night, hot tracer arcing through the dark heavens.

Hislop had little time to worry about whether the shots were aimed at him, or whether it was just some over-excited Maquis loosing off in high spirits. If he didn’t get this irksome kitbag under control, he was about to break his leg again – and this time deep inside enemy-occupied France, as opposed to the comparatively benign environment of Cheltenham racecourse.

Hislop was so preoccupied with his bag-wrestling antics that he had little time to steer for the clearing. He crashed into a copse of saplings, which fortunately bent and flattened, serving to break his fall. He tumbled through the last of the branches and was deposited on his backside amidst the dew-kissed undergrowth, with nothing but his pride suffering any form of hurt.

Before he could struggle to his feet, three figures were upon him. From their dress – the odd piece of khaki battledress, interspersed with moth-eaten tweed capes and French-style black berets – Hislop figured this was no Gestapo reception party.

‘
Nous sommes les guerriers de Malicoco!
’ he blurted out, in his best Wellington schoolboy French.