- Rhine Monkeys
I was to be the first to jump. As the plane approached the target area for the drop, Fleming unstrapped himself and filled a cup from the thermos. Each of us then enjoyed one last hot toddy with a liberal splash of rum in it. It was then I realized Fleming was to be our dispatcher as he was called from the pilot on the intercom. Like clockwork, he opened a hole in the floor of the Manchester’s fuselage. Next, he hitched our static lines of the parachutes onto a hook in the plane. He went through meticulous trouble to show us that it was well attached, yanking on it several times. Suddenly, the red light glowed. As trained, I sat legs dangling over the edge of the hole, waiting for the red light to turn green. At any moment, the huge engines would die and slow the plane down; I would exit feet first, straight out avoiding the slipstream; free falling until the static line opened my parachute. At that moment, I noticed Fleming was holstering a Webley revolver, just like the Duke of Hamilton sported. I never recalled Fleming armed. He cautiously touched the revolver when the light finally turned green. Either he or someone in the S. O. E. hierarchy believed I might irrationally abort at the last moment. Without fear though, I fell through the fuselage opening into a profound darkness.
While undergoing parachute training at Ringway, we made two jumps, one from a plane and another from a static balloon. Both times, I vomited within thirty seconds of my chute opening. This time though we were at a low altitude to avoid enemy radar detection. I hit the ground within 20 seconds of my chute opening. Not enough time to vomit.
My first action was to free myself of the parachute harness and gather the silk parachute. I then stripped off the camouflage jump suit. During the process, I emptied all the pockets. I placed the Walther PPK in the left breast pocket of my jacket. As an afterthought, I checked to see if it was fully loaded. In a sleeve along the outside right leg of the Striptease Suit, was a small portable shovel. Within the first five minutes, I was digging a hole in the soft soil to bury my parachute, harness, and suit. I didn’t want to dig too deep so as to leave a discernible mark in the terrain, nor did I want to dig a shallow hole which would expose the materials. Once buried, I was left with the shovel. We were told to keep it as long as necessary to serve as a makeshift weapon that would disable or kill an enemy soldier at short range. The shovel’s blade was finely honed for this purpose. Upon completion, I was to wait until there was a sign to proceed. I was not to search for Rostov or Kinnick. If there was no sign by daylight, we all would become obviously visible.
While I waited, I immediately focused on the hurried training we received at the S. O. E. Thatched Barn. Theory no longer held precedence over practice. At Station XV we were quickly hurried through interviews that determined character and potential. Ironically, I believe that if I were a Nazi spy, the psychologist who interviewed me would have designed a more telling type of inquisition. Instead, I was queried about my motivations to serve: what exactly I thought of the conflict between not only England and the German Italian Axis, but also, lest we forget, England and Japan. The interviewer gauged my prejudices by referring to our enemy in pejorative terms like Rhine Monkeys, attempting to bait me. I was given every opportunity to display an unprofessional hatred for the enemy as a means of determining if there was some kind of unhealthy desire to serve S. O. E. This included graphic photographs and movies of the mistreatment of British prisoners-of-war at the hands of the enemy. Where or how they obtained this propaganda I didn’t care to know. I just kept a level head about everything that was said or shown me. In short, the psychologist was unable to inspire me to rise to an unproductive level of hatred that would cause my emotions to dominate rational thinking in the performance of my duties. I was again curious to learn if Kinnick’s grand inquisitor delved deeply into her psyche to discover why her involvement with this enterprise appeared to be a sole desire to kill Germans, ″like everyone else″, if in fact she revealed this grey side of her personality. At the end of our full afternoon, I wanted to learn the results of what the psychologist thought of my character and potential. This would not be revealed; however, he must have discovered something positive as I was not sent to a cooler, to be encouraged to forget all about an organization he didn’t even mention by name.
As for physical exercise, we were scheduled to trek over the inhospitable terrain of Invernesshire, but I assume they wanted to keep me from Scotland; therefore, our physical regimen was limited to daily calisthenics. During this period, we were introduced to two former municipal police officers of the Shanghai, China police force. They worked in lessons of unarmed combat and silent killing. Their names were Fairbairn and Sykes, and they developed a double-edged fighting knife resembling a dagger with a foil grip. This modern day poniard was called the F/S Fighting Knife. It was a highly tapered, sharply-pointed blade with minor pommel and grip design variations. Which resembled a stiletto; enhanced for thrusting, while being capable of slashing the enemy with cutting edges that were acutely sharpened. With this weapon we spent a day and one half learning the Fairbairn Fighting System of close contact fighting. I did fairly well, whereas Kinnick demonstrated she would be an adept and threatening challenge to any adversary. However, Rostov was slow and too methodical in his application of the weapon in a final kill. Upon reflection, I checked to see if mine was still strapped to my lower right leg.
We quickly progressed to firearms training. Before Fleming returned Hess’ Walther PPK to me, I familiarized myself with the Colt .45, just like the one the American Nazi Brustowitz carried when we were adrift at sea. We were taught to fire in a rather unorthodox manner: by pointing the guns, with our firing arms into our hips, instead of taking aim- firing two shots to be certain of the target. They called this the Double Tap system. We trained an entire afternoon with a life-sized figure on a winch, which would
approach us at varying speeds. Again, Kinnick, and I perhaps, excelled at this. Rostov merely went through the motions.
After firearms training, we should have been immersed in the art and science of demolition and explosives, an essential part of the S.O.E. remit. This though was absent from our training. Instead, we were immersed in what exactly constituted the clandestine life of an S.O.E agent in occupied Europe; what was essential for one’s personal safety-especially, maintaining our cover stories and what to do while under police surveillance. Critical to survival was fully understanding one’s cover story. I was Rolf Haus, a day laborer assigned to the Renault factory in the production of war materials. After I was injured in June 1940. My papers were all in order, and I was even provided with Wehrmacht identification tags, copied from those removed off dead bodies. I was not completely satisfied with the background fabric of the life of my fictitious counterpart as I found it thin. If intelligence were to be believed, an invasion of the Soviet Union by Nazi Germany would need the tremendous manpower of every available and able German male. Nonetheless, I assumed they believed my mastery of the German language would prevent added scrutiny to this nearly transparent charade.
The final exam, so to speak, of our training involved what was referred to as a ″scheme″. Ours’ lasted 48 hours. During the first day, we were brought to London, and our ability at making contact with an intermediate, referred to as a ‘cut out’ was tested… First, we practiced tailing someone leaving London Waterloo and also; losing a trainer designated as the enemy. The next day was reserved for a longer scheme which involved making contact with a supposed resistance member. In this instance, both Rostov and I were required to use a secret number to call in the course of the training when our activities captured the attention of a constable of the Metropolitan Police. In this case the police did detain us. When at the station, the number was called and an explanation from S.O.E. about our true identities and the purpose of the exercise. In the case of Kinnick though, our instructors were both amused and impressed with her ability to brazen out her cover by impersonating a house servant of General De Gaulle. She only spoke French when explaining she had travelled from his rented home in Berkhamsted, Hertfordshire on her free day. She was released from custody.
Upon completion of those exercises, we were returned to Occult House which served as our holding school to await our mission. I continued to reflect on all that had happened for just a short while until I saw the illumination of what appeared to be a flashlight coming from a nearby grove of trees. It flashed only once, for five seconds. I then dared to move forward cautiously in its direction.
nickjordycj2 