Beach View Boarding House [05] Always in My Heart by Ellie Dean

Author:Ellie Dean [Dean, Ellie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Historical
ISBN: 0099585278
Amazon: B00CQ1DLCU
Goodreads: 17345179
Publisher: Random House UK
Published: 2013-08-29T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter Sixteen

Another week had passed since Jim and Frank had left for training camp, and it was fervently hoped they would be granted a short leave. Ron was still finding it hard to come to terms with the fact that his two sons could soon be in the thick of it somewhere. What with the Japs rampaging through the whole of the Far East and even managing to attack Australia, and Hitler doing his best to annihilate Europe, there seemed little chance that his boys would be stuck somewhere safe in England for the duration.

He left Beach View dressed in his Home Guard uniform, the Fairbairn-Sykes fighting knife well hidden in the depths of his canvas bag of supplies which he carried over his shoulder to see him through the long night. Instead of heading for the platoon’s headquarters in the centre of town, he struck out along the back alleyway and headed for the hills. This twice-weekly walk was always undertaken in the dark, his destination one of utmost secrecy, and his absence at the Home Guard meeting would be explained if necessary by his commanding officer, who had also been recruited into the GHQ Special Reserve Battalion 203.

Very few people knew about these specialised battalions, or of the covert activity they’d been preparing for over the past two years. Like the others, Ron had signed the Official Secrets Act shortly after he’d first been approached by Colonel Gubbins.

After the fall of France in May 1940, Gubbins was ordered by Churchill to create a force of civilian volunteers, recruited primarily from the ablest members of the Home Guard. The ideal candidates were farmers, foresters, gamekeepers and poachers whose knowledge of their particular area was indisputable, and who could be trained in the necessary skills for guerrilla warfare and the silent kill. Their task was to operate from secret underground bases, and if Britain was invaded, to be the front line of defence and carry out attacks and sabotage against enemy targets such as supply dumps, railway lines, convoys and enemy-controlled airfields – and to harry and disrupt supplies and lines of communication. Each man was equipped with a revolver and Sten gun, as well as the fighting knife and a silenced .22 sniper rifle.

Keeping to the shadows of the trees and away from the skyline, Ron skirted the gun emplacements and fire-watch positions that were dotted over the hills, and walked down into the valley, past the ugly wire fencing that encompassed the Cliffe estate and further into the dense woodlands where the gorse grew in thick clumps beneath the gnarled old trees and brambles deterred walkers. He trod carefully through the clinging goose grass and ivy, making sure he left no trace of his passage as he followed the path that only he could see.

The operational base was constructed of preformed corrugated iron segments, sunk into the ground with concrete pipe access and a maze of escape tunnels. Well hidden beneath a tangle of brambles, wild honeysuckle and

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