John Schettler - Three Kings

“We will not lose any more of men to persuade you to accept what you already know is inevitable,” he told Liddell.

“Oh? Well I must tell you, Colonel, that if so ordered I am prepared to lose this entire garrison to forestall your occupation of this place.”

“Have you ever seen man burn to death?”Lahousen asked. “It is not a pretty sight. Then again, the fumes from thousands of gallons of gasoline will be another agony, a choking death for some, until I decide to end the matter and use this.” He reached into his pocket and took out a book of matches, setting it squarely on the table between the two men and smiling.

“Good day, General Liddell. We will give you the three days you request, and await your decision. Do not force me to become the monster I may now seem to be. After all, this is war.”

Liddell waited those three days, and put the matter to Whitehall, where it went round for a good long day before Churchill finally decided, delivering a speech that he had made at an earlier time in the history Fedorov knew. This time it was the loss of Gibraltar that inspired the eloquence of his rhetoric.

“Our enemy has threatened a most barbarous reprisal should the brave defenders of the Rock remain adamant at their watch. They have threatened to burn the whole mountain black as death itself, consuming every last man alive in that awful fire. I cannot permit such an atrocity, and in this threat we now know the mettle of the foe we face in the Nazi war machine, which will stop at nothing to grind us under its heels. I have ordered General Liddell to stand down rather than face such a terrible end, but the task of resistance passes now to all of us. The fire that might have made an end of the brave defenders of the Rock must now burn in each of us, and forge the steel of our continued resistance. We are the Rock now, every man woman and child left in these British isles, and in our colonies throughout the empire. We may have suffered another hard knock, but they have not put us to the fire-no-not yet.

“We shall continue to fight them, resolute, on every frontier. We shall fight them in the deserts of Egypt. We shall fight them on the high seas, where the Royal Navy maintains its watch with ceaseless vigilance. We shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air. And should they dare set foot on this sacred soil, our homeland of England, we shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be. We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender, and if, which I do not for a moment believe, this island or a large part of it were subjugated and starving, then our Empire beyond the seas, armed and guarded by the British Fleet, would carry on the struggle, until, in God's good time, the New World, with all its power and might, steps forth to the rescue and the liberation of the old. We shall prove ourselves once again able to defend our island home, to ride out the storm of war, and to outlive the menace of tyranny, if necessary for years, if necessary alone.”

The phrase “We are the Rock” went out like a clarion call, across the airwaves to inspire every man on the far flung fields of battle. Yet stirring rhetoric was one thing-the grim procession of British troops filing out from their caves and tunnels quite another, and the Germans countered Churchill’s eloquence with newsreels of the event, rubbing salt in the wound they had inflicted.

When the operation was finally concluded, Admiral Raeder sent Hitler a congratulatory note, praising his decisive will to prosecute the battle and secure this vital objective, He summarized again in that note many of the arguments he had made in favor of the plan:

“The significance of German occupation of Gibraltar is increased by the recent developments in the Mediterranean situation. Such occupation safeguards the western Mediterranean; secures the supply lines from the North African area, important for Spain, France, and Germany; eliminates an important link in the British Atlantic convoy system; closes the British sea route through the Mediterranean to Malta and Alexandria; restricts the freedom of the British Mediterranean Fleet; complicates British offensive action in Cyrenaica and Greece; relieves the Italians; and make possible German penetration into the African area via Spanish Morocco. Spanish ports, like Ferrol and Cadiz, are necessary for submarines and battleships, to facilitate attack on convoys. Occupation of Gibraltar is of great importance for the continuation of German war plans, if not decisive.”

For his part, the Kriegsmarine had played a secondary role in the Gibraltar campaign, one that was largely designed to tie down the assets of the British Home Fleet and prevent them from reinforcing Force H. But Raeder had strong ships at sea, a task force under Admiral Lutjens with Hindenburg, Bismarck and supporting ships. They had successfully raided the Faeroes and savaged Convoy-HX-69, and now they were in a race south to reach the French Ports before the British could catch them. Everything was going according to his wishes.

Britain was in a quandary as to how to proceed with the war after Gibraltar. Only a few doughty souls remained hidden in the Rock. Six were concealed in their “Stay Behind Cave.” And one other was hidden in a place he had not yet come to realize or understand.

Sergeant Hobson had tried his best to get the engineers to have a look behind that imposing rock blocking the lower passage of Saint Michael’s cave. There was too little time, he was told, and where might it lead? These were the same arguments the Sergeant had run through his own mind, but a curious and stubborn man, he decided to have one last look when the word came down that the garrison would capitulate.

Somehow, he worked his way behind the rock, straining and squirming to get through a crevice so narrow that his head and shoulders could barely fit through. But he could smell fresh air there, a cool draft that had to be coming from some place, so he continued to squirm until he had managed to squeeze on through.

In that last week before the final surrender, he resolved that he would not be marched off to some German prison camp in Spain. Life might be better there than what he now contemplated, but comfort was one thing, a man’s pride and character quite another. The recollection of that young Lieutenant in the Artillery Corps that had taken up a rifle as the final retreat began was still with him. He remembered how the lad had thrown himself on that grenade, making the final sacrifice to save his comrades in arms.

“And here we are about to hand the Rock over to Jerry,” he muttered bitterly. “Some murderous German General holds up a match book and that’s the end of it. Well, not for me.”

In those last days he went about rounding up much needed supplies. If six other men would stay behind, so would he. One by one, he forced the small supply packs through the crevice, and then he finally squeezed through himself.

He took out a matchbook, shaking his head as he did so. “The Germans think they’ve taken the Rock with a single match,” he said aloud. “Well this one says we haven’t given up yet, not while there’s still one Barbary ape here on the rock, just as legend has it. By God there’s one down here somewhere, and I’m going to find it!”

He used the match to light his oil lamp, watching as it illuminated the strange shapes of the carved walls of the cave. “Now then,” he said, standing up in the dark, grateful that there was at least enough head room in his cave to allow for that. “Where have you gone, my young little weasel of an ape?”

The cold light of the waning gibbous moon fell on other ships that night, as they surged through the rising seas like steel shadows. They were running full out, engines straining, the water high on the sharp bows as they pushed ahead. Bismarck was in the van, its dark shape illuminated in the cold pale moonlight, a grim silent presence on the sea. Behind it came an even greater mass, the looming hulk of the Hindenburg as it followed the wide frothing wake of the other ship. Kapitan Adler was on the bridge, fretting and restless that night, and ever mindful of the third shadow on the sea, well behind them yet still there, doggedly following their every move. He could not see it now in the darkness, but he could feel it, the threatening presence of another enemy battleship on the seas behind them.