Claude Miggins
appears to be an innocent chimney sweep. However, he is in reality a commando
in Snapforce in disguise. His wife runs a very popular pie-shop in London.
Claude presents his forged papers to Leutnant Beckenbauer, the commander of the Fallschirmjäger
squad detailed to guard the prisoners until the arrival of Field Marshal von
Leeb.
Arnold is waved through and makes his first
visit the cook house. Michel le Roux is aware of the commando’s plan and has
been awaiting Claude’s arrival. Claude hands over the meat dosed with crushed sleeping
pills and Hector’s plan commences.
Michel makes his usual late-afternoon rounds
to feed the guard dogs, this time with the doctored meat. The dogs gradually
drop off to sleep without arousing the guard’s suspicions.
Hector’s plan is to effect a silent entry to
the inn. Claude makes his way upstairs, having to pass a guard on each floor.
I gave him a diminishing percentage chance of
passing each guard. 95% at the ground floor, 85% at the first floor and so on. The
plan was that he would make his way to the top floor and kill the guard or
guards outside Prince Phillip’s door. He would then stick his brushes up the
chimney as a signal to the waiting commandos. He would then hold the top floor
until relieved.
The plan
starts to unravel as Claude tries to get past a very suspicious Obergrefreiter Albert Zöller. Something has given the game away (Miggins failed a percentage throw of 75%)
and Zöller starts to raise his weapon. Claude manages to draw his Fairburn
Sykes fighting knife from inside his brushes and kills Zöller on the landing. Unfortunately
for Claude, the noise of the fight alerts Kapitänleutnant Günther Prien who is
in the room on the left. Prien opens the door and fires his MP40.
Claude dives
back down the stairs where he is killed by another alerted matelot, Matrose
Friedrich Engelmann.
Giving up on
the silent entry, McSnapcase gives the order and the commandos advance to
contact. Labalaba wounds the sausage-eating sentry with his Lewis gun.
This opens up
the way for Bill Coleman, the Aussie, to batter down the back door and burst
into the bar, behind ‘Camp’ Freddie, the inn’s long-serving one-eyed barman.
The Black Shorts who had popped into the bar for a pre-dinner aperitif can only
stand and stare. Regaining their wits (what little they have), Spode, Mosley
and Diana Mitford draw their pistols and open fire. Bill takes two wounds and
is pinned behind the bar but he’s not dead yet!
3 and 4
Sections advance across the road and open up on any visible targets. Matt
Braddock is keeping the radio net open to allow comms between all four
sections.
The Fallschirmjäger in the stable start to emerge to join the defence.
The first one out is wounded, the next killed and the third pinned behind the
water pump. They are taking some very accurate fire from both sides.
By the main door, Leutnant Beckenbauer dived
inside for cover as two more of his men ran out. The sentry on the steps to the
first-floor door pins MacAuslan down behind the railings.
Seeing
that there are more Fallschirmjäger to come out of the stable, Captain Peter Fleming sends ‘Meat
Pot’ around the corner with the PIAT. ‘Meat Pot’ aims the PIAT at a small
window on the road side of the stable and fires. I gave him a 50/50 chance
to get it through the window.
More by luck than judgement the round goes
straight through the window and explodes inside. It is carnage inside as one Fallschirmjäger
is killed outright, two are wounded and the other three are pinned.
Prien starts
to organise the Kriegsmarine into some semblance of order. No time to mourn Zöller
now.
Meanwhile,
up the back passage, 1 and 2 Sections start to assault the inn. Stavros is
right behind Bill Coleman. Captain Druce is climbing over the compost bin in
his black silk topper. Hector is trying to force a window as the door to the
bar is causing a bottleneck.
Now that there’s movement on all
floors of the inn I have had to disassemble it. It’s now like trying to play tri-dimensional
chess in Star Trek!
To be continued...
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