When Jack Jarvis awoke that morning he couldn’t remember how he had got to be sleeping in a tent – the noise from the bar was louder until he realised it was the noise of guns and bombs exploding in the distance. He got up and dressed in what he thought was rather strange clothes. He looked in the broken shaving mirror propped up precariously on a makeshift shelf. It wasn’t the face of the Jack Jarvis he knew. He kept pinching himself just to make sure he was still alive. He felt the same as before and that was the strangest thing of all. He poked his head out of the tent and asked a passing soldier what year was it? The soldier scratched his head and with a worried look etched on his face he answered, ‘1941 Corp!’
Jack sat on his bunk and stared into space for a long, long time. In a daze he stood up and went out looking for breakfast somewhere. This was going to be something different in his life, an adventure. Jack just got back to his tent when a orderly entered his tent and said ‘The old man wants you pronto.’ ‘Who?’ asked Jarvis. ‘The Brigadier’ remarked the orderly and left the tent. Jarvis walked towards a large tent where he thought the Brigadier should be and stood outside.
‘Jarvis! Jarvis! Oh there you are! Must I always call you twice! Do your tunic up, this is the army not a house of rest!’
Corporal Jarvis fumbled with the buttons on his uniform, not being used to wearing what he would call tight clothes. Jack only managed to put the uniform on and he couldn’t understand what had happened to his other clothes and more to the point he didn’t understand how this man knew his name and recognised him as Jarvis. After what seemed an eternity, at last Jack managed to do his buttons up.
Brigadier Carter-Jones said ‘Look Jarvis, I know you don’t like discipline but if we are going to win this war, we have got to have some hard and fast rules and this job I have been instructed to give you comes from the very top, Discipline will play a major part, and your reaction to how you go about it will be the difference between you coming out alive and well, you know what………!’
‘You have been chosen for this dangerous assignment, and you have been promoted to Sergeant, I understand that you speak the German language perfectly and have done extensive unarmed combat and the use of knives is your speciality. Your training on how to kill has been your forte so to speak!’
The Brigadier handed the sealed letter to the now promoted Sergeant, ‘Open this when you get back to your tent!’ Jarvis felt proud and showed it by smartly coming to attention and saluting. He thought it was the right thing to do having seen other men who came into the tent and saluted the officer who wasn’t even looking at them – but he would give a sort of a wave as each man walked out of the tent. Jack wasn’t sure about speaking any other language than his own native tongue, let alone a German language, which he was not familiar with anyway, neither unarmed combat or being good with knives seemed to ring a bell
Jarvis reflected on the events of the morning. Things got very rough about eleven when the Germans bombarded their positions although no-one should have known they were there. An advanced brigade of men had secretly landed on the beaches of France and penetrated the German line of defence, they were well behind enemy lines.
Jack slit open the envelope – there were no actual names referred to about anything, it was all A’s, B’s etc—proceed along route B until you meet up with R.F’s (See map references). You will travel by bicycle and only travel at night. When you reach your destination you will meet up with Captain X – he will give you your next set of instructions – you leave at your own discretion—no further communication is necessary – inwardly digest and destroy these written instructions. Jarvis tore up the paper into pieces and piled them on his metal plate (standard issue) and set them alight. He wondered what special mission he was in for and for a brief moment the flames picked out grim outline of the contours of his face. Jarvis decided he was going to leave tonight. He didn’t pack much in the way of comfort clothing, just a few bars of chocolate and two flasks of water.
Jack walked out of his tent and disappeared into the night. He found the right route and sometimes he ran and sometimes he walked, and suddenly he came across a very small village, a few houses, a church and leaning against the wall of the first house was a bicycle. Jack began to open the gate, unfortunately it creaked very loudly, he shut the gate quickly and ducked behind a hedge when he heard voices, German voices. ‘I thought I heard something!’ Jarvis could see through the hedge as the German scanned in his direction. ‘Must have been the wind!’ and with that went back into the house. Jack couldn’t understand why he recognised that the man spoke German, he knew what the man said and that baffled him, so therefore he thought I must know how to speak German. With that knowledge tidied away in his brain, he felt more confident on the outcome of his mission.
Jack didn’t hesitate he leapt over the white slatted fence and ran towards the bicycle and without any thought of whether it was tethered, he picked up the bicycle, almost stumbling at the same time, he ran towards the fence and jumped with bike in one super human effort and landed with a crash on the other side and scrambled towards the hedge dragging the bike behind him, his heart thumping away as if it would burst any moment. Surely someone would have heard him – but no – his luck held. After a while he got up and dusted himself down and walked away from the house expecting to hear the guttural sounds of ‘Hey you !’ ‘Halt or I’ll fire!’ But nothing happened. He mounted the bike and pedalled like mad out of the village.
Without further scrapes it took Jarvis a further three nights to reach the secret camp of RF and Captain X who were anxious to move on having had to wait for his arrival they had been sitting ducks should a German patrol had come their way. They gave him food and drink and without further ado Captain X (after the corny code of : (‘Nasty weather we are having for this time of the year old boy!’ ‘Yes!’ ‘It is !’) gave him his sealed orders and food and water for the journey. Captain X gave orders to his men to get ready to go and with that they melted away in the wood, it was if they were never there.
Sergeant Jack Jarvis opened the sealed orders and what he read made his eyes widen and his jaw drop with astonishment. He was to speak German from now on and dress as a German outrider to escort a high ranking officer and assassinate him.
The problem now facing Jack was how he was going to get hold of a uniform and motorcycle – a tall order! A tall order indeed because Jack realised he would have get up close and personal, no good shooting or stabbing as the uniform would have to be complete without holes of any sort. He was not looking forward to the project at all.
Jack moved stealthily through the wood opposite the direction his compatriots had taken and shortly he came to this town. There were a few buildings that were still standing and had not been bombed. Jack sidled up to one particular building which seemed to be occupied. He looked both left and right and as the coast was clear he climbed the building and clambered through an open window.
It was dark and smelt damp, the room was bare of furniture and the floor was wooden, although you could see the outline of a carpet that was once in pride of place. Jack tried very carefully to walk quietly which was very difficult to do in boots with metal studs. He opened the door into a passage and the door opposite showed a glimmer of light under the door’s edge, it didn’t seem to be a proper light, because it flickered bright and then dark. Jack cautiously inched open the door and peered across the room. At first he could not see the slumped figure on the desk. He proceeded to walk across to the desk. He soon realised that the body was a dead body, maybe the give way clues, the gun in the right hand and the powder burns behind the ear. There was many sheets of paper strewn over the desk, some blood streaked across the top sheet which Jack just managed to decipher. The writing was not of any importance, more of a ‘Dear John’ affair.
Jack thought this was a lucky find – he could change his uniform with the man that lay dead before him. He did not fancy doing it – but orders were orders which he had to obey as his Brigadier said that sloppiness meant certain death and being smart would save your life. Having kitted out in this new attire and it wasn’t until he straightened his tie that he realised that only officers wore ties and with dread in his heart he picked up the letter and the gist of the letter content from the mother of a daughter who had informed the officer in question that her daughter had been executed by the French Resistance for collaborating with a German Officer. Love thought Jack had a lot to answer for! It was most unfortunate that two people from opposite sides of a war had fallen for each other. So the German Officer did the one option that was left open to him. He could not live without her love, so he shot himself.
Jack decided to check who this letter was addressed to and he was shocked to find that this was the person he had to eliminate and the uniform he had exchanged had put him in a very difficult situation. He was about to disrobe when he heard noises and voices, British voices! He panicked and made a dash for it, back to the room and climbed out of the window and clumsily scrambled down the side of the building and falling the last four feet or so – by that time faces appeared at the window and shots were fired. Jack scrambled to his feet and ran off – he didn’t know which direction to go – all he knew he had to get away. He became breathless as he ran harder than he had in all his life done so and his followers seemed only a heartbeat away.