King of the Commandos

Night had drawn its black-out curtain across the coast of Northern France; but like most black-out curtains it was not perfect; from time to time a crescent moon peered mistily through lowering clouds which, as sullen and menacing as the Nazi invaders who had set their heel upon the land, marched in endless procession across the dome of heaven. The dim light fell on a bleak, deserted foreshore, and close at hand, the uneasy waters of the English Channel.From the summit of a low dune, lying deep in the coarse grass that softened its outline, Corporal Collson regarded the scene without emotion—Corporal Albert Edward Collson, to give him his full name. Not that anyone called him Albert—at any rate, not in the Special Service Troop of the Combined Operations unit, No. 9 Commando, of which he was a member. In that small band of hard-hitting warriors, sometimes known as King’s “Kittens,” he was invariably known as “Copper,” due to the fact that he had once been a member of the Metropolitan Police. He bore no resemblance whatever to a kitten. It happened that the shoulder cypher chosen for No. 9 Commando was a wildcat. This, with that whimsical humour which is never far distant from British fighting men, had been interpreted by other commando units as a kitten. Captain Lorrington King happened to be the commanding officer—whence the title, King’s Kittens.