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Shaun held on tightly to the grab handles of the Jeep as it lurched and bumped its way along the passage the Jeep was taking. It's progress lit by the hooded lights of its headlights. He didn't speak to Sol, knowing he had to concentrate on his driving.
As dawn broke over the crags, Sol pulled over to an overhanging cliff face, and they began to camouflage the Jeep, afterwards they made camp.
Over the course of the eight nights it took to reach the second gorge Shaun slowly pieced together Sol's story. With gentle probing, from talks they had had while waiting for night to come.
He along with his parents and grandparents had fled Poland when Germany invaded Poland. His father, a lawyer knew what the Nazi's had done to Jews in Germany and had made preparations to escape. He had planned to escape to England, but somehow the family had become separated in the confusion of people trying to escape the Nazi's.
How a fifteen year old boy had managed to traverse the distance from Poland to England and the insurmountable problems this must have coursed, Shaun could only imagine. But Sol had arrived in England in February 1940, friendless and without hardly any money. He had been placed with other refugees in a camp in Dorset.
Fortunately Sol had a good grasp of English having studded it School along with other languages. He made repeated attempts to find out information about his family, but to no avail.
Two months after his sixteenth birthday he lied about his age and joined the army. And volunteered to join the newly formed Parachute Regiment. He quickly rose through the ranks, becoming a Corporal.
Sol had displayed an ability for marksmanship being rated expert, and this brought him to the attention of the S O E, Special Operations Executive.
He was asked if he would be interested in returning to Europe for an important mission. Sol jumped at the chance. He was promoted to Sargent.
He underwent intensive training at their training camp in Sussex. Codes, radio, unarmed combat escape and evasion techniques and marksmanship.
He was moved to Bisley, where he received instruction from some of the best rifle shots in Britain at ranges up tp 1500 yards. A rifle was made for him by a gun shop in London, they had measured him and produced a rifle that was basically a SMLE .303 but with a heavier barrel and handmade components. It had a walnut stock with cheek rest and pistol grip and was fitted with a Parker Hale telescopic sight. They also produced special .303 bullets for him to fire.
They finally showed him his target, Reinhardt Heydrich. They showed him files and photographs of the atrocities that he had been responsible for. Sol knew he deserved to die.
He was going to be dropped into Czechoslovakia along with two others to help in the assassination. SOE knew Sol could read and speak Czechoslovakian as well as German from their interviews with him. The date was set for him to go February 15th1943.
Then one week before he was to be dropped, he took a bad tumble on the assault course, breaking his leg and cracking three ribs.
The three others were dropped and eventually succeeded in badly injuring Heydrich so much so that he died from his injuries.
Two who were dropped were betrayed by a member of the resistance and died.
In reprisals the Nazi's killed over 1500 Czech's and raised two villages to the ground.
His orders were changed and he was dropped into Poland in September 1943 along with a radio operator/spotter.
His orders were to attack German High Command Army Officers, SS Officers and Gestapo Officials.
Right from the beginning of his mission Sol decided to trust no one. They would be on their own. Once they began killing they never stayed in the same place. Slipping back into the forest and moving fast to a different location.
They radioed for supplies and batteries for the radio and set up catches of food, ammunition and radio batteries over a wide area of Poland. In amongst the drops would be coded messages of targets, location and habits for elimination.
But with the allies' invasion of Europe, SOE's interest in Poland seemed to wane. So he began to select his own targets. He would visit bars and café's and listen for information, or kidnap SS officers and extract information from them. What methods he used for this he didn't say and Shaun never asked.
By the Wars end over two years later Sol had killed over 127 Germans. Most were SS members and 12 Russians. The Russians were officers from the Army that had stopped outside Warsaw after encouraging the Poles to fight. They stood by whilst the people of Warsaw died.
Sol finally found out through inmates released from Auschwitz that his family had died in the gas chambers.
Disillusioned with Europe and its politicians, Sol decided to go were his people came from, Palestine.
Wearing his Army Parachute smock and carrying his rifle Sol set off for the South of France.
With Europe in turmoil at the end of the war, Sol had no difficulty in reaching Marseille. From there he caught a boat.
He was accepted into the Palmach and he and his rifle began work.
Shaun was deeply moved by Sol's story, he had never shown any emotion while telling it. Never attempting to elaborate more than needs be, just straight forward statements devoid of any embellishments.
His experiences had made him old beyond his years, he had never been a fanatic, but rather a cold calculating killer whose main attribute was patience. He had displayed no emotion when telling Shaun his story, and Shaun knew he was only 23 years old.
Only when Shaun had told him about the fate of the Waffen SS on Tyros did he show any emotion at all, just a tight smile and the word "Good."
***********
The pass was a little over a mile and a half long, Shaun knew. He had selected the second pass surmising that the Egyptians would be expecting the Jews to attack the last pass to try and bottle their advance.
They left the Jeep half a mile from the pass and proceeded on foot, climbing the steep gradient to the top. Shaun began photographing views of the approach road to the entrance, making a note in his notebook of time and location.
It appeared that a guard of ten men and a Sargent guarded it with a machine gun emplacement's either side of the road by the entrance, Shaun made a note of their routine.
Over the next seven days Shaun traversed the length of the pass taking photographs and making notes. The exit was guarded by a strong guard with machine gun emplacements, he also photographed the area after the road left the pass.
Next they moved to the last pass, where as expected an even stronger guard was in evidence. They spent four days there photographing and making more notes, before with water and food running dangerously low, they set off back to the base camp.
