The action around the ice factory was short and brutal. No prisoners. The men of 22 Commando were by now exhausted and all carrying wounds of varying severity. And night was closing in.

The sniper hiding in the factory aimed his rifle carefully..

The shot rung out eerily loud and Dorset, the lad from Devon, fell in one fluid, gyrating motion.

“Sniper, sniper straight as you look,” Pearson, who had caught a glimpse of the muzzle flash, cried out.

The sniper moved swiftly to a new position.

Rowan, the confirmed sniper killer, was already slithering past the burned out hulk of the tank and into the factory’s main floor.

The sniper eased himself next to a boiler and took aim again…

This one moves from west to east, Rowan thought, clicking the sniper’s possible motions in his head. Move around the boilers.

In one moment of extreme fast forward motion, Rowan caught the sight of the rifle barrel extending past the hulk of the boiler.

“Caught ya!” Rowan cried as he drove his knife hard and exhaled…