by Michael Dean
They had issued him with a silk map of the whole of western Europe. It was in a small waterproof canvas bag, marked Maps Only, in English. He shook his head, ruefully, then buried it, deep. In the same hole, he buried his Escape Kit, containing a compass in a matchbox, twenty Horlicks tablets, a fishing line with a hook, and a phrase card in French, Spanish, German and Dutch. None of this was the slightest use.
He had heard from Dutch agents in the field, that the SOE’s habit of issuing everybody with Camel cigarettes was known to the Germans, so he buried the cigarettes, too.
He kept only the four Benzedrine tablets – to stay awake for long periods – and his suicide tablet. Sitting on the ground, he carefully pulled out a hollowed-out tooth, fitted by a dentist called Beryl in Wimpole Street, just before he left. The SOE, so slapdash in so many ways, had insisted that Beryl replace his recent English fillings with continental-style Platarcke. Beryl had hollowed the tooth at the same time. He pushed his cyanide pill into the hollow, then pushed the tooth back in. It was working loose – nothing to be done about that now.
There was also nothing he could do about his clothes – the SOE bought them in bulk, so all agents had the same brown shoes, the same striped shirts, and so on. He had thought of mentioning this to Fat Laming, the head of SOE’s N (Netherlands) Section, but after the Charlotte Black business, anything that smacked of trouble from him would have had him out on his ear.
He glanced at his papers, by moonlight. His persoonsbewijs – ID card - was in his field-name - Jan Veen. He cursed softly, in Dutch, as he noticed the lions on the ID card’s watermark - they were facing the same way. They should be facing each other. He also had a noodkart – a food ration book – which he hoped was current issue. If it wasn’t, it could be a death warrant.
Robert made his way over the powdery sand, ghostly in the moonlight, to the boardwalk. A voice behind him said ‘Hey.’ He wheeled round, but with a smile already forming on his face. The voice sounded like a child. But more importantly, it was unmistakeably Dutch.
There were two of them, obviously brother and sister, aged thirteen or fourteen – the boy looked older. They had flaxen hair, blue eyes and serious expressions. They were dressed as if for a party, the boy in a smart suit and tie, the girl in a pretty pink dress.
That was clever, Robert thought.
The boy said ‘Come mister’ slowly, in English. Robert smiled and said ‘I’m Dutch,’ softly. It pleased him to say that, on Dutch soil. He showed the youngsters where the transmitter and his gun were buried, so they could help him find them, next morning.
They led him down a lane, over a rickety wooden bridge over a canal, to a prosperous looking farmhouse. The farmer and his wife made him welcome, without introducing themselves. The woman silently presented a meal of grey bread, cucumber and tomato, a slice of ham, and artificial coffee. Robert ate thankfully.
‘How are things?’ he asked.
‘You’ve been in England?’
‘Yes.’
‘It’s not easy. They are taking more and more. Wireless sets. Now bicycles.’
‘Ducks!’ the boy piped up.
‘Yes, ducks.’
‘You look done in,’ the woman said, sympathetically. ‘Get some sleep.’
Next morning, he was still eating breakfast when the farmer brought his transmitter, and his gun. As soon as he finished eating, Robert went out into a field behind the farm, to set up transmission.
His contact was called Huib Lievers. Transmitting on the agreed frequency, 6677 k/cs, Robert sent his call-sign, TBO, and his codename - beetroot. Lievers replied, setting up a meeting in Amsterdam - at the Café Sterrebos, off Leidse Plein, at five o’ clock.
The transmission was over in two minutes, not enough time for German intercept vans to pick it up and trace it.
*
The whole of the top floor of Sipo/SD headquarters at the old Colonial Building was an Operations and Communications room. There were senders, receivers and wireless sets on tables all round the walls. In the middle of the room, trestle-tables held code books, telephone directories, the bible in English and Dutch, and novels and poems used as the basis of codes. Volumes of Shakespeare, Tennyson, Kipling and Edgar Allan Poe were particularly well-thumbed.
Rauter had a reputation for hard work; he had been seen in this room in the early hours of the morning, many times. He was formal with subordinates, so the atmosphere in the Operations Room was restrained. He was talking to Hermann Giskes, who headed Section III F, Counter Espionage for the Low Countries. The other man in the room was tapping out Morse in Dutch into an English-made transmitter. He had headphones on. Rauter and Giskes were ignoring him.
‘And he’s just landed?’ Rauter was saying.
‘It’s his first broadcast,’ Giskes said. ‘He’ll have landed last night. In the Scheveningen area.’
‘And what’s his field name?’
‘Jan Veen,’ Giskes said.
Hanns-Albin Rauter nodded. ‘When is he being met?’
The man at the transmitter took his headphones off, and turned to face Rauter. ‘Five o’ clock this afternoon,’ Huib Lievers said.. ‘At the Café Sterrebos, off Leidse Plein. I’ve just set it up.’
9
The tenement buildings in Batavia Straat tapered so much that on the third floor there were only two cramped one-room flats. The one next to Tinie was occupied by one of the few non-Jews in the street. She encouraged everyone to call her Tante Riek, but there was nothing aunt-like about mevrouw Kuipers.
She could have been anything between forty and sixty, broad in the beam, dressed in all weathers in a pinafore over a brown or black woollen dress, with her blonde to grey hair forced back into a severe bun. Tante Riek’s entire being was centred on finding out as much about the rest of Batavia Straat as possible.
Hirschfeld’s tread on the stairs was a cue for her to emerge from her room, and attempt to engage him in conversation. Hirschfeld’s responses were minimal, and after a while even the insatiably inquisitive Tante Riek had given up trying to get any information out of him.
But the walls in Batavia Straat were thin. Tante Riek could be in little doubt what was going on. And she found endless sly ways to let Tinie know she knew: There were frequent references to contraception – ‘Don’t forget to douche afterwards, dear.’ There were even leering offers to put Tinie ‘in touch with a woman, dear, in case there’s a little slip, you know.’
When Manny moved in, Tinie decided to go on the offensive. She knocked on Tante Riek’s door and introduced Manny as her brother, Johannes - an optimistically non-Jewish name. Tinie then pushed Manny back into her room, before the interrogation could get started. This was only partially successful. Tante Riek, Tinie thought, swallowed the brother story, but she found even more excuses to knock on Tinie’s door than she had before.
There was a limit to the number of times this brother, who had suddenly appeared on the scene, could be found in Tinie’s room. So Manny had to dive behind the curtain every time she knocked. He hid there, too, whenever Hirschfeld came for Tinie. The stench in the niche was vile. Cooped up, Manny longed for fresh air, dreamed of meadows, streams, open clear skies.
He thought of the sea, as he started to take his boots off, ready to tip-toe down the stairs, to avoid alerting Tante Riek. Because this morning he was going out to sea - to his great, great joy.
‘Manny, I still don’t see why Joel and the others can’t do this without …’ She stopped, seeing from the look on his face that she’d hurt him.
‘Yeah. They don’t want the runt of the litter there, either. That’s what my dad used to call me, you know. Runt. On the rare occasions he was there to call me anything.’
Tinie put her arms round him. ‘Just be careful,’ she whispered. ‘This is dangerous. And I’m worried about you.’
‘I love you,’ he said, as he left.
*
Manny breathed deeply, out in the street. It would be risky to catch a tram – people who looke
d Jewish were being thrown off trams by the NSB. So he walked toward the Osterdok, following his old route to work, when he worked at the shipyard.
The sealing-off of the Jewish Quarter was proceeding fast. In the distance, he saw a checkpoint where the Binnen Kant joined the Oude Schans. It was manned by two NSBers. They were checking the papers of people going into or out of the Quarter.
Manny felt a shiver of fear. More and more public places were being closed to Jews – cinemas, bathhouses, the zoo. Non-Jewish children at school in the Jewish Quarter were being transferred to schools elsewhere. The ever-obliging Tante Riek was gleefully keeping Tinie informed of every new measure against the Jews. Where would the next blow fall?
He ducked into a doorway, assessing the checkpoint. There were a couple of rolls of barbed wire near the barrier itself, but after that just red-and-white striped square poles, running into the distance.
He walked back the way he had come, crossed the Oude Schans canal at Korte Konings Straat, then headed in the direction of the Oosterdok again. Sure enough, further up the Binnen Kant there were just the two horizontal striped poles. He glanced to left and right. There was nobody about. He ducked under the top pole, and walked on his way.
After walking up and down the Oosterdok for a bit, he finally found the ship, the Aagtekerk - a motorboat. She was bigger than he had expected. There was a chain across the gangplank. Nobody about. He didn’t know what to do. He wondered if there should be a password, or something. He struggled with the chain, finally unhooking it and going aboard.
A stocky old sailor in a blue pullover, blue overall trousers and boots came down from the top deck and looked at him, questioningly.
‘Joel Cosman?’ said Manny, ‘I’m er …’
The sailor jerked with his thumb at a narrow stairway, leading down. Manny made his way gingerly down to the lower deck, then yelped. Three NSBers! A second later, he recognised them as Joel Cosman, Ben Bril and Lard Zivilberg in NSB uniforms. The enormous Lard was bursting out of his.
‘Hello, Manny!’ Joel said. ‘Here, change into this.’ He threw an NSB jacket and trousers at Manny – the uniform wrapping itself round his head. Manny pulled it off, beamed at Joel, and started to get changed.
‘Why don’t you take our one and only gun, Manny,’ Joel said. ‘As you can’t fight, it might even things up a bit.’
‘Thanks for the compliment!’ Manny said, as he took his coat and cap off and inserted himself into an NSB uniform at least three sizes too large for him.
‘None of us wants the gun,’ Lard said. ‘It’s got three bullets left in it.’
‘How did you get it?’ said Manny, now dressed as an NSBer.
‘Nobody can remember,’ Joel said. ‘Some WA-man must have got hold of one, then dropped it, running away.’
‘Agh! Leave it on the ship.’ Ben Bril was staring at the gun in disgust.
The boat’s engine spluttered into life. They set out along the coast. Opposite Schipol Airport they were hailed, then stopped, by a Mof motor launch. Joel was still grinning, even when Moffen boarded. Manny could hear a conversation, up above them on deck, but not what was being said. The exchanges sounded cordial. After a while, the Germans went back to their launch.
‘Our captain gave them a few cartons of cigarettes,’ Joel told Manny. ‘I’ve never met a Mof yet that you couldn’t buy.’
The boat then headed inland again. They tied up at a small dock – one Manny didn’t recognise. Joel led them up on deck, then up the gangplank. Manny sniffed thankfully at the fresh air. Out here, it was salty - tangy with the smell of the open sea.
As the boat set sail again, they made their way along the quay. A couple of streets in from the docks was a redbrick building, with barred windows. A notice above the door said Document Distribution Centre. They walked straight past it. A dark, slender young woman in a grey coat came toward them. Joel nodded to her. She met his eyes, but walked past, without a word.
‘Irene Derenbosch,’ Lard whispered to Manny. ‘She’s the librarian at the local public reading room. She’s been watching this building for us. If there was anything wrong, she would have said something.’
Manny nodded. Lard should not have told him that, it put Irene in danger. But he was pleased enough to know what was going on. They stood on the pavement, a little down the road from the building, watching. Two Orpos came out with a civilian, in mackintosh and slouch hat. They watched as the civilian locked up; then he went one way and the Orpos the other.
‘They’re going to lunch,’ Lard whispered sotto voce, to Manny. He had obviously appointed himself Manny’s guide.
They waited. After a couple of minutes, the civilian came back and unlocked the door. ‘He’s the cashier,’ Lard said. ‘He was happy to help us.’
At Joel’s signal, the four of them walked into the Distribution Centre, bound the willing cashier - stuffing a rag in his mouth, to make it look good, when the Orpos returned - and put him in the coal bin. As they finished doing this, they heard a scream. A female office worker had been sitting typing away in a side office. They found some twine and tied her to her chair, putting some tape over her mouth.
The cashier had left the strong room open. He would later claim he had been storing old records, when he was surprised. There were hundreds of the new-issue ID cards, on shelves. Joel looked through one quickly, then passed it on: ‘Just look at that.’
It was amazing how complicated they were. They were in three parts, to include all personal data. There was space for a photograph, and fingerprints in two places. There was a special stamp. The knokploeg stuffed a wooden box full of ID cards.
There were also hundreds of ration cards, on the shelves. These were in tear-off strips, marked with a number, and the food they were valid for: kaas, brod and so on. They helped themselves to plenty of those. They also took some clothing coupons – marked Textielkaart. .
Outside, they stopped on the pavement. ‘So where’s the car,’ muttered Ben Bril.
‘Car?’ Manny said. ‘What car?’
The others ignored him.
It appeared after a couple of minutes – an old D.K.W. There were so few cars on the streets of Amsterdam, that the chances of getting stopped in the city centre were high. Out here, in the outer suburbs, it was safer.
As it slowed, and drew to a halt, Manny recognised the driver - the leader of the Catholic toughs, Gerrit Romijn. They all piled in, hauling the boxes full of documents after them.
‘All well?’ Gerrit called out.
‘All well,’ Joel said.
They drove in silence for another five minutes or so.
‘Do you know where you are?’ Joel asked him.
‘No idea.’
Joel grinned. ‘Just as well.’ A minute or so later, Gerrit stopped the car. ‘Knokploeg Headquarters,’ Joel announced. ‘The new one.’
Ahead of them was a large coal shed, with wooden double-doors, a wooden gable and a sloping roof. Ben Bril jumped out and opened the doors. Gerrit got out of the driver’s seat, and made his goodbyes. Lard Zilverberg replaced him, and drove the car gingerly into the coal shed, stopping on a raised metal plate, slightly larger than the car. He cut the engine.
Ben got back in the car. There was a whirring sound, and the lift-bridge, with the car on it, started to lower. They came to a halt on the cement floor of a concealed room, below the coal-shed. As the others got out of the car, Lard drove it forward, off the lift-bridge. The lift-bridge was raised again, completing the ceiling of the concealed room.
‘Hydraulic,’ said Lard, proudly. ‘My dad and I did it. This used to be my family’s coal business.’
‘Lard’s dad will put some coal sacks down in the coal shed, up there. Covering the lift-bridge’ Joel jerked his head up at the ceiling. ‘Then it looks like any other coal shed. Nobody would guess there’s a room below.’
‘It’s … fantastic,’ Manny said. He nodded to himself, taking it all in. There was a tier of three bunks in the concealed room.
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The boxes were opened. At a table in the corner, Lard started to fill in false names and addresses on ID cards for Joel and Manny – the wanted men.
‘You’re Willem Verduyn,’ he told Joel Cosman.
They knew a photographer who would take photographs later. Lard took an impression of their fingerprints now, though.
‘That’s why we let you come along, Manny,’ Joel said, with a twinkle in his eye. ‘We had to get your fingerprints here.’
‘You are now Piet Maasland, a teacher of art,’ Lard said to Manny. ‘Where would you like to live?’
Manny came up with an address near Artis, in the neighbourhood where he dreamed of living with Tinie, after the war. Lard filled in the address, and handed the ID card over. Manny stared at it, fascinated.
‘I could help you with these,’ he murmured to Lard. He took a long look at the bunk beds. ‘Can I stay here?’ he said. He was thinking of Tinie; she would be safer with him out of the way.
Joel grinned. ‘’Course you can, Manny-boy. If that’s what you want.’
*
Huib Lievers, Robert Roet’s contact in Holland, had started off selling bric-a-brac from a barrow. He was good at it. He was a hail-fellow-well-met, mouthy Amsterdammer – born talking, as they say. Born selling, too. He quickly prospered; renting one back-street shop, then another.
He employed what he euphemistically referred to as removal men - at the beginning they even helped transport heavy pieces of furniture and paintings. But pretty soon Lievers discovered that negotiations, with both buyers and sellers, went more smoothly with the removal men’s heavy presence in the background. Before long, his shops were little more than a front for an extortion and protection racket that covered most of the working-class Pijp district.
The police were closing in on him when the invasion came. To get away, he became one of the first Engelandvaarders - and was transformed from hustler to hero overnight. He had tea with the Queen, in the garden at Chester Square. Wilhelmina asked if he would go back, working for Holland, as so many others had. Lievers thought, why not?