by Hall, Ian
“Ham,” he said proudly, “With mustard and apple, just the way you Germans like it.”
I looked at him suspiciously, as I knew that, being supposedly from Stuttgart, in Baden-Württemberg, he’d got it slightly wrong. “red cabbage pickle,” I said, biting into the sandwich, which I suspected had been made by my hotel.
“Pickle?” Ramsai looked abashed.
“That’s what I want right now. Mother used to make it in her kitchen. The smell would entice the neighbours for miles around.” I looked out of the window at the sea vista passing slowly by. Ramsai’s insistence of a right-hand seat had both gotten us a sea view and out of the direct sunlight. I had to admit; he was beginning to grow on me.
A rather doughy cake followed, almost like a stolen, but the wine was of a good vintage, and I consumed it all with relish.
At the junction town of Souk Tleta, Ramsai insisted we lose the bus, and guided me through busy streets to the rather primitive train station. Even though there were no platforms, I almost cried. Okay, the damn railway was rougher than travelling over freight lines in a back junction in Scotland, but it did get us into Rabat by the time the sun was setting on a calm blue Atlantic Ocean.
The only thought in my mind was ‘why couldn’t they have just shipped me down here, instead of dumping me up the coast?’.
As the train pulled me closer to the walled city of Rabat, I knew what it truly meant to be out of my depth. Although in Southern America I’d been temporarily further from Edinburgh than ever before, here in this weird foreign corner of Africa, I felt as if transported to a different time, almost a different world. I’d read quite a few of Edgar Rice Burrough’s John Carter of Mars novels, and here was the very essence of it.
Rabat, according to Ramsai, was not the biggest city in Morocco, but it did hold all the political intrigue. With Embassies from many of the countries now at war with each other, Ramsai insisted that I contact the German Embassy as soon as I arrived, in case things got ugly during my stay.
“Ugly?” I asked. The word did not translate easily from the English counterpart; the closest I got was unbequem, which meant ‘uncomfortable’.
Rabat was undoubtedly a beautiful city, but like my own home, it seemed to have been constrained for a time behind its ancient fortified walls. Whitewashed towers grew from the cluster of one and two storey buildings, and modern structures vied with ancient for both supremacy and sunlight.
The streets were usually narrow and lined with small carts, providing a constant supply of vendors rather than a single huge bazaar.
With the now ever-present Ramsai at my side, I found myself at the best of hotels. The fact that it was within walking distance of the German Embassy hadn’t escaped me.
The Hotel Casablanque had an almost European vestibule, reminiscent of some of the prestige hotels of Edinburgh, but there the similarity ended. The man behind the counter spoke four languages in the short time that I signed in and got the key to my room; French, English, German (to me) and some form of African gibberish with way too many ‘sh’ and ‘gh’ guttural growls.
The attitude to his underlings bordered on a slave-owner’s. He snapped and snarled at them until they obeyed his terse commands, and berated them for both tardiness and speed. Once he’d completed his diatribe, he turned to me with a rubber smile, as if he’d never said a single word out of place.
I slept like a log for most of the night, although in the wee hours, I was awoken by a short staccato buzzing noise. Fearing a hornet had gotten inside my netted room, I rose to investigate, soon tracking the noise to my verandah doors, which looked out to the sea.
There was nothing immediately buzzing at the window, but my eyes were drawn to the small verandah floor. There, lying with a blanket over him was Ramsai, snoring lightly; the sound of the buzzing.
I had done him a disservice when I had adjourned to my room after a long day’s travel; I had paid him neither heed or pay, and he had done the obvious, climbed two floors on the outside of the building, and slept on a free space.
The next morning, as I sat at breakfast, I remedied my blunder and pressed five francs into his hand. “I will go for a walk by the docks this morning,” I said with authority. “And shop at the bazaar in the afternoon.”
As we walked down the hill to the port, Ramsai provided yet another service. In Tangiers, I had been beset with beggars, of which I tried my best to ignore. Here in Rabat, they abounded in spades, and Ramsai beat them off with a stick… literally.
With Ramsai’s constant observation of me, however, I realized I needed another part of disguise, one to draw a veil over my eye movements. I instantly began shopping for sunglasses.
“Oh, no, no, dear me,” Ramsai exclaimed as I pulled a pair from a vendor. He looked at the glasses in my hand, took them from me and almost threw them back in the poor man’s face. “Follow me,”
And of course, he knew a dealer, who produced various prestige pairs from under his counter. “Polarised” he said, as if that single word meant something.
I shrugged, but found the glasses comfortable to wear.
“Polairised?” Ramsai questioned the man mercilessly; the same man that had been his best friend a minute ago. He turned to me after a smattering of gobbledygook had passed between them. “You see clearer, even down into the water.” He pointed to a small sheet on the wall, encased in a glass frame.
Popular Mechanics Magazine. One-way glass stops glare.
The actual wording of the article was too small to read, but I got the idea. The paper was faded to yellow, and I could just make out the issue date; 1936.
Once outside I donned my new accessory, and breathed a little easier, knowing I now had a barrier between us. It wasn’t until we turned a corner and encountered a view of the bay, that I realized the technical aspect; the view was simply stunning, made all the clearer by my new lenses.
Down on the busy docks, it took one look to provide Sewell with one of his reports; standing out like sore thumbs were two grey hulls, their sterns very familiar to me. They were German torpedo boats, the very same as has taken me on the Forth Estuary to see the Bismarck.
I turned away from the hulls, their decks filled with fast working men in loose white trousers. We were too far away to hear commands, but I knew the stance of the men in charge; blond Europeans without doubt.
I took tea at a small café with tables onto the wharf. While Ramsai chattered about pirates and fishing, I watched the German boats, my eyes hidden behind my dark glasses. Also if my pick-up was to be from the port, I thought I’d best make myself a bit visible down here; a regular, so to speak.
Around ten, I walked some more, first to one end, then back towards the German boats, finding a German newspaper for sale on the way. I could see long beams of wood being shaped, men busy with planes and chisels. Behind the two boats they were preparing hull sections for more boats. I guessed that Robert Dijold was behind the venture, and filed all my notes mentally.
“Time for samples.” I said to Ramsai, and turned with a flourish, my back to the port.
Suddenly alarmed, I had to jump quickly to one side as an open-topped car slid past us; a shiny Mercedes. I had enough time to see a well-dressed man in the back, his eyes dark behind sunglasses like mine. But the crowning glory was his companion; a blond version of Lilith from Edinburgh, complete with flowing scarf, high brimmed glasses, and a tight sweater that left little to the imagination.
Complete with her scientifically designed brassiere, she was straight out of a Hollywood movie set; she’d just left the film crew behind somewhere in her wake.
I watched open-mouthed as the car turned to the right, in the direction of the German boats. I needed Ramsai out of the way. I slipped him another five francs. “Can you get some lunch ordered at the Hotel?” I said, “I’ll be along in a bit.”
But he gave me a knowing smile, tapped the side of his nose, and made cupping signs on his chest. “She is a beauty, yes?”
“Yes.” I
said, shooing him away. “Bugger off.”
He headed off up the hill with a huge grin.
I walked down to the open wharf as if I’d forgotten something; a man on a mission. When I reached the waterline I stopped, tapped my shirt pocket, and smiled. It was all a pathetic ruse, and I doubted if anyone paid the slightest bit of attention to me, but I went through the play-acting anyway.
The Mercedes had stopped near the German boats, and I was pretty certain I’d just spotted two of the players in the spy-ring, Rupert Dijold and his girlfriend Geneviève Salou. I watched as Dijold exchanged words with a blond man who I’d seen earlier; it confirmed his role as the probable boss of the boatbuilding operation, or at least the foreman of the crew.
I then retraced my steps back to the hotel. If the identities of the couple were correct, I now had proof that Dijold was indeed involved. It also meant that if there was work being done openly in Rabat, there could be other bases up and down the coast.
Lunch with Ramsai gave me a distraction I needed to process some of the information I’d gathered. “What’s the best place in town for dinner?” I asked as we finished off our sweetmeats.
“The Descartes,” he replied without any consideration. “It’s best in town, but expensive.”
That evening, I walked to the hotel Descartes in search of Max Schönhausen, but saw nothing but boring businessmen, nothing that could be called a playboy.
It was a wasted evening, but the food was excellent, the wine too.
I sat that night in my room, looking at a calendar on the wall, mentally crossing off another day. I had three days before I would be going home.
My Last Days in Africa
I’d like to say my last mission in Africa was a resounding success, but to be honest, I felt that my presence was on the superfluous side. The information in Rabat was readily available at hand, not hidden; anyone sitting in the same port-side café could have gotten the same results as I had.
By the 25th January, I had enough on Rupert Dijold to have him hanged under all kinds of international law. He was openly using Moroccan port facilities to build German patrol boats. Plywood from some southern port arrived every few days and was stockpiled in a warehouse under his name. Next door, in an unmarked warehouse lay German engine parts by the caseload; I’d seen the German markings on the crates inside when I passed, again, the warehouse doors were frequently wide open, nothing secret. Both warehouses loaded trucks which left Rabat heavily laden, evidence of duplicated activities elsewhere.
It was as if the Moroccan government was complicit with the process, and that itself was enough to tale back to my boss, Thomas Sewell.
However, one of the main reasons for my excursion into Africa had been the supposed leaflet distribution; sedition under our noses, so to speak. On this I had drawn a complete blank. So far I had come across no leaflets; in fact I had not even encountered a single shred of evidence, no leaflets, no printing presses, nothing.
Geneviève Salou, Dijold’s girlfriend, however, was a fish I could have watched for many days without complaint. She was vivacious, beautiful, and her film-star looks got her anything she wanted; it was no wonder Dijold was under her spell. She was easily the prettiest thing I’d ever laid eyes on, and her apparent confidence only increased her impact.
Her well-coifed blond curls sat immobile on her head, not a wave out of place. Her alabaster skin was flawless, and her fingers made every move a seduction. I was mesmerized just observing her from across the dining room.
I hadn’t been watching her enough to be absolutely certain of a pattern, but it appeared she sent a regular telegram to Germany. I had passed by the telegram office at the perfect moment to hear just one reference of her transmission’s destination; enough to give me the barest of information.
She also made regular visits to the German Embassy.
That night in the hotel restaurant I could not help feeling me stepping down the effort, my mind elsewhere, letting the taste of a fine Bordeaux wine feed me while dreaming of cold nights in Edinburgh. Suddenly I got a visit of my own.
“Herr Volland?”
A tall, imposing chap stood next to my table. The man behind him was a cookie-cutter image of a Gestapo hoodlum, grim expression, leather coat, leather gloves. In this heat it must have been unbearable. “Yes, that’s me.”
The man held out his hand. “Gerhardt Bariman, from the German Consulate’s office.”
“Herr Bariman, please join me.” I sprinkled my invite to the henchman, but he simply walked away. He’d probably be in my room in seconds, going through my belongings.
We began with pleasantries, but Bariman soon got down to his mission and made little effort to hide his main purpose. His questions were bland and simplistic, his attention wavered; he was going through the motions, and we both knew it.
He was keeping me occupied while his goon searched my room.
Bariman left with only the sketchiest details of my cover story, certainly not enough to catch me out on anything.
When I got upstairs, I could only see a couple of places where my things had been moved; either the goon had been good at his job, or he was as interested in me as Herr Bariman had been.
I encountered Max Schönhausen by chance the next morning, breakfasting at the Descartes, my new haunt. I sat close, and soon caught his banter, his sales patter. Posing as a rich playboy, he certainly lived up to his reputation. He boasted of a trip to Casablanca that had netted him over ten thousand francs, explaining his absence from Rabat over the last few days. The cost of his breakfast alone would have kept mum going for a fortnight. I took notes, names, contacts, but nothing much surfaced in the day that I watched him.
On the morning of the 27th, eager for my return home, I paid Ramsai a month’s wages and had him travel to Casablanca for me to gather forty of the best pieces of silk he could buy. It was an expensive bribe to get him out of the way, but worth it. I needed no shadow when I went down to the docks looking for my ride.
After seeing Ramsai off on the train, I headed for the harbour. If plans were anything, the sloop would be in port, unloading some cargo. When I reached the shoreline I scanned the area.
Nothing.
I shook my head and sat down in the café, noting the tide was out, and the sloop might probably want a high tide to sail in on.
So I spent a nothing day, my head in Edinburgh, the people and business of Rabat fading into the background, their bodies just ghosts around me.
By nightfall, however, no new vessels had arrived, and I began to grow a little worried. I hung around the café until they closed, then sidled back to my digs. “There’s always tomorrow.” I said as I lay down to sleep.
Tomorrow arrived with Ramsai’s proud expression; he’d been to Casablanca, found me the finest silks, and professed that Rabat’s selection was substandard to say the least. I had squandered half my remaining money on a wasted diversion; foolish after the fact.
Back in my routine, I relaxed in the café’s disguise and feigned interest in a three day old German newspaper. Proud German Imperial forces had captured Minsk, and were on the verge of taking Kiev in the Ukraine; Russia’s oilfields were now under siege. If the news was accurate and Hitler did indeed take the crucial area, it might lessen their interest in the oilfields of the Middle East. I shook my head as I read the details of the story; if Kiev and the oilfields fell, the Third Reich could wage a limitless war against us.
As I cursed my failing mission, I did not see the men approach.
“Herr Volland?”
I lowered my newspaper. Three men stood by the table, Gerhardt Bariman in front, two henchmen behind him. This did not bode well. “Herr Bariman.” I greeted him with far more confidence than I felt.
“We would like to ask you a few questions.”
“Then sit down, Bariman,” I folded the newspaper, placed it on the table. “I’ll get some fresh coffee made.”
But they didn’t move one inch. “We would like to ask you th
e questions in the Consulate if you don’t mind.”
I frowned. “Is there a problem?”
He looked to either side, nervously. “The information is somewhat delicate.”
I spotted Ramsai to one side looking extremely anxious, dancing from one foot to the other. “So delicate you can’t say it here?” I felt my grip on the situation slipping. Curse Sewell and his late exfiltration.
“Herr Volland, please.”
The inference was obvious; I could delay my action no more. “Of course,” I tucked the newspaper under one arm, slipped a five franc note under my coffee cup, and stood up.
The German Consulate was slightly more austere than its neighbors, and only the Nazi flags that hung from the upper floor windows distinguished it from the rest of the street’s frontage.
Inside, I was shown past the vestibule into a large arched area, a complex mosaic design on the floor, I think it may have been a Wagnerian scene, but I’d never liked his music, so it meant little to me.
Beyond the hall lay a suite of offices. The one I was admitted to was furnished, but rather Spartan, no sign of personality at all. “Wait here please,” Bariman asked, then disappeared outside.
I sat, opened the newspaper, and mentally went through some of the more detailed parts of my cover story.
Bariman returned alone, and closed the door behind him. “What is the real reason for your visit?” he asked as he sat behind his desk.
I again folded my newspaper. “I am here to find silks for the European market.”
“Sorry, Herr Volland.” He held his hands close to each other, his fingers touching, creating a church steeple look. I recalled the childhood song, and smiled. “Your real reason?”
“I am here, Herr Bariman, to collect…”