by Guy Saville
Out of the wind, the drum beckoned.
The door to the room was locked; Hochburg drove all his weight against it. It took several blows before he crashed through, into one of the palace’s stone corridors. He ran up the central staircase, the beat growing louder with every floor, and reached the garden. There was a rapid roll of the drum … then abruptly it stopped.
On the terrace below, the gallows were silhouetted against powerful arc lights. The Jews stood lined up, their backs to him, facing the city. Nooses around their necks. Beneath their feet were brightly colored boxes, gaudy as presents for a children’s party. Guards stood watch.
In the silence, Hochburg thought he heard the last notes of the Hungarian Melody drifting up from the lower levels of the palace. He clutched Burton’s dagger.
The hangman nodded to the Hauptsturmführer overseeing events—then walked down the line of Jews, kicking the boxes away.
* * *
In the artificial light, the garden, with its cascades of roses and bougainvillea, looked anemic. The gravestone patio had a pewter sheen.
A section of the terrace had been cordoned off for guests and given over to plush chairs beneath an awning. The delicate fragrance of flowers mixed with the smell of hot bodies, fruit, and champagne. There were officers in disheveled dress uniforms and lots of young women. Globus’s typing pool had an insatiable hunger for new flesh; Hochburg never allowed any of his female staff to apply for Madagaskar.
He tore down the steps to the gallows and pushed through the convulsing legs to see the Jews’ faces. The brittle sound of ropes creaking. Feuerstein was puce, eyes bulging, his tongue flicking around his lips. Like the others, he had his hands tied behind his back, but his feet were unbound and jerking (another Globus detail for a better show). Hochburg used the knife to cut the rope around the scientist’s wrists, then placed the blade in his palm.
“You’ll have to free yourself,” said Hochburg.
He ducked beneath the scientist, secured the struggling man’s bare feet on his shoulders, and supported his weight. Feuerstein sawed at the slack noose around his neck.
One of the female spectators stood up. She was loaded with pearls, had coils of silver hair and the same heavy features as her son. “You’re ruining it!” she shrieked, needles in her lilting accent.
The Hauptsturmführer strode undecidedly toward Hochburg.
Feuerstein tumbled to the ground. Coughing, gagging. He got to his feet and helped to support the next man. Hochburg cut his wrists loose. Along the gallows, eyes full of ravenous hope implored him, but there were too many to free them all before they choked. Each scientist might be as essential to the Muspel project as the individual components of the bomb; he didn’t want to risk losing a single one. Some were already bucking on the ropes, their faces ballooning and purple.
As soon as Hochburg sliced through the cord, he handed the knife over and addressed the assembled guards. They were startled, unsure how to react. The Hauptsturmführer had taken out his Luger but held it low. Hochburg deepened his voice, making it resonant with the authority of his rank and the territories he ruled.
“These Jews are worth more than all the wealth of this island. You will help me save them.” Nobody moved. One of the party girls hissed. “You will help me or you will spend the rest of your lives digging the mines of Kongo.”
Still none of the guards moved. Hochburg grabbed the nearest and shoved him beneath a scientist. The Hauptsturmführer came forward.
“You next,” said Hochburg.
“No Jew is going to stand on me.” He raised his pistol. “I’m warning you—”
Hochburg dealt with him as he had done the Americans at the Shinkolobwe mine. He grabbed the Hauptsturmführer by the scruff and propelled him across the terrace. There was an updraft as they reached the edge. Tana lay twinkling below them. Hochburg hurled him over the side. Unlike the American soldiers, he didn’t scream.
That was something, he thought, a momentary hope flitting through his gut; the SS in Africa would prevail yet.
Not all the guards obeyed, but enough came forward, grasping the Jews’ scrawny ankles and lifting them up. Filthy bare feet stood on shoulder lapels bearing the sacred runes. A few of the more drunk guests brayed with laughter at the spectacle. The remainder were either shaking their heads or leaving in disgust. Frau Globus stormed past, talking loudly: “He’ll be strung up with the rest of them tomorrow, you’ll see.”
More knives were found and a guard sent up to the beam of the gallows. Under Hochburg’s supervision, the rest of the Jews were cut down. He wasn’t fast enough to save them all. Several dropped to the ground asphyxiated.
“Baranovich’s wife,” said Feuerstein, closing the eyelids of a woman. His voice was like a rag that had been wrung out.
“You said you didn’t want to be the only widower,” replied Hochburg. “Life will be easier in Muspel.”
“I didn’t mean it. I wished I’d…”
The rest of his response was drowned out as the next squadron of Walküres roared over, on their way to quell the rebellion.
“Where are the others?” asked Hochburg when the helicopters had passed. No more than twenty had been brought to the gallows.
“Still below, in the cells.” Feuerstein looked at Hochburg, full of gratitude and revulsion with himself for meaning it. He massaged his bruised neck. “Twice we owe our lives.”
“All I want is my weapon.”
The other Jews crowded around him, coughing and spluttering, their eyes misty. They reached for his sleeves as though he were an idol, fingered his uniform, an unearthly wail rising from them. Hochburg brushed them away and stood at the edge of the terrace, looking down on the city. Among the banners and swastika flags he found the single Stars and Stripes.
CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO
Tana–Diego Railway
21 April, 00:55
SALOIS HAD HEARD many terrible sounds: the wailing that hung over the beaches of Dunkirk; men drowning in cement during the construction of Diego; the childlike screams of lemurs when the Nazis torched the forest to flush out rebels.
But no sound disturbed him as much as a man and a woman arguing.
Madeleine and Burton fought in whispers, their quarrel more desperate for their efforts to keep it discreet. Salois had slipped away from them—to where the cover of the tamarind trees gave way to open grass—yet he could hear every word. The leaves shook and dripped above, whipped by the wind. There was no sign of the train Cranley had promised. Suddenly Madeleine called to him; he was startled to hear his name.
“What do you think, Reuben?” she asked.
Salois glanced from her to Burton. He hadn’t met a fellow legionnaire during his whole time in Madagaskar. Here was a man who had endured the same brutal training, tramped the same desert, eaten the same filthy food (though now a bowl of camel meat and dates would be a feast). The Legion was based in two forts: Saida, where Salois had been billeted, and Bel Abbès; the two camps were fierce rivals, linked by friendship and hatred. As they fled Nachtstadt, following the spur to the main railway line, Salois and Burton exchanged names, seeking a common bond, and found none till Burton mentioned a familiar one. Ah, l’Américain! Salois had replied. Un vieux camarade.
Madeleine pressed her question, eyes imploring. Salois felt uncomfortable; he was intruding on grief, on fear, that wasn’t his.
“Burton’s right,” he replied. “There’s no hope—you mustn’t go to Mandritsara. But…” A deep loneliness stirred in him. “But if I had the chance to hold my child, if only for a moment, I’d risk everything.”
The branches above shook, scattering them with raindrops, as Abner slid down the trunk. “The train,” he said breathlessly.
Salois picked up his BK44 and one of the rucksacks, slinging it over his shoulder, it was heavy with dynamite and detonators. Abner took the other; he wasn’t traveling to Diego but had offered to help Salois get aboard.
“After everything I told you,” said Bu
rton, “you’re still going?” He had explained what had happened to him in Kongo and Cranley’s involvement.
“Destroying Diego is the only chance this island has.”
Burton’s jaw was tight. “You can’t trust him.”
“The train’s here, like he promised. It will be different this time.”
“How can you be sure?”
Salois gave them both an apologetic smile. “I’m not having an affair with his wife.” He fastened the rucksack. “He’s not the only one running the show. There’s Rolland and the Mozambicans. The agreement with America. Even if Cranley is what you say he is, I can depend on the others. We want the same thing.”
A whistle blast.
Salois had nothing else to add. He offered his hand to his fellow legionnaire, then took Madeleine’s.
“Can I keep your knife?” he asked.
She nodded and pressed her cheek against his. “It doesn’t seem right to say good-bye.”
“After Mandritsara, you’ve got four days to get to Kap Ost and the boat. They won’t wait.”
“We’ll be there.”
Salois sensed that she wanted to say more—but there was another blast of the whistle. “Look after her,” he told Burton, then left the cover of trees, Abner at his side carrying the second rucksack.
They raced across the grass—waist deep and wet as a paddy field—until they reached the raised bank of earth along which the railway ran. There was a set of points: the line divided here for several kilometers so trains could pass each other as they headed in opposite directions. The single yellow eye of the locomotive trundled toward them. Cranley had arranged for the train to slow at this spot so the team could clamber aboard. It was reducing its speed.
“Good luck with Diego,” said Abner. “I wish I were coming. The Americans are long overdue.”
Madeleine joined them. “Do this for me?” she said, placing something in Salois’s hand. “In case I don’t make it from the hospital.” He glanced down: it was the pen and paper clip she had taken from the radio room. “For Jacoba.”
He nodded.
She hugged him fiercely. He put an arm around her shoulders, the other keeping hold of the BK44. “Perhaps it’s not a punishment,” she whispered in his ear, her words mixing with the sluicing-steel sound of approaching wheels. “Perhaps you’ve been spared, Reuben. Spared for some great deed. They call this railway the ‘Line of Fates.’”
“Find your children,” he whispered in reply. “And never come back.”
The track was vibrating. Salois let the carriages chug past, counting them till the tail of the train was in sight. The second from last, Cranley had told them during his briefings. Salois started to run, Abner following.
“We’ll watch for the skies,” Madeleine cried after him.
There was a narrow platform at the end of the carriage; Salois reached for it, half-leaping, half-dragging himself onto the train. Below, Abner was sprinting to keep up. He reached out with the second rucksack, holding it above his head like an offering. Salois caught the straps and hauled it on board.
Instantly, Abner and his sister began to recede into the moonless night. Salois saw Madeleine wave good-bye and raised his own hand in farewell.
He was alone again.
Salois opened the door to the carriage and shoved in the equipment. He was expecting a cattle truck; instead he found upholstery, an empty buffet table, a stainless steel urn, and stacks of crockery that rattled with the sway of the train. The air smelled of tobacco, bananas, and coffee dregs. Cranley had chosen the guards’ carriage for the team, not him; he imagined their complaints about traveling like Jews. There were kerosene lamps set in the walls. Salois made sure the blinds were closed, lit a single wick, and began preparing the explosives. He removed the dynamite from the rucksacks and spread it out on the table; next to it he made a pile of detonators.
For the raid on Mazunka, Cranley had equipped his team with radio-controlled detonators, the latest technology. He’d offered the same to Salois, but Salois preferred the type he’d been using for two decades. His detonators were mechanical, connected to a timer with a clock face and a counter that could be set from ten seconds to fifty-four minutes.
The train was picking up speed. Gold tassels shook on the furniture.
Salois tested each detonator in turn, a tiny spark flaring between his fingers. Satisfied, he pulled off his caftan and cut the sleeves into ribbons. He used them to bind together the individual sticks of dynamite—four to each bundle—then pressed the detonator into the dynamite and secured it with another strip of material. When the counter reached zero, it would spark, triggering a blast. He worked till all the dynamite had been prepared, then divided it between the two rucksacks. He selected a cup from the stack of crockery and sat down. Since it would be another two hours before they reached Diego, he should rest—but first a promise to keep.
He poured the ink from the pen Madeleine had given him into the cup and took the paper clip between his fingers. Apart from his face and hands, there were only a few patches of his body that weren’t indigo; they looked incomplete, as though ravaged by a disease that bleached the skin. Even the soles of his feet were crisscrossed with numbers; the Jesuits had helped tattoo his back. He sharpened one point of the paper clip, then dipped into the ink and lanced a spot below his left ankle, meticulously adding Jacoba’s number. He had done it so many times he was numb to the sensation.
As more of his skin vanished, he thought of Madeleine and wished he’d laid down his weapon to hold her with both arms before he left. She wasn’t the first person he had confessed to. There had been previous times when it seemed death had finally come for him and he wanted to unburden himself. Those who shared his secret never lived long. If death wasn’t hungry for him, it was voracious for his companions. Had he abandoned her to the same fate? An unsettling sense of responsibility crept up on him—but, no, she had her brother to protect her, and now Burton, too; only the barest details had passed his lips.
He rarely thought back to the day of his crime—it had obsessed him for too long to have any meaning or the power to move him. It was breakfast time. His memory had painted the kitchen scarlet: the floor, the ceiling, the furniture, everything. He knew this wasn’t true—the table was stripped pine, and it had been the bluest of mornings outside—but he could recall these events only in red.
Frieda was barefoot, the bulge of their child hanging low around her belly. When she’d started showing—unmarried, barely in her twenties—her family disowned her. She didn’t care as long as she was with him. They were arguing. He lashed out (his usual response), his fist catching one tooth, breaking the skin between his knuckles. It was one of those sliver cuts that bleed profusely. Blood pattered onto the kitchen floor. Frieda offered him a look of such forgiveness, such pity, that all he could do was hit her again. He couldn’t bear those ache-filled eyes. The second time he didn’t punch her; he struck her open handed across the face with enough ferocity to swipe her off her feet. The unfamiliar weight of the baby caused her to lose her balance and keel over. He heard the crack of her neck against the kitchen table as she fell. The sound stayed in him; he knew at once he’d killed her. He cut some bread. Toasted it, buttered it, savored it. Then he bent down to Frieda and told her to stop pretending. When he checked her pulse, her skin was already cooling … yet he sensed some tiny vibration in her that said all hope was not lost. He lifted her nightdress and, in the years and nightmares that followed, was convinced he had seen tiny fists beating against her abdomen, the final throes of their drowning baby.
Salois’s throat was gnarled and dry. He finished Jacoba’s number, blotting the drops of blood with the remains of his caftan. He had shared barely a dozen words with Jacoba, none at all with the many corpses whose tattoos he had memorized on the beach—yet they continued to exist on his body. For Frieda and their unnamed child, there was nothing, only the arrest warrant Cranley had produced and Salois’s memories: disconsolate, seldom ackn
owledged, washed in red. He considered Madeleine’s parting words. In kinder moments he’d also wondered whether he was being saved for some greater good; it was a comforting explanation for his survival.
But the world was not kind. Whether he succeeded or failed at Diego he was resigned to the certainty that he would endure. If years of hardship had let him forgive himself for striking Frieda, the source of their argument, its pettiness—its irony in this new world order—remained. There was to be no release for Reuben Salois.
* * *
Salois napped, his head jerking every time he began to slide into deep sleep. When he judged an hour had passed, he got up and peeked through the blinds. Looming out of the darkness was Die Teekiste, a vertical-sided, flat-topped mountain that had been fortified by the French during the colonial period and saw their final stand against the Nazi invasion. Waffen-SS paratroopers eventually seized it, descending on the fortifications with nerve gas. The railway skirted the mountain; on the far side was Diego Suarez.
Salois stretched, his upper body knotted, and checked his watch: 03:45. Cranley would hit the radar station in fifteen minutes. The bombers were already high above the Mozambique Channel. He pictured Colonel Turneiro at their base, pacing the runway, and Rolland hidden inside his control center, waiting for the radio to bring news, a glass of whiskey cooling his nerves.
There were a few stale lumps of bread left in the pockets of the rucksack. Salois wolfed them down, drank some cold, muddy coffee from the urn, then searched the carriage until he found a duffel bag stuffed with Kriegsmarine uniforms—exactly as Cranley promised it would be. Whatever his motive, he wanted the base destroyed as much as Salois did.
“Do you know why the first rebellion failed?” Cranley had asked the night they left Mombasa. His tone was uncharacteristically chummy, conspiratorial.
“We had rocks and knives, they had gunships. The world stood aside.”