by Colin Smith
‘No, I didn’t,’ said Ponting who hadn’t the faintest interest in this late rallier to the Herzl doctrine. ‘But if Shemsi was Daniel, surely our smart friends in the Arab Bureau wouldn’t have thrown her back as if we had just netted a dead sprat? They’d have looked after her themselves. Besides, I don’t believe she was a killer. When we got to Jerusalem and discovered Maeltzer he told us all about that Swedish Holy Joe who was murdered. What was his name?’
‘Magnus.’
‘Yes, Magnus. Well, it seems to me that Magnus was definitely the link between Daniel and Nili, the cut-out through the old Jew Smolenskin between our best placed spy and the courier network –’
‘Smolenskin was almost as lucky as Maeltzer,’ interrupted Meinertzhagen. ‘He’s still going strong, you know, forever ranting on about the trouble that Swedish madman had got him into. He was trying to get a pension out of us just before I left on the grounds that he had been an unwitting servant of the Crown.’
‘We’re probably lucky the Swede’s relatives aren’t demanding some sort of compensation too,’ said Ponting, determined to stick to the main issue. ‘I’ve no doubt that he was bumped off by Daniel when things got too hot.’
‘You’re surely not suggesting that agents of the Crown go around murdering neutral civilians, are you?’ It was difficult to tell whether Meinertzhagen was teasing or not.
‘Oh, only in the direst cases,’ grinned Ponting. ‘Anyway, I don’t believe she was capable of it. Not with a bayonet. And apparently he was a big chap.’
‘You may have a point there,’ conceded Meinertzhagen, which only added to Ponting’s frustration. He didn’t want to be told he had a point. He wanted it confirmed that Krag was Daniel and this Shemsi nonsense was a smokescreen, a last attempt to give their agent some cover probably concocted by Meinertzhagen himself. It certainly had his touch.
Yet it was true enough. At first the Bureau could not get enough of Shemsi. They had hardly got her back to their field headquarters at Deir el Belah before GHQ was screaming for her to be sent to them. Meinertzhagen had escorted her personally. Then three weeks later, just before they captured Jerusalem, Ponting had been called back to Cairo from a rain-swept advance intelligence HQ in the Wadi Surar, specifically to show Shemsi Krag’s grave in Alexandria.
It had been an odd affair and one that still irritated Ponting. What really rankled with him was that he might have been the dupe for another one of Meinertzhagen’s grand deceptions. He might raise that strange encounter with the nurse.
Most of the wounded had been taken to Alexandria by hospital ship from Gaza because it was thought preferable to a long road journey across the desert to Cairo. For reasons that remained a mystery as far as Ponting was concerned, Shemsi had not been allowed to visit Krag there. In fact, her last sighting of the German officer had been, like his own, as he was loaded into the ambulance at Huj. Even worse, a few days before she had been told that Krag was mending well, so the news of his death – apparently there had been a devastating nocturnal haemorrhage – must have come as an even greater blow.
Ponting had picked her up at a hotel in Zamalek where she had been moved from the padre’s quarters at Kasr-el-Nil barracks, having evidently convinced people that she had been genuinely trapped with Kress’s rearguard and was not some daring stay-behind agent. The hotel was probably cleaner than the Grand New, but the Greek management was less obliging for a lady who had been billeted on them at a rate decided by the British army. It was the kind of place that, before the war, had been favoured by less successful Levantine commercials, who drank arak and left small but frequent tips.
‘I would prefer Kasr-el-Nil with cold porridge and prayers for breakfast to this place’ was how she had greeted his cautious ‘Bonjour Madame’ when he had helped her into the back of the car that was to take them to the Alexandria train.
‘Something wrong?’
‘This morning there was no coffee – only that muddy Indian tea you English like so much.’
Ponting had feared that she would go on in this vein throughout the journey, but after that she was silent unless he spoke to her and then responded with great economy. They had a first-class compartment to themselves on the train to Alex and spent their journey staring out at a flat, monotonous vista, broken only by glimpses of the fellaheen and their oxen. Once the line ran alongside a canal where a few grey-haired workmen, too old for the Labour Corps, were loading lumps of gold-coloured stone onto a barge.
She had on new clothes, a lace-trimmed blue dress which was perhaps a little on the tight side, and another broad-brimmed straw hat. Over this she wore a white scarf which she had tied under her chin as if she had expected to motor all the way to Alex. The hat and scarf had made Ponting sad because it had reminded him of Sarah Aaronsohn being brought out to the monitor by the Arab fishermen at Athlit.
‘Of course, after the Bureau had finished with her you took her to see Krag’s grave, didn’t you?’ said Meinertzhagen – a rhetorical question, since he was the one who had sent him.
‘Yes,’ said Ponting. ‘At least I think I did.’
‘Think! Don’t tell me you’re having trouble with the old memory box. I remember signing the rail warrants.’
‘I’ve never been totally certain in my own mind whether that was a grave or not.’
Ponting remembered a fresh mound of reddish earth and a rough wooden cross on which was written in black paint ‘Major Erwin Krag – German forces – died of wounds, 2 December 1917.’ It lay next to the graves of two Kriegsmarine who had been washed ashore from their rammed U-boat.
‘What makes you say that?’
‘Why was she never allowed to visit him in hospital?’
‘As I recall it that was due to a combination of things. Firstly she was being interrogated; secondly he was very ill; and thirdly – well thirdly, he didn’t want to see her anyway.’
‘He told you that?’
‘Myself and other people.’
‘But why? She told us he had proposed marriage to her just a few hours before they were captured.’
‘I dunno,’ chirped Meinertzhagen. ‘Perhaps he felt he no longer needed her. I don’t ever remember him speaking of her with what one might have perceived as love. It was more a kind of cynical affection – almost the sort of feelings you might have for an old enemy, really.’
Ponting thought about the way Shemsi had stood at the grave, dry-eyed, not displaying any grief. All she had said was, ‘He was a strange man. I never really knew him.’
It was not long afterwards that the Australian nurse, plump and bouncy, had wandered by in her overall. She had stopped alongside them, obviously assuming they could have no reason to be drawn to that particular spot other than idle curiosity. ‘Do you think Fritz does the same for our boys, sir?’ she had asked conversationally.
‘Oh I should think so.’
‘Funny thing about this last bloke, you know. None of us saw it happen.’
‘Saw what happen?’
‘Saw the burial. I mean one day there were two Jerries here and the next there were three. They must have done it in the middle of the night if you ask me. With the other two there was a navy chaplain and some sailors to lower the coffins. We were quite surprised. We thought they would have thrown U-boaters back to the crabs.’
Shemsi had not appeared to understand a word of this exchange. Ponting himself, thoroughly irritated by the nurse’s intervention and anxious to be rid of her, had not attached much importance to it at the time. It was not until they were on the train heading back to Cairo, with the warm night air blowing in through the window and his charge feigning sleep opposite him, her hat alongside her, that it came back to him. Then, as his mind ranged over the whole strange business of this woman and the man she had slept with but couldn’t weep over, the nurse’s words sowed the doubts that had remained with him for over four years. ‘None of us saw it happen.’ Was it that they didn’t see it happen because it didn’t really happen?
‘He’s alive, isn’t he?’ Ponting asked, sipping his second glass of port. He was getting too fond of port. Have to watch it.
‘Who?’
‘Daniel – Krag.’
‘You know, you really are full of wild stories tonight, old chap,’ beamed Meinertzhagen. ‘It must be because you’re almost a civilian. You saw his grave. It was his grave.’
‘I’ve also heard about a note from one staff officer to another complaining about Allenby’s stupidity because he insisted that the next offensive should be at Gaza again.’
‘Ah well, I see there’s no convincing you,’ grinned Meinertzhagen, who did not in the least mind being reminded of his greatest coup. ‘Where’s your Christian charity? Give a chap a bad name and you never believe a word he says again. I don’t know what we can do to put your mind at rest. I suppose you could always write to the Bull and ask him if you could exhume the poor fellow. Might be worth a try.’
Ponting knew when he was beaten. Once Meinertzhagen got into one of these bantering moods he could keep it up all night. He lit another cigarette.
‘Personally, I’ve always thought Daniel was a bit over-rated,’ his tormentor went on, apparently quite forgetting that he had once told Ponting the spy was worth three divisions. ‘If Kress had had a bigger army that was likely to take the offensive it might have been different. As it was, all they could do was sit and wait for us to attack. Our general was very flattering just now, but I think Allenby’s biggest help, as far as the Beersheba battle was concerned, came from Aaron Aaronsohn. He told us where we could find the old wells that would enable us to move the cavalry over to the right. Everybody else said it was impossible. Well, most people did. He’s a great loss to the Yishuv, that chap.’
Aaronsohn had disappeared two winters ago when the Handley Page taking him to the peace conference at Versailles had crashed into the Channel. Through Lawrence he had grown friendly with Faisal, who thought the Zionists would contribute ideas and money to the newly independent Arab lands.
‘Yes,’ said Ponting, who was beginning to feel his cough coming on again and was desperately trying to signal a waiter for a carafe of water. ‘Rotten luck. Rotten luck for the whole family, especially after what happened to Sarah. But the Nili group did bring us some good stuff from Daniel. It certainly didn’t hurt us to know about what they were planning even if they never did get the wherewithal to bring it off. And if we hadn’t known how weak they were they could have bluffed us more easily.’
‘Oh yes, Daniel was useful. I’m not denying it. But all this stuff about Allenby knowing every card the enemy had in his hands is ridiculous. If that had been the case we should have been in Jerusalem six days after Beersheba instead of six weeks. Cigar?’
‘No thanks,’ gasped Ponting who had just put out his fifth cigarette since dinner. He began this terrible dry cough which went on for almost a minute.
‘My dear fellow!’ said Meinertzhagen, ‘You really ought to watch that.’
Epilogue
Life is not a tidy business, and one the reasons for its loose ends is that people are unpredictable, even to themselves. The good and the bad are usually the same people at different times. Meek men murder. Cruel men are kind. Honourable men act dishonourably. And courage is often proved a finite thing. A man may be brave as a lion one day and yet fail to summon even that minimum of nerve that might ensure his own survival the next.
On 26 May 1918 Private Walter Calderwell was aboard the trooper Leasowe Castle which was taking the Warwickshire Yeomanry to France where, to their almost unanimous disgust, they were to serve in an infantry role as machine-gunners. There were over one thousand soldiers aboard for, besides the heroes of Huj, there was another dismounted Yeomanry unit, the South Nottinghamshire Hussars. Twenty-five minutes past midnight and about one hundred miles out of Alexandria the trooper was torpedoed on her starboard side, a little forward of amidships.
There were few initial casualties, mainly because the soldiers had been ordered to sleep on deck in those submarine-infested waters. Nor was there much panic, although Calderwell was by no means the only Midlander aboard who had never learned to swim, despite the beach camp days before Beersheba.
It was a warm, moonlit night and the Leasowe Castle took ninety-five minutes to sink. The remaining five transports in the convoy steamed on but a Japanese destroyer circled the stricken vessel in case the U-boat should be tempted to return and put an end to this orderly abandoning of ship.
Most of the Yeomanry escaped in the lifeboats wearing cork lifejackets. The majority still carried their rifles although they were ordered to dump their packs because they took up too much room. There were not quite enough boats to go round. Some, perhaps two or three hundred, were expected to jump in after life rafts that had been tossed into the water. Calderwell and Mace found themselves in this group, and stood at the handrail for some time contemplating the dappled surface almost thirty feet below them. Dark shadows indicated occupied rafts and beyond them loitered the long boats. Neither of them fancied it much.
A second lieutenant of about the same age as Calderwell, who had come out a couple of months before to replace one of the Huj casualties, assured them that they would ‘pop up like corks’. To prove the point he removed some well polished riding boots, climbed over the handrail and, holding his nose with his right hand, jumped in with all the élan of a small boy determined to make the biggest splash. They looked over but though the splash was impressive they could not be certain that he had surfaced.
Shortly after this they saw a signal lamp flickering in the darkness and watched the sailors who were still on the bridge make a reply. Much to their relief, shortly after this they were told that there was to be no more jumping over because the Royal Navy was coming alongside to pick them up. Mace wanted to take the young officer’s riding-boots but when he removed his boots and tried to get them on he discovered they were much too small. Disgusted, he threw them overboard together with his own footwear that needed replacing.
His Majesty’s sloop Lilly came up to the starboard bow of the Leasowe Castle, and by 1.45 a.m. had thrown up a line and made fast. A sailor stood at the end of the rope with an axe ready to cut it if the troop ship should suddenly go down. Already she was settling gently by the stern with a list to port that was getting more pronounced by the minute. On the bridge Captain Holt told Colonel Gray-Cheape and his adjutant, Captain Drake, that they would best think about leaving. The officers assured him that they would not leave until the last of their men were off.
The remaining soldiers began to jump down onto the deck of the sloop, some of them delivering kitbags laden with the treasures of the Cairo souk first. It was a bit tricky because the port side of the stern was now completely underwater and as the list became more pronounced so the trooper’s bows rose. The Lilly was at least fifteen feet below them and bobbing on the slight swell that had come up. Every few seconds, despite the line linking it to the bigger ship, the gap between the two vessels widened.
Mace went before Calderwell, sliding across the wooden deck on his back as his bare feet failed to find the purchase that would have been provided by seventeen studs on each boot. A couple of sailors helped him to his feet and he looked back up to the big ship where his mate was standing by the rail.
Calderwell had already thrown his kitbag and rifle down onto the Lilly. Now he gripped the handrail and stared down after them. The ship lurched a little more to port and the bow rose by another foot. He tightened his grip.
‘C’mon, lad,’ said a sergeant from the South Notts. ‘You’re holding everybody up.’
Calderwell put one leg over and looked down. For a moment the moon slid behind a cloud and he could hardly make out the sloop – which, according to practice, was not showing any lights in U-boat waters. Then it came into view again – the drop now was almost the height of a Coventry terrace. He started to bring his other leg over the rail but at that moment the Leasowe Castle gave a sudden lurch and he tightened his gri
p on the rail, terrified that he might be cast into that darkness before he was ready for it.
‘C’mon, Caldy,’ shouted Mace, who was still standing among the sloop’s reception committee. Calderwell looked down and saw the white faces looking up at him. His legs felt like jelly. The idea of launching himself into that space was horrific.
‘C’mon, man!’ This time it was an officer’s voice, stern and a trifle impatient.
‘If you can’t shit get off the pot,’ muttered the sergeant.
‘C’mon, Caldy – jump!’ said Mace.
‘I can’t,’ said Calderwell. Somehow the admission gave him an enormous sense of relief. He climbed back across the rail, careful not to let go until both feet were safely the other side.
The sergeant put a fatherly arm around his shoulders although he was probably less than ten years older. ‘Have another go in a minute,’ he said.
Calderwell nodded – but he knew he wouldn’t.
There was a kind of muffled explosion from somewhere below them.
‘Bulkhead’s gone,’ said the sailor who had attached the line the Royal Navy had thrown up. Without more ado he jumped onto the deck of the sloop, just as the leading seaman with the axe severed Lilly’s link with the sinking trooper.
The Leasowe Castle gave the kind of shudder she had made when the torpedo first struck her and then slid gracefully, stern first, into the soup-warm Mediterranean, beginning to capsize as she did so.
Calderwell, lying full-length on the deck, gripped the rail with both hands. He was certain – almost certain – that this was a temporary state of affairs and that the ship would soon right herself. He supposed ships were like horses – you just had to be patient with the buggers, outlast ‘em. Even as the warm waters welcomed him he promised himself that next time he would jump. He really couldn’t go on making a bloody fool of himself in front of Mace.