The Afrika Reich

by Guy Saville

  ‘Of course you got a choice. You can stay here and rot.’

  ‘If I leave with you tonight, what’s to stop me from disappearing?’

  ‘Twenty years of friendship?’

  Patrick snorted again.

  ‘We’ll have your passport,’ Burton said.

  ‘Like that’s going to stop me.’

  ‘You’ll have no money. No papers. Besides, I know where you’ll be headed.’

  ‘That a threat?’

  Burton shook his head sadly. ‘Kongo will be safe, you have my word. I’ve figured it all out. By the time the Lebbs know what’s happened we’ll be homeward bound.’ Later he thought about that vow. And the one he made to Madeleine. It seemed the whole mission was founded on broken promises. A chain of them running through him, Ackerman, right back to his mother.

  Patrick leaned forward in his chair, teetering on a decision but still unsure. He rubbed his hand over his chin. Burton saw patches of white stubble on it: too much shaving with blunt razors. The laughing prisoner was at it again, chortling like a man who inherits a million on the same day he is sentenced to death.

  Burton stood and prepared to leave. ‘I have a flight to catch. I’ll give you thirty minutes to think about it. Then I’m gone. I’ll try and make sure you get regular tobacco.’

  ‘Wait,’ said Patrick. ‘You bought yourself an American.’

  Burton felt a surge of relief. ‘Thank you. Thank you, old friend.’

  ‘But, remember, this is to get back home. This is for my daughter, not you. Things fuck up, boy, and you’re on your own. I’ll leave you without a second thought. Every man for himself.’

  ‘Like I did at Dunkirk?’

  ‘That was different.’ There was a snarl behind Patrick’s lips. ‘You get hurt I won’t be hauling your ass home.’

  Burton forced a smile. ‘Too heavy for you?’

  ‘No. Twenty years or not, I’ll put a bullet in your head.’

  ‘So I was wrong.’ Back in the jeep, the sun starting its rapid decline. This close to the equator it went from daylight to pitch black in less than thirty minutes.

  ‘No more bullshit,’ said Patrick. He inverted his pipe to make sure the glow of the tobacco didn’t give away their position as it grew darker. ‘What aren’t you telling me, Burton? Why did you want this job? I never saw you so sand-happy for anything.’

  For a second Burton was tempted to tell him it all – Hochburg, his parents, all the secrets between them – but now wasn’t the time. Not with Nares pretending to sleep in the back, ears twitching. ‘I told you. The money. I was desperate. It was the only way I was going to get Maddie.’

  ‘She must be some woman.’

  ‘You’re getting paid for this?’ Nares had moved up from the back. ‘What are you? Mercenaries?’

  ‘No,’ said Patrick. ‘We’re on fucking safari.’

  Burton spoke: ‘Didn’t Ackerman brief you?’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Ackerman. Our paymaster, from LMC.’

  ‘Never heard of him. We fly in diamonds once a month. That’s all.’

  ‘Smuggling?’

  ‘Of course smuggling, for the Nazis. I’m not stupid. But we’re a commercial flight. We get a little extra for the detour and no questions. We’ve never picked anyone up before though. Never had anything like this.’ His voice stumbled. ‘I flew with those blokes for three years.’

  ‘I tell you,’ said Patrick, ‘it was a set-up. The Lebbs were waiting for us.’

  ‘We don’t know that,’ replied Burton.

  ‘You saw the firepower.’

  ‘And you saw them on the road chasing us.’

  ‘That’s my point. We left the Schädelplatz in a mess. There’s no way they could have gotten to the airstrip so quick.’

  Nares said, ‘What did you do? That was a small army we escaped from.’

  ‘We killed someone. I killed someone.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘You really don’t know?’

  Nares shook his head.

  ‘A man called Hochburg. A Nazi—’

  ‘The Governor General?’ The airman turned white. ‘We’re dead. We’re fucking dead!’ Suddenly there was venom in his voice. ‘Why?’

  ‘Diamonds,’ said Burton.

  ‘But we were already flying in diamonds.’

  ‘I’m not talking the rocks themselves, I mean mining. The Kassai fields.’

  ‘But they’re in Kongo, belong to the Germans.’

  ‘Yes, but they’re mined by LMC. Have been since Belgian times. It was one of the conditions of Britain not getting involved when the Germans invaded in ’44.’ Burton shook his head in dismay. ‘All standing mineral concessions would be honoured.’

  ‘So why the smuggling?’

  ‘The concessions were only guaranteed till 1950. After that they were up for renewal. For the past two years LMC has been paying Hochburg a “fee” to make sure they kept the mines. Twenty per cent of all production.’

  ‘But that’s more than any man could spend! Hochburg would be a king.’

  ‘He wasn’t spending the money on himself. He wasn’t corrupt.’ Burton almost felt like defending him: greed had never been one of his vices. ‘He was buying workers from Russia.’

  ‘Shitloads,’ added Patrick. ‘On the QT, so nobody knew. And that type of quiet don’t come cheap.’

  Nares shook his head as if none of this made any sense to him.

  ‘There’s a labour shortage,’ explained Burton. ‘Here in Kongo, in all of Nazi Africa. Nobody to build the roads, dig the sewers, work the plantations.’

  ‘Get the kaffirs to do it.’

  Burton flinched at the word. The one time he’d used the word as a child his father boxed his ears. ‘Except there aren’t any. All the blacks have been shipped to Muspel. You must know the rumours – the ones we all pretend to ignore.’

  ‘You mean the Windhuk Decree?’

  Burton nodded. ‘So now they’ve all gone, Hochburg needs five thousand new workers a month.’

  ‘But why kill him?’

  ‘Ackerman got word he was going to change their arrangement. Put the mines under Nazi control. That way Hochburg would get all the loot, not just a percentage.’

  ‘And what about Hochburg’s replacement?’

  ‘New man, new deal.’

  ‘But what if the next Governor didn’t want to cut a deal?’

  ‘I been thinking about that too,’ said Patrick. ‘Nares is right. Ackerman had no guarantee of what would happen next … unless he already knew.’

  ‘What are you saying?’

  ‘I think Ackerman was deeper into this than he let on. He knew exactly who was going to replace Hochburg. Somebody who would continue their deal on the same terms. Maybe that was the price for getting rid of Hochburg in the first place.’

  ‘But a decision like that could only come from Germania,’ said Burton. ‘From high up. Maybe Himmler himself.’

  The statement settled between them like an unwelcome guest.

  ‘We’re dead,’ repeated Nares, ‘we’re fucking dead.’

  ‘They haven’t managed it yet,’ said Patrick grimly.

  ‘I can’t believe it,’ said Burton in a rush. ‘Ackerman’s too small fry. How could he ever get Germania’s ear? They don’t care about Africa.’

  ‘What did he tell us about Kassai?’ replied Patrick. ‘Seventy per cent of the world’s diamond production! Twenty million carats a year! That talks plenty loud.’

  ‘You think he set us up?’

  ‘If he did, he better pray I never catch him. But there’s something else. Something that’s been on my mind.’ He turned to eyeball Burton. ‘Why you?’

  Since that first morning on the farm Burton had been asking himself the same question. It was a thought quickly stifled. The desire to see Hochburg again, to learn the truth then plunge a knife deep in his heart had been too consuming.

  ‘Ackerman could have chosen anybody for this job,’ continued Patrick. �
�In fact he did. He chose Dolan. Then at the last minute comes knocking on your door. Why?’

  ‘He said I was the best.’

  ‘And you believed him?’

  ‘Shhh!’ said Nares. ‘I can hear something.’

  Burton and Patrick stopped speaking. Outside the jeep came the relentless shriek and throb of the jungle. Patrick turned irritably to the airman. ‘I don’t hear anything.’

  ‘Listen.’

  Over the insects a sound was swelling through the trees. Indistinct at first, but getting louder, the cry of a wolf cub at the bottom of a well. For an instant Burton couldn’t identify it … then he slammed the jeep in gear, the tyres spitting earth as they tore away.

  Patrick craned his head out of the window. ‘It’s right on us. Foot on the gas, boy! Hard as you can.’

  ‘It’s no good,’ wailed Nares. His eyes were stretched wide again. ‘We’ll never outrun it. We’ll—’

  But before he could finish a black shape screamed overhead.

  Doruma, Kongo-Sudan border

  14 September, 21:00

  DOLAN saw that he was trying to hide it. Vacher’s eyes looked as bold as ever, but he was shrinking himself into his seat.

  ‘Maybe the major was right,’ he said.

  ‘Bah! Too late for that now,’ replied Dolan as he slowed down the Ziege. ‘We haven’t got the juice to turn back. Unless you want to ask the Krauts for some.’

  Vacher chewed on his thumbnail, remained silent.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ continued Dolan, struggling to sound chummy. ‘You see that—’ he pointed past the walls of razor-wire to the lights blinking in the distance ‘—that’s Sudan. We’re less than a mile from home.’

  ‘I’m from Salisbury,’ said Vacher.

  They had arrived at Doruma, one of the few crossing points where the British Empire and Third Reich met in Africa. A place to kiss the devil, Dolan joked on the drive there – or kick his arse. The place had the feel of a desert outpost even though it was surrounded by patchy jungle and bush. Dust blew through the streets. The buildings were a mixture of whitewashed prefabs and mock Bavarian. There were Arab traders on every corner (only tolerated because of the proximity to the border) selling an array of wares: watermelons, sunglasses, copper batteries, cheap copies of the Nazi national football strip. The occasional camel padded past. There were also Waffen-SS soldiers.

  Lots of Waffen-SS soldiers.

  Vacher said, ‘Do you think they’re looking for us?’

  ‘It’s a garrison town. There’re bound to be a few squaddies. No one will give us a second thought.’

  ‘The jeep’s pretty bashed up.’

  ‘We’ll say I got hammered. Went for a race.’ Dolan was finding the Rhodesian’s worry unexpected and worse – contagious. ‘Besides, I thought you were up for a fight.’

  That was the reason Dolan had selected him for the mission in the first place. He may have been quiet but he was also ballsy. Eager to taste the spit and smoke of battle. They were from that generation of soldiers who were too young to have served in France or the Far East but wanted their own gulp of glory. To fight and win, not cower behind peace treaties. He knew Vacher’s old man had been bagged by the Japs during the Nagasaki landings in ’46.

  ‘I am,’ said Vacher, lifting his rifle. ‘I am.’ He seemed to reach back inside himself for something. ‘Kraut bastards.’

  ‘Good. I can’t stand cowards.’

  They were approaching the checkpoint. Dolan rested his arm on the window, trying to appear casual; he’d rolled his sleeve down to hide the burnmarks. His other hand gripped the steering wheel more tightly. There was traffic ahead of them and they slowed to a crawl. He scrutinised the crossing: sentry huts, a stop-barrier, then the gates themselves, twenty feet high, steel. Closed tight. Beyond that a kilometre of de-militarised road before the British outpost of Muzunga. There were a dozen guards, some type of commotion going on. Towering above them was a billboard that showed two men shaking hands over the outline of Africa: a member of the SS clad in black and a British Tommy. Both wore cartoon grins. The shame of a nation made reassuring, thought Dolan, something to be cheery about. All to keep an empire.

  Throughout the 1930s and 40s Britain’s control over its colonies had been slackening. There was widespread civil disobedience in India, the railways sabotaged, government buildings bombed, with officials admitting it was only a matter of time till the country won its independence. Similar movements were fermenting in Ceylon, Palestine, Gold Coast, Honduras. The fall of Singapore to the Japanese in 1942 was a disaster to rival Dunkirk. It seemed as if the sun was at last setting over the British Empire, as Halifax deplored.

  In Africa the Nazis launched Operation Banane and knew nothing but victory. First Rommel, then his successor Field Marshal Arnim, swept across the Sahara like a sandstorm of shells and screaming metal before the Afrika Korps seized the port of Dakar (in what had been French West Africa).

  Next came Operation Sisal, the conquest of the equatorial regions. Despite assurances that British interests would be respected, Churchill spoke up from the backbenches, arguing that the Nazis must not be allowed to dominate the continent. General de Gaulle, who had never recognised the European peace and decamped to Africa to continue the resistance, begged London to intervene to save his men. Each new battle saw the swastika hoisted above shattered cities.

  Finally Halifax addressed the nation.

  Dunkirk had shown they were no longer invincible. Peace with Herr Hitler may not have been the country’s finest hour, but it had preserved their way of life. Brought security for their neighbours under the Council of New Europe. If they clashed with the Germans over Africa war might erupt again. Homes bombed, thousands slaughtered. And for what? To preserve the French colonial legacy?

  British forces were already engaged in the Far East; with God’s grace they would triumph – but it might take years, especially with the Americans’ lack of help. To fight a second war could only weaken Britain’s position further, perhaps beyond repair. It was too late to save India; now the rest of their possessions were watching. Colonies that had taken centuries of British toil to build were like restive children, might be lost in months … if they fought the Germans. Our prosperity, our influence and power, has been built on Empire, he declared. So will our future. I say: Peace for Empire.

  The public heeded his call. Halifax was swept back into power in October 1943 with a landslide victory and a mandate for Africa.

  He met Hitler at Casablanca, Morocco, two figures on the steps of the Anfa Hotel. The Führer in his tropical uniform, sweating and steely; Halifax’s gangly figure towering over him. What followed was the most significant re-drawing of the map since the ‘Scramble for Africa’ had carved up the continent in the 1880s.

  First the east-west divide between Britain and Germany. Then what Hitler dismissed as Einzelheiten. Details. The island of Madagaskar, in the Indian Ocean, was to come under the jurisdiction of the SS; be a homeland for the Jews deported from Europe. Mussolini would have his longed-for African empire: Libya, Abyssinia and Somaliland (known by Italians as ‘il Corno’). Vichy France, under President Laval, Algeria. South Africa pledged to remain neutral. Portugal would retain its two African colonies: Mozambique on the east coast, and Angola in the west, nestled between Kongo and Deutsch Südwest Afrika.

  Everyone smiled for the group photograph: diplomats and statesmen with a blooming pergola background. Hitler flew back from the conference to a torchlight procession along the half-built Avenue of Victory and a million cries hailing his triumph.

  ‘Now?’ said Vacher.

  Dolan put the jeep into second, his foot hovering above the accelerator.

  An Arab, leading a camel laden with packs, was trying to cross the border back to Sudan. The Germans had refused him and now he was arguing with the guards. Other soldiers had gathered round, laughing and jeering.

  ‘Now?’ repeated Vacher. He slipped a new magazine into his rifle.

  D
olan throttled the vehicle … and took them past the checkpoint. ‘We’re going to need more than a camel to distract them.’

  They headed towards the town centre, past rowdy taverns and DSHs. Deutsches SoldatenHauses: German Soldiers’ Houses – the official euphemism for brothels. Girls as pale as Russian snow hung out over the balconies looking exhausted. Dolan saw Vacher give them a wistful glance. He’s never had the ride, he thought.

  Soon they entered a quieter part of town. Here were industrial units and compounds separated from the road by mesh fencing: SS workshops that did everything from engine repairs to manufacturing porcelain.

  ‘Where are you?’ said Dolan to himself. He took a left turn. ‘Where are you?’

  ‘What are we looking for?’ asked Vacher.

  ‘There!’ boomed Dolan. He took the jeep past a site with a sentry box outside. On the fence was a sign that read, BRAND -GEFÄHRLICH. This was one of the first German expressions Dolan had ever learned: highly flammable. Two guards patrolled the exterior. Under the Belgians this place had been a gin factory, but now that schnapps was Africa’s preferred liquor (shipped across the continent from the SS distilleries of Kamerun) it had a different use – the yard was stacked high with oil drums.

  ‘We going to steal some petrol?’ said Vacher. ‘Follow the major after all?’

  ‘Not likely.’

  ‘So what we doing?’

  ‘All towns have these places. Fuel dumps, until the Krauts can finish that pipeline from Persia. This is how we get across the border.’

  Dolan rolled the jeep round a corner and parked by some industrial-sized bins at the back of a factory. The air stank of rubber.

  He got out, left the engine running, and spoke to Vacher. ‘Keep watch. Anybody comes sniffing around you whistle three times like this.’ He made an owl-like sound.

  ‘What are you going to do?’

  Dolan grinned. ‘My box of tricks.’

  He pulled out his metal case and disappeared in the direction of the bins. They were full of tyre trimmings. He moved them, making a barricade so that he couldn’t be seen from the road, then set to work.

  He took out a stand and set it on the ground, using a stray piece of timber to keep it level. Next he connected four firing tubes and, glancing back towards the storage depot, adjusted their positions past the seventy degree mark so that each was at a slightly different angle. Ideally he would have taken a proper measurement but he didn’t want to risk it. Loitering round the back streets was one thing, standing outside a fuel dump with a sextant and notepad quite another. His guess would be good enough. Finally he took out four cylinders. Each was packed with phosphorous connected to a C2 detonator and would—