by Guy Saville
Already the SS troops were gathering themselves. There were fresh muzzle flashes. They were firing low.
There was a blast and one of the back tyres blew. Rubber shrapnel whipped the side of Dolan’s face. He fought to control the jeep, as the chassis grated along the ground. It dragged and careered, left to right.
Ahead he could already see the fence that marked the British side. A Union Jack hung limply from a flagpole. Beneath it a group of soldiers seemed to be encouraging them on. They were no more than two hundred yards away. I’ll buy them all a pint, thought Dolan, tonight back at barracks. He could almost taste it.
Vacher threw down his rifle. Hunkered himself into a ball.
‘Brace yourself!’
A bazooka slammed into the back of the jeep, lifted it into the air. The Ziege landed on its roof, spinning crazily. A molten spike of pain rammed into Dolan’s body. His vision whirled.
Everything became still and peaceful.
Next moment Vacher was screaming in his ear. ‘You got to help me! I can’t do it alone.’
Dolan’s mouth was raw with smoke and blood. It felt as if someone were slapping their hand against his ear. He was crunched up inside the jeep, Vacher on the outside trying to drag him free. Dolan heaved with all his strength, managed to slide out. Vacher helped him stand. He almost collapsed again: his right leg felt useless, the material of his trouser soaked. He was in agony.
‘Can you walk?’ Vacher was shouting into his ear again.
Dolan struggled forward a few paces, tried to breathe deeply. His head was clearing. He snatched a look backwards – swarms of troops, revving engines – and threw his arm around Vacher’s shoulder. If only there’d been time to set his box of tricks: that would have given the Krauts something to chew on. They half ran, half limped, the Rhodesian taking most of his weight.
Ahead a wall of steel and barbed wire stretched as far as the eye could see. The border gates were still closed. With every wincing step, Dolan expected them to swing wide open. Any second now.
Gunshots rang out behind them.
Finally, they collapsed into the barrier. On the other side stood a dozen British soldiers – members of the Equatorial Corps from their berets – all in immaculate, sweaty uniforms. Their .303s looked as if they had never been fired. Above them a wooden sign: WELCOME TO ANGLO-EGYPTIAN SUDAN.
Dolan buckled to his knees, rattled the gate. ‘Let us through!’
The soldiers did nothing.
‘Open it!’ Dolan stole a look behind him. ‘Please.’ The Germans would be on them in seconds. They were no longer shooting. Instead they were leisurely marching forward, their weapons held out in front. Behind them were the headlights of countless vehicles.
‘Open it!’ shouted Dolan again.
‘Open it!’ Vacher joined in with his pleas.
Still the soldiers did nothing. An officer emerged from a pill box and strode towards them. Dolan noticed a George Cross pinned to his breast. ‘I’m sorry, gentlemen. I’m under strict orders not to allow anyone to cross the border.’
‘Fuck orders. Let us through. We’re British soldiers. The Krauts will string us up if they catch us.’
The officer looked at Vacher. ‘He sounds Rhodesian.’
‘We’re all on the same side, man.’
‘Tell that to our cricket team.’
Dolan checked over his shoulder again, then turned back to the officer. He shook the fence wildly, spit bursting from his mouth. ‘Come on!’
The officer tugged down on his tunic and looked straight ahead of him. ‘I have my orders. Now I’m going to ask you to step back from the fence, please.’
‘Fuck you!’
Behind them the stomp of boots. Vacher strapped his rifle to his chest, eyes darting around for a means of escape.
The officer signalled to his men and they drew their weapons.
‘Please,’ begged Dolan. ‘Please.’ His face was a mask of rage and teeth; the pain in his leg like a jackal gnawing the bone.
Vacher looked down at him. ‘Can you climb?’
Dolan shook his head. ‘Save yourself, Pieter.’ He slumped to the ground, and twisted over to face the Germans. ‘I’ll cover you,’ he said, letting go a few rounds. His hands were so wet with blood he couldn’t hold the gun straight. The bullets vanished harmlessly into the darkness. In the distance he could see the fuel dump billowing flames. It looked beautiful.
Vacher darted further along the border and began to scale the fence. The chain-links sagged under his weight.
The British officer said, ‘Please let go of the barrier and step back.’
The Germans fired some warning shots.
Dolan fired back. He might as well have been shooting peas. Through the fence a rifle butt prodded him in the neck. ‘Put down your weapon,’ hissed a voice. ‘Don’t make it worse for yourself.’
Dolan was too weak to disagree. The gun slipped from his grip. Numbness was spreading up his right side. He remembered Ackerman offering them suicide pills before they left Lusaka, just in case of … “the worst”. Had he set them up like Patrick said? Perhaps Ackerman knew it would end in disaster and wanted to give them an easy way out. Dolan refused the pill – all the team did. Now he wished he had some bitter capsule to crunch down on.
Vacher was almost at the top of the fence. Dolan watched him, willing him on. He swung his leg over and then was on the other side. Thirty feet up, but back in civilisation. Back in the British Empire.
A single shot rang out.
Vacher lurched forward, seemed to hover for an instant, then tumbled to the ground. His body landed with the thud of a sandbag hitting slate.
‘You Kraut bastards …’ began Dolan but his voice failed. The shot had come from the British side.
He struggled to turn round and see. The British officer was ordering his men to lift up the body.
‘Vacher?’ said Dolan. ‘Vacher?’
The officer shook his head: ‘Like I said: orders. If someone can do the paperwork we’ll ship him back home. If not, it’s a grave in Sudan.’ A curt nod and he and his men were gone.
Dolan had never felt so alone.
Headlights shone in his eyes. The legs of a hundred German troops in silhouette.
The Nazi officer in command stepped forward. Dolan struggled to look up at him, the muscles in his neck were feeble. It was the one-eared Gruppenführer. He gave a signal to his men. Weapons were cocked.
Dolan waited to die.
Then another sound: an engine.
A black Mercedes rolled up, the limousine Dolan had seen earlier that night. The door opened and a huge dog clambered out. The animal was followed by another officer – someone very senior to judge from all the braiding and silver on his uniform. His jackboots rang out as he approached.
The dog reached Dolan first. It sniffed him, then ran a slobbering tongue over his face. Its breath stank of flesh. Dolan tried not to retch.
‘Fenris, heel!’ The dog padded back to its master. Then the Nazi spoke. In English. His voice was deep and raw. ‘Fee-fi-fofum, I smell the blood of an Englishman …’
Dolan grimaced. ‘I’m Welsh.’
The Nazi chuckled. ‘Be that as it may, I’ll still grind your bones to make my bread.’
The Gruppenführer stepped forward. ‘Is it him? Is it Cole?’
‘No,’ said his superior, squatting down on his haunches. He reached out for Dolan’s face. His hands were massive, like the paws of a bear. He pinched Dolan’s chin, forced his head up till their gazes met.
Dolan stared into the blackest eyes he had ever seen. It was only then that he realised who he was looking at.
Before him was Walter Hochburg.
STANLEYSTADT
AND THE P.A.A.
The construction of at least one thousand miles of autobahn is required each year … for unless we have exceptional roads at our disposal we will not be able to mop up militarily or make our new territories secure
ADOLF HITLER
27 June 1942
Terras de Chisengue, North Angola
15 September, 10:30
ON the second evening of the Casablanca Conference – as bureaucrats continued to re-draw the map – President Salazar of Portugal requested an audience with the Führer. He was passed off to Ribbentrop, Hitler’s Foreign Minister. Salazar wanted guarantees about Portugal’s colonies in Africa, especially mineral-rich Angola which was now bordered by Kongo and the Nazis’ south-western province, DSWA. Ribbentrop put another glass of champagne in his hand, told him not to fret. My dear Antonio, we’re all friends here. Europeans together. You’ve nothing to fear from us. Halifax offered a smile and similar reassurance.
The true fate of Angola, however, was not decided by Halifax or Ribbentrop; it was decided by Hitler’s architect, Albert Speer.
The incessant rebuilding of the Reich’s cities after the war (a project known as Die Fünf-und-zwanzig, ‘The Twenty-Five’) had left a world shortage of marble. As prices soared, the quarries of southern Angola – abundant in the black anorthosite so prized by Speer’s designs – were suddenly rich. Seeing an opportunity to fill Portugal’s coffers, President Salazar decided to levy extra tariffs on all mineral exports: a breach of the Council of New Europe’s trade policy. Hitler demanded concessions. When none was forthcoming panzers began massing on the border; it looked as if all of southern Africa might be plunged into war. Finally, Halifax intervened to negotiate a peace settlement and secure the Casablanca Treaty. Calling an emergency meeting of the CONE, he cited Lloyd George’s famous observation that ‘Portugal had far too much African territory for a country of her size’.
Salazar was forced to see sense. There were no smiles or champagne this time.
In November 1949, all Angola’s provinces south of the Benguela Railway were subsumed into DSWA (which led Göring to point out that the country was the first ever to be divided ‘along railway lines’). Northern Angola would remain under Portuguese control on the condition that it didn’t foment rebellion in the south. Speer could continue his work. A resistance movement formed, with clandestine backing from Portugal, but officially peace had returned to the continent.
Neliah Tavares knew that peace well. It came dressed in black with silver skulls and machine guns. A peace that had murdered her parents.
She was in the kitchens when the comandante returned to camp. He was carrying orders. The whites cheered, fired their guns into the air. A few hours later, a boy-lieutenant – a stranger – arrived. He had travelled from Loanda, Angola’s capital.
Neliah had lost count of the weeks – the months – they had waited. Every day there was new talk of the Nazistas invading the north, and every day they did nothing but sit and sweat and wait, slowly going crazy in the ndeera-grass. And never a mouthful of revenge. Some of the soldiers poured caporotto down their throats and beat each other till their faces ran. The officers said nothing, even allowed gambles on it: anything to keep whispers of revolt at bay. Finally, sick of waiting, the comandante himself went to Loanda to get some orders. He had come back that morning.
Then the boy-officer – and different orders.
When Neliah heard she ran to the octógono at once. She was as tall as most of the men, athletic, with chopped hair and skin the colour of river mud, much darker than her sister’s. Her eyes gleamed bright and wild like those of a mongoose. She was seventeen years old.
The octógono was at the heart of the rebel camp and like all the buildings for the whites was built on legs to keep it safe from mambas and flash floods. Neliah climbed the steps, the nerves rising in her. Inside it was crowded with the Portuguese officers and white Angolan soldiers of the Resistencia. None paid her any attention except Comandante Penhor who frowned but said nothing. Every time orders arrived she would come to fight, every time Penhor would pat her rump and send her back to cook. She flinched when he touched her.
Penhor was addressing the crowd: ‘This morning we have two sets of orders,’ he said. ‘Both from Carvalho himself.’ José Agapito de Silva Carvalho: the Governor of Angola. Neliah watched the soldiers whisper excitedly to each other.
‘The second set of orders says that there has been some kind of “incident” in Kongo, they don’t specify what. Tanks are gathering on the autobahn at Manloga. It appears the Germans intend to invade Northern Rhodesia. To protect their borders. We are to stop them at all costs.
‘The first set, the ones I got from the Governador’s Palace myself, also says that German tanks are gathering. But on the Kongolese-Angolan border. The whole of 90 Light Division.’ He paused for effect. ‘At the Matadi Bridge.’
There was uproar.
‘I needn’t tell you the full consequences of this,’ shouted Penhor, struggling to be heard over the crowd. ‘From Matadi the Nazistas could be on the outskirts of Loanda in three days. Our orders are to return to the capital at once.’
A thrill of excitement ran through Neliah. This time they’d have to let her fight!
‘But why?’ shouted one of the soldiers. ‘They already have the south. We signed a peace agreement.’
‘The Germans are claiming it’s to destroy the Resistencia, camps like ours.’
‘That’s just a ruse,’ called another voice. ‘They want the whole country. Want to turn Angola into a German colony.’
There was a clamour of agreement.
Penhor waited for the hubbub to die down before continuing. He was wearing the blue uniform of the Portuguese Army with a red ceremonial sash around his chest, the creases in trousers and tunic sharp as knives. His skin was like bricks, hair painted black. Neliah never understood why he coloured it.
‘Back to our orders,’ said Penhor. ‘They come with no precedence. However, given the imminent threat to the colony, I say we make all haste to Loanda.’
A voice spoke out among the soldiers. Neliah knew its rough tone at once, felt her belly tighten.
‘The second set, about Rhodesia. Did they say anything else?’
Penhor stopped, ran his tongue between his teeth and top lip. ‘Nothing.’
‘How were we supposed to stop the Boche? We’d be forty men against an entire army. Carvalho must have said something.’
‘Remind me of your name, soldier.’
‘Gonsalves, sir.’
‘Well, Gon-sal-ves, I assume the Governador’s intention was sabotage. That we destroy one of the tunnels heading south on the autobahn.’
‘Let me do it.’
Penhor snorted. ‘Denied. Our orders are to return forthwith.’
‘But you said there was no precedence.’
‘What’s your point, soldier?’
Gonsalves moved so he could address Penhor and the rest of the soldiers at the same time. Neliah had known men like him before. He was a newcomer to the Resistencia, a one-time convict from when Angola was still a penal colony. His skin was as white as zebu milk with curly black hair that sprouted from his collar and cuffs. Whenever she served him in the kitchen he took the food as if it were swimming in spit.
‘Governador Carvalho wouldn’t have sent orders to destroy the tunnel unless he thought it important,’ said Gonsalves, ‘at least as important as defending Loanda.’
‘Maybe they were meant for another of the Resistencia groups,’ suggested one of the soldiers. ‘You know how bad communications are.’
‘Or maybe he found out about Manloga after the comandante had left. Realised just how important it was to stop the Boche getting to Rhodesia and that’s why he sent the second set. Think on it. If the Nazistas invade Loanda who’re the only people that can help us? The Brits. Unless they’re fighting their own war.’
‘They signed away half our country last time.’
‘This is different. We’ve all heard the talk. There are secret agreements between Portugal and Britain.’ He looked to Penhor for support. ‘I’m right, aren’t I, Comandante?’
Neliah watched Penhor brush an invisible speck from his uniform. He kept his lips tight.
&n
bsp; ‘And the Brits are the ones supplying us with weapons.’
Penhor looked at him sharply. ‘Where did you hear that?’
‘Everyone knows it.’
The comandante hesitated. ‘The British are—’ he chose his words carefully ‘—facilitating our struggle. There are those who believe in our cause at their embassy in Loanda.’
‘You see!’ said Gonsalves. ‘If the Nazistas invade us the Brits will come to our defence. Unless they’re fighting the Germans elsewhere – like in Rhodesia.’ He faced the gathered soldiers, appealing to the Angolan fighters. ‘That’s when they’ll turn their backs on us. Or barter us away at the negotiating table. And that’s why we have to destroy the tunnel.’
Neliah saw several of the soldiers nodding in agreement.
Penhor asked, ‘What rank are you, Gonsalves?’
‘No rank, sir. I’m new to the Resistencia. Just volunteered.’
‘And already the master tactician.’
Neliah covered her mouth. Smiled.
‘But … the orders were from Carvalho.’
‘Blowing up a tunnel won’t be enough to beat the Germans.’
‘But it will delay them. Give the Brits a chance to ready themselves.’
‘He’s got a point,’ said one of the Portuguese officers.
‘I say tunnel first,’ replied Gonsalves. ‘Then Loanda.’
Penhor bristled. ‘I think you forget yourself, no-rank Gonsalves. This may be an irregular unit but I am still the commanding officer. We don’t have enough soldiers as it is: can’t afford to split our number. The defence of the capital outweighs any other considerations or orders.’
‘I’ll do it. I’ll blow up the tunnel.’
Everyone turned to the back of the room – and stared at Neliah.
‘You?’ said Gonsalves, his mouth shrivelled with scorn.
‘I know explosives. Know how to fight.’
‘Neliah,’ said the comandante to himself.
She didn’t dare look at him: she was fearful he would refuse her. She couldn’t bear another day stirring pots.
‘Yes … yes, Neliah could do it. Take some other Herero girls with her.’