The Afrika Reich

by Guy Saville

  ‘And who’ll cook us dinner?’ said Gonsalves.

  Some of the soldiers laughed.

  Neliah ignored them. ‘I want to fight,’ she said more loudly. ‘Want to kill Germans.’

  ‘But she’s a negra,’ said Gonsalves, appealing to Penhor. ‘Send her out into the jungle and she’ll run away. All of them will.’

  Neliah felt the fury beat in her throat – stilled it. The comandante might change his mind if she lashed out.

  ‘Or she’ll fuck it up. The explosives will be too complicated for her.’

  Penhor held up his hand to silence Gonsalves and the other soldiers baying with him. Neliah watched him suspiciously. ‘It’s decided,’ he said. ‘Neliah will go to the tunnel. The rest of us will leave for Loanda. We can be there the day after tomorrow.’

  ‘You can’t leave something so important to a girl.’

  ‘That’s enough.’

  ‘A nig-girl.’

  ‘I said, that’s enough. One more word and I’ll have you in the kitchens, Gonsalves.’

  Sniggers.

  The skin round Gonsalves’s jaw flushed red.

  Penhor turned to one of his officers. ‘Send word to Quimbundo to prepare the train. Neliah, come with me. The rest of you get ready to move. We leave tomorrow. Dismissed!’

  Neliah waited for the soldiers to file out. As Gonsalves passed he flashed her a look. A look that spoke murder.

  Neliah had always been forbidden here before. She followed the comandante to the strongroom. It was the only stone building in the camp, had originally been built to store diamonds from the nearby mines. Now its cellar served as the Resistencia’s armoury. She looked around the racks of rifles as breathlessly as that one time she had kissed a boy.

  ‘Will you give us guns?’ she asked.

  ‘I thought you Herero had your own weapons.’

  ‘We do, but no guns.’

  Penhor considered it a moment. ‘I’ll give you this, girl,’ he said, reaching for a leather sheath.

  Neliah took it and withdrew the blade inside. Her eyes shone. It was a panga-machete, two feet long, the edge rough with rust.

  ‘It will need sharpening,’ said Penhor.

  ‘No. Blunt is good,’ breathed Neliah. ‘It cuts worse. But what about a gun?’

  ‘We’ll need them for Loanda.’

  ‘Grenades?’

  ‘They’re too noisy. You’ll need to be as silent as possible.’

  ‘Will there be many Germans to kill?’

  ‘I don’t know, maybe none.’

  Neliah’s face dropped.

  ‘But you’ll be doing much worse,’ said Penhor, seeing her expression. ‘Destroying the enemy’s transport links, their bricks and tarmac, that hurts them much more.’

  ‘There’s an old Herero saying: only what bleeds hurts.’

  Penhor reached for a crowbar and prised open a wooden case. Inside were bundles of dynamite and detonators. ‘There are two types,’ explained Penhor. ‘Radio-triggered or on timer.’

  Neliah picked up one of the bundles. The dynamite looked as old and white as bone. She put her face to it: it smelt of nothing, certainly not revenge. ‘Was it true what Gonsalves said about the British?’ she asked.

  ‘Yes, I visit their embassy. They are our allies, supplied all of this.’

  ‘But they let the Nazistas take the south. My parents died because of what they did. Murdered.’

  ‘I know,’ he said, his voice flat, ‘Zuri told me.’ He eased the dynamite from her hand, patted her. Neliah pulled away. ‘The radio ones will be too complicated. Better you take the timers.’

  ‘I understand the radios,’ Neliah replied. ‘My father used similar on the quarries.’

  ‘Nevertheless, that’s what I’m giving you. I assume you know how they work too?’

  She nodded.

  ‘I’ll show you anyway. Watch carefully.’

  When he was finished Penhor stuffed the explosives into a haversack. ‘The men will still need food. You can take five others with you, but not Zuri.’

  Neliah secretly hoped he would say this. ‘My sister wants to fight also.’

  ‘I don’t care what she wants. It’s safer here.’

  He pulled the haversack away from her.

  ‘She will be angry if I go alone.’

  ‘I can always send Gonsalves instead.’

  ‘No! Five others is enough – Zuri can stay.’

  ‘Good girl.’ Penhor handed back the explosives, squeezed them against her breasts. ‘Now, Neliah, I can’t stress how important this task is. Gonsalves was right: if the Germans manage to invade Rhodesia, we’re done for.’

  Neliah frowned. ‘Then why not give it to him?’

  ‘Because you’re braver than he is.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  He looked at her bare arms, the dark skin. ‘You’ve got more to lose.’

  Stanleystadt, Kongo

  16 September, 06:25

  HIS father’s voice was urgent. ‘Burton! Get up.’

  It was Mama, she’d come back to them. Hochburg was dead and Mama was home. It had to be. Only her return could have roused such fervour. He’d missed her so much …

  ‘Burton!’

  Someone was shaking him.

  Burton’s eyes opened with a start – but his bedroom was different. Where were the etchings of Noah, of David and Goliath? Where was the painting he’d done of the beanstalk with Onkel Walter?

  Where was his mother?

  Patrick was leaning over him. ‘We got trouble.’ The air reeked of his pipe smoke.

  Burton pushed himself up, positive he could still hear the echo of his father’s voice. He was lying on a mattress in a squalid room; his ankles itched from bed bugs despite sleeping with his boots on. They were in a dosshouse by the old docks, the type of place where labourers could get a bed for a few marks and no questions. Nearby, Burton heard the sound of an engine. A lorry – no, two – approaching at speed.

  Burton pushed past Patrick to the window, Browning clutched tight; he had slept with it in his hand. He looked outside then squatted below the sill and flicked off the safety.

  Patrick grabbed his own pistol, a Mauser, and made for the door.

  ‘Wait,’ said Burton.

  ‘And have them storm the fucking place?’

  ‘They can’t know we’re here. Run, and you’ll bring them down on us.’ Burton peered over the window ledge again. The lorries had come to a halt; troops clambered out of the back. An officer was issuing commands. He pointed at the building opposite, another dosshouse.

  ‘See,’ said Burton.

  Patrick’s hand hovered above the handle.

  ‘See.’

  He relented, joined Burton by the window.

  The officer was knocking on the door of the other building. Several moments passed before a woman opened it. The officer flashed some ID and stood aside to allow his troops to enter. They were all armed with banana-guns.

  ‘They’re Unterjocher,’ said Burton. He could see two Gothic letters on the officer’s lapels: UJ.

  There was the sound of crockery breaking, a muffled shout, then the troops began to lead men out of the house. Most were wearing nothing more than shorts and vests, hair rough with sleep. One man approached the officer and began an elaborate display of his documents. The Unterjocher were only supposed to remove illegal workers, those without the correct papers; this part of the city was an ideal hunting ground. The man was slapped away and dragged to the lorry.

  Burton shook his head. ‘Poor bastards.’

  ‘Better them than us,’ replied Patrick.

  The troops escorted a dozen or so men to the waiting lorries before the officer directed them to another house. There seemed no method in his choosing, he simply pointed at a building and let his troops loose. Suddenly he was looking in their direction. Burton ducked below the sill.

  ‘We got to move,’ hissed Patrick.

  Burton’s grip tightened around the Browning. He shook
his head.

  Patrick crawled from the window to the door, reached for the handle and turned it. The door opened silently.

  From below: shouting. Then engines as they started up.

  Burton risked a peek outside. The lorries were pulling away. Soon the road was silent again except for the clanking of cranes by the docks.

  Burton let his head loll against the wall. ‘Jesus.’ His limbs ached from the long drive from Aquatoriana. His eyes were raw, mouth dry and full of yawns. He rubbed his face to force some vigour into himself. He had a strong urge to crawl back into bed. ‘So now what?’ he asked Patrick.

  Stanleystadt had been his idea. We can’t continue to Nigeria, Patrick said after the airfield, every Lebb in Aquatoriana will be on our trail now. Better get to the city, we can disappear there. They’ll never find us. Then downriver, like we did in ’44 … What if the others are captured? asked Burton. The cover story: we said Stanleystadt, remember? Dolan seemed pretty cocksure he’d get out. Let’s hope he was right.

  Patrick joined him beneath the window; there was a scab across the bridge of his nose from the plane crash. He stuffed his pipe back in his mouth, flicked his Zippo lighter.

  ‘Do you have to smoke that thing?’ said Burton.

  ‘It’s my lucky pipe.’

  ‘Well, it’s starting to stink.’ Patrick had puffed away throughout his watch: there was a bitter fug to the room.

  The flame in Patrick’s hand hovered over the bowl before he extinguished it. The pipe stayed in his mouth. ‘We head for the docks,’ he said, ‘see if we can get a ship to Neu Berlin. Then the Atlantic, and home.’

  Home. The word had never sounded so sweet to Burton.

  ‘What about the right papers? Work permits?’

  ‘They won’t care in the old port. Besides—’ Patrick rubbed his thumb and forefingers together ‘—bank notes are the best papers.’ As part of their contingency equipment each member of the team had been given two hundred Reichmarks and some solid gold coins.

  ‘It’s not enough.’

  ‘We’ll offer it as a down payment. Promise more.’

  ‘And if we bribe the wrong person?’

  ‘You got a smarter idea?’

  ‘Rougier. He’s the other side of town.’

  Patrick snorted. Counted off on his fingers: ‘He’s either captured. Dead. Or is in it with Ackerman, helped set us up.’

  ‘We still don’t know it was Ackerman.’

  ‘Who else then?’

  ‘Rougier might be the only friend we have.’

  ‘Suppose you’re right, what we going to do?’ said Patrick. ‘Knock on his door and say hi, maybe bring him a bunch of roses?’

  ‘He could get us the right documents, help us get down river.’

  ‘Or get us shot.’

  Burton stood up. ‘What? Like Nares?’

  Patrick had avoided all Burton’s previous comments about the airman. For a moment it seemed as if he would again ignore him. Then he seemed to deflate. ‘There’s nothing we could’ve done,’ he said, almost a whisper. ‘You saw his injuries. If we’d stayed the Lebbs would have gotten us. And that’s not going to happen. Not to me.’

  ‘But—’

  ‘I made it clear, remember, back in prison.’

  Burton hated him for being right. ‘And if it had been me?’

  ‘Nares was as good as dead. I didn’t want to do it but it was the only thing.’

  ‘And if it had been me? Could you have looked me in the eye and pulled the trigger?’

  Patrick made no reply.

  The American stood, his joints creaking, and put his pipe into his pocket. Like Burton he was wearing canvas trousers and a Wehrmacht surplus shirt. With so many itinerant workers in Stanleystadt they wouldn’t get a second glance dressed as navvies. They’d stolen the clothes on the outskirts of the city before ditching their SS uniforms (a blessed relief), documents and rifles. Burton had noticed Patrick rub his thumb over the words carved into the stock – für Hannah – before breaking the weapon and tossing it into the river. They kept their jackboots and pistols.

  Burton looked him straight in the eye. ‘Could you have done it?’

  Patrick stepped towards the door, opened it and only then turned round. His voice was halting, conciliatory. ‘Okay, let’s find Rougier. But you buy the roses.’

  Burton faked a smile. ‘And breakfast: I’m famished.’

  ‘We can eat when we’re safe.’

  The flophouse they had spent the night in was on the north bank of the Kongo, the old Belgian part of the city called Otraco dominated by its decaying cathedral. Here, you could still find bomb craters and piles of rubble from the invasion, buildings pockmarked with bullets. Beyond the patchwork of streets there were warehouses riddled with rain and rats. Tanneries belched clouds of sulphur into the air. The Nazis were waiting for Otraco to sink back into the mud before rebuilding: a physical demonstration of Belgium’s deluded colonial ambitions.

  In the meantime WVHA, the Economic Department of the SS, had concentrated its efforts on the other side of the river – the Salumu district – with a challenge from Hochburg ‘to create a lustrous white pearl: a city that would be the envy of Africa’. A new river port had been constructed to encourage trade; a stock exchange, known as the Mittelafrika Börse; state-of-the-art hospital; and two universities, one that specialised in agronomy, the other in tropical medicine and racial hygiene. There were gleaming avenues that flowed with Volkswagens and BMWs, highrise blocks to rival the cathedral’s spire. For Stanleystadt’s citizens: townhouses and air-conditioned villas filled with Polish maidservants. Water as sweet as any Alpine brook from new treatment plants. A cornucopia of boutiques. Sports facilities. Lush communal parks. All built on black slave labour in the years before Windhuk.

  It was reached by a bridge designed by Hermann Giesler. Brutal pillars of concrete in the shape of an eagle’s wings – seventeen of them – spanning the width of the Kongo. Burton watched the muddy water flow beneath them as they crossed it. When he was younger, Hochburg told him how he had navigated the river’s length, retraced Stanley’s journey. Another of his stories.

  By the time Burton and Patrick were on the Salumu side a muggy grey heat had risen. Burton’s shirt was plastered to him, sweat pooling around the small of his back where his Browning was hidden. They had memorised the route to Rougier’s safe house during their training: followed a course through a canyon of steel and stone where a few years earlier there had been nothing but trees. Burton didn’t want to imagine the suffering that had raised a new city so quickly. He heard his father’s voice again, the Book of Exodus, words spoken in disgust: and they made their lives bitter with hard bondage, in mortar and in brick … It was only then that it struck him.

  ‘There’s something wrong.’

  They were walking down 25 Mai Strasse. On either side of them was Belgian artillery: captured guns displayed on low plinths.

  ‘You just figured that out?’ said Patrick.

  ‘I mean about this place.’

  The last time they’d been here was in September 1944, during Operation Sisal, and those final days before the Afrika Korps’s assault on the city. With the Belgian administration in chaos and unable to evacuate its citizens, the job fell to mercenaries. The streets thronged with people desperate to escape, but only those with enough ‘portable’ – gold, jewels – had been saved. Everyone else was left to their fate. Burton felt a stirring of long-suppressed guilt. He could still remember them, the sweat, the panic, wide eyes set in beseeching faces …

  ‘There are no blacks.’

  ‘Say what?’ said Patrick.

  ‘Look at the faces.’

  Apart from the heat, the palms and baobab trees, they might have been in Hamburg.

  ‘Of course not. The Windhuk Decree.’

  ‘But the blacks built this city.’

  ‘Then got shipped north.’

  ‘God only knows what they went through. How many died.’

>   ‘Keep your voice down,’ hissed Patrick and picked up the pace.

  They passed offices – IG Farben, Siemens, Lufthansa – a cinema showing Das Wunder von Rio, Leni Riefenstahl’s film about the World Cup earlier that summer in Brazil. Somewhere Burton smelt freshly baked bread; his stomach growled. The traffic was getting heavier. Finally they reached Eiskeller Strasse.

  ‘Ackerman said it was on the corner with Lubeku Strasse. Number 131.’

  ‘Is this right?’ said Patrick. ‘Doesn’t look residential.’

  ‘We’ll soon see.’ They continued walking, Burton counting off the numbers: 91, 93, 95, 97 … There seemed to be a lot of black uniforms on the street. Burton and Patrick kept their eyes averted. A lorry laden with troops drove past.

  119, 121, 123, 125 …

  ‘There it is,’ said Burton, coming to a halt. ‘On the other side of the road. Seems discreet enough.’

  Patrick wasn’t paying any attention. He was staring at the building opposite. ‘You got to be kidding.’ He looked as if he were about to run.

  Burton turned round and gazed up. It was built in the new imperial style: seven storeys tall, angular, with windows like a prison. The construction was white granite with Doric columns marking the entrance. On top of the columns was a huge eagle and swastika.

  They were outside the headquarters of the SS.

  *

  ‘He’s not expecting us,’ said Burton, ‘so we should go one at a time. I’ll take point.’

  ‘No,’ replied Patrick. ‘I’ll go first. He knows me, remember. From picking up the jeeps.’ He glanced at the building looming over them. There were two sentries on the gate, BKs slung over their shoulders; one was already looking in their direction. ‘More important, I don’t want to spend a second longer out here than I have to.’

  ‘And if it is a set-up?’

  Patrick ignored the question. ‘You can’t hang around here. Keep going round the block. Once I’m in we’ll look for you.’ Patrick headed towards the house without another word.

  Burton began walking again. When SS HQ was behind him he risked a glance over his shoulder: Patrick had vanished. He went round the block anti-clockwise. The streets were crowded: foreign businessmen, settlers in town for the day, a gaggle of Pfadfinders, the African Hitler Youth, on a school outing. For some reason ‘The Sambo March’ was back in his head. He remembered raucous renditions of it in the streets before the Peace for Empire election, had always hated the song: