by Guy Saville
…What for Winston?
Dead chums and kingdom come
We ain’t fighting for no blacks.
Three minutes later he had returned to Eiskeller Strasse. He slowed as he approached number 131, expecting the door to open at any moment. For Patrick to beckon him over.
The door remained shut.
Burton slowed further before coming to a complete halt opposite Rougier’s building. Next door he noticed Texaco’s office, the US oil company. He’d heard they were prospecting in the east of the colony, a joint venture with the MittelafrikaÖl-SS: one of the benefits of neutrality. Burton leaned against a lamppost and tugged off his jackboot. To anyone observing him he was just some labourer with a stone in his shoe. He made a show of shaking it, peering in it, then trying to remove the offending rock, all the time glancing at Rougier’s door. With his foot out in the air he felt strangely exposed.
Further up the road one of the sentries had spied him. He knocked his colleague’s elbow. Next moment he was marching in his direction. The light glinted on his helmet. Even the briefest of interrogations would reveal Burton had no documents.
The door was still closed.
Burton yanked on his boot. Momentarily he was back home on that pink August morning, pulling on his boots to intercept Ackerman. What would he have done if he’d known the fate that awaited him in Africa? Would he have still stridden out to meet the Rhodesian or would he have gone back to bed and waited for Maddie?
At least Hochburg was dead. That had to count for something – though he was no longer sure what.
The sentry was twenty feet away. Burton turned in the opposite direction, heart thudding, and began to walk.
Suddenly the door was open. A man was beckoning to him.
Rougier? The rest of the team had met him two nights earlier when they arrived in Kongo but Burton had no idea what he looked like. The man looked furtively at the SS headquarters, saw the sentry heading towards them.
His gesturing became more insistent.
Burton felt his instincts prickle. Something was wrong here. He had an instant to decide whether to bolt or not.
He strode towards the man. ‘Rougier?’ he asked.
‘Vite, vite!’ came the reply in French.
‘Where’s Patrick?’
The Frenchman didn’t respond, just pulled Burton into the building. The door snapped shut behind him.
Schädelplatz, Kongo
16 September, 07:10
ALL he could taste was blood and snot. Several of his teeth were missing.
Dolan lay on the floor, hands cuffed, his body curled up tight. In his head he kept hearing Patrick’s words: First click of the cell door and you’ll tell them everything. Right down to our boot sizes. He wasn’t going to give the old bollocksucker the satisfaction. Nor the Kraut bastards who were beating him.
There were four of them, three heavies and the Gruppenführer without an ear; Kepplar he called himself. He hadn’t hit him once, merely instructed the others. Right now he nodded again. Dolan clasped his eyes shut.
Another kick, then another. Both to the ribs. They had to be broken by now. Then a thwack to the head. And the same questions over and over:
‘Who are you working for? Who are your comrades? I want their names. Where are they headed?’ That last question obsessed Kepplar the most.
And always the same response, panted between gulps of bloody air. ‘Dolan … Lieutenant … 2200118.’
Kepplar sighed. ‘This is getting us nowhere. Get him off the floor.’ Dolan was lifted up and shoved into a chair. The Nazi leaned in close, so close Dolan smelt the peppermint oil on his skin. It stung his nostrils.
‘Maybe it’s time to use more persuasive methods,’ said Kepplar. ‘I ask again: where are they headed?’
Dolan remained silent.
Kepplar nodded at one of the guards. Behind him Dolan heard a sound – metal rattling against metal – but couldn’t identify it. He coughed blood, tried to shrink himself in the seat like Vacher had done in the jeep when they arrived at Doruma. He still couldn’t believe the Rhodesian had been shot by their own. The world had gone crazy. Poor Pieter …
‘Tell me where,’ said Kepplar.
They had taken Dolan from the border crossing and driven him through the night. His boots, belt and watch had been removed, no medical attention was offered. For the first hour his right leg had roared red-hot (he grimaced with every bump on the road) before subsiding into a grey fire; he guessed it was broken. When they arrived at the Schädelplatz, he was thrown into a cell and left for several hours, time enough to let his imagination fester in the darkness. The air stank of wet stone, blood and excrement. He thought of that time his brother had locked him in the coal cellar back home for borrowing his French magazines. Then Kepplar arrived. The beatings had continued ever since.
Who are you working for? Who are your comrades? Where are they headed?
Dolan took solace in those questions. If they were asking them, they hadn’t captured Burton or the old man. He pictured them in their Ziege, driving west through the jungle. Nares cowering in the back. Pathetic. Dolan swore he’d rather die first. He doubted they’d make it to Nigeria but if they were captured it wouldn’t be because of him. He reckoned he could hold out for a long time yet before offering the Stanleystadt cover story. Each kick, each punch had become a matter of professional pride.
The rattle of metal again.
Kepplar moved back and allowed the guards to step in front of Dolan. They were holding rusty chains.
Dolan was toppled out of the chair. He screamed as his leg crunched into the ground. Chains whipped down on him, thrashing his head, arms, kidneys. White stars shot up his spine.
‘Who are you working for?’
Whip.
‘Where are your comrades headed?’
Whip. Whip.
Kepplar squatted next to him, yanked up his head by the hair. ‘Tell me.’ He seemed ready to weep from his inability to extract any answers.
Dolan felt a surge of triumph. Laughed. ‘Go fuck yourself,’ he boomed.
‘Tell me!’
‘And your mother.’
Kepplar bounced his head on the floor and stood up. ‘My mother is dead. Killed in a British bombing raid at the beginning of the war.’
Dolan stopped laughing. His lungs suddenly felt full of blood.
Kepplar gave a signal and the chains came lashing down again. More vicious this time. Again and again and again. Dolan howled, his body rigid with pain.
‘Enough!’
The guards snapped to attention. Kepplar saluted: ‘Heil Hitler.’
Next moment Dolan was back in the chair. He felt two immense hands settle themselves gently on his shoulders, the way his father used to when he was a boy. He was panting hard, felt a desperate urge to shit.
Kepplar spoke. ‘I regret to inform the Herr Oberstgruppenführer that the prisoner has yet to talk.’
The hands on Dolan’s shoulders squeezed tighter. ‘That’s because he’s strong,’ said Hochburg in English. ‘We could do with more like him in our ranks.’ He gave a final, pincer squeeze and walked round to face him.
Dolan cautiously met his gaze. ‘I … I thought you were dead.’
‘Then call me Lazarus.’
He was clad entirely in black, no tie, open shirt; three silver diamonds and the outline of Africa on his shoulder lapels. ‘I’m sorry about your leg,’ said Hochburg, casting his eyes over Dolan’s injuries and wincing. ‘Normally we would have treated it, but I hope you understand that analgesics are counter-productive to you talking. We’re not savages though. Tell us what we want and I promise my very own physician will see to you.’
Dolan said nothing, probed the gaps in his teeth.
Kepplar stepped forward. ‘I’m sure with more time, Herr Oberst—’
Hochburg held up his hand to silence him. ‘Can you walk?’ he asked Dolan.
Again he said nothing.
‘It’s not a state
fucking secret,’ said Hochburg. ‘Can you walk?’
‘I’m a soldier,’ Dolan replied this time. ‘An enemy combatant. If I’m to be questioned, sir, it should be by officers of the Wehrmacht under the rules of the Geneva Convention.’
‘We Schutzstaffel are in charge of Africa, not the Wehrmacht. They’re finished. And Geneva is only good for clocks and chocolate. Now I’m growing bored of asking this, so you’d better humour me. Can you walk?’
‘I don’t know. Yes.’
‘On your feet.’
Dolan clamped his jaw shut and struggled to stand. For an instant he remained upright, then he crumpled.
‘Help him up,’ said Hochburg and left the cell. The three guards dragged him to his feet and followed. Dolan caught a final glimpse of Kepplar, standing in the gloom, head hung in dejection.
They walked along an underground passage to a lift, then upwards to another corridor and the open air. They were in the Schädelplatz. Dolan tried to raise his cuffed hands to shield his eyes from the steamy sunlight. High above, like two triangular smudges, he glimpsed a pair of Horten flying-wings and felt a terrible yearning. They seemed so free: if only he could soar away on their jet trails. The Horten was a long-range bomber. From their bases in western Sahara they could strike New York, even Washington DC itself, and return without refuelling. Another justification for US neutrality – no American wanted to see the White House in flames.
They continued across the square to a small arch set in one of the quadrangle walls; Dolan didn’t remember seeing it on the plans of the camp Ackerman had provided. The square was busy with engineers repairing the damage Dolan’s box of tricks had wrought two nights previously. He noted with particular pleasure how one of the cranes at the front of the complex had come crashing down into the square just as he planned. Then his eyes fell on the skulls at his feet.
Inside him something rolled over. Rolled over and sank.
Hochburg led them through the archway and into a garden. It was screened on all sides by foliage and blended into the jungle beyond. Dolan heard monkeys chattering in the trees. The planting was regimented, lots of red and white flowers. At one end of the garden was a stone table and chairs; the table was laid for breakfast. Fresh bread, fruit, a pitcher of juice. Despite the throbbing in his abdomen, Dolan’s stomach gurgled. He had been offered no food or water since his capture. Tied to one of the chairs was Hochburg’s dog. It looked bigger and more vicious than Dolan remembered even though it was currently dozing in the heat.
‘I always start my day here,’ said Hochburg, spreading his arms around the garden. ‘It’s my great pride, my very own Eden.’ Dolan was forced into one of the chairs, pain jarring through his leg. ‘You know the negroid never cultivates,’ continued Hochburg. ‘All this fecundity and they struggle to scratch an existence. And the so-called intellectuals puzzle over why they never built cities, have no culture. Our Aryan ancestors were growing wheat ten thousand years before Christ.’
The dog woke at Hochburg’s voice, yawned to show a mouthful of teeth.
Hochburg was wandering about the garden pointing out flowers and shrubs. ‘This is Cleome Eleanora, my own propagation, and Disa Stairsii, and Impatiens Niamensis. This here is a mango tree. Brazilian. I don’t like the native ones, the fruit’s too stringy, so I had it imported.’
He turned back to face Dolan. In his hand was a knife. Dolan recognised it at once: it was the one Burton had carried during their training, the one that looked like a table knife. Hochburg took a step closer.
‘Have you ever tried mango?’
Dolan hesitated. Shook his head.
‘Not many in Wales I imagine.’ Hochburg reached over for a branch and plucked a fruit. He peeled it expertly, cut off a slice and popped it in Dolan’s mouth.
Dolan slurped it down.
‘Good?’
Dolan’s taste buds had been beaten senseless. All he got was the texture of the fruit and something coppery: the open cuts in his mouth. The juice was refreshing though. He nodded.
Hochburg cut off a slice for himself and ate it. Then another for Dolan. The dog was staring at him.
‘Now, Lieutenant,’ said Hochburg, ‘I’m sure you appreciate we need information from you. The names of your colleagues. Who you are working for.’ He cut a final slice of mango for Dolan, sucked on the stone before tossing it into the trees. ‘Where the others are going.’
‘Dolan, Lieutenant, 2200118.’
Hochburg took a napkin off the table and studiously wiped his hands clean. ‘Let me put it another way. I know all about you, Lieutenant; you, Vacher, Lapinski. As for Burton Cole … we’re old friends.’
‘You know the major?
‘Major Cole, is it?’
Dolan cursed himself.
‘I’ve known young Burtchen since he was a boy. Knew his father – a geriatric missionary, hell-bent on saving the niggers. And of course his mother. She had the same blue eyes …’ Hochburg’s voice trailed off. He looked into the trees as if searching for something. Then abruptly: ‘My spies also tell me that you were hired by Donald Ackerman, that you trained in Northern Rhodesia, that it was you who were supposed to lead the mission until a last-moment change of plan.’
And that none of this would have happened, thought Dolan, if I’d been left in charge. I’d have got the team out safe.
‘So you see, I know everything about you. Everything except where young Burtchen is headed.’ Hochburg leaned forward until their faces were inches apart. ‘I have to find him.’
This close Dolan could see that there wasn’t a drop of sweat on him. His eyes were so black that he had to look away.
Hochburg tapped his boot softly against Dolan’s leg. Pain, like an electric shock, flared up his shin to the kneecap. ‘Where?’
‘Dolan, Lieutenant, 2200118.’
Hochburg straightened himself and reached for the knife again. ‘You know, the negroid doesn’t understand pain, at least not in the same sense as you and I do. You could never interrogate one because their brains are too crude to understand the cause and effect. I’ve conducted experiments to prove it. But you, Lieutenant 220, you’re a white man. The effects can be … devastating.’
Dolan could feel his heart crawling upwards, as if it were caught in his chest and desperate to escape. He could hear Patrick taunting him again, that croaky Yank accent. I’m not going to tell, thought Dolan. Not going to tell. His breathing was ragged.
‘I don’t want to hurt you,’ continued Hochburg, staring at him. He was still tapping Dolan’s leg. ‘The thought distresses me. My battle is out there, with the black races, so tell me what I want and this will all be over.’
‘We split up.’
‘Yes.’
‘After the airfield at Mupe. I don’t know where he went. We didn’t tell each other. We thought it would be safer.’
‘That makes sense, but doesn’t help me. Or you.’
Hochburg toyed with the knife in his hand. The point glinted. He walked into the garden and took another cutting. ‘Do you know what this is?’ He held up a small red fruit.
Dolan shook his head.
Hochburg placed the fruit on the table and began cutting it into thin strips. ‘Hold him fast.’
The guards clamped him down, one either side; the third grabbed his hair, held his head straight.
Hochburg turned back to face him, a piece of the fruit in his palm. ‘This, Lieutenant, is Capsicum Chinese Habanero. Another Brazilian import. More commonly known as the chilli.’ He took the fruit and began rubbing it between his fingers and thumbs. The tips turned livid. ‘Where is Burton headed?’
‘I don’t know, I swear. I—’
Hochburg gouged his thumbs into Dolan’s eyes.
Dolan felt the chilli crush into the sockets.
‘Where?’
He screamed.
A scream so loud he felt his throat would burst. He writhed around, tried to escape. But the guards were too strong. And all the time Hochburg kept pr
essing down. Heat, like a living entity, burrowed through his eyeballs. The dog was barking.
‘Stanleystadt!’
Hochburg gave one last dig, then removed his thumbs. ‘You see. Do the same to the nigger and all you get is bawling.’
The guards released their grip.
Dolan tumbled to the ground. Writhing, blind. Tears cascaded down his face; his nose was a fountain of mucus.
‘It’s a city of a hundred thousand,’ said Hochburg. ‘I need more. Who’s protecting him? Does he have a safe house?’
‘I don’t know … I don’t know.’
The thumbs in his eyes again. ‘A name. An address.’
Dolan screamed and screamed. The monkeys in the jungle had fallen silent.
‘I don’t know!’
The thumbs were gone.
‘Put him there,’ said Hochburg.
Dolan was dimly aware of movement around him. The breakfast things being swiped off the table; the dog unleashed. He was grabbed by the wrists and ankles. Was hoisted up. Dolan tried to open his eyes: they were soldered together.
Hochburg was chopping again.
Next moment the table was against Dolan’s back. Hands pinned him down. He tried to struggle but was too weak. His face felt as if it had been dipped in phosphorous.
‘Trousers,’ said Hochburg.
Dolan’s trousers were yanked down, then his smalls; they caught around his ankles. He could feel the air on his skin. Felt utterly exposed. He tried to move to cover himself but the hands wouldn’t let him. His genitals were shrivelled in fear.
The dog, he thought hysterically, he’s going to feed my bollocks to the dog.
Then a hand – Hochburg’s huge hand – on his penis, as gentle as a virgin bride. He felt his foreskin being pulled back. His heart was ready to explode.
Something was inserted into his urethra.
Pain.