by Guy Saville
‘Have a little faith, Standartenführer. Wherever he goes, we will be waiting.’
They reached the Walküre. Behind it the remaining troop carrier had set down, a crack visible in its windscreen.
‘Get on board,’ said Hochburg, ‘Tell the pilot to follow us. We’ll see to your wounds at our next destination.’
He watched Uhrig limp away; then climbed into his own helicopter, took out a map and put on his headset. Static crackled in his ears.
‘Schädelplatz, this is Hochburg.’
More static, then: ‘Receiving you, Oberstgruppenführer. Over.’
‘Where are my panzers?’
‘Both columns are approaching the border with Northern Rhodesia. Will be in attack position by midnight.’
‘Any resistance?’
‘None reported.’
‘And what of Operation Nelke? Have the Afrika Korps reached Loanda yet?’
‘Germania says they’re near the outskirts of the city, Herr Oberst. Plan to attack at first light the day after tomorrow. Over.’
‘Why the delay?’
‘It has been agreed between the Portuguese and Field Marshal Arnim. To allow civilians to escape.’
Hochburg curled his lip. ‘Arnim the merciful. I hope it only extends to whites.’ He scanned the map, tapped a point forty kilometres north-east of Loanda. ‘I need more men and weapons. Send a company of Waffen-SS to Caxito. There’s an airfield there; it should be in our hands by now.’ He considered Uhrig’s words about the docks, Burton escaping by boat. ‘Some inflatables too, high-power.’
‘At once, Oberstgruppenführer. Over.’
‘Out.’
Hochburg buckled himself in, ordered the pilot back into the sky.
The gunship lifted off, its search-beam illuminating the scene below. Hochburg glimpsed the tracks vanishing towards Loanda, the dead girl. The light reflected on her skin: a kaleidoscope of blood.
Then the Walküre soared away and left her body to the jackals.
Loanda, North Angola
21 September, 03:00
IF Burton could name it, it hurt.
His brain was pulsing in his skull, his jaw bone slack and swollen, lips split. There were welts on his arms, chest, shoulders. Bruises spreading like ink dropped in water. The knuckles on his right hand – his gun hand – had been split open, were now covered in a knot of bandages; it was excruciating to flex his fingers. On his legs: more bruising and cuts. The ligaments around his knee felt frayed. Each step jarred the bones in his feet. Even the hard lump of bone behind his ear, that place Madeleine loved to nuzzle so much, was tender.
He had been daydreaming of her for the past few hours. He was back on the farm lying in a cold bath, wounds turning numb, Maddie gently massaging his body. Fingertips and soap suds, black hair trailing in the water. The last time anyone else bathed him he’d been a child. He reached out for her, brushed the solid curve of her belly. The whole world seemed still, at rest. Boy or girl? she whispered.
Burton had never wanted her or his bed so much.
They had reached Loanda, were trudging through the Cita Alte district towards the British consulate. Founded in 1573, Angola’s capital was the oldest European city in southern Africa: the Paris of the sub-Sahara. Currently it lay in darkness, almost every light turned off or blacked out. There was a haunted feel to the place, thought Burton. The streets were empty, nothing but dust and the occasional Ford Vedette screeching round corners. Packs of abandoned dogs roamed the gutters. Once they passed some black Angolan soldiers as they erected a barricade: planks and wooden crates to stop an army of grinding steel.
Just as Burton had been about to say ‘three’ Hochburg’s gunship had blasted a hole in the railway line. A girder clanged against the locomotive. Next instant the train careered off the tracks and down an embankment, the cab rolling over and over.
Burton was slammed to the floor. Everything turned grey, blurry, misshapen. He felt scalding heat against his face. A physical concussion of noise: bangs, the shriek of metal, Neliah screaming. His body became a mannequin tossed in a storm. Lumps of coal thundered down on him. Finally, just when it seemed the maelstrom would never end, the train ground to a shuddering halt.
A sound: like sand running down a chute.
For a few dazed moments Burton thought he was back in the crashed Gotha, could hear Nares gasping.
He struggled to stand. Threw up. His whole face was limp, tendrils of blood and vomit dribbled from his mouth. In the distance he heard the whirl of Hochburg’s helicopter. He groped around for Patrick and Neliah. Hauled them to their feet; they were ragdolls. They grabbed the medical bag and what weapons they could find and crawled out of the wreckage. The world lurched back and forth.
‘Come on!’ said Burton, his voice slurred.
They limp-ran through the fire and swirling cotton. Fled into the dusk.
By morning they had reached the town of Barraca, sixty miles south-east of the capital; it was burned out and deserted. Burton found a battered Pegaso lorry which he drove till the tank was dry. From there they walked, passing through a flood of refugees heading in the opposite direction. Nearly all the faces they saw were white.
‘There’s nowhere for my people to go,’ said Neliah. ‘Nowhere but Muspel. We must stay for the battle.’
Burton gave a weary, ironic laugh. ‘A white city with only blacks to defend it.’
‘A white country, a white colony.’
‘Then why fight?’
‘It’s the last hope we have.’
Burton thought about her words, felt something sluice around his gut. ‘Halifax could have stopped this, saved Angola.’ Another ironic laugh. ‘Saved the whole damned continent.’
‘Who is Halifax?’
‘Our leader. The great man of peace. There are plenty of troops in Rhodesia, he should have ordered them in.’
‘But he did nothing.’
‘No. He cared too much about Empire.’
‘And those he leads?’
‘It was easier to look the other way. Same with Windhuk – the deportations, the rumours about Muspel.’
‘Why?’
‘Because if we admitted what was happening we’d have been forced to act. And nobody wanted to fight or see British coffins coming back home. Not over Africa. Not over …’ He couldn’t finish the sentence, not in Neliah’s presence: it was too shameful.
‘It would make no difference,’ she said. ‘The Nazistas love death too much. It is the air they breathe.’
He glanced at her. She was rubbing the scar on her temple as if it stung; her other hand was welded to her panga, kept rapping it against her thigh. Her gaze was fixed, eyes puffy and listless. Ever since the train he had wanted to hold her, comfort her loss, yet he had done nothing more than silently rub some antiseptic into her wounds. Something made him shy of reaching out even though she had not hidden her tears from him, had kept close to his side the whole time. He sensed a red-hot fury inside her waiting to explode.
‘Come with us,’ he said. ‘Back to England. You’ll be safe there.’
‘There is an old Herero saying, Burton.’ Her voice sounded hollowed out. ‘Those who lose their kinsfolk, must live among graves. I’m not leaving Zuri.’
They trudged on, against the tide of weary, dust-caked bodies, sneaked through the German lines after nightfall, then the meagre Angolan defences, and into the darkness of Loanda.
Next to him Patrick was limping, his Enfield rifle held low against his side. He looked worn to the nub, his face piebald with bruises; the scab on his nose had opened up again. Burton saw him breathe in deep lungfuls of air. Beyond the dust of the city they could both smell it: the Atlantic.
Freedom.
The British consulate was at the end of Rua de Diogo Cão, nestled among palms and flame trees. A fragment of home, mused Burton. Just seeing its white stucco frontage, the Union Jack fluttering above, filled him with a guarded relief. He felt a lull in his muscles as if he could sle
ep for a month.
‘It reminds me of the churches in Spain,’ said Patrick.
With its tower and baroque windows Burton agreed. He checked the defences as they approached: eight-foot perimeter wall, barrier and wrought-iron gates, sentry box. A dozen marines on guard duty. Parked along the pavement was a line of cars, engines revving, ready to rush people away.
Opposite the consulate was the Ministerio de Saude building. The three of them huddled beneath its walls.
‘Are you sure about this?’ said Patrick.
Burton nodded. ‘Ackerman might be able to get us out of here. He’s also the one with the answers.’
‘I still think we should be careful. He may not be overly thrilled to see us.’
‘Me and Neliah will go in first. You stay here. Give us ten minutes.’
‘Then what?’
‘You’ll think of something.’
‘The docks are two and a half miles in that direction,’ replied Patrick, jerking his head towards the bay.
‘Very funny.’
‘Don’t worry. You don’t give me the okay, I come in all guns blazing.’
‘You sound like Dolan.’
Patrick considered his words. ‘Actually, Dolan always sounded like me.’
Burton checked his Browning – he had only two bullets left – and gave it to Patrick for safe-keeping. Then he turned to Neliah and said, ‘They won’t let us in with weapons.’
She unstrapped the panga from her back, but didn’t hand it over. ‘Comandante Penhor used to come here,’ she said, staring up at the tower. ‘To get weapons for the Resistencia. Once he came back with a dress for Zuri, white with lace. Nothing for me. She wanted to share it, but I always said no. I was so jealous.’
Burton didn’t know what to say. He took her hand, carefully prised the panga from her fingers, and guided her towards the consulate.
‘Be careful,’ Patrick called after them.
The marines at the gate wore steel helmets, carried Sten submachine guns. Burton saluted the sergeant, gave his name and rank and asked to see Ackerman. The sergeant dispatched one of his men indoors. Several minutes later he returned with an official dressed in pinstripe trousers and waistcoat, sleeves rolled up. The waistcoat looked tighter than a straitjacket.
‘Farrow,’ he said, extending his hand. His face was a mixture of aristocrat and thug. He had a long forehead and retreating hair, fine cheek bones; boxer’s nose, scars. He seemed that fixertype the British were so fond of in Africa: as efficient as they were expedient, vaguely honourable. Men who did things without needing to ask why. ‘Good to see you again, Major Cole.’
‘We know each other?’
Farrow looked him up and down. ‘You were slightly less battered last time. Stanleyville, 1944. You helped get some of our people out.’
Burton had a vague recollection. ‘I remember the waistcoat.’
‘I remember the price tag, got a rollicking for it back in London. Now it seems you’re the one who needs the help. Understand you’re looking for Lieutenant Colonel Ackerman.’
‘Lieutenant Colonel? Yes.’
‘You work for him.’
Burton hesitated. ‘Do you?’
‘Heavens no! I’m Colonial Office, have nothing to do with that end of the corridor. My job is to get everyone out, preferably safe and sound.’
‘Is Ackerman here?’
Farrow eyed his injuries again. ‘You’d better follow me, Major.’
He led Burton and Neliah through the gates and across a compound to a set of green double doors. Burton noticed the bulge of a revolver in Farrow’s pocket as they followed. Their boots crunched on cinders. Once through the doors they were in a hallway that ran the length of the consulate. Polished wooden floors, an unlit chandelier. The air smelt of paperwork reduced to ash.
‘Haven’t arrived a moment too soon,’ said Farrow, indicating the staircase. ‘We’re evacuating the place.’
Burton’s knee blazed with each step. ‘Where to?’
‘HMS Ibis. She’s a Royal Navy frigate moored outside the bay. Most of the staff and their families are already on board. We’re just tidying up the last details here now.’
‘Haven’t the Germans blockaded the port?’
‘Of course, even sent an aircraft carrier. The Strasser. But Kriegsmarine’s instructions are only to stop reinforcements from coming in. As long as we beat the deadline, they’re allowing everyone out.’
‘Deadline?’
‘Actually, have to say Jerry has been rather decent about it given the hullabaloo in Kongo. They could have pounded us into oblivion, but Field Marshal Arnim extended his amnesty to us personally.’
‘When does the ship leave?’
They reached the top of the stairs, turned down a corridor.
‘Zero six hundred hours, just before the attack starts. I chartered a tug at the docks to take the rest of our people out to her. If you work for Ackerman there’ll definitely be a spot. Not so sure about the girl.’
‘I don’t want a boat,’ said Neliah, staring ahead. ‘I want to fight. Save Loanda.’
‘Good luck! From what I hear you Angolans don’t have a chance in hell.’
They had arrived at a door. It was made from polished mpingo wood, brass knob, no nameplate or markings. The typical entrance to an intelligence officer’s domain, thought Burton.
Farrow knocked. No answer.
He knocked again and this time opened the door, ushering them through.
They were in an office that looked as if it had been burgled. The bookcases were bare, filing cabinets open and empty, the walls stripped of decoration except for a portrait of the last king. Only a few pieces of furniture remained: pedestal desk, some wooden chairs. On the desk were two flutes and a half-drunk bottle of champagne. The starkness of the room reminded Burton of Hochburg’s study.
At the far end was another door, standing slightly ajar. Burton heard voices coming from it, a shout of laughter.
Farrow cleared his throat. ‘Lieutenant Colonel.’
The voices fell silent. Seconds later the door opened wider. There was a familiar scent of citrus cologne.
Out stepped Ackerman.
He was wearing an olive-green dress uniform, a single pip and crown on the lapels. His silver hair was dyed jet black. If he was startled to see Burton he made no show of it. He straightened his cuffs.
‘Major Cole,’ he said, ‘I must confess, I never expected to see you again.’ He looked from Burton to Neliah. ‘It seems your reputation is …’
The blood drained from his face.
Burton turned to the girl at his side. Her mouth was wide with shock. Then it tightened, her eyes flashing black and wild.
‘Bastardo,’ she hissed. ‘Omu-runde!’
And hurled herself at Ackerman.
IF only she had her panga. She would have cut his balls off.
For a long moment Neliah had been too shocked to do anything. She stared at him as he came out of the second door and her breath stuck in her throat.
Then she leapt across the table, smashing over the bottle. Snarled like a mongoose dropped in a basket of snakes. She crashed into him, knocked him to the ground. Fists pelting his face. All the while hearing Zuri’s heartbroken cries in her head. Beautiful Zuri. She should have leapt to save her. They should have died together. Neliah had failed her sister.
She slammed her fist into his nose. Saw blood.
A hand grabbed her arm from behind. ‘What are you doing?’ said Burton.
‘He’s a traitor!’
‘No. This is Ackerman.’
‘Omu-runde!’ She pulled free. Let her fists fly again.
Then the click of a gun, close in her ear.
‘I’d rather not shoot you – but I will if I have to.’ It was the vara-man, Farrow. ‘Get off the lieutenant colonel, and back away.’
She continued to struggle.
Farrow stepped closer. ‘Major, tell her.’
‘Neliah,’ whispered Bu
rton. ‘Let him go.’ He helped her stand, kept his fingers curled around her wrist. His face was a river of confusion. ‘What are you doing?’ he asked.
‘Penhor,’ she said. ‘He’s Penhor.’
She watched the comandante get to his feet and pick up the bottle, its contents foaming on the floor. ‘I’d saved it to celebrate,’ he said. ‘It’s a Pol Roger ’39. What a damned waste.’ He reached inside his pocket for a cloth and dabbed his bloody nose. ‘You can put the gun away now, Farrow. Thank you.’
‘Shall I call the marines?’
‘No need, I’ll take care of things from here. You get to the docks and make sure the charter is ready. I don’t want to miss that Royal Navy ship.’
Farrow nodded, flicked a puzzled look at Burton and hurried out.
Nobody spoke. Neliah felt her blood still raging.
‘You’ve got some talking to do,’ said Burton.
The man she knew as Penhor ignored him, brushed down his uniform, picking off flecks. He didn’t seem right in green – blue was his colour, blue with a red sash. ‘It’s good to see you again, girl,’ he said. ‘And where’s Zuri?’
‘What do you care?’
‘Where is she?’
Neliah’s chest shuddered. Her breath felt like the wind before the rains came. She tried not to think of her sister, twisted and broken in the carcass of the tyndo. Or Tungu blown to pieces. Or Bomani curled up in the dirt as the Nazistas shot her.
‘Dead.’
Penhor’s eyes slowly lowered, the rims glistening. ‘How?’
When Neliah didn’t reply, Burton spoke. ‘The Krauts. She died trying to save us.’
‘I told her to stay at the camp. Told both of you.’
‘We’re not just kitchen girls.’
Penhor let out a sigh. ‘My poor Zuri.’
‘Don’t you say that,’ hissed Neliah. ‘Don’t you dare speak her name again!’
‘She was very special to me.’
Neliah thought of them together, a nest of black and white limbs. She wanted to throw herself at him again, smash his head against the wall. ‘She hated you, Penhor. Thought you an old, leching cockerel. She only lay with you so we could remain at the camp. She was looking after me.’