by Antony Trew
She said: “Lovely day, sir, isn’t it?”
“Is it?” He turned a page without looking up.
Loves himself, she thought, and realised he’d made it difficult for her to go on.
He put the magazine down. “I said, ‘is it?”’
“I heard you.”
“Well, is it?”
“Oh, for heaven’s sake! What sort of game is this?”
“I’m curious, that’s all. Haven’t seen the day. Just come up from the ops. room. Been there since four this morning.”
Blast it! she thought. Now I’ve been rude. The buzzer sounded and she picked up the phone.
“Aye, aye, sir.”
“He’ll see you now.” She smiled as she put the phone down, trying to make amends.
They went down a passage to a door labelled “Chief of Staff.” She knocked and led him in.
“Lieutenant-Commander Widmark, sir.”
The Commodore was tall, angular and red-bearded, with friendly eyes. “Thank you.” He waved her away. He was a new arrival on the station, and hadn’t in his five days in Cape Town yet met his visitor. He was surprised at what he saw. Somehow he’d not expected him to look like this; he should have been bigger, older, coarser. Not this slight young man of medium height looking at him with dark uncertain eyes.
Somewhere in the Commodore a conditioned reflex registered approval of the blue and white ribbon with its silver rosette, and through long habit one part of his mind signalled to another: D.S.C. and bar. Good man. He held out his hand and smiled. “I’ve heard a lot about you.”
As soon as he’d said it he was sorry, because the younger man flushed and looked away, and the Commodore felt his embarrassment as if it were his own.
“Sit down, Widmark.” He pushed a silver cigarette box towards him.
Widmark shook his head. “No thank you, sir.” Since he smoked heavily he didn’t really know why he’d refused. Probably to put the Commodore at some sort of disadvantage, but if so it didn’t succeed for that officer lit his cigarette with a flourish. “Sensible chap! Now tell me, Widmark, why’ve you come to see me?”
“About an operation, sir. Something I’ve been working on privately and unofficially with some brother officers.”
“What is it?”
“A proposal to take a German merchantman as prize.”
“There aren’t any at sea, Widmark. Only a few raiders and supply vessels and we’re hunting them hard.”
Widmark leant forward, his hands clasped together on the desk. “This one’s not at sea, sir. She’s in harbour.”
The Commodore leant back in his chair. “I’m not with you, I’m afraid. Which harbour?”
“Lourenço Marques, sir.”
“You don’t mean one of those German merchant ships which’ve been there since the show started?”
Widmark nodded. “Yes, sir.”
“My dear chap, we can’t stage a naval operation in a neutral port. Good heavens! We’d breach half a dozen Geneva Conventions. Lose the privileges of Portugal’s neutrality. Offend our oldest allies. The very thought would give Their Lordships the twitch.” He quickly amended that; one didn’t joke with subordinates about Their Lordships. “I mean the Admiralty just wouldn’t wear it, and quite right too.”
Widmark had expected this. Now he waited, timing his pause, the Commodore watching him, puzzled at his silence. At last he said: “The way we’ve got it planned it won’t do all those things, sir.”
“What d’you mean?”
“Well, it won’t be a British naval operation. At least not officially. It won’t be a naval operation at all. As far as the Portuguese are concerned it will be a German effort. A break out by a German freighter under orders from the German Admiralty to make a run for it. Like the Uhenfels’s bolt from Lourenço Marques in October ’39.”
“That was early on. We weren’t properly organised.” The Commodore was on the defensive.
Widmark’s dark eyes never wavered. This was what he’d wanted. Now he’d press home his point. “Like the Tannenfels’s break out from Kismayu last year, sir.”
That registered. The Commodore looked at the ceiling and then out of the window. This young man was being difficult.
“That was a bad show. We should’ve got her. She’s one of their most successful raider supply vessels now. In fact she’s a first-class headache.” He lifted his shoulders in a small shrug of disapproval.
“I know, sir. And it can happen again. Naval Intelligence’s latest reports from Lourenço Marques mention rumours that the Hagenfels is standing by for a break out.”
The Commodore tapped his teeth with his fingers but Widmark was not to know that this was a sign of irritation. “We’re ready for that. She won’t get far. If they’re foolish enough to try.”
“Of course, sir. We’ll intercept, Jerry’ll scuttle, and seven or eight thousand tons of seventeen knot freighter which we badly need will go to the bottom. Under my plan we’ll get the ship. There won’t be any scuttle. But we’ll get a lot more than that.”
The Commodore sat back. This young man was being tiresome but he’d have to listen to his story. “Right! I’ll buy it. Go ahead!”
Carefully, precisely, pausing for effect at times, Widmark explained “Operation Break Out.” When he’d finished, the Commodore’s smile was somewhere between admiration and annoyance.
“It’s a clever scheme. If nothing went wrong it would be a winner. But in war there are too many imponderables, Widmark. It’s certain that something will go wrong. It always does. And when it did with this one, the fat’d be in the fire. The last thing we want is an infringement of Portuguese neutrality. We’ve got enough problems already. Why manufacture a teaser like this for the sake of one German freighter?”
Widmark realised that the interview was all but over. This was the usual blank wall of officialdom. He began to withdraw behind a cloak of frustration and disappointment. “It’s much more than that,” but he said it without conviction and the knowledge that he was capitulating made him tired and dispirited. The plan wouldn’t go wrong. The detail had been too carefully worked out. It was bound to work. The Chief of Staff was hide-bound. It was this “play the game, you chaps” attitude which could lose the war. The other side didn’t bother about playing the game; technical infringements of somebody or other’s neutrality, Geneva Conventions, didn’t worry them. They did what they could get away with, ruthlessly and efficiently. You couldn’t win wars if you insisted on keeping to rules. There were no rules in this one. It was the tooth and claw of the jungle. You killed or were killed. It was as simple as that. The Commodore and those he represented didn’t seem to understand that.
“Is that all, sir?” He had become cold and remote, anxious now to be gone, to end this discussion which was leading nowhere.
The Commodore opened a drawer and shuffled some papers. His head came up and he looked blankly in Widmark’s direction.
“What’s that? H’m, yes. I’ll put it up to C.-in-C. He’s away in Freetown just now. Don’t think it has a hope of his approval, but we’ll try. With luck there’ll be a reply within twenty-four hours.”
Widmark was careful not to show surprise, and he didn’t smile; indeed he rarely did, but the bleak look left his eyes. “Thank you, sir. It’s very good of you.” He meant that.
He got up to go.
“One moment, Widmark. What’s the security like on this? These brother pirates of yours? Will they keep their mouths shut?”
“I can assure you,” said Widmark, cold and withdrawn again because he felt the remark was unnecessary, “that they will, sir.”
“Good. It wouldn’t help us if the Portuguese ever got to know.” He thought for a moment. “Have you discussed this with your boss—Director, S.A. Naval Forces?”
“No, sir. It’s outside his authority. I knew it would need C.-in-C.’s approval. No point in worrying the Director at this stage.”
“I see. One other thing. How many men would be n
ecessary and who would lead the party?”
“Seven, sir. And I would.”
This time the Commodore’s smile was uncomplicated. “Never really had any doubt about that last part, but thought I better ask. C.-in-C. would want to know.”
There wasn’t a reply within twenty-four hours. It came two days later, chilly and unequivocal. The Commander-in-Chief rejected “Operation Break Out” and ordered that any record of the proposal be destroyed and the matter never again discussed. The signal bristled with displeasure, and so did the Commodore who felt that he’d been caught in the line of fire. All this he made clear to Widmark. He was to tell his brother officers, said the Commodore, that if they so much as uttered a whimper about “Operation Break Out” they’d be in trouble.
Widmark left in a misery of disappointment and frustration. As he went through the anteroom the third officer Wren thought she’d try again.
“Lovely day, isn’t it, sir?”
“I think it stinks!” he said.
As the door swung to behind him she made a face.
“Love yourself, don’t you?”
Back in his flat in Orangezicht, Widmark slammed doors, threw his uniform cap into the corner, and with rough, exaggerated gestures of annoyance changed into a dressing-gown.
His mind clouded by anger, he lay on the studio couch looking through the open windows to the slopes reaching up to Lion’s Head: to the fresh green of the oaks, the blue-grey of the pines, tall and leaning to the north-west in old protest against the south-easter. Lower down the trees gave way to heath and the brown scars of quarries; below that the fringes of the Malay quarter, yellow ochres, burnt pinks and browns, the houses clustered about steep streets. High above, flanks of basalt rock gleamed in the sunlight, the primordial ramparts of Lion’s Head. Huge agglomerations of cloud, pluvial and forbidding, rolled in across the Cape Flats, their shadows preceding them, dark blankets spreading across the town, up the slopes of Signal Hill and beyond, reaching into the sea, turning its blues to metallic greys.
Widmark’s mind was a dark storm, the wind of frustration fanning seas of rebellion, and that reckless mood he knew so well, always feared but could never control, was taking charge. What right had the C.-in-C., three thousand miles away in Freetown, to scotch this plan so carefully thought out, so meticulously built up over the last two months? When the Commodore said, “I’ll put it up to C.-in-C.,” it seemed as if things were really on the move, that all the hard work was to be rewarded. Unless he’d felt there was something in the plan, that it had a reasonable chance of success, the Commodore would never have said that. So he had seen that it had more than a chance of success. Why then had it been turned down? Because it meant taking a chance? Not if it were just a naval chance: the Navy had always taken those. Was it the political chance? It had taken the C.-in-C. forty-eight hours to answer the signal. Why? Because it had been put to Downing Street, to the War Cabinet? The politicians? They’d turned it down! He became certain of that. And why? Because there was just the slightest chance that something might go wrong. That Portuguese neutrality might be infringed. So what! To blazes with Portuguese neutrality. Britain was at war. The whole bloody world was at war. Fighting for what? Not for any high-fangled ideals. Not for the freedom of Poland. Not for “our way of life,” whatever that meant. Just for plain bloody survival, that was all. And they turned down a first-class operation and the offer of an eight thousand ton, seventeen knot freighter handed to them on a plate and more than that. Much more! The opportunity of hitting the Hun where he thought he was safe. Giving his morale the kick in the backside it so badly needed. That was the real thing. The main object of the exercise. If his ships weren’t safe in Lourenço Marques, then they weren’t safe in Rio, or Montevideo or Buenos Aires or in a dozen other neutral ports. So they’d have to make a run for it. Some might get through the blockade, but most wouldn’t. Even politicians ought to be able to see that.
Slowly Widmark’s thoughts changed and he got up and stood at the window looking out towards Robben Island. The clouds were building up, seven tenths now, and most of the sea was dark and forbidding. But it drew him. It was the element on which the best and worst moments of his life had been spent, and there was not a day on which he didn’t long for a ship again. But they’d put him on the staff. It was their idea of humour. We can’t prove anything against Widmark but we’ve got to teach him a lesson. He’s got to learn to play the game according to the rules. So what’ll we do with him? We’ll put him on the staff. In the Combined Operations Room at Cape Town. That’s pretty far from the struggle.
Let him sweat it out there, and when he sees signals coming in from ships that have been torpedoed, from hunting and escort groups that are groping for their attackers, and from cruisers that are playing hide-and-seek with surface raiders, it’ll remind him that he’s not there, and he’ll have to make do with watching pretty girls in uniform push coloured pins into a plot. That’s as near to the fight as he’ll get.
And when signals come in reporting lost contacts, and fruitless searches and sweeps, and waterlogged lifeboats without survivors, and his nerves jangle with the iron of frustration, then he’ll have time to reflect that it pays to play the game.
Now he was back on the couch, staring at the wall, his fists so tightly clenched that the fingernails bit into his palms. He knew where his thoughts were shifting to, the Kasos Strait, and he tried to stop them but couldn’t. He saw once again the green froth, flecked with blood, oozing from Dickie Olafsen’s mouth, the protruding tongue, dry and swollen, the glazed grey eyes frightened.
“Jesus! My guts!” Dickie had mumbled, knowing that he was dying, his blood-spattered hands clawing at his entrails, trying to push them back into his stomach. And there had been the smell of fæces and blood, warm and sickening.
Widmark sat up on the edge of the couch, his face in his hands. “God!” he muttered. “Why did he have to die like that?” Then he lay back on the couch and curled up against the wall, and for a long time he struggled with his thoughts. When he got up he took a bottle of whisky from the cupboard under the desk, poured a stiff tot, added some water and drank it. Feeling better he changed into grey flannels and a sports coat and went down to the car.
He drove fast out over Kloof Nek, keeping to the high road as long as he could, then dropping down to the sea and following the coastline, the mountains on his left and below him the rocks, beaches and surf of the South Atlantic. He could never do this drive often enough. Like the Grande Corniche, but fresher, less sophisticated. Bantry Bay, Clifton, Camps Bay, Llandudno, passed quickly and now he was clear of the built-up area.
The roar of the wind in his ears, the power and thrust of the car were sedatives, and his mind cleared and he forgot the dull pain in his head. Up over Hout Bay Nek the proteas were blooming and the heath glistened after the rain. As the car passed over the Nek he made his decision, deliberately and with a clear appreciation of the consequences. And having done so, he knew, knowing himself, that it was final and that for better or worse he was committed. But now all doubt was gone and he felt better. Not only had he made the decision, but he had justified it to himself. That made him feel much better.
They arrived at the flat soon after nine, coming in out of the dark of a wet gusty night. Andrew McFadden first, and that was right because he was closest of them all to Stephen Widmark. He was a small high-complexioned Scot with narrow eyes that glinted fiercely or merrily according to his mood, and tousled sandy hair. He had been with Widmark since the war started and had been his engineer officer in Southern Berg. Now an engineer lieutenant on the staff at the Minesweeping Depot in Cape Town, a job he found boring and irksome, he longed for some break in the monotony of his daily routine. It was to him that Widmark had first confided the plans for “Operation Break Out,” and no one more ardently supported them than McFadden. Early on Widmark had cautioned him: “I don’t think this is for you, Chiefy. You’re a bit long in the tooth, and you’ve a wife and three child
ren.”
McFadden’s eyes had glinted. “She’ll be glad to see the last of me. Hangin’ around the house. It’s no place for a fightin’ mon.” But Widmark had always counted on him. He needed a marine engineer with good diesel experience, a man he could trust absolutely. McFadden had done twelve years in diesel tankers before settling down in Durban as an industrial salesman on the staff of an oil company; he was tough, determined, and reticent—made for the task Widmark had in mind.
Soon afterwards the door opened and a slight sallow young man with sad, spaniel’s eyes and a dark beard came in. He wore the uniform of a lieutenant, with the red patch of the South African Navy over the executive curl.
“Hallo, David!” Widmark pointed to a chair. “Take a pew.”
The young man looked round nervously. “Johan not here?” David Rohrbach’s clever sensitive face gave a misleading impression of apprehension. He and Widmark had first met in Haifa in 1941 when Rohrbach was in magnetic mine-sweepers, and the friendship had grown when they re-met in Cape Town. Rohrbach had taken electrical engineering at Munich, where his family had a cable factory. But the Rohrbachs were Jews and in 1938 he had left the university and with his mother fled to South Africa. His father, two sisters and a brother, if they survived, were still in Germany. It was due to these circumstances among others that Widmark had chosen him. Rohrbach’s intense anti-German feeling, his intelligence, eagerness for action and absolute dependability were important factors. But there was another, more vital: German was his mother tongue.
Widmark was pouring them a drink when there was a knock on the door, and a large bearded young man came in. Johan le Roux looked what he was: good natured and enormously athletic. He had taken an undistinguished B.A. at the Witwatersrand University where his real interest had been locking together the front rank of the university’s scrum. He had crow’s feet at the corners of his eyes, a square jaw, broken nose and cauliflower ears. Three weeks earlier he had been promoted to lieutenant at the age of twenty-four and was still rather self-conscious of the two gold stripes on his sleeves. He, too, had served with Widmark in Southern Berg.