by Antony Trew
Widmark passed him a glass of beer. “You’re late!”
“My self-starter jammed.”
McFadden made a rude noise.
Widmark lifted his glass and said “Cheers!” and then his face tightened and he became serious.
“I’ve news for you.” He paused, watching the eager, intent faces, as always timing the moment. “It’s on.”
There was a moment of silence, an unseen ripple of shock, until McFadden said: “Tell us more, laddie.”
“Are you serious?” The doubt in Rohrbach’s dark eyes emphasised his question.
Widmark looked at the window against which the rain was flattening itself into quivering lines of reflected light. “Saw the Chief of Staff this afternoon. He showed me the official signal from C.-in-C. That one turned it down in the plainest terms. Clever little security touch. Must have a good naval intelligence officer in Freetown.”
“There was another signal then?”
Widmark nodded. “I didn’t see it, David, but for reasons you’ll understand. Officially, the operation was turned down because of the political risks. Infringement of Portuguese neutrality and all that cock. Unofficially it’s on, but we are,” he mimicked the Commodore’s voice, “to maintain the strictest secrecy.” There was a brief, cold smile. “As if we wouldn’t. We’re to organise it privately, without the assistance of naval authority, entirely on our own initiative and responsibility. If things go wrong the Navy will repudiate us.”
“I’m sure they will,” said Rohrbach.
“Magtig,” said le Roux in Afrikaans. “Daar’s ’n ding—there’s a thing.” McFadden held out his glass. “A wee drop, if you don’t mind, Steve. It’s first-class, I’ll be saying, because we’ll be having a free hand. No senior officers to push us around. Please ourselves.”
“No you won’t,” said Widmark. “You’ll do what I tell you, when I tell you. If this operation is going to succeed … and it is … we need strict discipline. I don’t mean spit-and-polish and yes-sir-no-sir-three-bags-full, but the real thing. Absolute obedience to orders however bloody silly they seem. Got that?”
“Goed‚ meneer‚” said Johan. “When do we start?”
“Tomorrow,” said Widmark. “There’s a lot of preliminary work to be done and we must get cracking. The operation must be launched within the next few weeks, but first things first. Tomorrow we’ll set about building up our party from four to seven. I’ll approach the Newt. David must get hold of Mike Kent. And Johan—you contact that brother of yours, but tell him to keep his ugly mug shut.”
“Rude, aren’t you? We’re identical twins.”
Widmark ignored him. “Security is top priority in this job. If there’s any leak, the whole thing’s off. The Chief of Staff is emphatic on that. And remember, if there’s the smallest buzz they’ll be waiting for us at the Mozambique border and we’ll spend the rest of the war in a Portuguese gaol. They’re not very comfortable.”
When the party broke up at two that morning it was still raining and the north-wester was coming in over the sea.
Chapter Three
The next week was one of purposeful but discreet activity. No two members of Widmark’s party served in the same ship or shore unit so their preoccupations passed unnoticed and their applications for leave occasioned neither surprise nor interest. It had been arranged that they would all apply for three weeks’ leave, but not from a common date since the advance party was to start a few days ahead of the others. David Rohrbach was on the staff of the Deputy-Director (Technical) where he was responsible for fitting out and maintenance duties, and there had been some doubt about his leave at first because he’d taken some four months earlier. The difficulty was ironed out when he applied on compassionate grounds: a mother in Johannesburg who was ill, which was true though not the reason.
The le Roux brothers served in the Mine Clearance Flotilla but in different ships and their leave applications, handled by their respective commanding officers, caused no eyebrows to lift. It was all quite normal.
Widmark had undertaken to approach Newton who, though he did not know it, was to be a key man in “Operation Break Out” for the good reason that he spoke fluent Portuguese. He was the only member of the party not in the S.A. Naval Forces. A lieutenant R.N.V.R. (London Division) he had spent most of the war afloat as a watch-keeper in the cruiser Dorsetshire hunting surface raiders in the South Atlantic and Indian Oceans, until an attack of jaundice landed him in the Royal Naval Hospital at Simonstown. It was in the course of a long convalescence that he met Widmark at a party and the two men quickly became friends. Both were keen yachtsmen and Newton was soon crewing in the twenty-eight-footer Widmark kept in the yacht basin in Table Bay. Newton was married to a girl in England; after a brief wartime honeymoon he had gone off to sea and not seen her in the two years since. Life ashore at the Cape had been fun at first after the monotony of long stretches of sea time, but he longed for a ship again; preferably one which would take him to England. He longed, too, for the end of the war so that he could take Betty to Oporto where he worked in his father’s wine firm when he wasn’t sailing.
Widmark met Newton by appointment at the Yacht Club. They sat on the small veranda looking out over the moored yachts and across the Duncan Basin to the sea beyond where the south-easter was kicking up white horses.
Widmark watched the Newt from the corner of his eye. This fair young man of medium height with quizzical grey eyes, neat beard and languid manner, was very important to their plans.
“Think you could raise three weeks’ leave, Newt?” Widmark started guardedly.
The Englishman pulled at his beard, tidied his moustache with the side of his forefinger, and then tasted the pink gin which the doctors had forbidden him. “Life for me is one long leave. I’m still officially on sick leave. Why?”
“Good show. Now I’ve got to swear you to secrecy, Newt.”
“About what?”
“Something top secret and operational.”
The Newt’s eyebrows lifted. “Should you tell me? Isn’t it ‘Hush—most secret. Not to be read’?”
“I’m going to tell you because I want you for this party. If you’re interested. If you’re looking for something unusual. That’s what the leave’s for.”
Newton sat up in his chair. “Steve! You’re talking in parables. Come off it. Of course I’d like something unusual. Who wouldn’t after sitting on his arse for three months. What’s the form?”
“It’s a cloak and dagger job.”
“What? Here in Cape Town? There isn’t any war here, old boy. Only parties and pretty girls trying to seduce you.”
“They don’t have to try very hard in your case.”
“Let’s scrub round my private life and get on with the secret.”
Widmark told him the whole story ending with: “If you’re not game, Newt, I can’t imagine what we’ll do. I don’t know of another N.O. on the station who speaks Portuguese.”
“You know,” the Newt held up his glass, squinting at it with one eye shut. “It’s not very flattering. I mean asking a chap to join a cloak and dagger job just because he speaks the lingo. I hoped it was my seamanlike bearing, my courage and determination, that marked me down.”
“Well, of course, I wouldn’t have asked you if you’d been an absolute moron.”
But he got his man and when they parted that evening James Fellowes Newton had joined “Operation Break Out.”
David Rohrbach in due course sought out Michael Kent, who was a leading telegraphist in the W/T office at the Naval Base in Cape Town Docks. Kent had graduated from Cape Town University in 1940, majoring in politics, philosophy and economics.
A serious young man who read philosophy most of his time off duty, he felt keenly, as if it were a personal burden, the state into which mankind had fallen. The war when it came shattered his belief that in its broad onward sweep humanity was triumphing over the forces of evil. Indeed, all that was happening suggested to him that the force
s of evil were in the ascendancy. Hating the idea of war, he had felt impelled towards it. In the moment of historical crisis he couldn’t stand aside. Sure in his young mind of the moral issues involved and the righteousness of the cause, he presented himself at the naval recruiting office. But poor eyesight and an academic background conspired to keep him away from the battle, and though he soon mastered wireless telegraphy and was promoted to leading telegraphist he was kept in Cape Town: first as an instructor and later when he complained and asked to be sent to sea, as a watch-keeper in the W/T office at the docks. It was there that Rohrbach had met him and learnt to respect his keen mind and singleness of purpose. When Widmark said that a really good telegraphist was essential to the operation, Rohrbach had suggested Mike Kent.
Slight, with spectacled eyes which looked out on what they saw with a mixture of scepticism and youthful curiosity, he had brief flashes of cheerfulness, almost of exuberance. Then, as if his inner self had caught him doing something he shouldn’t, he would draw back, a little ashamed, into the shell where he spent so much time contemplating mankind.
When, after careful sounding, David Rohrbach invited him to join “Operation Break Out,” Mike Kent smiled with embarrassment: he couldn’t imagine why he had been chosen for such an honour. Rather hesitantly, he said: “Thank you very much, sir.”
“It could be dangerous. You realise that?”
“Yes, I suppose so. I mean I do.”
The last man to join the party was Hans le Roux, Johan’s twin brother. There had never really been any doubt about him. Both McFadden and Johan had pressed his claims, because he was so much what was wanted. A diesel mechanic by training, he had joined the Navy when war started and soon became a stoker petty officer. He now served in a mine-sweeper looking after the diesel generators which energised the sweep used against magnetic mines. But it was dull work, for there were no magnetic mines in Cape waters and Hans very much doubted if there ever would be.
Like Mike Kent, he at once accepted the proposal put to him by McFadden. The promise of action at last seemed almost too good to be true, and that his brother was to be in the party made it all the more attractive. Hans, too, was a rugby player and kept himself fit. But there were other likenesses. But for his unbroken nose and the absence of a beard, he would have been difficult to distinguish from Johan.
During that week they got together the necessary equipment. It was comparatively simple but since it could not be drawn from Naval Stores, it had to be bought in and around Cape Town.
This was done diffusely, each member of the party getting the items assigned to him by Widmark. The Newt, on his own initiative, devoted much energy to procuring a small bottle of capsules, sodium seconal, from the R.N. Hospital at Simonstown. Nurse Wilson, who adored him, got them for him from the young surgeon-lieutenant who adored her. The Newt kissed her devotedly and scratched “Love Potion” from his list.
Rail warrants were exchanged for railway tickets, those who hadn’t passports got them, money for travelling and subsistence expenses was handed out, petrol vouchers obtained—strings had to be pulled here, and the Widmark and Rohrbach business connections were invaluable—and the accounting side generally had to be seen to. Widmark had meant to bear the cost of the operation but the Newt, a man of means, had insisted on sharing them. “Won’t cost me a sausage,” he pulled at his beard. “Comes out of Newton Ltd.’s coffers. The old boys who hog the port and sherry in St. James’s really pay for it.”
Ten days after Widmark had told them the operation was on, the party met together for the first time. At his flat they arrived in ones and twos, in plain clothes in order to avoid arousing curiosity.
Widmark sat on a reversed chair in the centre of the living-room, the others gathered round him.
“Well, let’s recap.” His dark restless eyes took in the room. “Today’s the fifth of November.”
“Appropriate day, sir,” Mike Kent blinked, surprised at his own daring.
Widmark went on: “The two British ships sail from Lourenço Marques on or about the twenty-third/twenty-fourth. The period of no moon is the twenty-third, twenty-fourth and twenty-fifth. During those three days we’ll have to launch the operation.”
There was a pause, and unspoken excitement spread through the room like ripples on a pond.
“Everybody’s leave all right?”
There was general assent.
“Got the signal and W/T drill taped, Kent? Know the procedures for challenging Allied merchant ships, and the replies?”
“Yes, sir.”
Widmark got up and poured himself a whisky and soda, and then pointed at the silver tray with his chin. “Help yourselves if you’re ready for the other half.” He perched on the edge of the table.
McFadden and Hans were the only takers.
“I’ve checked the plot,” he went on, “and I’ll do so up to the last moment. I’ve a pretty good picture of the Indian Ocean situation, the raiders and U-boats operating, and the disposition of our own forces. I’ve got the charts and the Admiralty sailing directions. Three charts.”
The restless brown eyes settled on McFadden. “How’s the equipment coming along, Chiefy?”
“Got it all, sir, but for the shoulder-holsters.”
“They’ll arrive tomorrow,” said Rohrbach. “We can buy the hammer, punch and hacksaw in Lourenço Marques.”
“Good.” Widmark’s hands gripped the edge of the table on which he sat and he swung his legs. “Now for the order of battle. David and Johan will be the advance party. You because of your German, David. And you, Johan, because you can do the rebel Afrikaner bursting with anti-British sentiment.”
Johan made a face, “Sure I can. Can’t stand the rooineks.”
The Newt smoothed his moustache. “Why are so many bods here anti-British actually?”
“Actually‚” mimicked Rohrbach, “I wouldn’t know.”
Widmark frowned. “Let’s concentrate on this, shall we. Once in L.M., David and Johan will go to the Cardoso. You’ve got our Johannesburg address and the private code. Okay?”
“Okay!”
“Soon as you’ve completed your recce, wire me. Then the Newt will come down … by train … and we’ll follow by car two days later. If any snags crop up between the time of your signal and our E.T.D. you let us know pronto. Got that?”
Rohrbach nodded.
Widmark went on. “I’ll fix you up with Johannesburg addresses in the next few days. One in the Western Transvaal for Johan and Hans. They’ll be from telephone directories. Genuine enough, but none of you’ll be known there so you can’t be traced once the balloon’s gone up.”
Again they checked the plan from beginning to end to make sure that everyone knew the part he had to play. On the table Widmark had laid out a leaflet he’d got from Naval Intelligence who, on the outbreak of war, had found it in the Cape Town offices of the agents for the Rudolph Heissner Lines of Bremen, owners of the Hagenfels. The ship was designed to take twelve passengers in six large cabins and the leaflet advertised the attractions of travel in a modern freighter, and gave a detailed plan of the accommodation.
Widmark reminded them that they were, in the few days left, to visit freighters in Table Bay docks.
“Say you’re keen to look over the ship, being a naval type who’s never served in a merchantman. Get to know your way around. Seven to eight thousand ton freighters have a lot in common. Don’t forget the bridges and engine-rooms, and go for motor ships. They’ve no boiler rooms and the layout’s rather different from the steam jobs.”
Before they left he reminded them of an essential detail. “When you go into Mozambique be sure you haven’t got a single stitch of uniform with you or any naval papers. And keep your mouths shut. The less you say, the better it’ll be for all of us.”
When they’d gone, Widmark sat at his desk writing up his diary.
There were other last-minute details to be attended to, including the fitting of false compartments in Rohrbach�
�s and Widmark’s cars. This was done by McFadden in the garage at his house in Rondebosch, with the assistance of Hans le Roux, some fine gauge sheet-steel and a welding outfit. The compartments were built in behind the backs to the rear seats, and into them fitted snugly the equipment they needed.
Rohrbach and Johan le Roux drove to Lourenço Marques by way of Johannesburg. There Johan got one barber to remove his beard and another to dye his hair and eyebrows dark brown. The change in appearance was remarkable, and but for the broken nose Rohrbach would have had difficulty in recognising him. A telegram was sent off to Widmark: Aunt Mabel leaves for the farm to-morrow morning at eight; and the next day they drove across the Transvaal highveld to the Drakensberg escarpment dropping down through Schoeman’s Kloof to the lowveld, ablaze with flamboyants and jacaranda, and orchards of orange, avocado and paw-paw. The road was hot, there was dust everywhere, musky and penetrating, and the sun beat down on the steel roof of the car. They were silent, Johan’s thoughts on the farm at Swartruggens far away to the west; a small sense of guilt in his mind because he was not spending his leave there with his parents and would not be seeing Anna Marie … but mostly he felt excitement at what lay ahead. David Rohrbach was thinking about other things: first, worrying as he so often did about his family in Germany, then recalling Lawrence’s description of the weather as they waited in a ship off Jedda: … the heat of Arabia came out like a drawn sword and struck us speechless. That had happened as they reached the foot of Schoeman’s Kloof and started along the valley towards Montrose Falls, the heat of the lowveld encompassing them like a fog, humid and clinging. Rohrbach felt other things, too: a deep satisfaction, for example, at the course of events. At last there was to be something tangible; identifiable; direct action, and for a worthwhile objective. He was too sensitive and intelligent to imagine that their plans would be easy to execute, that nothing could go wrong. Unlike Widmark, he envisaged the possibility of failure and wondered in what way it might come and what its consequences might be. But these gloomy thoughts soon gave way to optimism, for it was not easy to contemplate failure with the Butcher. Rohrbach thought about him. His enormous self-sufficiency, his determination and—Rohrbach jibbed at the thought—his ruthlessness, inspired unusual confidence. He remembered what Johan le Roux had told him about Widmark at Suda Bay: “We were oiling at the time, alongside Fleetol, and about thirty Stukas piled in. All hell broke loose and we couldn’t do a thing except poop off an occasional burst of Lewis-gun fire which was about as much use as a catapult. It was our first experience of air attack. Fleetol was hit and a bloody great fire started and there was the Butcher on the bridge with smoke and flames all round him acting as cool as a cucumber while the Fleetol’s survivors tumbled aboard. Then it was ‘Let go bow line! … let go aft! … hold on to that spring! … starboard twenty! … slow ahead!’ All in the same dry voice. If it hadn’t been for the noise of the air attack and the flames you’d have thought we were getting under weigh from the Alfred Basin on a quiet Sunday morning. As we got clear, some low-flying Messerschmitts buzzed us and the coxswain caught a burst of machine-gun fire in the face and bits of him got plastered all over the bridge, and the Butcher takes the wheel and looks at what’s left and says quietly, ‘Poor old Cox. He’s got hurt.’ You’d have thought the coxswain’d been laid out in a rugger match, the way the Butcher said it. Hy’s ’n snaakse kêrel—He’s an odd bloke. I don’t think he feels things the way other people do. Unemotional type.”