A Funny Place to Hold a War

by John Harris

  ‘What is it?’ he asked.

  ‘It isn’t a coin,’ Morgan said. ‘That’s for sure. But I do just happen to know what it is.’

  ‘Come on, Dai. Don’t be so bloody modest.’

  Morgan smiled. ‘Well, I’ve seen one before because, as you know, I was in Germany in 1932. It’s a medal. There were a lot about in those days. They were given to young Nazis who attended the Party SA Rally in 1931. The Brownshirt boys were very proud of them.’

  Ten

  It seemed to Molyneux that he finally had enough proof to translate his suspicions into action.

  When he took his story to Strudwick, for once the group captain seemed impressed. ‘Unfortunately,’ he said, ‘the air officer commanding’s in Takoradi. Which leaves me as senior group captain in charge of the command. In addition, it looks as though we’re going to have our hands full. There’s been a riot in Freetown and two companies of the Frontier Force have already been sent to deal with more trouble at Miteboi and Kabauka. The commissioner considers it’s organized. I’ll send a signal to the AOC in Takoradi at once, though, informing him what you’ve turned up, and I’ll warn the navy to be careful with their radio traffic. As for Boina, I’ll get in touch with Cazalet. In the meantime, go and see the police in Freetown. You’d better take the White Bird.’

  Molyneux was overcome. He wasn’t to know that Strudwick was hoping to get his broad stripe when the AOC went home and was eager to show he’d been helpful and intelligent.

  The river was shrouded in mist and, as the White Bird came alongside the Portuguese Steps, Tower Hill beyond the town was hidden by low cloud. Freetown was seething with people. Half the population seemed to be on the streets and they all seemed to be yelling insults. The din from the fruit market was deafening, and, because of the crowds, Molyneux decided to try the C-in-C, South Atlantic, first. The marine guard at naval headquarters was uneasily watching the mob, his hand near the webbing holster that housed his revolver.

  The admiral agreed to see Molyneux at once and an aide appeared, a lieutenant with a blond beard big enough to make Molyneux feel hotter than ever. ‘Anything important?’ he asked.

  ‘I think so,’ Molyneux said.

  ‘Anything to do with that lot out there?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Hmm.’ The aide sniffed at Molyneux’ laconic replies. ‘Thought it might be. It’s a bit like the Zulu War, isn’t it?’

  The admiral was a small man with fierce eyebrows. He indicated a chair as Molyneux was ushered in.

  ‘You’ve picked a splendid time to come and see me.’ He gestured at the open window. Outside it sounded like a cup final with the favourites a goal down and ten minutes to play.

  As he pushed a packet of cigarettes forward Molyneux began to explain why he was there.

  ‘We brought a man off Lungi beach a few nights ago,’ he began.

  ‘Heard about that.’ The admiral’s eyes twinkled. ‘Got yourself in a minefield, I heard. Should leave these things to the navy.’

  Molyneux went on to describe what had happened and that the hospital had confirmed the medical officer’s opinion that the dead man, despite his burns, had died from peritonitis following a burst appendix. ‘It’s my view, sir,’ he said, ‘that he was responsible for the explosions at Lungi, but that he was already in great pain and, because of that, was careless and was caught by one of them.’

  Finally he outlined what Morgan had told him, and asked if any of the numbers they’d picked up had any significance. The admiral listened carefully, his elbows on the desk, his white shirt so dazzling it made Molyneux feel scruffy.

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘They do. They’re convoys. And that raises a point: They haven’t come within our sphere of influence yet. We’ve only just heard of them ourselves.’

  ‘The dead man’s papers,’ Molyneux pointed out, ‘said he was a Frenchman but the sky pilot says he’s German – a North German.’

  ‘Wasn’t there another of these strange Franco-German bods picked up at Hawkinge?’

  ‘Makinkundi, sir.’

  The admiral sat back in his chair. ‘Seem to be rather a lot of Germans about at the moment, don’t you think? Think there’s something in the wind?’

  ‘You doubtless know that better than I do, sir,’ Molyneux said. He pushed across the slip of paper on which Morgan had scribbled down everything he’d heard, together with its translation. The admiral studied it then he looked up.

  ‘AS 29,’ he said quietly, ‘is an army convoy. UK-Freetown, en route for the Middle East. WS 24 is a UK-Middle East convoy also via Freetown and Cape Town. RS stands for Gibraltar-Sierra Leone and OS for UK-West Africa.’ He stared under his heavy eyebrows at Molyneux. ‘You, my lad, have stumbled on something important. What else do you know?’

  ‘Not much, sir,’ Molyneux admitted. ‘But that Dutch land survey company in the hills at Boina seems to keep cropping up.’

  The admiral’s brows came down so fast they seemed to click. ‘Don’t they have an office in Freetown?’

  ‘They do, sir. In James Street.’

  The admiral slapped his desk. ‘Let’s get the police on to ’em.’

  He picked up the telephone and demanded police headquarters. As it chattered back at him, he slammed it into its rest with a frown.

  ‘They’re surrounded by a crowd of bloody Africans all yelling their heads off,’ he said. ‘This place’s gone mad and we’re kidding ourselves that it’s all just about rice.’

  It was almost midday when the police car arrived. It contained a police sergeant driver, an African constable, and a thin-faced inspector with pale hostile eyes who said his name was Yorke. Like most British officials in the colony, he looked overworked and drained of energy. Also inside the car was the ubiquitous Colonel Cazalet back from the north. He looked languid, self-possessed and, despite the stuffy heat, as cool as ever. As they nodded to each other, Inspector Yorke tapped the sergeant driver on the shoulder.

  ‘Get going, Laminah.’

  The driver turned a broad Mende face to him. ‘Fast, sah?’

  ‘No, you idiot. Normal speed.’

  They were driven at what, nevertheless, seemed to Molyneux a reckless pace through the city, and Yorke managed a shaken grin.

  ‘Trouble with my driver,’ he said, ‘is that he can read and unfortunately he’s read all the wrong papers. He was given some old copies of Motor Sport and, ever since, he thinks he’s Fangio or somebody. The only way to stop him is either to demote him, which would be a pity because he’s a good sergeant and the bugger can drive. Or hit him over the head with the jack handle.’

  He didn’t seem over-keen to be involved. The police, he said, already had their hands full. On the other hand, since their job largely consisted of watching the docks and the ships and the Syrian traders for smuggled diamonds, it wasn’t often that anything broke their ordered and boring routine, and this sounded a whole lot better than searching the cisterns of ships’ lavatories for illegal mail.

  Roaring past the old cotton tree, the car slid to a stop outside a shabby block of offices where it was immediately surrounded by Africans eager to know what was happening. Yorke pushed his way into the building, followed by Molyneux and Colonel Cazalet. The place was like an oven so that Molyneux’ khaki was saturated with sweat within seconds.

  The door of the survey company’s premises was stained wood with a large frosted glass panel, and, leaning on the wall outside, were two Africans – clerks judging by their glasses and their white suits, shirts and pith helmets. There were also two African girls, both in gaudy European dresses, their faces purplish under the white powder they wore.

  ‘You work here?’ Yorke asked.

  ‘Yes, sir,’ one of the clerks said. ‘Ever since the company opened.’

  ‘When was that?’

  ‘Jan van der Pas and Co. started the land survey company in Boina in 1939, sir. Very important.’

  ‘That wasn’t what I asked you. I asked when did you open here?’ />
  The clerk’s self-importance remained undisturbed. ‘The company closed down when the war started, sir. It opened again this year. Under new management.’

  ‘And this office?’

  ‘Four or five months ago, sir. This is a very important office, sir. We have agents in Sweden, Switzerland and the USA.’

  ‘Doing what?’ Cazalet seemed to wake up for the first time.

  ‘Iron, diamond and bauxite mining goes on all over the protectorate, sir. We send reports all over the world. I am Mr Henry Wilberforce Brahima Lucas, chief clerk. I was educated at the mission church at Kimbo and the Fourah Bay College. I almost passed my examinations.’

  Yorke remained unimpressed. ‘Who has the key to this place?’ he asked.

  ‘Mr Johannes de Wit, sir. He keeps it very carefully because he says we have too many secrets.’

  ‘Surveying reports can’t be all that secret,’ Cazalet said. ‘Where does he live?’

  ‘Cape Station on Lion Hill.’ Yorke seemed to have come to life at last. ‘I have the address. Lives with the other white man who runs this show. Chap called Ubert Jansen. Must have influence. I can’t get a house there.’ He swung round to Lucas. ‘Why haven’t you been to see why no one’s come down?’

  ‘Sir, it is not my business.’

  The inspector sighed. The educated Creoles, descendants of the ex-slaves who had first peopled the colony, were heavily involved with the administration and liked to put their spheres of duty into rigid patterns. He studied the locked door with a jaundiced eye as if he disliked it. ‘Break it open, Constable,’ he said.

  Lucas stepped forward, full of indignation. ‘Sir, you cannot do that!’

  ‘Oh, yes, I can, my lad. Step aside.’

  ‘I cannot permit it, sir.’

  ‘I’ll give you just two seconds to get out of the way,’ Yorke said flatly, ‘then I’ll arrest you for impeding the police in the performance of their duties.’

  Reluctantly, the clerk moved and the constable stepped back. As the door swung open, the constable fell into the room. Yorke, Cazalet and Molyneux followed, trailed by Lucas and the other clerks who immediately filled the air with gasps of horror and wails of protest. The floor was littered with scattered files and someone had been burning papers in a steel waste-paper basket. Yorke bent over it, poking about with his stick, then he crossed to the desk where the drawer stood open.

  ‘I think someone knew we were coming,’ he said.

  Lucas stepped up to the inspector. ‘I wish to report a burglary, sir,’ he said.

  Yorke looked at him as if he were mad.

  ‘Someone has broken and entered this office, sir, with burglarious intent.’

  ‘I can see that, you ass! What did you keep here?’

  ‘Nothing, sir.’

  ‘No money?’

  ‘Just a little for postage.’ Lucas crossed to the drawer and produced a tin box, which he opened with a shout of delight. ‘And that, sir, they have missed!’

  Yorke glared. ‘They weren’t after that, you fathead,’ he said.

  ‘These tribal people will steal anything, sir.’

  ‘There speaks a bloody Creole,’ Yorke muttered.

  Cazalet was rubbing his nose. He looked at Molyneux. ‘Who knew about this body of yours?’ he asked.

  ‘Which one?’

  ‘The one from Lungi’ll do.’

  ‘A far as I know only the police, the people at Lungi and us.’

  Yorke frowned. ‘Wonder if that was what the bloody riot here was for. To keep us busy while someone cleared this place out. Certainly the people we picked up didn’t seem to know what they were objecting to. Hang on a minute.’

  He disappeared and Molyneux heard his shoes on the stairs. Cazalet leaned on a metal file. He was just too languid to be true.

  Yorke was away long enough for Molyneux and Cazalet to smoke a cigarette. Cazalet also offered one to the African policeman but, as they heard the inspector returning, the policeman hurriedly tossed the butt through the open window where it was pounced on by a small boy who shot off with it between his lips, puffing like a train.

  Yorke was frowning and looked hot. ‘The bastards were here first thing this morning,’ he said. ‘Let’s go and look at this house of theirs.’

  ‘Fast, sah?’ the driver asked as they climbed into the car.

  ‘My fast,’ Yorke growled. ‘Not yours.’

  They shot off with spinning wheels to Cape Station where most of the senior white officials lived in the cooler air of the hills. There was rain in the offing as they climbed into the grey mist of the clouds. Yorke glared at it.

  ‘This bloody place!’ he said bitterly, clearly hating every inch of it with a resentment that had built up over years.

  They were looking out over the Creole houses now, a mass of decaying tin-roofed buildings with Victorian lace curtains set in damp gardens crammed with hibiscus and wide-leafed banana plants. A few military lorries churned past towards a Nigerian transport camp where the vultures strolled about like a football crowd looking for cookhouse refuse. It was raining again.

  ‘Ruins your uniforms,’ Yorke observed sourly. ‘Mould collects on anything that isn’t in constant use. You can’t hang a thing up for twenty-four hours without being able to graze a cow on it.’

  As the car halted outside a large house, a houseboy in a cotton robe came forward.

  ‘Who owns this place?’ Yorke asked.

  ‘Boss Solomon, sah. He Syrian trader.’

  ‘He’s doing time for smuggling diamonds.’ Yorke growled. ‘Who did he let it to?’

  ‘Boss de Wit and Boss Jansen.’

  ‘Thought so. The bastard’s probably in league with ’em. Where are they?’

  The boy shrugged and Yorke looked at Molyneux. ‘Somebody certainly got wind of your body,’ he said. He pushed the houseboy aside and went into the house. There was a bookcase loaded with books and magazines, native rugs on the floor, a native mask on the wall with a couple of crossed stabbing spears and an arrangement of bundu knives in red leather sheaths. The food safe stood with its legs in small basins of paraffin to keep the ants from getting inside.

  Yorke moved through the house, followed by the protesting houseboy, but there was little to be found and all the drawers seemed to have been emptied.

  ‘Did the white bosses take away any papers?’ Yorke asked.

  ‘Sah, I t’ink so.’

  Yorke frowned, then abruptly he turned and went outside. Standing in the middle of the road in the rain, he stared up and down the hill. Returning, he lit a cigarette and stood frowning again.

  ‘This is about the only house in the district that isn’t a bungalow,’ he pointed out. ‘I wonder why.

  Going to the hall, he stared up at the ceiling. Above the stairs was a trapdoor, secured by a large padlock.

  ‘What’s up there?’ he asked the houseboy.

  ‘Boss, I don’ know. Boss de Wit tell me I no go up there.’

  ‘In that case,’ Yorke said, ‘we’d better have a look.’ He turned to the black constable. ‘Have that thing open, Suri.’

  The constable found a pair of steps and a long screwdriver. Placing the steps under the trapdoor, he forced the lock. As he pushed the trapdoor open, Yorke passed him a box of matches and they heard him strike one.

  ‘Sah!’ His voice was excited. ‘I t’ink you come.’

  The inspector didn’t hurry. He took a couple more puffs of his cigarette and turned in leisurely fashion to the houseboy. ‘You got a torch?’ he asked.

  ‘Yassah. I got.’

  Taking the torch, Yorke climbed the steps. For a moment he was silent then he turned to look down at Molyneux and Cazalet. ‘You’d better come up here,’ he said, and, hoisting himself up, disappeared into the loft after the policeman.

  The other two climbed after him. The loft was like the inside of an oven and Molyneux broke into a fresh sweat at once. Yorke gestured with the torch.

  ‘No wonder they kept the bloody pl
ace locked,’ he said.

  In one corner stood what was clearly a radio set waiting to be assembled. It was of ancient vintage and appeared to have valves as big as goldfish bowls.

  ‘Receiver-transmitter,’ Cazalet said. ‘Don’t need a thing like that in the land surveying business. Not even with agents in Switzerland, Sweden and the USA. Works on storage batteries.’ He indicated a heavy wooden box alongside. ‘Range up to four hundred miles by voice, I’d say; more by key. That’s enough for the U-boats.’

  Yorke was eyeing the set with interest. ‘I bet it weighs nearly three hundred pounds without the batteries,’ he said. ‘And sends out blue flashes when it’s working. Typical Sierra Leone lash-up. God knows how they got it up here without being spotted. Broken down to its component parts, I suppose. Like everything else out here, it probably dates back to Victoria.’

  Part Three

  Operations

  ‘…Agents in Dublin, Belfast and Glasgow report the departure of ships for the Middle East. It is expected that US convoys will join off West Africa. Large quantities of the new six-pounder anti-tank gun and Sherman tanks, together with the new Priest self-propelled heavy gun, and other vehicles, are aboard. Troops have been assembled at camps in and around Liverpool, Manchester and Glasgow and it is believed that these troops are also part of the convoy, which is without doubt intended to reinforce the British Middle East Forces…’

  Dispatch to Führerhauptquartier from

  German Minister in Dublin via Madrid, 11 July 1942

  ‘…It is reported from Rome that the Anglo Saxons may be preparing to land a force in western North Africa, whence later on they intend to launch their first blows against Europe. It is believed at Naval Headquarters, Berlin, however, that this force is an operation for the provisioning of Malta. Whatever the truth, it is clear that the success of such an operation will depend on the British in the Middle East being reinforced to the point where they can not only resist General Rommel in Egypt but can also drive him back in sufficient disarray as to make a landing or an attempt to relieve Malta feasible. In view of this, every attempt must be made to prevent the British being reinforced in the Middle East…’