A Funny Place to Hold a War

by John Harris

  To Kriegsorganisation VI from

  Dept IVF (Navy), Berlin, July 1942

  One

  At Boina Heidegger had been worrying for some time about the bar boy, Brima Komorrah. He had failed to turn up and Heidegger had been wondering if the British had picked him up and questioned him or whether he was merely suffering from a dose of malaria, what the Africans called ‘belly palaver’.

  One of the petty officers was singing in a nearby bath-house, his voice soft and nostalgic.

  Es geht alles vorüber

  Es geht alles vorbei

  Nach jedem Dezember

  Gibts wieder ein Mai.

  After every December there’ll always be a May.

  Heidegger’s eyes were distant as he listened, then he remembered his instructions that they weren’t to speak German in the camp and made a mental note to reprimand the singer. He was still thinking about it when a message arrived from a Syrian at Hawkinge Town to inform him about Pfitzner’s death. Pfitzner had been missing with one of the vehicles for two days now and Heidegger had been concerned that he’d done something stupid. The message seemed to indicate that he had, but under the circumstances it didn’t seem to matter. Dead, Pfitzner could hardly be questioned on where he’d come from, and Heidegger attributed his death directly to the Fallada woman. Since her arrival the dissensions and jealousies had been obvious.

  ‘The man was little better than a pimp with a swastika stamped on his backside,’ he said.

  ‘He was a good Party man,’ Lorenz growled.

  ‘It’s a pity he wasn’t as good at his job,’ Heidegger snapped. ‘Get in touch with Suleiman at Hawkinge Town. Find out everything you can.’

  Lorenz had barely vanished when another signal arrived. B-Dienst was watchful and had missed nothing. Even the British admiral in Freetown didn’t yet know the facts. It came via French Guinea, and was concerned with positions, courses and numbers.

  ‘Wolf Pack Herzog,’ it ended, ‘will be moved to position Lat 151° 30’ 20’’ N, Long 191° 21’ 30’’ W. Wolf Pack Markgraf will move to position twenty miles south.’

  Heidegger reached for a chart and a pair of dividers. The position he’d been given was roughly opposite Cape Verde and a hundred and fifty miles out to sea west-north-west of the Gambia. The courses and times of the convoys had originated in England, he knew, so there could be no mistake. He looked at the message again. Three convoys, one from the States, one from England and one from Gibraltar, were all due to come together within six hundred miles of where he stood before heading south. One hundred and forty ships, excellent pickings for the U-boats. The supplies Rommel feared would never get through.

  He looked at the convoy numbers, made a note of them, and sent for Lorenz. When he appeared, Heidegger tossed the signal across. ‘We move down to Kumrabai tomorrow. Find Willer and let him know he’s to make his own way there.’

  Lorenz grinned and vanished. Pfitzner was forgotten. Passing out the necessary orders, he headed for Magda Fallada’s quarters. She was asleep, wearing nothing but a sheet. Bending over her, he ran his hands along her body so that she sighed and stirred. As her eyes opened, she saw Lorenz above her and put her arms round his neck.

  ‘Not now,’ he said. ‘Save it for later. It will seem better in the safety of French Guinea.’

  Her eyes widened and she sat up so that the sheet slipped from her. ‘We’re going? At last?’

  ‘Looks like it. We have a little job to do first. When we’ve finished, the British will be running in small circles wondering what’s hit them.’

  ‘What will have hit them?’

  ‘Machine guns.’

  ‘A battle?

  ‘Not really. Just that all their aircraft will be full of holes and sinking. The Middle East convoys will then be wide open to our U-boats and, while the British are sorting that lot out, we shall doubtless be heading for French Guinea.’

  ‘When do we leave?’

  ‘Tomorrow. So start packing. We’ll be taking over the mine at Yima for forty-eight hours.’

  She was on her feet now, stark naked, moving about the room and reaching for her belongings.

  ‘We’re travelling light,’ Lorenz warned. ‘No unnecessary baggage. The lorries will be full of weapons and ammunition.’ He grabbed for her and kissed her. ‘You’ll travel with me,’ he said. ‘Out of Heidegger’s way. I’ll go and arrange it now.’

  He went out, slamming the door. As he started for his quarters, a shout stopped him dead in his tracks. He turned and saw the telegraphist hurrying towards him.

  ‘Not now,’ he said. ‘Not now!’

  ‘I think you’d better see it, sir!’

  Angrily Lorenz snatched the signal flimsy and began to read.

  ‘Gottverdammt!’ The fury broke out of him in a shout and he spun on his heel and began to run for Heidegger’s office.

  Heidegger was collecting his papers. At his feet, the native houseboy was burning papers in an old oil drum. The hot oil filled the office with a sickly stench. As the door burst open, Heidegger looked up.

  ‘Willer’s dead!’ Lorenz said.

  Heidegger jumped to his feet. ‘When?’

  ‘Three nights ago, it seems. Witte telephoned from Freetown. He’s had to bolt. They were expecting a raid.’

  ‘Did the British catch Willer?’

  ‘No.’ Lorenz’ expression was without pity. ‘It seems he was suffering from a ruptured appendix and was trying to get to our contact at Mahera. He was found and evacuated to Freetown, but he died on the way. They don’t know who he is, though, and his papers are in good order. As far as they know he’s an Alsatian hoping to join the Free French.’

  ‘What about Witte and Johansen?’

  ‘They’ve shut down and are heading north. They expect to make it because they’ve got half the population of Freetown on the streets. They’ll be taking a boat across to Pepel to pick up the railway. They’ll cross into French Guinea at Banguraia. They’ve destroyed everything and burnt their papers. There’s nothing to give the game away.’

  ‘Don’t be a damn’ fool, Lorenz!’ Heidegger snatched the signal. ‘There’s everything to give the game away! That office’s supposed to be a subsidiary of this place. The police will signal Banguraia and be up here in a matter of hours.’

  Lorenz looked scared. ‘I’ll warn Magda.’

  ‘For the love of God, Lorenz, get your mind on your job! We weren’t sent here just to get her across the border.’

  Lorenz swallowed. ‘What do you propose?’

  Heidegger dropped the signal on the desk in front of him. ‘How many of us are there?’

  ‘Thirty-nine. All trained men.’

  ‘Weapons?’

  ‘Enough to make a nuisance of ourselves. Heavy machine guns as well as rifles.’

  ‘Very well, we’ll move at once. The plan remains the same. We simply move a day earlier.’

  ‘And the getaway? To the border?’

  ‘There won’t be time if they’ve broken Witte’s cover. We’ll use the river Bic. The Dutchmen at Yima have a fast launch, which should be big enough for the lot of us. Inform the Maréchal Grouchy we shall need picking up two miles out between Lungi and Tagrin Point. They’re to wait there with steam up, ready to set a course at once for French Guinea. We can be inside Vichy waters in four and a half hours. It’ll take the British that long to wake up to the fact that we’ve gone.’

  When the police arrived at Boina, armed to the teeth and ready for action, they found the place deserted. In Yorke’s car the drive had been a wild one.

  The air had seemed to be full of flying ants which smeared themselves on the windscreen and deposited their wings inside the car, and once, as they had begun to climb, they had seen a prowling leopard, two yellow eyes and the flash of a spotted body moving rapidly into the trees. Turning off the main road, they began to climb more steeply, moving higher and higher, to where the low bush gave way to taller vegetation – baobabs, eucalyptus and cotton trees. Th
e air was chillier here and – the movement of the car created a draught that cooled their bodies and dried the sweat on their clothing.

  The hills were full of colour, ranging from yellow to pink to purple. There had been another downpour and the place was covered with a thin mist as the vehicles came to a stop, but there was no sign of life except for two or three black men from Boina village, complaining that they hadn’t been paid.

  Cazalet was standing alone, gnawing the end of his swagger stick as he watched the policemen move through the deserted bungalows, his yellow eyes cold and watchful. ‘They must have bolted for the border,’ he said to Yorke.

  Reaching inside the car, he fished out a map and, spreading it on the bonnet, began to trace with his finger the route north. ‘We’ve got to watch the Scarcies. You’d better ask your people to keep a look-out for any unexplained vehicles.’

  As Yorke started radioing orders, Molyneux watched uneasily. Having started up the hare, it seemed to him that his place was now with his squadron.

  ‘Mind if I borrow your car?’ he asked Yorke. ‘I need to get back.’

  ‘Help yourself. We’ll be here some time.’

  Scrambling into the car, Molyneux tapped the driver on the shoulder. ‘Jum,’ he said.

  Sergeant Laminah rolled his eyes and grinned. ‘Fast, sah?’

  ‘Fast as you like.’

  The journey was something Molyneux was to remember all his life and fully explained why Yorke tried so hard to keep his driver under control. They hurtled down from Boina on a winding road awash with red mud, sliding round the corners and sending goats, chickens and children scuttling for the undergrowth. Once on the tarmacadam, Laminah really put his foot down and the car headed north-west as if the devil himself were on their tail.

  Screams and jeers followed them as they roared round corners and leaped over the brows of hills. At the narrow bridges over the gullies, Laminah didn’t bother to wait. The drivers of vehicles coming in the opposite direction, suddenly aware that the madman approaching them at speed intended to dispute the bridge, slammed on their brakes. Laminah slithered past with inches to spare.

  After the rain, the country looked fresh and iridescent butterflies lifted from the bush. The clipped simian cries of monkeys and the shriek of parakeets rose in alarm and a cloud of glossy purple starlings and lemon-coloured weavers exploded into the air as the car sped past. A woman in a scarlet lappa carrying on her head an umbrella and a Bible turned away and cowered to avoid the wave of muddy water Lamina threw up.

  Holding his hat on with one hand and clinging for dear life to the side of the car with the other, Molyneux breathed in a series of gasps as the car hit the bumps. Then they slithered round a corner and found themselves face to face with an army lorry driven by a black soldier just as it was approaching yet another of the endless narrow bridges. The driver’s eyes almost popped from his head as he slammed on the brakes and yanked at the steering wheel. As Laminah slipped under his nose, the lorry’s front wheels dropped from the road and it began to roll slowly down the steep bank towards the creek.

  Molyneux had never arrived at Jum in such style. As they roared down the road from Hawkinge Town, the crowds of black labourers heading home at the end of the day began to scatter. Laminah seemed intent on crashing through the painted barrier, but, slamming on the brakes in the last few yards, he slithered the car sideways, straightened out, and came to a stop with the bonnet inches from the pole.

  A shaken-looking RAF police corporal appeared. ‘What the hell are you trying to do?’ he demanded.

  ‘Open the barrier, Corporal,’ Molyneux shouted.

  The corporal looked worried. ‘Sir, I shall have to see your identity card.’

  ‘Open the bloody barrier!’ Molyneux snarled. ‘It’s an emergency.’

  The corporal tried to throw up a salute, changed his mind and leaped for the barrier, his right arm still performing indeterminate movements by his ear as the car roared into the camp and headed for headquarters.

  Mackintosh was just leaving his office as they slithered to a stop, and Molyneux panted out what had happened. Followed by the Australian, he dived into his office and, crossing to a chart of the river hanging on the wall, he ran his finger along it. He had long since decided that Cazalet and Yorke were wrong and that the Germans hadn’t bolted for the border. If someone wanted to disrupt flying at Jum – and it had become pretty obvious that that had been the intention for some time! – they wouldn’t give up at this point. They would stick a machine gun or two on the river bank opposite the mooring trots. It only required a hole or two in a flying boat at water level to make it unserviceable, and from the bank opposite a heavy machine gun could polish off the lot.

  ‘Between Disp and Makinkundi,’ he said, half to himself. ‘From there they could tie the whole thing up.’ He swung round to Mackintosh. ‘Get on the blower, George,’ he said. ‘We’re probably in bad trouble! They’ve just unearthed a bunch of German agents. I was there. I think our kites are about to come under fire.’

  Mackintosh looked startled and he went on hurriedly, his hand still on the map. ‘They’ll go to Kumrabai, then down the spine of land between the swamps to Makinkundi and Yima.’

  ‘What the hell are you talking about?’

  ‘The Germans! We’ve got to clear this place! I’ll get in touch with Bathurst and Takoradi and see how many kites they can take.’

  Mackintosh stepped forward. ‘Listen, sport…’

  Molyneux was reaching for a signal pad when Mackintosh snatched it away. ‘For Christ’s sake,’ he yelled. ‘Listen! There’s not a snowball’s chance in hell of moving!’ He flourished a signal flimsy he was holding. ‘Look what’s just come in! Those convoys we’ve been expecting are on the way!’

  ‘Have you heard from the admiral?’

  ‘No. Nothing. But, listen, sport, our kites are going to be needed here, not in Bathurst or Takoradi. The AOC’s even trying to bring more kites in to help because the navy says this is where the danger’s going to be and we’ve got to be on the top line.’

  Molyneux gave him a worried glance and made up his mind quickly. ‘Right,’ he said. ‘Then let’s shift those slabsided monsters of yours over to the east side of the river out of danger. Get in touch with Hobson. We’re going to need every man he’s got, to say nothing of every man we’ve got. I wish we knew where they were, so we could try dropping a bomb on the bastards.’

  In fact, the Germans had already reached Yima. The lorries had swung off through Hawkinge Town while Molyneux was still on his way back from Boina and had headed into the bush towards the coast. The sight of the sun on the sea cheered Heidegger.

  The mine buildings were in the middle of a large area of muddy earth criss-crossed by wheel marks. The bush had been cut well back to keep the mosquitoes at a distance, and the only shade in the whole area was from a single eucalyptus tree that threw a thin shadow in the direction of the river Bic. The main gate of the mine was open and they drove straight in, to draw up outside the door of the office. There was only one man, the manager, there, and he looked up, puzzled, at the arrival of half a dozen unfamiliar lorries.

  ‘Attend to him, Lorenz,’ Heidegger said. ‘But no killing. We don’t want the alarm raised. I’ll secure the gate.’

  As Heidegger began to gesture at the armed men tumbling from the vehicles, the Dutchman inside looked alarmed and, as he approached, without warning Lorenz hit him over the eye with the pistol he held in his hand.

  ‘Get him out of sight,’ he snapped.

  As they occupied the offices, a car containing two more Dutchmen appeared from the quarry face, the expression on the occupants’ faces at the sight of the strange vehicles as puzzled as that of the manager. They were rounded up and locked with him in a storeshed. Soon afterwards, a lorry appeared from the mine workings driven by another Dutchman, followed by a car containing two more. They, too, were marched away and locked up. Inquiries revealed that they now had everybody.

  �
�What about the mineworkers, Herr Leutnant?’ Lorenz turned as one of the petty officers questioned him. ‘There must be sixty or seventy of them.’

  ‘Forget them,’ Lorenz said. ‘Nobody’s going to start shooting at us with that lot in the way. The British are too sensitive about African reaction, especially after the troubles in Freetown.’

  There was a lot of grumbling at Jum because no one knew what the panic was all about and Molyneux hadn’t the time to tell them. He was trying to contact the AOC to warn him of the danger.

  By this time flying crews were being pushed aboard their aircraft from dinghies, and checks were hurriedly made and the rakes that held the controls taken off. As the grommets that held the aircraft to the buoys were unlashed and slip ropes put on, engines were started, outers first to bring the buoy into view.

  As her mooring was slipped, Sunderland C-Charlie, the first machine to move, began to taxi, the pilot frowning as he stared about him and tried to think ahead to avoid tight positions; because, like boats, Catalinas and Sunderlands didn’t have brakes but, unlike boats, couldn’t go astern. Fortunately, the wind was light and the machine swung easily and headed downstream to turn round the rear of the trots, the flight engineer cursing as he did his acrobatic act on the ladder with the slip rope in his hand. No two approaches were ever the same and if you missed and had to go round again it was drinks all round for the crew.

  They made the buoy at the first try and the flight engineer shoved the slip rope through the buoy’s harness and shot back up the ladder to the bollard, cursing as he trapped a finger. Even as the next machine began to get under way, a bomb scow loaded with depth charges slipped alongside C-Charlie and, while two armourers knelt on the wing with a winch, a wire was passed to the scow. In the old days they had had to use five-hundred-pound anti-submarine bombs which were as useless as Christmas puddings unless dropped straight down a U-boat’s open hatch, but things had improved with the arrival of aircraft depth charges, especially since they’d learned to fuse them for explosion at twenty-five feet and catch the U-boats as they were submerging. But they were still in short supply – shorter still since the explosion at Giuru.