Under the Red Sea Sun

by Edward Ellsberg

  “Get back out on that Italian dry dock, both of you,” I muttered wearily, “and if you get me out of bed again, I’ll have you shot for it. Don’t you know I need some sleep, too? I’m as tired as you are. Get to work; you both lose the last two days of your vacation.”

  They left. I turned to Williams.

  “Thanks, Lloyd, for saving them for us. Never let Cunningham out of Massawa again. The British Army can get lots more M.P.s, but where in hell we can get any more ironworkers I don’t know. Now you go back to Asmara once more.”

  But Williams declined; he had had rest enough. Besides, getting out of Massawa, now he was here, just to have to come back again after a couple of days in the hills would only make him feel worse. So he also, after breakfast, went out to resume work on the Italian dock with his two ironworkers who officially now were serving time on it for their crime.

  That day, July 16, turned out to be my day for difficulties with the British Military Government. Hardly had I had breakfast myself and sat down at my desk overlooking the Naval Base to scan what papers there were lying for me to sign, when Mrs. Maton informed me there was a young man, some civilian but not one of our workmen, urgently wishing to see me. He wouldn’t state his business; all she could get out of him was that he must see me; he was very agitated, she said. I told her to show him in.

  He entered; I looked him over. He was young, all right, probably about twenty; tall, very gaunt, and quite bronzed; to say that he was agitated was putting it very mildly. The moment he opened his mouth, I judged he was on the verge of hysteria; his words, in a high-pitched, youthful voice, poured out in an incoherent torrent. All I could gather from his excited statements was that he was appealing to me, the Commanding Officer of the American Naval Base, as his last hope; if I didn’t help him, he was doomed.

  Finally, mainly by showing a sympathetic willingness to listen rather than indicating that I was too busy, I got him calmed down enough to gather what his trouble was and what he wanted of me.

  His name was Eugene Zeiner; he was a Czech, a Czech Jew, he informed me. In 1938, after Munich, but before the Nazis entered Prague, though then only sixteen, he had fled to France to escape them. His father, his mother, his younger sister, who had stayed in Prague, he told me in heart-broken tones, must now all be dead—in four years he had heard nothing from or of them.

  In September of 1939, when the Nazis attacked Poland, he had crossed from France to England and had enlisted as an infantryman in a British regiment. He was burning to kill Nazis for what they had done to his family.

  “See!” he cried, dragging from his pocket some soiled papers and tremblingly spreading them out before me. They were his official service records as a British soldier, starting in September, 1939, when seventeen-year-old Eugene Zeiner had volunteered. “I served all through that first campaign in France, through the collapse in Belgium, the retreat to Dunkirk. I was evacuated under fire on the beach at Dunkirk!” His shrill voice rose almost to a shriek as he pointed to the record. It was so entered there.

  “Then after a few months in England, they gave us new rifles and I came to Libya. I fought with the Eighth Army in the desert under Wavell. See, again?” He pointed to the entry. “We did well, we got to Benghazi, we nearly drove the Fascists out of Africa, only suddenly we were all shipped out of Libya to stop the Nazis in Greece. Look!” Once more he pointed to the record. “Greece was terrible, a few thousand Englishmen against a million Nazis!” His piercing voice broke, he paused a moment, then excitedly went on. “We fought hard, but we were crushed. We had to retreat. Then from Greece another evacuation under fire on the beaches. It was worse than Dunkirk!”

  Completely broken up by the recollection, he mumbled incoherently while he fumbled with the record, then pulled himself together a bit and pointed to the next entry.

  “See, Crete next!” Now indeed his shrill cry sounded almost that of a madman’s. “Crete, Nazi paratroopers, skies full of Nazi bombers and fighter planes strafing us, and we had hardly our bayonets to oppose them! Crete! That was worst of all! We fought like tigers. But once more we had to be evacuated from the beaches, those who were left!” He began to sob. I said nothing; there were several British naval officers in Massawa who had been at Crete; they had assured me that nothing in the whole war, on land or sea, had equaled Crete in hellishness.

  “Look, Captain!” Zeiner finally managed to ejaculate, pointing to the last entry. Private Eugene Zeiner had been evacuated from Crete to Alexandria. Immediately after, in June, 1941, already at nineteen a veteran with four of the war’s most horrible campaigns behind him, a medical survey had adjudged him unfit for further military service-shell shock, psychosis, whatever it was the surgeons had called it, had made a wreck of the lad and he was honorably discharged from His Majesty’s Forces. The closing entry went on to note that he had been a good soldier, that for his disability he was entitled to a pension of four shillings a week or four shillings a month, I have forgotten which.

  “Well?” I asked, looking up at him after I had read that. What did he want of me?

  “They wouldn’t let me fight any more, though I was willing! I hate Nazis!” he shrieked. “But all the same I was discharged, a civilian in Egypt. I couldn’t go home; I had no home to go to. Of course I couldn’t live on the four shillings but other soldiers helped me. It was hard getting a job in Egypt; people looked at my military papers and decided I must be crazy—maybe I am! At last I got a job as a clerk with the contractor for this American Mission in Cairo—they needed clerks so badly who could understand English that they would hire anybody. I worked hard; I did all right there in Cairo with them. Then came Rommel to El Alamein and this ‘flap’; everybody American in the office fled in an instant! But I could not flee, I was not American; so I stayed in the empty office to straighten things out till quitting time anyway. On one desk I found lying ten thousand dollars in American bills; so fast had everybody gone they had not even bothered over all that money! I wrapped it up and took it to the American Ambassador’s office; he was almost the only American left in Cairo. Then I was out of a job again, and besides Rommel was expected in Cairo almost every hour. Rommel and his Nazis! What would they do to me—a Czech Jew who had escaped Czechoslovakia to fight them as a British soldier!” Again Zeiner’s high-pitched voice rose to a shrill crescendo.

  Fascinated now, I listened to him, as unable to interrupt his discourse (even had I wanted to) as The Wedding Guest clutched by The Ancient Mariner in Coleridge’s rime.

  Zeiner got his breath again, continued excitedly.

  “I had to get out of Egypt, but I wasn’t British, I wasn’t American, I had no passport of any kind, nothing except my military papers. I went to the Egyptians; without a passport, I could not leave. I went to the British for a passport; they said they couldn’t give me one since I was not British. I showed my British military papers. That didn’t help; being a British soldier didn’t make me a British citizen. I was desperate; all the other civilians were gone. When the Nazis came, I should stick out among the Egyptians like a lighthouse to be seized instantly. I begged of the British to do something for me. But God save bureaucrats and red tape! There was nothing in the official books that covered a case like mine, so they could issue no passport.

  “I refused to leave that office—two years I had served their king; now his servants must do something, even to breaking their rules, to save me! Finally one of them had an idea. They couldn’t issue me a passport, but they could give me a transit visa through all British territories to Addis Ababa in Ethiopia (God himself only knows why Ethiopia); it would look enough like an official document in place of a passport that I might get out of Egypt on it. Would I take that? I was frantic! To get away from the Nazis and maybe fight again some day, I would take a transit visa to Ethiopia, to hell, to anywhere! Of course I took it. I went to Alexandria. There was much excitement there, refugees, bombs, Stukas; it was almost like another evacuation. My paper had a big enough red seal on it; the Egypt
ians were not paying close attention; I was permitted to board a freighter for Massawa on my way to Addis Ababa. So I came at last to Massawa, Captain!” finished Zeiner breathlessly.

  “Yes, I understand that all right, Mr. Zeiner, seeing that you’re here right now. But still what has all this got to do with me or this Naval Base?”

  Zeiner clutched my arm, as if to hang on, fearful that I might order him thrown out, while he thrust still another paper down on my desk.

  “Read that, Captain! You must save me! I can’t go there!” he screamed.

  I read it. It was on the O.E.T.A. stationery I knew well, a letter from the Occupied Enemy Territories Administration in Asmara, the British Military Government, to Mr. Eugene Zeiner. He was advised that already he had overstayed the brief period in Eritrea allowed him on his transit visa to Addis Ababa; unless he proceeded immediately on his journey to Ethiopia, he would be deported there. It was signed by one of the British officers in O.E.T.A. whom I knew slightly.

  Now indeed Zeiner became hysterical; I felt as if I were listening to one of the damned as he shrilled out,

  “I’ll die in Ethiopia! What is there for me to do there? There’s no way out of Ethiopia! Where could I go from there? I saved ten thousand dollars for the Americans in Cairo. You’re American; for God’s sake, do something for me! You are the American Commandant; the British will listen to you! Make them let me stay in Massawa at least! Maybe here I can find work, perhaps even for the Americans. But don’t let them send me to Ethiopia! I can’t stand any more!” and very evidently on the verge of utter collapse, he began sobbing violently.

  Now I saw his reason for pouring out his story to me, a heartrending one truly. And his papers backed it up. This broken lad, who had fought our enemies till the disasters he had been through had turned him into the hysterical wretch I had before me who could fight no more, was going to get all the help I could give him, if I had any influence in Eritrea. I told Mrs. Maton, standing near with tears in her own eyes, to get me on the phone the O.E.T.A. officer in Asmara, a major, who had signed that deportation letter.

  It took some time. Meanwhile, I seated Eugene Zeiner in a chair, got him some water to cool him off, and calmed him down a bit by telling him to quit worrying—he wasn’t going to Ethiopia. No matter what it took, I would see to that.

  Twenty minutes later, Mrs. Maton, who had been patiently working on the phone, looked up at me and announced,

  “You’re through, Captain.”

  I took the phone.

  “Hello, Major, this is Captain Ellsberg, Massawa Naval Base. There’s an ex-British soldier, a Eugene Zeiner, in my office with a deportation order from you. He did something for us Americans in Cairo, and I’m taking an interest in his case. Can’t you cancel that letter?”

  “No, Captain Ellsberg. I know that case; the man’s an alien with only a transit visa through Eritrea. He’s already overstayed his transit time. We’ve been easy on him over that, but he’s got to get cracking. He can’t stay any longer.”

  “But, Major, you’ll kill him if you deport him to Ethiopia! That man’s fought for you till it’s made a wreck of him. He’s entitled to consideration. You saw his papers, didn’t you?”

  “Yes, Captain, I saw them.”

  “They’re in order, aren’t they? Anything wrong with them? Are those service records correct?”

  “Yes, his military papers are in order. But except for that pension, they don’t entitle him to anything. You don’t understand, Captain. The man’s not a British citizen; he’s an alien, and he can’t stay in Eritrea on only a transit visa through to Addis Ababa. He’s got to move on. The regulations don’t permit his staying.”

  “I’ll say I don’t understand, Major!” I answered bitterly. “Neither will anybody else in America, when I give this story to the American newspaper men from Cairo who’re all in Asmara right now because of this flap! There’s not much news in Asmara; those reporters will all fall hard for this Zeiner story. It’ll sound fine in the American press, won’t it? Broken-down British soldier, a mere boy, veteran of Dunkirk, Libya, Greece, and Crete, kicked out of Eritrea to his death against the protests of the American Commandant because British red tape can’t be cut! That’ll certainly encourage Americans to go all out to help Britain! There’ll be an explosion in London over it; London’ll hop your boss, Brigadier Longrigg; and the Brigadier will fall on you like a ton of bricks for being such a dumbbell as to let that story break! You deport that man, and by God, I’ll do it!”

  “Really, Captain, I trust you won’t do anything like that!” came in a horrified voice over the wire. “It wouldn’t be cricket, you know, old chap. I didn’t make those regulations; it’s only my job to see they’re enforced. Really now, I sympathize with the poor blighter as much as you do, but what can I do? He’s not all there, you know; you must have observed that yourself in talking to him. If I let him stay, nobody’ll employ him, he’ll become a public charge, and I’ll be held respon—”

  “Is that all that’s worrying you?” I broke in. “Why, Major—” And the next instant I found myself suddenly listening to someone talking to me in Italian. Somewhere between Massawa and Asmara, as usual, some local operator had crossed the wires. But for once, instead of swearing over it, I blessed the operator who had done it. It gave me a few minutes to ponder that O.E.T.A. Major’s last remark.

  I gave the phone to Mrs. Maton.

  “Connection broken as usual, Mrs. Maton. Please try to get it again.”

  I turned to Eugene Zeiner, and hastily sized him up. He looked like a well-educated young man; his English was perfect.

  “What can you do if I give you a job?” I asked.

  “Anything, Captain!” he burst out excitedly. “Clerk, maybe interpreter; I know five languages. I know even a little about machinery I learned in the Army! Anything at all you want, I’ll try! Digging trenches for pipes even! I’ve had lots of experience digging foxholes; I can—”

  “You’re through again, Captain,” interrupted Mrs. Maton, passing the phone towards me.

  “That’s enough; you’re hired!” I informed Zeiner as I took the phone.

  “Sorry, old chap,” I heard, “some one of these blessed Eyties broke in on us. What were you saying, Captain?”

  “I was going to say there was another factor in the case I’d overlooked. It didn’t occur to me it meant anything till your last remark. Brigadier Longrigg knows how devilishly short-handed we are down here, and that man Zeiner’s employed at this Base. If you deport him, I lose an employee, and I’ll not stand for it; I’ll go right to Brigadier Longrigg myself, on top of what else I promised to do, over your robbing me of one of my men when I’m breaking my neck to get ships out for the Royal Navy! He’ll flay you alive for it!”

  “He’s your employee, you say? My word, that puts a different light on the case!” I heard a much relieved voice saying over the phone. “Too bad you didn’t tell me that right off; I would have fixed it all up without bothering you so much over it, Captain. Your employee, eh? That’s topping! That settles everything with no need of troubling anybody about the case. You just write us an official letter as Commandant of the Naval Base saying he’s one of your employees, and we’ll cancel that deportation notice and give him a permit to remain in Eritrea as long as he works for you. Happy to oblige you, Captain. Anything else?”

  “No, thanks, Major. That fixes everything. Good-by!” and I hung up the phone.

  “It’s all right, Zeiner,” I said, looking speculatively over my newly acquired employee. “They’re canceling that letter. You can stay and work here.”

  Eugene Zeiner, with a light in his boyish eyes very like what I imagine might shine in those of a man suddenly pardoned as he stood with the noose round his neck, was too inarticulate for any words. He merely straightened stiffly up to attention, saluted in the British fashion, and looked at me as if awaiting orders.

  “You take Mr. Zeiner down to the pay office, Mrs. Maton,” I said to her, “and
see he’s entered on the Naval Base rolls as a clerk. I’ll see about his actual assignment this afternoon, when I’ve had time to think over where we can use him best. Probably in the machine shop office.”

  Once more Zeiner saluted, faced about, and followed Mrs. Maton out of the office. So now, by the grace of Field Marshal Rommel, I had a clerk; the first male clerk the Naval Base itself had been blessed with. I could use one.

  CHAPTER

  37

  I HAD A BUSY DAY FROM THEN ON. Already it was nearly 10:00 A.M.; I had promised to be on the Naval Base pier for a discussion with Brown on the Intent before he shoved off to start his second salvage job. I hurried down there.

  Brown and his men had returned a few days before from their excursion to the Asmara plateau, somewhat rested again. They had since been overhauling the Intent’s salvage outfit, particularly her pumps. Now everything was restowed, cleaned, dried out, and ready for business as before, except the crew themselves—they weren’t the men they had been when first they had arrived—Massawa and the Liebenfels had already cost them plenty.

  Inside the little bridge of the Intent, I went over briefly with Brown his second assignment—the scuttled S.S. Frauenfels, also Nazi, a slightly larger sister to the Liebenfels. She was sunk as the third ship ahead of where the Liebenfels had once lain, right in the center of that long line of wrecks in the south harbor. The salvage job would be practically the same as that on the Liebenfels except for three things which made it harder—the Frauenfels was in deeper water; she had two holes blasted in her, one forward and one aft, which meant twice as much patching under water; and Brown’s crew, including Brown himself, weren’t what they used to be, while one of his three divers, Wiard, was now on a shore job with the contractor.