Dust Clouds of War

by John Wilcox

  She moved quickly to the writing table and began scribbling on a cable form, addressing it, as usual, to the foreign editor of the Morning Post, Fleet Street, London. Then she tucked the cable into an envelope but did not seal it. Looking down from her first-floor landing, she was glad to see that the treacherous clerk was on duty down at the hotel desk.

  Picking up the envelope, she walked slowly down the stairs, pulling down a strand of hair to let it fall, languidly across her brow. She smiled at the clerk and put a hand to her brow.

  ‘I wonder if you could do me a favour?’ she asked.

  ‘Of course, madam.’

  ‘I think I have caught a touch of the sun and am feeling rather unwell and very tired.’ She held up the envelope. ‘This is a most important cable I wish to send to my newspaper back in England and it should go to the army censor’s office without delay. You know where that is?’

  ‘Oh yes, madam. Quite near.’

  ‘Quite so. Good. Could you arrange for someone to deliver it to the staff sergeant on duty there? I am afraid I am too unwell to take it myself.’ She discreetly passed over a ten-shilling note. ‘Get someone you can trust to take it, for it is most important. I must go back to my room to lie down.’

  ‘Of course, madam. It shall be done right away. Would you like tea in your room?’

  ‘No, thank you. I wish to sleep and not to be disturbed.’

  ‘Very well, madam. It shall be done.’

  Slowly Alice climbed back up the stairs, pausing at the stairhead to look behind her. Yes, the clerk was on the house telephone. Good, the plot was in motion. Then, she hurried past her room, hung a ‘do not disturb’ sign on the door handle and then slipped down the back stairs, out into the alleyway and walked quickly to the censor’s office.

  The staff sergeant was still on duty. She quickly explained to him that a communication from her to London would shortly be delivered but that it should not be censored or transmitted. He frowned but Alice gripped his hand. ‘Staff,’ she said in a low voice. ‘I am working for Brigadier Lawrence now. All will be explained to you in due course, but do not, I repeat, do not, mention any of this to your staff captain. He will hear soon enough.

  ‘Oh, and I shall be returning Mr de Villiers’s cable to you very shortly. Let it be submitted to your Afrikaner translator for censoring and transmission in the normal way. Staff,’ she leant forward. ‘Treachery is afoot and these are important moments. Say nothing to anyone, not even your captain. Do you understand?’

  His jaw sagging, he nodded. ‘Whatever you say, Miss. Whatever you say.’

  She hurried on back to Army HQ and was immediately shown into Lawrence’s office.

  ‘We have changed the cable, Miss Griffith,’ he said, handing it to her. ‘We should let it go now. But you mentioned a plan. What is it?’

  ‘Thank you, Brigadier. Yes it’s pretty straightforward. This is what I propose. I have concocted a story – a fake cable from me to my office – which tells of a move by General Smuts to outmanoeuvre von Lettow-Vorbeck south of Kahe by pretending to attack the town full on but diverting most of his troops to the south to take the Germans in a pincer movement as van Deventer moves up. To give the story some validity to de Villiers, I have hinted that my informant is my husband, who is with Smuts and scouting for him. De Villiers will know this and has long suspected that Simon has been feeding me confidential information.’

  ‘Hmm. How will the South African get the story?’

  ‘The clerk at the hotel where the press are all staying is in de Villiers’s pay. I pretended that I have a touch of the sun and asked the clerk to send the story to the office to be censored. But he will, of course, show it to de Villiers, who, I am sure, will incorporate it into his next cable.’

  ‘Yes, but how do you propose to catch him red-handed, so to speak?’

  ‘If you can give me two soldiers – military policemen will be ideal – who can be hidden away in the censor’s office, in disguise as clerks, say, we can arrest de Villiers as he hands his story over for censorship. The story in his hand will be sufficient evidence to convict him. And I would like to be there when it happens.’

  ‘Very well. That seems straightforward. I will see to it. Now you had better get his original story back to the office. I want my own “amendments” to his story to be sent off to Pretoria to mislead our Teutonic friends.’ He grinned impishly. ‘You are not the only one to play games, my dear Miss Griffith. Let’s catch them both ways.’

  ‘Indeed, sir.’

  Alice took the altered cable and hurried with it back to the censor’s office. ‘This can be censored now, in the normal way, and released, Staff,’ she ordered. ‘No one is to know I have intercepted it.’

  ‘Very good, madam.’

  ‘Now, has a new cable from me to my office been delivered to you from my hotel yet?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Good. Now, Brigadier Lawrence will shortly be sending round to you two military policemen, who will pretend to be clerks working here in this office. Let them pretend to be working, but they will actually be here to make an arrest – Mr de Villiers. I want to be here when this happens. Is there a little room, say round the back, where I can wait for a while?’

  ‘Yes, our supper room. But the captain’s not here yet.’

  ‘That doesn’t matter. The fewer people who are involved in this the better. Let me go and sit in there and wait. This may take some time.’

  ‘Very well.’ The staff sergeant tugged at his moustache. ‘I wish I knew what the bloody ’ell was goin’ on, Miss. But I suppose you know what you are doing?’

  ‘I hope so, too. Show me the way.’

  The MPs arrived quickly. Burly men who had changed their tunics, with their chevrons, for plain, clerks’ jackets. It was some time, however, before de Villiers put in an appearance, which made Alice edgy. But she realised that he would have had to write a new story, incorporating a new German passage embedded into it, and this would take time.

  At last, however, as she peered around the open door of the inner office, she saw the tall, bearded figure of Herman de Villiers walking up the slope towards the entrance to the censor’s office. He walked with the indolent grace of a bushman, a slim, tall, fit man striding along, his step light and springy, seemingly without a care in the world. ‘Your man is approaching,’ Alice hissed to the two ‘clerks’. ‘Arrest him as soon as I identify him by name. Be alert now.’

  Looking about him carefully, de Villiers walked through the door, a cable in his hand. Alice chose that moment to appear from the inner office, lift up the flap on the counter and walk toward the South African.

  ‘Ah,’ she said, ‘Mr de Villiers. How good to see you. Have you come to file another story you stole from me?’

  ‘What?’

  Alice turned towards the MPs. ‘This is your man. Take him now!’

  Immediately, de Villiers seized Alice, swung her round and threw her towards the gap in the counter so that she collided with the two men as they tried to move forward. The first fell to the ground, Alice on top of him, but the second, with great presence of mind, attempted to vault the counter. Unfortunately, his boot caught on the top of the counter, which sent him sprawling backwards.

  De Villiers turned and ran through the doorway and down the hill with all the speed and agility of a veldt springbuck, his long legs pumping.

  ‘Ah blast!’ cried Alice. ‘He’s got away. After him! He mustn’t escape. After him!’

  The portly nature of the two military policemen, which gave them such an air of command on patrol, alas, did nothing for them now. Scrambling to their feet, their faces red, they made for the door. But de Villiers, with a ground-consuming stride, was out of sight before the soldiers could push through the narrow doorway, disappearing around a bend in the pathway below them.

  ‘Oh, for God’s sake, don’t let him get away,’ screamed Alice. ‘He’s a German spy. After him. After him!’

  She herself ran after the MPs and, i
n fact, soon caught them up as they paused at the bottom of the hill, gasping and gazing at the empty path before them.

  ‘He must have gone up that side street there,’ shouted Alice. ‘One of you go that way. The other follow me.’

  But there was no sight of the Afrikaner. It was as though he had disappeared into thin air – or, more likely, into the myriad backstreets of downtown Mombasa.

  ‘Follow me back to my hotel,’ shouted Alice. ‘I doubt if he has returned there but you need to make one more arrest and we need to search his room. Come quickly, now.’

  The three stormed into the lobby. The ferret-like clerk was there, his narrow eyes widening as they approached the desk. ‘That man there,’ said Alice, ‘arrest him. But first,’ she leant across the counter, ‘Give me the key to de Villiers’s room.’

  ‘Oh, I can’t do that, madam,’ he began.

  Alice drew back her hand and slapped him hard across the face, so that he staggered back. ‘You are already under arrest,’ she shouted. ‘These men are military policemen and we have a warrant to search his room. Don’t you dare delay me any further. Give me his key.’

  Jaw sagging and holding his cheek, the clerk gave her the key. ‘Good. Now, Constable, take this man into custody.’ Then to the other, ‘Come with me. We need to search the room and take whatever evidence we can find.’

  She leant across and picked up the desk telephone and rattled the cradle. ‘Operator, put me through immediately to Army Headquarters in Mombasa. Quickly now.

  ‘Yes, hello. I wish to speak to Brigadier Lawrence urgently. It is Miss Griffith calling.’ She tapped her fingers impatiently while she waited. Then: ‘Brigadier. The bloody man got away. Slipped away like an eel and disappeared into the backstreets of Mombasa, where, no doubt, he has accomplices who will give him protection. Is there anything you can do to stop him leaving the city, do you think?’

  ‘Give me his description now and I will do my best. I doubt if we will find him. He might go upcountry or, more likely, find a boat to take him to Dar es Salaam in German country. I will alert the naval authorities. I have already set in train the arrest of their man here in our censor’s office and the subeditor on the Pretorian newspaper. As I understand it, we managed to get our fake message back to the paper before startling the fox, so to speak, so perhaps we’ve been able to cause some confusion amongst von Lettow-Vorbeck’s staff. Now, the description, if you please.’

  Alice described de Villiers as best she could. As she finished, she said: ‘Brigadier, I am so sorry we let him escape. It was undoubtedly my fault for wishing to be there to gloat when he was arrested. Revenge is never sweet, you know. It’s a fallacy.’

  Lawrence grunted at the end of the line. ‘Do not blame yourself, dear lady. You found the scoundrel in our midst, you baited the trap perfectly, we failed to snap it shut, I fear. We must give our military policemen more exercise. Now, do search the room thoroughly – I will send you another couple of chaps, skilled in this sort of work, and make sure we pick up everything that might condemn him. We might have a court case on our hands and we will need to convict him properly. Thank you, again, madam.’

  ‘Thank you, Brigadier. You are very kind.’

  Alice joined the MP who was scouring the room. When the other two men arrived, she decided to leave. She had much to think about.

  Lying back on her bed in her hot little room, she mulled over the events of the day. Well, at least they had dug out the spy and spies in their midst. Presumably, Lawrence would inform Smuts immediately and, perhaps, some credit might accrue to her account. Like all generals, it was known that Smuts, for all his legal training and democratic leanings, was not overly fond of the press, keeping his plans close to his chest and refusing to meet the correspondents fretting around the fringes of his headquarters here in Mombasa. And yet … and yet … An idea began to form in her mind. General or not, Smuts was very much a politician now, and anxious to impress the Cabinet members fighting the war back home. The Morning Post was undoubtedly a true-blue Tory supporter and, perhaps because of Alice’s coolly impartial reporting from the front in Africa, it generally cast an approving eye on the African campaign. But, despite Tighe’s recent success at the nek, it must be apparent that things weren’t going completely Smuts’s way. She had heard that the South African was not without vanity. He could do with some good press back home.

  Frowning, Alice drew a piece of Morning Post-headed paper towards here, scribbled her Mombasa address at the top and began to write:

  My Dear General,

  Alas, we have not met, but perhaps you may know that I have been reporting on the German East African campaign for my newspaper, the London Morning Post, since the war began. I feel we have done our best to give an accurate account of the events of the campaign so far.

  In the last few days, I have been able to carry out work that has led to the unmasking of a German spy amongst the ranks of the correspondents reporting on the war here from Mombasa and, indeed, others working in the censor’s office here and, from back in Pretoria, supplying vital information to von Lettow-Vorbeck in German colonial Africa. Brigadier Lawrence knows about this and will, no doubt, have already informed you of the details.

  I need no reward for merely doing my duty and am happy to have been of assistance – although sorry that, at the last moment, the spy, Herman de Villiers, was able to escape. Efforts are in hand to apprehend him as I write this.

  I am writing to you, however, on another matter. My newspaper is anxious to give our readers – who, I might add, are among the best-informed in Britain, including many members of government – a balanced view of the man who is leading our, and South African, troops fighting the Germans in this hugely difficult terrain.

  To this end, would you please consider granting me permission to visit you at your headquarters in the field and allow me to interview you? Obviously, anything I write will be subject to the usual military censorship, although I flatter myself that, after covering from the front line the fighting in the Anglo–Zulu War of 1879, the campaigns that followed in Egypt, the Sudan, the first Anglo–Boer War and, of course, the second, plus the uprising of the Pathan Rebellion in the nineties and the British mission to Tibet under Colonel Younghusband, I can claim to possess skills that ensure that I impart no secrets or covert forms of encouragement to the enemy.

  On a personal note, perhaps I should add that my husband, Simon Fonthill, is now working for you with his two comrades between the lines as a scout. It would be a wonderful blessing to me, having been apart from him for a month or more now, if, in visiting you, it enabled me to share a few moments with him.

  Please forgive the intrusion on your valuable time, but I look forward to hearing from you.

  With respect and most sincerely,

  Alice Griffith (my professional name)

  She read it through carefully and then sealed it and addressed the envelope. Then she settled down to write to Simon and tell him all the happenings of the last few days. On reflection, she decided not to reveal her approach to Smuts. Oh wonderful, to arrive out of the blue and surprise him! If her luck held, that is …

  A reply came from Smuts surprisingly quickly. It read:

  After the remarkable service you have rendered to us in unmasking what I can only call a spy network in Mombasa and Pretoria, it would be churlish of me, my dear Miss Griffith, to refuse your request. In fact, perhaps now would be the best time for you to venture into the field, for we are forced at the moment to rest and recoup as a result of the heavy rains that afflict us.

  I shall give instructions to Brigadier Lawrence as to my precise whereabouts and ask him to arrange for your transport here. Do bring a raincoat!

  Alas, I cannot send you the best wishes and love of your husband because he is currently out in the bush, where he and his old comrades continue to render me valuable service. But I can assure you that, as of this time of writing, they are all perfectly safe.

  I have been a devoted reader of y
our writings from the days when your troops pursued me from pillar to post in the last war between our nations and it will be a delight to make your acquaintance at last, dear lady.

  With every good wish,

  Sincerely,

  J. Smuts, General

  Alice hugged herself with delight. An exclusive interview with the commander-in-chief and a possibility – just a possibility – to see her dear husband after all these weeks. What joy!

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  The next couple of days became of whirl of activity for Alice. A warrant arrived for her rail journey to the Taveta railhead at the old border with German East Africa – similar to the journey Simon, Jenkins and Mzingeli had taken about a month before. At Taveta, she was met by a young captain of the South African Horse – Smuts’s influence was already being exerted in the ranks of the staff, she noticed – and a horse and buggy took her and her few belongings into the bush towards where the British and South African armies were grouped on the outskirts of Kahe, still held by the Germans.

  It was, inevitably, raining as she penetrated the fringes of the Allied forces, but she looked around her with great interest. Alice was far from unfamiliar with the smells, sights and sounds of an army in the field, but it had been some time since she had seen such a gathering.

  The first thing she noticed was the disparity of uniforms on display, although in the humidity and general wetness of the climate smartness had been allowed to lapse in favour of comfort, with mufflers tucked under chins and oilskins thrown over the uniforms. Nevertheless, she noted the wide-brimmed hats of the South Africans, one side of the brim pinned up to show their colonial origins, contrasted with the pith helmets of the British, the little green pillboxes of the Gurkhas and the turbans of the Pujabis. Mud was underfoot everywhere and the soggy dampness of the clothing seemed to exude steam, matched by that which rose from the horse lines, where the poor beasts stood in rows in silent misery.