by John Harris
During the morning, Obergefreiter Pfitzner produced coffee, something that hadn’t happened for some time because of the shortage of coffee beans, and he hovered round Magda with his tray, breathing heavily, his eyes on her figure and legs. Heidegger watched him coldly. It was part of Pfitzner’s job to buy food and it had been noticed that he always took his time, returning later than he should. Despite his look of evil, he was a handsome enough man, strong and with good features, who claimed to be able to get any woman he wanted. He had been a steward on the Bremen before the war and Heidegger had once heard him boasting of his conquests among the first-class passengers. He’d been in and out of French ports a lot, picking up a facility in the language and a habit of smoking French cigarettes, and claimed he had learned his technique with women from the French pimps in Marseilles.
Aware of the danger, he had warned Pfitzner about his behaviour but the petty officer had stood in front of him at attention, his face blank, his eyes masked, giving nothing away. Heidegger had always accepted that his loyalty was first to Lorenz but now, with the arrival of Magda Fallada, he was doubtful even about that.
When the group broke up, Magda Fallada was complaining of the heat. Arriving at the door of the hut she’d been given, she found Pfitzner waiting.
‘Thought you might like an iced drink,’ he suggested.
‘That would be very pleasant. But not now.’
‘It won’t take a minute. I’ll knock on your door.’
‘I’m going to shower.’
Pfitzner’s smile came. ‘Nothing better than a cold drink under the shower, Fräulein,’ he said. ‘I can pass it to you. I’ll not look.’
She gave him an icy stare. ‘I’d rather you went away,’ she said.
Pfitzner was still arguing when Lorenz appeared. ‘What do you want?’ he demanded.
‘Just asking if Fräulein Fallada would like a cold drink,’ Pfitzner said smoothly.
‘He’s being a nuisance,’ Magda grated. ‘I’d be glad if you’d get rid of him.’
Lorenz turned to Pfitzner. ‘Clear off, Pfitzner,’ he snapped.
‘Obergefreiter Pfitzner, sir.’
Lorenz scowled. Having travelled with Pfitzner as a civilian across Occupied France, he had listened to his stories and bought him drinks. Perhaps he had allowed the easy manner to go too far and Pfitzner was taking advantage of it, treating him differently from the other officers – a little more familiar, a few too many smiles. It seemed to be time to bring him up sharply.
‘Away you go, Pfitzner,’ he said. ‘And don’t bother Fräulein Fallada again!’
Pfitzner gave him a sour smile. ‘I bet you won’t go,’ he said quietly.
‘That’ll be enough of that. Remember I’m an officer.’
Pfitzner was unperturbed. ‘And I know why you were sent here’ he said. ‘One of your duties is to watch Heidegger. Well, let me inform you, Herr Leutnant, that one of my duties is to watch you.’
Lorenz had realized this all along. ‘Push off, Pfitzner ‘he snapped, and stepped through the door where the woman had disappeared, closing it firmly in Pfitzner’s face. As he turned away, Pfitzner’s eyes were glowing with anger.
Every man in Boina was eager to be with Magda Fallada but because of their duties most of them had little opportunity and Lorenz was leading the field.
She was something to relieve the tedium of West Africa, he decided, and was built for it, too, and the fact that she made no attempt to repulse him convinced him that he wouldn’t have to try too hard. The Tropics affected women as much as men and he ran his tongue over his lips as he watched her moving about.
‘What are you thinking?’ As he caught her eyes on him, amused and interested, he jumped to attention.
‘I wouldn’t have thought I’d have needed to tell you that,’ he said.
She smiled. ‘Perhaps it’s a good job I’m not staying too long. You’re a good-looking man.’
‘You’re good-looking yourself.’
‘This climate strips the body of surplus flesh. I have a better figure now than I’ve ever had.’
‘I wouldn’t mind running my hands over it.’
She stared at him mockingly. ‘You know where my hut is.’
He swallowed. ‘I have things to do,’ he said gruffly. ‘Things to organize. I have to leave Boina for a reconnaissance with Paul Willer. RAF security’s been tightened up and we need to find out a few things. But I’ll be back. Then there’ll be time to relax.’
She laughed. ‘I prefer more spontaneity,’ she said. ‘I don’t like being placed on the agenda for when time becomes available.’
When Lorenz returned, he drew Pfitzner to one side.
‘I want some whisky,’ he said. ‘No more than a few tots. What’s left of the bottle will do.’
Pfitzner frowned. ‘Whisky’s hard to get,’ he growled.
‘I’m entitled to my ration. You can knock it off that.’
Pfitzner stared back relentlessly. ‘Why is it an officer can chase women out here and a petty officer can’t?’
Lorenz turned. ‘Have a care what you say, Pfitzner.’
‘And you have a care what you say – sir!’ Pfitzner snapped back. ‘You might be starting something. I’ve been warned by the commanding officer to keep away from women. If it applies to me, it applies to you, too.’
Lorenz was wondering how to react, but he wasn’t sure of his ground and in the end he decided to let the disrespect pass. Carrying the bottle with the remains of the whisky, he strolled off through the darkness, trying to affect indifference. Reaching Magda’s quarters, he scratched at the door with his fingernail. It brought an immediate response.
‘Who is it?’
‘Me. Karl Lorenz. I’m back. Can I come in? I’ve managed to get hold of some of Pfitzner’s whisky.’
The door opened and he slipped inside.
‘I won’t turn on the lights,’ she said quietly.
‘Then we shan’t have to close the shutters. It’ll be cooler.’
There was still a moon and he found her hands and pulled her towards him. She didn’t resist and he felt her body against his.
‘I’m not sure it isn’t too hot for this sort of thing,’ she murmured.
‘It’s never too hot,’ Lorenz said.
‘I’ll bet you were a devil with the girls in Berlin.’
He didn’t say anything, allowing her to think what she wished. As he kissed her, her head went back and she sighed, leaning back in his arms. ‘We’ve got too many clothes on,’ she whispered.
Lorenz’ hand lifted to the opening of her shirt. As he undid the buttons, her lips parted and she gave a little gasp.
‘For God’s sake,’ she said abruptly. ‘Let’s stop behaving like children. All this damned fumbling and mumbling. We both know what we want. The temperature reduces you to the level of a bitch on heat.’
Snatching at their clothes, throwing them to the floor, they clutched each other in the semi-darkness and stumbled towards the bed, to fall on it with a twang of springs. The sound didn’t go unnoticed by Obergefreiter Pfitzner in the shadows outside.
Heidegger didn’t take twenty-four hours to become aware that Lorenz was visiting Magda Fallada’s hut.
He had deliberately given her the cabin next to his own, feeling she was safe there; but, late at night heading back to the office for a file he had left behind, he heard voices.
Abruptly, he realized he was jealous and in that moment that he hated Lorenz. It was ridiculous that he of all people should be so concerned, but the thought of the two of them together in bed, naked, perspiring, panting, made him think of his wife in Germany and he almost groaned aloud.
Every sailor knew the Tropics as the fornicating latitudes. When it was hot and the moon was huge, lonely men at sea always thought of the women they’d left behind. Once, years ago now, before he’d joined the Kriegsmarine and been only an apprentice in the merchant service, he’d been moved enough by the moon, the heat and his longing for wo
men to write a passionate letter to an old girlfriend he hadn’t seen for months. After he’d posted it, he’d been horrified by the things he’d put in it. It seemed he still wasn’t too old to be affected and, despite his wish to remain faithful to his wife both in thought and deed, the idea of Lorenz with Magda Fallada brought to his mind visions that were grotesque in their obscenity.
When he got the opportunity, he drew Lorenz to one side to warn him.
‘If I can see what’s going on,’ he said, ‘so can the others.’
Lorenz studied him with amused eyes. ‘You jealous, sir?’
The girl was sitting at the other side of the living quarters, listening to the gramophone played by Willer, who looked like an ardent young god. She was sitting back in her chair, her skirt pulled above her knees, and Heidegger could see her thighs, warm and soft and enticing. The sight made him swallow uncomfortably and he frowned because he was jealous.
‘Need you flaunt her?’ he asked.
Oh, it’s nothing.’ Lorenz was enjoying tormenting him, he knew. ‘We simply have the same political views. We discuss things a lot.’
As they were talking, the naval telegraphist who handled their radio traffic was busy over his set. As the thin cheeping of Morse stopped, he signed off, threw down his pencil and headed for Heidegger’s quarters. Heidegger examined the message carefully. It had come from the Beobachtungsdienst, and had been passed on by the Operationsabteilung Befelshaber der Unterseeboote. It was marked ‘München Blau’, which referred to U-boat positions, course changes and the sailing dates for convoys, and it told Heidegger exactly what he’d been expecting – that the British had been assembling convoys of men and materials for the Middle East – and gave dates, times of departure and projected courses.
He studied the signal then pulled forward a map. The area between Sierra Leone and Pernambuco in Brazil represented the narrowest portion of the Atlantic, the funnel through which, with the Mediterranean forbidden to them, all Allied Middle East convoys had to pass. If the Atlantic could be compared to a city, he thought, this was the one area where density of traffic could occur and U-boats strategically placed across it could do tremendous damage.
Because of its undeveloped state, he knew Freetown was not a satisfactory convoy assembly point or command head-quarters, yet since the fall of France and the loss to the Allies of Dakar and Casablanca, it had had to be used by the British because it was strategically well placed and no better base existed before Cape Town. Every supply ship and troop transport bound for the Middle East had to pass through the area and most had to call at Freetown for fuel, water and stores. Despite this, the whole South Atlantic Command at that period in time possessed only one destroyer flotilla, five sloops and some dozen serviceable corvettes, together with one or two armed merchant cruisers, anti-sub trawlers and small auxiliary vessels.
He glanced again at the signal. Wolf packs Bennigsen and Heydt are being moved into the area. You will give them every assistance by halting the aircraft which might impede them. Possible British might try to use Lungi field, at present incomplete. Up to you to do all you can to hinder them. It couldn’t have been plainer.
He sent for Lorenz and the two of them began to study the charts. Lungi, on the flat land across the river from Freetown, was being built to take the big American Liberators, which could fly there directly from the States but, though the field was not yet complete, there was always a possibility the British might push in something smaller to help the flying boats.
‘I’ll send Willer in again,’ Lorenz said. ‘He studied in London and Paris and can pass as English or French without trouble. For someone as pretty as he is, he’s remarkably efficient. He can do the job at Jum first.’
‘By boat as usual?’
‘Oh, no.’ Lorenz smiled confidently. ‘They’ve tightened their security since our last success. An RAF launch makes an hourly patrol during the night these days. He’ll have to get into the camp.’
‘Can he?’
‘There are lorries going in and out all the time, always full of men.’
‘…who need identity cards.’
‘There are ways of overcoming that. As I discovered at cadet school, and doubtless you did, too, sir.’
Heidegger acknowledged the point. ‘How does he get away from Jum?’
‘We’ve thought of that one, too.’ Lorenz smiled. ‘Willer’s a strong swimmer. We can have a canoe waiting down-tide for him. It’ll be fitted with shaded lights. We’ll put him across the river where he’ll be picked up and taken to Lungi. He knows what to take out. You can’t level a runway without diggers.’
‘It’s a lot for one man.’
‘Willer’s keen.’
‘Is he all right?’ Heidegger asked. ‘He’s looked ill for some time and I hear he’s been complaining of a pain in his abdomen. Perhaps we ought to have him looked at.’
‘Where?’ Lorenz demanded. ‘There’d be too many questions asked. He’ll have to take his chances like the rest of us.’
‘What’s his trouble exactly?’
‘Usual West African trots, I suppose. It’s nothing and I have everything set up. He’ll be driven to Kumrabai, if possible as far as Aku Town, and go the rest of the way on foot. There are no guards because Lungi’s not working yet and the place’s smothered with black and white labour. Nobody will question him. He can always get in touch with our man at Mahera along the coast if anything goes wrong. And if he’s in trouble we have a sympathizer at Gbabaj who’ll hide him. Witte and Johansen in Freetown are also in contact and when he’s finished he can hide with them. He could be useful. Witte reports there’s a mine and depth charge dump at Giuru that it’s possible to get inside.’
Heidegger frowned. Lorenz’ enthusiasm was wearing and he was beginning to wonder if the occasional destruction of a flying boat was the best method of completing his task. Despite their aircraft shortages, the RAF always seemed able to dredge up a new one from somewhere. It was beginning to seem, in fact, that when the expected convoys arrived the best way to prevent action against the U-boats was not to destroy the machines in ones and twos but to prevent the use of the whole station at Jum.
Calling for a map of the area, he sat down to study it. Pfitzner placed a cup of coffee alongside his elbow but he didn’t seem to notice his nod of thanks so that Heidegger wondered what was going through his head. Once thick as two thieves, he and Lorenz now hardly spoke.
Bending over the map, he studied the line of the Bunce and the five-mile-long lagoon where the flying boats were operating. The land on both sides was edged with mangrove swamps but here and there they narrowed where the higher land pushed into the river. Tracing his finger along the shore, he stopped at a point between Disp and Kumrabai. Machine guns at that point could command the take-off and landing area and the outside trots where the flying boats were moored. There were the remains of a native village there by the name of Minga – emptied of its inhabitants since the British had cleared the area to cut down the breeding grounds of the anopheles mosquito. It was now only a group of dilapidated mud and wattle huts on a spit of land with the remains of their little plots of cultivation and a few neglected banana and pawpaw plants. It would make a good base and two machine guns there could stop all flying from Jum.
Heidegger began to make notes. For the time being they would remain at Boina where they were safe and move down to Minga when they received news of the approach of the Middle East convoys. He looked at the map again. He was under no delusions that the British would not react quickly. Perhaps he needed somewhere stronger where he could hole up. His finger moved over the map again and stopped over the red spot that marked the Jan van der Pas Mining Company’s workings at Yima. There was a railway there which ran to Makinkundi on the Bunce and a clear means of retreat to the sea down the river Bic. He moved his notes and papers for a moment. The Maréchal Grouchy could be off the coast if they needed her. Her captain was in the pay of the German agent at Conakry and they could escape via the B
ic at night and be in Vichy French waters fifty miles to the north before the British realized they had gone.
He leafed through his code books for the name of the German agent at Conakry and began to draft a signal. For the first time he began to feel confident. The period of small enterprises was finished, he decided. They were going into the problem properly. With the flying boats grounded and the convoys largely destroyed, Rommel could move with safety in North Africa, through Syria into Iraq, Persia and Northern India. With the victorious German army still sweeping forward towards Stalingrad, the Russians would be in no position to stop them and the British had plenty of enemies in India who were itching for freedom.
He sat for a long time, lost in his thoughts, before he realized it had started raining again. It drummed and hissed outside, and a flash of lightning lit the tossing trees and the shuddering leaves of the undergrowth. A fly, caught in a spider’s web, buzzed in a useless attempt to release itself, the sound coming above the drumbeat of the downpour and the ragged drip-drip on the leaves alongside the hut.
He moved to the open window and stared out at the sliding shimmer of the rain. It blew in as mist to leave a damp patch on the floor and make his clothes clammy, but his mind was busy and he barely noticed.
He became aware of the damp at last and hurriedly shut the window, then he turned and stared at the charts again before slapping his hand down on them and calling for Pfitzner.
‘Pfitzner,’ he said. ‘Bring me a brandy.’
As Pfitzner vanished, he smiled to himself. It was amazing how much could hang on so little. A destroyed convoy off West Africa, lost because it lacked support from the air, could change the whole shape of the war.
