A Funny Place to Hold a War

by John Harris

  ‘He’ll be lucky to survive the night,’ Greeno said. ‘Let’s have the best speed we can.’

  Morgan paused as he dragged on his shirt. ‘What’s wrong with him, anyway?’ he asked.

  ‘Burst appendix, I suspect. He’ll be lucky if he makes it. He was just conscious enough to talk to me. He’d had a pain in his belly for some time and it had moved down towards the ileac fossa. At first I thought it was plain appendicitis but the pain had become much worse and now it’s diffused. All the signs. It seems he tried to carry on too long…’

  ‘Doing what?’ Molyneux rapped.

  The doctor was silent for a moment then he shrugged. ‘Whatever he was doing. Those chaps ashore said he managed to talk a bit before he lost consciousness and he told them he’d slipped over the border from French territory to join the Free French. He thought he might be welcome. Whatever it was, he should have reported sick long since. I think he’s left it too late.’ Greeno frowned. ‘He’s also got first-degree burns on his hands.’

  ‘Burnt hands and a burst appendix?’ Molyneux said. ‘They don’t seem to go together, do they? Especially in a Frenchman trying to join the Free French.’

  The unconscious man was muttering again and Morgan bent over him, frowning, his ear close to his lips.

  ‘Give him air, padre,’ Greeno said.

  ‘I’m trying to catch what he’s saying.’

  Molyneux was examining the sick man’s possessions, half-hoping they might disclose something dramatic. But they consisted of little else but a webbing pack containing spare socks, a towel and toilet materials. ‘Well,’ he pointed out slowly, ‘his papers say he’s French.’

  He was frowning deeply and Greeno looked at him. ‘Think he might not be?’ he asked.

  ‘I’m wondering, Molyneux admitted. ‘Especially as the site manager was telling me they’ve just had a couple of their machines damaged by what he felt was sabotage.’

  Greeno looked startled. ‘Who do his papers say he is?’

  ‘Paul-Marie Weiler, born in Mulhouse, Alsace, working as a mechanic at Kissidougou. There’s also a slip to say he served his period of conscription in the French Engineers in 1939 and 1940.’ Molyneux looked up sharply. ‘Doc, when he told you about the pain in his belly, how did he do it? In what language?

  Greeno looked puzzled. ‘Oddly enough, in English.’

  ‘A Frenchman who speaks English. Here in Lungi? Where he shouldn’t be? Isn’t it a bit odd?’

  Morgan straightened up from the muttering, half-conscious man, a curious expression on his face. ‘It might be odder than you think,’ he said flatly. ‘Because, at the moment, he’s speaking German.’

  Seven

  As the seaplane tender, returning through the early morning mist hanging over the river, turned into Jum creek, it ran straight into a new panic.

  Molyneux, Greeno and the padre were lolling in a doze in the cabin where, despite all their efforts, the man from Lungi had died before they had even reached Freetown. Ginger was curled up in the well-deck, and Feverel and Kneller were somehow managing to sleep on the hatches above the roaring diesels. It was Bates’ startled shout that brought them all to their feet, and they saw him pointing through the veils of mist to where they could just make out one of Mackintosh’s Sunderlands stranded on the mud at the entrance to the creek, her port wing canted up in the air, the big letter M on her side catching the early light. Immediately, Molyneux knew it was another in the chapter of strange incidents that was plaguing the base.

  The crews of the pinnace and a dinghy were struggling to stop the aircraft slipping off the mud into the water and they were all cursing, blinded with sweat and covered with black mangrove slime. The pilot was standing in the forward hatch and the rest of the crew were on the wing, apart from the flight engineer who appeared to have been doing aircraft guard duty and was in the dinghy with Mackintosh and almost in tears.

  ‘What the hell’s happening?’ Molyneux demanded as they slipped in under the huge wing.

  ‘The bloody thing’s sinking,’ Mackintosh snarled. ‘We’re trying to keep her on the mud until we’ve got C-Charlie off the slip and she can go on in her place at high tide.’ He wiped a muddy hand across his face to remove the sweat. ‘How about giving us a lift to the jetty? She’ll be all right now, I think.’

  As they headed for the base, Mackintosh filled in the details. ‘I was asleep when the panic button was pressed,’ he said. ‘About two o’clock in the morning. The duty coxswain telephoned the mess. I got the crew down to the base and Hobbie got the pinnace on the job. Just in time, too.’

  At the jetty, sending the land crabs and mud hoppers scattering from under the resounding planks for their holes in the mud, he set off for his office at a furious pace that indicated the temper he was in, the flight engineer almost running behind. As the questioning started, Molyneux leaned on the door jamb, I smoking, his face taut and narrow with his thoughts.

  The flight engineer insisted no one had boarded M-Mother and he had been sleeping when he had heard a sharp report. He had thought the guard on one of the other aircraft had his revolver with him and had fired at a crocodile or something.

  ‘You were a long way from the bank, sport,’ Mackintosh snapped. ‘And crocodiles don’t normally operate in the middle of the river.’

  ‘No, sir,’ the flight engineer agreed. ‘But I couldn’t think of anything else. I had a look round but there were no marine craft nearby…’

  ‘Native canoes?’

  ‘The duty coxswain saw none,’ Hobson said.

  ‘Neither did I, sir,’ the engineer went on. ‘But it was a dark night and a black skin on a dark night’s hard to spot. I decided it wasn’t important because it had come from outside. But then I heard water and realized she was filling up. The hole wasn’t very big – the noise I heard wasn’t very big either – but it was letting in water, in gallons. I stuffed it up with a wooden plug wrapped in a towel and flashed the pierhead with the Aldis. The pinnace managed to get her nose on the mud.’

  A lot of people missed their breakfast as the hangar crew were called out, and C-Charlie was put into the water, her service only half-finished. M-Mother, the hole plugged, her pumps going and watched on either side by dinghies, was towed at full speed to the slip. Warrant Officer Hacker, up to his knees in water, was examining the hull even before she left the river.

  Molyneux and Mackintosh stood on the ramshackle jetty outside Hobson’s office, watching as the slipway crew worked.

  ‘Anything heard of A-Apple?’ Molyneux asked.

  ‘The navy’s got their diver down now,’ Hobson said.

  Molyneux looked at Mackintosh. ‘I don’t know who’s behind all this,’ he said. ‘African nationalists, disaffected airmen or what. But from now on my aircraft guards will not only carry weapons but will also stay awake.’

  The telephone went and Hobson snatched it up through the open window of his office. As it clattered he handed it to Mackintosh who leaned forward abruptly, listening. ‘You sure?’ he said.

  There was a moment’s silence then he nodded. ‘Well, that gives the AOC something to chew on,’ he said.

  As he put the telephone back on the rest he looked at the others.

  ‘The navy’s got her up,’ he said. ‘The diver says there’s a bloody great hole in the hull at just about the point where it breasts the water on take-off.’

  A-Apple, it seemed, had torn open her hull on a floating log and that was that. Floating logs were an occupational hazard with flying boats. Ship’s timbers, fallen overboard or drifting in from some torpedoing in the Atlantic, had caused more than one sinking in places like Calshot, Stranraer, Mount Batten and Lough Erne back in Blighty, and with the flying boats in Africa using all sorts of strange stretches of water, from the lagoon at Langebaan in the south, Santa Lucia Bay close to the border of Portuguese East, Takoradi, Bathurst and Jum, which wasn’t a bay anyway but a river, accidents were bound to increase. Here, where the lagoon was fed by fast-flowing
streams which widened waterfalls and washed away bridges, the rainy season occasionally brought down whole huge trees, and some of them – old half-submerged ones blackened by long soaking and with their branches worn to stubs – were hard to spot in the dark.

  Not entirely convinced, Hobson gave instructions that the whole stretch of water was to be thoroughly searched and allocated the pinnace, two dinghies and the mooring party in Scow 14 to the job. He was a little worried that he and his section would be accused of carelessness or indifference.

  None of what the pinnace, the dinghies and Scow 14 brought in, however, was big enough to hole a Sunderland and Hobson began to feel a little better. But he was still not satisfied and, worried they hadn’t searched far enough, he personally took the pinnace as far as Freetown for another search. There was still nothing.

  The AOC arrived that evening. He was a brisk man and he wasted no time. He let it be known that while he was worried about the accident rate he blamed nobody.

  ‘There seems to be something wrong with our bloody aircraft these days,’ he said. ‘Five, isn’t it, in six months? To say nothing of one up in Bathurst and one in Takoradi. London’s wanting to know what the hell’s happening.’

  ‘If they came out here, sir, and looked for themselves,’ Molyneux said gently, ‘they might understand. We still haven’t got split pins for the mooring swivels.’

  ‘Haven’t those bloody things arrived yet?’ the AOC growled. ‘How do you manage?’

  ‘Four-inch nails, sir. At least the marine section changes them regularly.’

  ‘We need better than that,’ the AOC growled. ‘I suppose by the time the war’s over, this place will finally be organized. It’s a bit like Topsy. It just growed without much thought for sanitation, comfort or anything.

  ‘As for replacements…’ the AOC paused for a moment before continuing ‘…we’re not likely to get much from England for a while. They’re too concerned with the Middle East. Everything that works, everything that lives and breathes, in fact, is being sent there. When they pass this place it’ll be the most important convoy that’s ever left England. With what it’ll contain, we could knock the Germans out of Africa for good. Without it, we might lose the whole Middle East. I want a clamp-down on carelessness or indifference.’

  ‘There’s not much wrong with my chaps, sir,’ Molyneux said.

  ‘Hangar?’

  ‘First rate, sir.’

  ‘That’s what Mackintosh said. How about the marine section? Are they supporting you properly?’

  ‘I’m not only satisfied, sir, I’d go so far as to say they’re very good. They’re a funny lot, sir – neither fish nor fowl nor good red herring. They don’t like being associated with ordinary people and I’m inclined to let them be. Independence of spirit’s a good thing if it’s accompanied by efficiency.’

  The AOC frowned. ‘The navy’s talking about enemy agents, but perhaps that’s because they don’t want to admit carelessness at Giuru.’

  Molyneux described the precautions that had been taken and the AOC nodded and drew the interview to a close. ‘Well, I want very tight security,’ he said. ‘I want everybody on the top line and I want every aircraft brought into service – and kept in service! We can expect soon to learn dates. I was half-hoping for a few American Liberators at Lungi but they’re fully occupied with the North Atlantic and West Africa’s always the last place anybody thinks of.’

  The following morning, Colonel Cazalet, of Security, appeared outside Mackintosh’s door while he was discussing the latest disaster with Molyneux. He was immaculately dressed and looked so cool, so distant from disaster, Molyneux found himself wondering resentfully how the hell he did it.

  ‘Hear you’ve been havin’ a bit of trouble,’ he said. ‘Aeroplanes and all that.’

  Molyneux looked at Mackintosh.

  ‘How did you know?’ Mackintosh demanded.

  ‘My job to know,’ Cazalet said. ‘Quite a casualty list, isn’t it?’

  They admitted it was. ‘This bloody place seems to be accident-prone,’ Mackintosh growled.

  Cazalet blinked. ‘If they are accidents,’ he said.

  Mackintosh scowled. ‘And what precisely do you mean by that?’ he growled.

  Cazalet blinked again. ‘Thought of sabotage?’ he asked.

  ‘Should we?’

  ‘Might be a good idea.’

  Mackintosh’s eyes narrowed. He had an Australian’s dislike for languid Englishmen and Cazalet seemed to have a gift for not saying everything that was in his mind.

  ‘What are you getting at, sport?’ he demanded brusquely.

  Cazalet wasn’t the slightest bit put out by his tone. ‘Remember that strip cartoon before the war?’ he asked. ‘Kids’ thing: Pip, Squeak and Wilfred. Chap in it went around planting bombs.’

  ‘You think it might be bombs?’

  Cazalet smiled. ‘Not that sort, of course. They were round like a cannon ball with a fuse sendin’ off sparks. I’m thinking of a small charge placed where it might do a lot of damage. A Catalina’s wing’s got quite an overhang aft of the pylon.’

  ‘You’ve done your homework,’ Molyneux growled.

  Cazalet shrugged. ‘Good place to put it,’ he said. ‘Wouldn’t be spotted and it’s close to the petrol tanks and the fuel feed lines.’

  ‘You think my Sunderlands were done that way?’ Mackintosh asked.

  Cazalet shrugged. ‘Can’t tell. Probably something a bit cleverer, because yours were later and you’ve been taking precautions.’

  ‘Nice of you to say so. You jokers down at headquarters must be bloody busy working out conclusions like that.’

  Cazalet held up his hand in protest. ‘Just my job, that’s all. Been makin’ a few inquiries for some time. Something was probably attached to them.’

  ‘It wouldn’t be magnetic. Magnets don’t stick to aluminium.’

  ‘Other things do.’

  ‘The bastard who did M-Mother would have had to get away pretty smartly.’ Mackintosh’s temper was still working on a short fuse.

  ‘No problem at all,’ Cazalet said. ‘Such a thing as time pencils. Tube with acid in. Acid eats away the wire that sets off the detonator. Gives a chap time to get clear. Developed by the soft-shoe boys who go ashore in enemy territory. Italians used them when they fixed charges underneath Queen Elizabeth and Valiant in Alexandria harbour. They’d actually picked ’em up from the water and put ’em ashore when the charges went off.’

  ‘I hadn’t heard of that.’

  ‘You wouldn’t have, would you? Not many people did, because they compensated the list in Queen Elizabeth by flooding the opposite compartments so that any German aircraft that came for a look-see would report her still upright, and the admiral went on living on board as if nothing had happened. Even had a photograph taken of the hoisting of the colours, complete with guard and band and the admiral himself on the quarterdeck, especially for the foreign press. She’s been out of action for months but they’ve been keeping the Eyeties who did it incommunicado and so far nothing’s leaked out. They did it with some sort of submersible motor boat and diving suits. If they could do it there, they could do it here.’

  ‘With a submersible motor boat?’

  Cazalet smiled. ‘Something a bit less sophisticated than that, shouldn’t wonder,’ he said. ‘After all, everything here’s a bit less sophisticated than anywhere else, isn’t it? Suppose he was already in the camp.’

  ‘One of our chaps?’

  ‘Didn’t say that! But it isn’t hard to get inside a camp surrounded on three sides by water, is it? Might even have walked through the gate. As we’ve just decided, things out here aren’t as sophisticated as they are elsewhere. Goes for camp security, too, perhaps?’

  Mackintosh and Molyneux eyed each other silently.

  ‘He must be still here then,’ Molyneux said.

  ‘Doubt it. They don’t work like that. He’d get away by river. Swimmin’. They’d pick him up.’

&nbs
p; ‘It’d be bloody chancy,’ Mackintosh said.

  ‘Sabotage’s a chancy business.’

  ‘Did he cause those explosions at Lungi?’ Molyneux asked.

  ‘Could have. He could have been picked up by boat and put ashore on the opposite side of the river to cross to Mamo where there could be another boat to take him to Pepel. From there he could get to Lungi easy. It’s less than thirty miles. That chap you picked up there, shouldn’t wonder. I’ve seen his papers. They’re dud.’

  ‘Where are they operating from?’

  ‘That’s somethin’ I’d like to know.’

  ‘It would need some organization.’

  ‘What makes you think they haven’t got an organization? I heard that chap you picked up was speaking German.’

  ‘That’s what the padre said.’

  ‘Is he good at German?’

  ‘He’s an expert. He was in Munich at the time of the Nazi Party rallies. He entertains the mess from time to time with imitations of the bastards he met there.’

  ‘How about me having a word with him?’

  The padre arrived within five minutes of Molyneux’ telephone call. He hadn’t changed his mind. ‘He was speaking German,’ he said.

  ‘His papers said he was an Alsatian,’ Molyneux pointed out. ‘Don’t they speak German in Alsace?’

  The padre frowned. ‘Not the sort of German he was speaking. He had a north German accent. He was from Hamburg or somewhere like that.’

  ‘Could you tell anything he said?’ Cazalet asked.

  ‘He seemed to be talking about ships. He mentioned “Flugboote” – which is “flying boats” and something about, “Es liegen sehr viele Schiffe im Hafen.” That means, “the harbour’s crowded with shipping.”’

  Molyneux frowned. ‘What,’ he asked, ‘would an Alsatian whose home’s about as far from the sea as you can get in Europe and whose papers say he’d been living at Kissidougou, which is a hundred miles inside French Guinea, be doing talking in German about ships?’