A Funny Place to Hold a War

by John Harris

  It had grown darker as she turned over her weary thoughts. As she heard the dinghy’s outboard start, she remembered Lorenz, but only dully, as if he were someone she had met in a nightmare. Then she heard the motor grow louder and heard scattered shooting and found herself praying that he had been killed.

  Still kneeling there, her thoughts leaden, she was just beginning to wonder what she could do to put right the great wrongs she had allowed when she became aware of a light moving among the trees that grew along the side of the basin. She stared at it for a while, wondering what it was, until slowly it penetrated her shocked intelligence that it must be one of the British airmen from Jum. Rising to her feet, almost as if she were another being watching herself, she began to move towards him.

  The man with the torch seemed to be struggling to move something heavy, and she could hear him panting as she stood near the dead Dutchmen, staring upwards, wondering whether to call out.

  On the lip of the land above, Kneller looked down into the water. The launch was behind the spit of land out of danger but he could attend to that later. The motor lighter could carry a good thirty men and here, above it, the bank had been cleared so that the African labourers could carry boxes and crates and drums up without them snagging on branches.

  It was difficult in the darkness to see what he was doing but, near the path that led down to the catamaran, he thought he saw something move in the shadows. Vaguely aware of a woman’s voice calling him as he pushed with his foot, he stopped dead, wondering who it was, and saw her below him to his right. But when he looked down, intending to check the depth charges, he saw it was too late. They were already rolling down the bank, bumping and leaping over small obstructions, until they disappeared from sight in the shadows below him, and with a yell he slithered down to the water’s edge and began to run along it to push the woman to safety.

  It had never occurred to him that the effect of the depth charges with their four hundred and fifty pounds of Torpex, falling into the narrow confines of the basin, would be different from the effect of a depth charge falling into open water where the blast could go downwards and spread outwards. Here, in the shallow water and contained by the high sides of the basin, the result was unbelievable.

  There was a glow and a terrific double jolt that seemed to shake the universe, then the river bed seemed to lift to meet him and he saw the piles supporting the overhanging boathouse snatched away by an invisible hand as the whole building collapsed. Almost as if in slow motion, it burst apart, planks and timbers flying outwards.

  A tree by the water’s edge fell with a crash and he saw the remains of the boat shed drop into the water in a ruin of splintered wood. The scow was also disintegrating in a welter of planks and pieces of iron and, faintly, he saw the launch, protected by the protruding bank, lift and roll. It bumped on the bottom as a whole tidal wave of water was swept away and a few moments later was lifted violently as the sea poured in to replace it and the water now floating through the air above his head in a cloud of misty spray.

  The explosion had lifted him towards the screaming woman. Flung into her arms, the two of them were carried onwards, clutching each other like lovers, before slamming against a tree. Around them, a roar like an incredible thunderstorm was going on and Kneller’s lungs emptied with a rush and a cry of protest burst from his lips. He tried to shout for help but his mouth seemed to be filled with sawdust and all he could get out was a cross between a sigh and a whisper. As the two of them huddled together, their arms round each other, things seemed to be dropping all round him and he was surrounded by a wet inky cloud. In one horrifying moment as the blast snatched at his clothes, the world seemed to have been jolted off its axis and, his head full of pain, he felt like a man voyaging through space.

  Seven

  The darkness had helped Lorenz, and he had managed to leave the mouth of the Bic in complete safety.

  For some time, he held the dinghy steadily out to sea. The Maréchal Grouchy was out there somewhere and he was making sure that he’d be aboard her. He felt in his pocket for the heavy rubber-covered torch he carried. He would need to signal well ahead or the waiting Frenchmen might well imagine it was a British attempt to board them.

  After a while, the outboard spluttered and died as the petrol ran out. Scrambling about the dinghy, he found a spare can and managed to slop most of it into the tank. It wasn’t easy without a funnel but the sea was like a millpond, with nothing but little ripples to stir the surface. As he wrenched at the toggle of the starting rope, the engine caught at once and he chugged further out to sea. He had a long way to go and he had no wish to have to row.

  Eventually, however, the engine began to run raggedly and finally it died. It was too hot to touch and he could only imagine it had seized up completely. Cursing, he reached for the oars. He was far enough now from the shore for safety but the Maréchal Grouchy was nowhere in sight and the moon had not yet risen. A few outriders of clouds darkened the sky and he cursed again, wondering where the Frenchmen had got to. He was almost in despair when he heard the gurgling of air bubbles and the gushing of water in the darkness.

  Swinging round, wondering what was happening, he was startled to see a submarine rising to the surface. He could only just make it out in the darkness and if it had been a little nearer, it would have risen under the dinghy. He laughed out loud. That would have been a splendid way to get aboard, he thought. Not even wet feet. He heard the clang as the hatchcover in the conning tower was thrown back and the rush of air into the boat, then he was reaching frantically for the torch.

  ‘SOS, SOS,’ he flashed, and almost immediately he heard German voices. A second later a searchlight came on, wavered a few feet from him then dropped on him, blinding him with its ice-blue light.

  ‘’S ist ein Beiboot,’ he heard someone say. ‘Ein Mann. Allein.’

  Grabbing the torch tighter. Lorenz began to signal again. ‘Deutscher Offizier. Deutscher Offizier.’

  There was a babble of voices then a different voice called to him.

  ‘Identify yourself.’

  ‘Leutnant Karl Lorenz. Vertrauensmann. Fernmeldeaufklärungskompanie, Freetown.’

  The searchlight went out and a smaller signalling lamp fell on Lorenz.

  ‘Come over here!’ he was ordered. ‘And no nonsense. You’re covered by a machine gun.’

  Almost hysterical with delight, Lorenz began to pull towards the stark black shape just visible in the spill from the beam of the signalling light. As the bow of the dinghy ground against the curved tanks, he tossed the painter to a sailor standing on the narrow deck. The disembodied voice from above him came again. ‘Come aboard. You’re still covered, so do it carefully or you’re a dead man.’

  Grinning all over his face, Lorenz scrambled to the deck of the submarine and made his way to the conning tower.

  ‘Leutnant Lorenz. Karl Lorenz,’ he announced himself. Kriegsmarine. I was sent here to provide you people with information on convoys.’

  ‘We’ve heard of you,’ the submarine commander said. ‘I’m Kapitänleutnant Zur See Schutze. This is U-1022. Let’s have you below.’

  Climbing through the hatch. Lorenz followed Schutze to the tiny wardroom where Schutze sat down and held out his hand.

  ‘Papers first,’ he said. ‘Something to identify you.’

  Lorenz produced his papers and Schutze studied them before handing them back, satisfied. He reached into a locker and produced a bottle.

  ‘You’d better have a drink,’ he said. ‘What about the rest of you?’

  Lorenz explained how the Maréchal Grouchy was to have picked everybody up but that it had become impossible.

  ‘Somebody got on to us,’ he said. ‘We had to take over a mine at Yima. They were attacking it when I left.’

  ‘What about Kapitänleutnant Heidegger?’

  ‘He’s holding the Tommies off to make sure I got clear. I was ordered to go, to make sure there was someone to tell the story.’

 
‘On your own?’

  ‘On my own.’ The lies came easily now. There might be explaining to do later but Lorenz felt he could get away with it. ‘I stole the boat. I was hoping to find the Maréchal Grouchy.’

  Schutze smiled. He was young and tired looking with a fuzz of half-grown beard on his face. ‘Well, now you’ll have the pleasure of seeing what your information can do,’ he said. ‘We were watching the southern flank below Takoradi with U-997 and U-1113 when we were ordered to join Gruppe Herzog. They’re across the route of the British convoys. We were told to make all speed on the surface. You must be the luckiest man alive. This operation could mean the end of the war.’

  He poured drinks and swallowed his own quickly. ‘And amen to that,’ he said.

  Jum was like a stirred ants’ nest. Leaving Sergeant Maxey and all the men who had been sent up river kicking their heels in Makinkundi, scared stiff their ship would arrive and leave for England without them, all the boats with the exception of the pinnace, which was still in the Bic, were withdrawn to stand by to re-arm, refuel and service the aircraft.

  The first machine took off towards midnight to search ahead of the approaching convoys. The destroyers from Freetown were already moving to a position where they could join the escorts which had brought the convoys south. Together, they provided a formidable barrier, never big enough when the submarines had their information ahead, but more than enough when the boot was on the other foot as it was now.

  Jum was full of controlled movement as men hurried out to aircraft. Catalina T-Tommy had been towed to the slip and hauled on to the concrete apron where the airframe fitters had descended on her like locusts to repair the holes made in her by Lorenz’ machine gun. As Molyneux stepped ashore, Mackintosh was heading out towards his Sunderland.

  ‘The Navy are on their way,’ he said. ‘We’ll hold the fort. I’ve got two aircraft up.’

  Minutes later, looking like a huge grey pelican, Mackintosh’s own Sunderland lifted majestically off the water and disappeared into the sky towards the north.

  T-Tommy was ready for lowering into the water within two hours. After her went, M-Mother, the hole in her hull repaired. As she slid down the slip and was towed back to her moorings, the hangar crew wiped their sweaty faces and stood back. Every machine on the station was available for flying.

  Mackintosh’s Sunderland had picked up the convoy by this time. Like all Sunderlands, she was a dream to fly, very stable and with fingertip control, and they cruised along at a hundred and twenty knots, having set the two inner engines by ear and synchronized the outers by the Aldis from the window. Navigation was by dead reckoning and there was no panic. They had done the job too often before, watching convoys, rounding up scattered ships, and, here on the Equator, they had little to fear from German aircraft. Even in the north where there was the possibility of attack, they had always felt secure because the Germans were wary of the bristling guns of the Sunderland and had christened it the Fliegende Stachelschwein – the Flying Porcupine.

  There were two men in the galley preparing coffee at dawn when the first sighting came. As the alarm klaxon went for action stations, they dropped what they were doing and rushed to the bomb room to grab the handles of the bomb doors, praying Mackintosh wouldn’t bank suddenly and leave them swinging in mid-air. They wound the doors down and slid the loaded racks out under the wing, and the radio operator was banging out his sighting report to the navy as Mackintosh came down astern of the submarine which lay on the surface, its decks awash, following the convoy.

  Ahead they could see the ships like rows of black dots on the water which was just beginning to sparkle with the sun. The Germans seemed to be occupied with getting into position and were not watching out but, as they drew nearer, Mackintosh saw one of the men in the conning tower turn. Immediately, men began to run towards the gun on the platform behind the conning tower. The German commander had decided the best tactics were to fight back with the impressive battery of weapons he carried, but the front gunner of the Sunderland opened fire and one of the Germans rolled over the side.

  As the Sunderland came in, the starboard engine was hit and she faltered, but Mackintosh was in position now and he let go his salvo of depth charges. As he turned away, he saw one actually bounce off the submarine’s casing, then the surface of the sea seemed to shudder and heave for yards around. The submarine was wallowing in the middle of the foam, its decks awash, and, as it sank, Mackintosh came round again and dropped another salvo. The submarine reappeared then seemed to lie wearily on its side and vanish amid a wild turbulence of bubbles and masses of oil.

  ‘Jesus,’ Mackintosh said in an awed voice.

  Mackintosh’s sighting report arrived in Jum as Molyneux watched the first of his crews return. They were standing at the end of the wooden jetty waiting for a lorry to take them away, laden down with the trappings of their trade. One of them wore a girl’s silk stocking round his neck as a good luck charm and they were all chattering excitedly because they had picked up Mackintosh’s signal just as they had landed.

  A motor dinghy on a cradle, pushed by a group of black men led by a new sergeant with a white face and white knees who had arrived to take Maxey’s place, was moving slowly towards the marine section slip. One of the black men wore a ju-ju at his throat – a bunch of bird’s feathers to ward off evil spirits – and Molyneux reflected that there wasn’t a lot of difference between white and black men. Black men wore birds’ feathers, pebbles, a bit of rag, a withered dog’s leg, anything they fancied to keep them safe from evil spirits. White men wore a girlfriend’s stocking or a favourite scarf. Black man’s ju-ju and white man’s ju-ju were very much the same.

  The first report came in as Molyneux reached his office, then a few minutes later an excited and triumphant message arrived to say that Mackintosh had straddled a submarine with depth charges and it was believed sunk. Not long afterwards, operations room telephoned to say that the navy had caught another on the surface trying to edge in to the convoy in the last of the darkness and had attacked at once. Two survivors had been picked up.

  Forced by the patrolling aircraft to submerge, the submarines were losing contact with the convoy and, knowing they could only regain it by moving on the surface, they were rising again only to be found once more. But Molyneux was under no delusions. The fight was going to go on all next day and into the next night. Fortunately, there was a moon, which would help, but it would take twenty-four hours for the convoy to make the last two hundred miles to safety and they would have to struggle every bit of the way.

  In the Bic, the pinnace was taking on board the men it had put ashore the day before. When the depth charges had gone off, the boat had rolled violently as a vast tidal wave had come rushing down the river towards the sea, and they had heard fragments of wood and metal dropping into the water alongside them. The wave had lifted the pinnace, rolled it violently, shaking it like a terrier with a rat, sending the masthead sweeping across the sky, emptying the cupboards, clearing the bunks and the chart table and flinging men against hard and heavy objects, and they had heard an ominous clank from the winch that indicated that the strain on the hawser strung across the river had done some considerable damage. They were just recovering when there had been a second huge wave, this time in the other direction, as the sea had rushed back to fill the void the depth charges had caused, and what the first wave hadn’t scattered the second one had.

  Despite the shouts of the men ashore, they had spent the night sorting things out, picking up the smashed crockery and scattered equipment, trying to repair the winch and putting a bandage on the head of the fitter which had come into violent contact with the starboard engine, and it was only with morning that Fox had agreed to take any notice of the indignant men ashore.

  By this time, tired, hungry, thirsty, daubed with black mangrove slime and damp with sweat, they had come down from the higher ground and were beginning to gather among the mangroves that fringed the river, complaining that when
the tide came in again they would drown without fail.

  Dropping the rescue nets over the side, Fox sent Feverel ashore in the punt to bring them aboard in groups of three.

  ‘I saw a crocodile,’ one of them pointed out.

  ‘I’ve seen dozens,’ Feverel said.

  ‘They could have your goolies.’

  ‘They wouldn’t bother with yours. Not enough of a meal.’

  As the men were dragged up the sides of the pinnace they were noisy and excited and loud with claims of having shot Germans. Most of them hadn’t seen enough to shoot at, but all of them had fired and they were all certain they’d destroyed the enemy opposition. Kneller hadn’t returned, however, and Feverel wondered what had happened to him. Enough had occurred in the last twenty-four hours to make him worried. Kneller was a brave youngster, even if a little naïve, and he was anxious to know where he was.

  ‘I’m going ashore,’ he told Fox. ‘I want to know what’s happened to Nellie.’

  There had been silence at the mine for some time now. Hubbard had advanced to within striking distance of the big building near the water’s edge. Its walls were starred with bullet marks and its windows had fallen in, the construction beyond gone in a shattering unexplained explosion in the river, leaving the big building isolated, one end part-collapsed, the wire mesh torn and battered looking. There was no sound from inside and Cazalet guessed it was full of frightened men. He had rejoined Hubbard for the final operation and was staring thoughtfully at the partially stripped thatched roof.