The Land God Made in Anger
John Gordon Davis
A heart-stopping adventure … A chilling Nazi legacy in today’s Southern Africa.A month after the end of World War II, a U-boat with a mysterious cargo founders off South West Africa’s treacherous Skeleton Coast. Two German Officers reach the surface and battle their way to the shore, but the bloody struggle that follows leaves one man murdered and the other facing a perilous journey across the terrible, burning sands…Forty years later, trawler captain James McQuade stumbles across the story, and the thought of a submarine full of Nazi war gold sets his pulse racing. Soon he uncovers startling evidence that the escaping German, a top Nazi, survived the desert crossing and is now a leading member of the South African neo-fascist group, the AWB. A simple salvage operation rapidly escalates into an international manhunt, with much more than sunken treasure at stake…
JOHN GORDON DAVIS
The Land God Made
in Anger
Copyright (#ulink_5466a224-a299-5042-803f-2fd27e78f379)
HarperCollinsPublishers
1 London Bridge Street,
London SE1 9GF
www.harpercollins.co.uk (http://www.harpercollins.co.uk/)
First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers 1990
Copyright © John Gordon Davis 1990
John Gordon Davis asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
The extract from The Encyclopaedia of the Third Reich by L. L. Snyder is reproduced by kind permission of Robert Hale Ltd. The extract from Who’s Who in Nazi Germany by Robert Wistrich is reproduced by kind permission of Weidenfeld and Nicolson. The Extract from The History of the Gestapo by Jacques Delarue is reproduced by kind permission of Macdonald & Co Ltd.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
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Source ISBN: 9780007574421
Ebook Edition © DECEMBER 2014 ISBN: 9780008119324
Version: 2014-12-16
Dedication (#ulink_0215733a-d3fa-51c9-b03b-c6dfb8ec08a1)
To my dear sister, Jill Gordon-Davis Roomans
Contents
Cover (#u35886dbc-1e5e-5dc8-973f-4539b8e078b5)
Title Page (#udb9911fc-9c3b-5b32-96f0-ebf04d949e2c)
Copyright (#ulink_d13316fa-3691-5ff4-a0ab-735733bd48e6)
Dedication (#ulink_748ab095-aed3-5ad0-aa75-ccfa8c9bc01f)
Maps (#ulink_0e4c11c3-5363-5678-b703-d7c6820008e1)
Chapter 1 (#ulink_e7bf8079-9105-51d5-a811-8ac80a6248d1)
Part One
Chapter 1 (#ulink_e85f26d3-9509-5737-983e-066e940e0b7d)
Chapter 2 (#ulink_189d248c-066a-53a6-89cf-eee14ab09497)
Chapter 3 (#ulink_5acf3c6a-c634-5e30-b4df-4c4a4040a5e6)
Chapter 4 (#ulink_d02473dd-c92b-527e-8e59-a3a90066b2b6)
Chapter 5 (#ulink_368d139a-6f7b-5101-b7b4-9232f94526fb)
Chapter 6 (#ulink_ca27f506-cc3b-5ce3-a269-fd049437c1e3)
Chapter 7 (#ulink_e7cd7e5e-9eb0-5be7-9d27-dd55fbfd46b6)
Chapter 8 (#ulink_82653025-668c-56cb-b1ee-767e46a3968d)
Chapter 9 (#ulink_e5e1ac8f-f071-500e-865e-5dab6964e0d4)
Chapter 10 (#ulink_e73dfad3-8db4-5a31-889d-666d177fc9c9)
Part Two
Chapter 11 (#ulink_4b276dfd-c3f5-51d2-ae39-7a9df112bc64)
Chapter 12 (#ulink_b064fd37-161a-5552-a787-01caf3add19e)
Chapter 13 (#ulink_ff167844-033c-5500-872b-c26a91cdc068)
Chapter 14 (#ulink_f442f9e0-737b-5efd-ae2b-e07323d5f429)
Chapter 15 (#ulink_73d9bdcf-4d0b-56dd-b4c0-4dbb4c1a45a8)
Part Three
Chapter 16 (#ulink_69794632-0764-5dff-9958-02686b587ff9)
Chapter 17 (#ulink_bdead461-09f3-59b5-8d39-4c32584655d9)
Chapter 18 (#ulink_13601b59-e194-5dcf-8132-3cc2377e3bc7)
Chapter 19 (#ulink_9269fdb1-d038-5d06-b7b4-84e78c04b0e1)
Chapter 20 (#ulink_58e79dfd-b02b-51f4-b30c-e58acee68c58)
Chapter 21 (#ulink_b8c40aaf-ac79-5a5d-8512-f5f0655d38ea)
Chapter 22 (#ulink_f3c27470-0eee-5ca2-b19a-a1b7cc0af3a2)
Chapter 23 (#ulink_7d8dd918-b9db-51e7-bd11-ad82c643d280)
Chapter 24 (#ulink_ce3f0f26-5c9a-58da-997b-2ad5a316c7c9)
Chapter 25 (#ulink_ebab0c5a-944a-565a-b72e-b116abf81056)
Part Four
Chapter 26 (#ulink_1cbddef5-3014-5444-87b7-ec31b09eccc7)
Chapter 27 (#ulink_8a4488ff-7f3f-5968-aeb6-6d86e2a2e872)
Chapter 28 (#ulink_47a0ddc3-b2fc-58e4-a2c3-a9240dca953e)
Part Five
Chapter 29 (#ulink_f7a7cd5e-b98d-5994-8a80-02b052b6b336)
Chapter 30 (#ulink_6f6a7691-b359-564d-8633-4ec8bbf6fcae)
Chapter 31 (#ulink_0bf08186-cead-58c1-bd52-fc3ace15dfde)
Part Six
Chapter 32 (#ulink_0052b663-40d2-5fd0-9d5b-861b084344e0)
Chapter 33 (#ulink_7e792ffc-70c5-503a-a718-de49409e820f)
Part Seven
Chapter 34 (#ulink_44645bf1-48bc-5239-bf5b-3362ee40d149)
Chapter 35 (#ulink_4577c918-bfdb-58cb-af97-0309cf15147a)
Chapter 36 (#ulink_08fea088-6cee-581b-8cc1-4c8265547c28)
Chapter 37 (#ulink_c1ec9390-80e0-5447-9877-417bc40be283)
Chapter 38 (#ulink_8888bcb6-8a0d-5fb6-a915-1607ff763601)
Part Eight
Chapter 39 (#ulink_3d32400d-f241-503d-833f-f276bace3477)
Chapter 40 (#ulink_4e5cfb1f-fd2b-5277-a55d-1b3c6ce3fa81)
Chapter 41 (#ulink_ad2bd00c-4fda-5e59-9afa-68ba3d38e34d)
Chapter 42 (#ulink_5663f397-484a-5dd8-88eb-01b190afbc1c)
Chapter 43 (#ulink_3fafd77b-138f-5f21-98c1-93512a5a9c69)
Chapter 44 (#ulink_f7319ad0-45f2-54a6-b603-e9118417d9ed)
Chapter 45 (#ulink_d1c85f8b-5309-50f8-a20b-316d3251597b)
Part Nine
Chapter 46 (#ulink_7cadf2cb-9879-5c70-a7eb-dbae4c4029f9)
Chapter 47 (#ulink_32dd217e-bab5-5331-b4d4-c8455e63f8ab)
Chapter 48 (#ulink_189d4c7c-4665-5aed-a003-8e242474351d)
Chapter 49 (#ulink_5757ee1b-0ae6-51e1-9256-fc0b5492041e)
Chapter 50 (#ulink_358139ca-8e3b-5ff0-b58b-b78a9acb8ad4)
Chapter 51 (#ulink_1feb4760-4b76-579b-a15b-f966a47f34af)
Chapter 52 (#ulink_70c4a3dd-bbee-5c95-b5b0-39250e40e601)
Part Ten
Chapter 53 (#ulink_c00987bb-9fb4-55b5-b5a8-0f2e5fdcf4a7)
Chapter 54 (#ulink_5e72092a-a330-5b7d-95a3-12a90ba7b1f5)
Part Eleven
Chapter 55 (#ulink_0641a451-877d-5eba-8f35-0e0f0b433d74)
Chapter 56 (#ulink_aeab005f-9cd6-5641-8c47-1c3b465ff301)
Chapter 57 (#ulink_51d74dd3-6440-5d44-8527-4987d5442237)
Chapter 58 (#ulink_575caebf-2df0-5027-b42b-6a0535aecc01)
Chapter 59 (#ulink_bd13d501-a9bb-5168-a791-f14db616789d)
Part Twelve
Chapter 60 (#ulink_3dfeeea1-fe66-5d0f-aeaf-3146079362a2)
Chapter 61 (#ulink_3176d642-dd57-50d1-9d2a-a20243868628)
Chapter 62 (#ulink_f88e2858-82b0-5c2a-aa06-be5ee5894da3)
Chapter 63 (#ulink_6786d578-4dfd-5d33-9064-078b9f6505db)
Chapter 64 (#ulink_05013b54-d0c1-548d-9713-09e422d56ebd)
Chapter 65 (#ulink_246f4c5f-b843-551e-8a9f-0621084d7fa3)
Chapter 66 (#ulink_b6010ac6-8238-5c98-b35f-6ed071855f19)
Chapter 67 (#ulink_16514b5b-7d5d-55c3-9e28-6b8ed92e478b)
Chapter 68 (#ulink_52c3f758-4c78-5880-a261-71b53efe7252)
Chapter 69 (#ulink_17f5b2ac-c167-516c-bcc7-7a938c17227e)
Chapter 70 (#ulink_4a6f6cde-3b67-5215-b835-a4e4cffc6dbe)
Chapter 71 (#ulink_65ca8f6a-e6f2-5598-81c3-25ea5f46bb48)
Part Thirteen
Chapter 72 (#ulink_dcfea3b6-755b-50a1-a68f-165710d237bb)
Chapter 73 (#ulink_6cf0272f-a54e-5750-b12f-db053d935064)
Chapter 74 (#ulink_bff815f6-44a7-52d9-a899-835943cc0687)
Part Fourteen
Chapter 75 (#ulink_07de63e9-e3a1-5400-b10d-431be7c04455)
Chapter 76 (#ulink_b9a0d3ca-d0a8-5236-a8ac-8e49afed9695)
Chapter 77 (#ulink_f77f7de2-c051-5261-967f-49862806533c)
Chapter 78 (#ulink_5786e153-bee3-5733-b26b-141489a803d5)
Part Fifteen
Chapter 79 (#ulink_5e9f6573-629d-5242-9b11-5c60a1833c92)
Keep Reading (#ud5ebb83e-1098-57d6-b8ba-620ac092739d)
Author’s Note (#ulink_6a22f275-5a4c-510c-8a55-c074c36c6f0e)
Acknowledgements (#ulink_feb4762f-7d84-5cb0-be1c-924b4cf47497)
About the Author
Other Books By (#ulink_593fb04c-5f7b-5662-b716-8713d097ade7)
About the Publisher
Maps (#ulink_a08adf6b-65ce-577b-9a88-f38a07a562a7)
Southern Africa is real. The characters, with obvious exceptions, are fictitious.
1 (#ulink_769d99e0-1766-53e3-bc53-0da655880dbd)
On these harsh shores it hardly ever rains. The sun beats down onto the desert coast, blinding white and yellow and brown and apricot and pink on the sand dunes that stretch on and on to the east. To the west the cold Atlantic seethes and crashes, stretching for thousands of miles to the Americas; this land is called the Skeleton Coast, for so many ships have wrecked themselves on its treacherous expanse, and so many shipwrecked men have perished. If they survived the savage sea, they died of thirst and starvation after they came crawling ashore. Here nobody lives. The only people who sometimes pass through this land are the strandlopers, hardy people from the hot hard hinterland of Namibia, who journey out of the vast desert to catch seals and shellfish.
This blinding day in June, 1945, two Damara strandlopers sat on the hot shore, resting. Before them, the vast Atlantic ocean was empty. Suddenly, something extraordinary happened.
Less than a thousand metres away, a man came out of the sea, like a demon. One moment there was nothing but the seething sea; the next there was a man, his arms thrashing. He started swimming frantically towards them. The two Damaras stared; then, to their further astonishment, another man erupted out. The two Damaras scrambled up and ran over the sand dune. They peered over the top.
The two demons were rearing up in the swells, disappearing in the white crashing thunder of the breakers. The man in front was the slower. He looked frantically behind him. He came labouring and gasping closer, then suddenly his feet found the bottom. He staggered upright and then collapsed as another wave hit him. He staggered up again, then came stumbling up onto the beach, the waves crashing about his exhausted legs. He looked back, his chest heaving, clutching a small package to his chest. Then he pulled a pistol out of his pocket. He pointed it wildly at the other man, and pulled the trigger. Nothing happened. He turned and staggered off down the beach, trying to run, his legs buckling.
The second man came floundering towards the beach, wild-eyed. The two Damaras could see that blood was flowing from his head, flooding red into the crashing sea. He wrenched off a life-jacket; then he started trying to run after the other man.
The first man was fifty yards ahead, but he was slower. He staggered along, looking back wildly; then he could run no more. He reeled to face his adversary, and pointed the gun at him again. Again nothing happened. Then he hurled the gun. It hit the man a savage blow in the face, which caused him to lurch; and the first man pulled out a knife, and came at him. The second man recovered, and then went into a circle, crouched, his bare hands bunched, the blood streaming down his face. The first man circled after him, his face contorted, the knife in front, his other hand clutching his package; then suddenly he dropped it, picked up a handful of sand, and threw it. The second man staggered backwards, clawing the sand off his bloody face, blinded, and the first man lunged at him.
He came wildly, his killer knife on high, and plunged it deep into the man’s breast. He lurched backwards, one arm up to ward off another stab, but the knife flashed again, and sank into his shoulder. He sprawled onto his back, blood spurting, and tried to scramble up, and the first man crashed on top of him, and the knife lunged down again. He pulled it out, and stabbed and stabbed the man four more times, whimpering. Then he toppled off and clambered to his feet.
He staggered, blood-spattered, and stared at his victim. The man was a mass of blood, welling from his chest. Then he tried to get up. He tried to roll over and heave himself up onto his hands and knees, and the first man gave a cry and lurched back at him. The second man tried to raise his arm to defend himself, but he collapsed. The first man dropped to his knees beside him, and sawed the blade across the man’s gullet.
Then he clambered to his feet, red sand sticking to him. He looked at his victim; then he turned and picked up his package. He looked for the gun, picked it up, then wiped the sand off it. He sat down with a thump, chest heaving, getting his breath back; then he put his hand in his pocket and pulled out an oilcloth bag. He cut it open with trembling fingers, and pulled out a cardboard box. It contained bullets. He opened the magazine of the gun. He pulled out the shells, and reloaded. He scooped up the empty shells, and threw them into the sea. Then he turned to his package.
It was also an oilcloth bag. He cut the stitching. Inside were two smaller bags. He stood up unsteadily, and buried one in a trouser pocket. In his other pocket was a bulky leather wallet. He pulled it out and put the other bag in its place. He then tried to stuff the wallet into the pocket beside the bag. It was too much, so he stuffed it into his breast pocket. Then he turned back to the corpse.
He took hold of the dead man’s ankles and dragged him above the high-water line: then he began to scoop out a shallow grave.
He rolled the body into it. He scooped the sand back over it, then clambered to his feet. His mouth was parched. He walked unsteadily back to the sea. He washed the bloody sand off his arms and face. Then he started plodding down the burning shore. He only knew that he had to head south. That was where civilization lay. How far, he did not know.
He only got about a mile before he had to rest. It was blazing hot and he was frantic with thirst. There was a promontory of rocks. He clambered over them. On the other side, he crept into the shade of a big boulder, and sat down, the gun dangling between his knees. That is how he was when the two Damara strandlopers came creeping over the rocks, following him.
The white man jerked and swung the gun on them. The two Damaras stopped, frightened.
The white man scrambled to his feet, the gun trained on them shakily. Then both Damaras turned to flee, and in a flash the man fired. Both men froze, cowered, terrified. The white man stood there, wild-eyed; then he motioned with the gun, ordering them to drop their weapons.
The Damaras laid down their bows and their slingbags. The terrifying white man held out his trembling hand. ‘Wasser!’ He made a drinking motion.
Carefully one Damara opened his bag. Inside was an assortment of old bottles with wooden stoppers. He lifted one out.
The white man snatched it. He drank feverishly, his eyes never leaving them. He swallowed and swallowed, and the two men watched him fearfully. He drank the bottle dry, then threw it down. He held out his hand for another. It was given to him. He drank half of it. Then he said:
‘Swakopmund!’
The Damaras understood. Neither of them had ever been to the white man’s town faraway to the south, but they had heard about the extraordinary place at the mouth of the river which is almost always dry. The Damara who was called Jakob pointed down the hostile coast.
The white man picked up their bows and motioned them to start leading the way.
In less than an hour he knew it was hopeless: he had to struggle to keep up, and tonight, when he fell asleep, the two men would disappear. He could not afford to leave witnesses, and when the sun began to get low he decided to kill them so that he could throw himself down and sleep. First, however, he wanted them to make a fire.
There was plenty of driftwood. He called a halt, and motioned them to put their slingbags at his feet, before indicating that he wanted a fire. The Damaras set to work. The white man collapsed in the sand. He opened one of the slingbags and found dried meat, which he began to chew ravenously.
The two Damaras made the fire. Jakob took a straight stick, the size of a pencil, out of his bag, and a piece of flat wood. He put a pinch of sand on the very edge of the wood, and some kindling underneath. Then, holding the straight stick vertical, he rubbed it between his palms onto the sandy wood, very hard, until the friction caused smoke. A tiny glow fell off the wood into the kindling below. The other Damara, called Petrus, blew on it, whilst Jakob ground the stick, and the kindling blossomed into a little flame. They scuttled about on their haunches, getting more kindling, crouching to blow. Then Petrus suddenly gave a gasp and pointed down the beach; the white man turned to look, and Jakob hit him.
Jakob seized a piece of jagged wood and swung it with all his might and the white man flung up an arm. The wood crashed against his wrist and gashed it to the bone, and he sprawled. His wallet jerked out of his pocket and the gun went flying. Jakob bounded and swiped the man’s mouth, and his lips split and his front teeth smashed off at the roots. Jakob raised his club again and the man cried out, trying to cover his head. Jakob threw down the stick and snatched up his slingbag, and Petrus snatched up the bows and the man’s wallet. They ran away into the dunes, leaving one slingbag behind in their panic.
A thousand miles down the Skeleton Coast is the Cape of Good Hope, ‘The Tavern of the Seas’ on the route from Europe to the East, with its oaks and its vineyards and its fruit – the Fairest Cape of All, it is said. Further to the east are the mighty Tsitsikama forests, and then come the rolling hills of the Ciskei and the Transkei, the homelands of the Xhosa people beneath the mountain stronghold of Lesotho, the kingdom of the Basuto people; then come the lush green hills of Natal where the sugar cane grows, the home of the Zulu people, who were a mighty warrior nation. Then across the magnificent towering Drakensberg mountains lie the farmlands of the Orange Free State, the vast highveld and the bushveld of the Transvaal, the land of rich goldfields, the strongholds of the hard people of Dutch descent, who are called Afrikaners. They live surrounded by many tribes: the Swazis in their mountain kingdom, the Tswanas, the Vendas, the Matabele. To the west of this country is the Kalahari desert and beyond that lies the vast desert country called South West Africa-Namibia, with its Skeleton Coast, where live the Ovambo people, and the Himba and the Herero, the Damaras and the Bushmen, to name but some, as well as Germans and Afrikaners. There are many different countries in this dramatic land of southern Africa, with many different climates, and many different peoples, and many languages and many different customs, but the most dramatic country of all is the one known as The Land God Made in Anger, the desert land called South West Africa-Namibia, or more commonly simply Namibia, where this story began.
Legally, Namibia is not part of the Republic of South Africa. It is a former German colony which was handed to South Africa by the League of Nations at the end of the First World War under a mandate to govern in the best interests of the natives until such time as it was appropriate to grant the colony independence. Halfway up is the little enclave of Walvis Bay, the only deep-water harbour in the whole vast coast, which is legally part of South Africa. It was to this unusual part of the world that James McQuade came back forty years after Jakob and Petrus saw the two men erupt out of the sea and fight to the death on the burning shore.
James van Niekerk McQuade once served twelve months in prison for contravening the Immorality Act, but do not be too alarmed by that because it happened like this: in those days, when he was starting a trawler-fishing company in Cape Town, he sailed to the Antarctic every year on the whaling fleets to make extra money, and down at the Ice he fell madly in love with the ship’s nurse, a South African girl who happened to have some Malaysian blood. She was only one-sixteenth Malay, but that was enough to make her a Coloured under South Africa’s laws in those days. When they got back from the Ice she was pregnant and he unlawfully married her. When they were charged for breaching the racial laws, he packed her off secretly to England to have her baby. The magistrate sentenced him to twelve months imprisonment with hard labour, and he never saw his wife again. She wrote to him in prison saying that she had miscarried, that she had ruined his life and that he should forget about her. There was no address. When he came out of prison he moved his fishing company to Walvis Bay to get away from his wicked past, put a skipper in charge and hurried to England to look for his wife. After six months he had given up and emigrated to Australia to start life again, an embittered man. No way was he going to go back to goddam South Africa.
Nor did he, for twelve years. He hated the place. Not the country – for it is a wonderful country – but the government with its Apartheid laws. But he still had connections with South Africa. There was his house, which returned a reasonable rent, mortgaged to pay for his trawler, and there was his fishing company, which most years showed a reasonable profit. While in Australia, he had formed Sausmarine, a small, one-freighter shipping line that plied between Australia, South Africa and Ghana, a route that became profitable when the Australian Dockworkers’ Union refused to off-load South African cargo. Australian businessmen document their cargo as bound for Ghana, and your understanding Sausmarine off-loads it in Cape Town. And vice versa. You’d never believe the mistakes these shipping clerks make: South African exports get misloaded into crates bearing Ghanaian labels. (Sausmarine never went near Ghana – her ship was called Rocket because she did the putative trip so fast.) And to make confusion more confounded, Sausmarine was registered in Panama. But, during all those years, McQuade did not sail to South Africa: Kid Childe, Tucker and L. C. Brooks ran the ship, and McQuade ran the company from a one-roomed office above a Greek café on the Adelaide waterfront. It was not bad business until sanctions against South Africa heated up and the competition with other sanction-busters became too sharp. McQuade had not the slightest compunction about beating the Dockworkers’ Union at their own commie game, but he drew the line at more prison. Finally he decided to sell up Sausmarine, go back to South Africa and work the fishing company hard with a skeleton crew, then sell it and put the money into a small passenger ship to ply down the Great Barrier Reef, from Cairns to Sydney. That’s a lovely part of the world, and there was a crying need for that service.
There was another good reason for getting his investments out: called 435. United Nations’ Resolution 435 ordered South Africa, the polecat nation of the world, to grant independence to South West Africa-Namibia. For years South Africa had been fighting a war with SWAPO, the South West African Peoples Organization, a terrorist Marxist movement, and had no intention of handing the country over to them: but now SWAPO had thirty thousand Cuban soldiers to help, and McQuade saw the writing on the wall. The same writing that had spelled out the collapse of Rhodesia and the Portuguese colonies and the Congo and the rest of British Africa: you win every battle but lose the war. God knows McQuade had no love for the South African Government but he had much less love for communists, and certainly no desire to fish in their territorial waters. So – sell up whilst the going was still good, and wash his hands of goddam Africa forever.
That is how James McQuade was feeling when he walked off the tarmac into Jan Smuts Airport in Johannesburg and heard South African accents again. Ivor Nathan was there to meet him, looking as much like Groucho Marx as ever. They had been at university together. Nathan gave him a bed for the night and tried to cheer him up: South Africa wasn’t as bad as it used to be, Nathan said, Apartheid was unenforced almost everywhere now, except in the rural districts where the Hairybacks still thought the world was flat. ‘But it’s all still on the bloody statute book,’ McQuade said.
‘The Sex Laws have been repealed,’ Nathan said. ‘The Immorality Act and the Mixed Marriages Act. The government is trying to reform but it daren’t repeal them all at once, for fear of a backlash, but give them time, my boy, my life.’
‘Just another decade or two?’
‘Well, we’ve got a Coloured House of Representatives now, and an Indian House of Delegates. I tell you, things are changing.’
‘But no Black House. It’s all too little too late. And what about this right-wing AWB mob, stomping around with their bloody swastikas and armbands?’
‘Lunatic fringe,’ Nathan said.
‘They don’t sound so fringe in the overseas press! It sounds as if the whole country’s turned Nazi.’
‘Lunatic fringe,’ Nathan insisted.
McQuade sighed. ‘Anyway, what about the war on the border – that’s my problem. What about 435? Is South Africa going to grant independence to Namibia? That’s the question. If so, the fishing industry goes down the communist drain and I’m bankrupt.’
‘No way is South Africa going to implement 435 as long as the Cubans are there, and no way is Castro going to withdraw them because he wants to go down in history as the Scourge of the Afrikaner. Independence is a hell of a long way off, so your fishing’s safe for a long time.’
‘Is it, hell. The fleets of the world are out there raping the Benguela current because South Africa daren’t enforce Namibia’s two hundred-mile maritime belt because of goddam 435.’
Nathan sighed. ‘What’s Australia like?’
‘Australia’s great,’ McQuade said, ‘and it’s got no Black Problem.’
‘Because the Aussies shot most of them. At least we were Christians.’
‘We? You’re a closet Goy, Nathan.’
‘Once a South African, always a South African.’ Nathan sighed. ‘You can’t expect too much of us.’
The next day McQuade flew to Cape Town. Even beautiful Table Mountain rising up seemed to be only a monument to Afrikanerdom, and God he was glad he was washing his hands of the lot of them. He was an Australian now. He checked his house. He felt no pangs when he saw the nice old place, and he was glad he was getting rid of it. He visited half a dozen estate agents. Then he bought an old Landrover. That afternoon he set off, driving north, out of the beautiful vineyard country with its grand old Dutch architecture, heading for the Orange River and South West Africa-Namibia beyond, the Land God Made in Anger.
You probably don’t know that bridge over the Orange River. The road curves down out of the dry, stony hills at Vioolsdrift where there is a general dealer’s store, a gas station and a police post. Then suddenly there is the river, the water muddy orange, a belt of green, then the flinty desert rising up beyond: hot, hard, dry as hell. McQuade saw nothing beautiful in that desolate vista, but when he was halfway over that river he felt his depression lift. Man, this was dramatic country, he had forgotten how magnificently dramatic it was. And the Republic of South Africa was officially behind him and there was a feeling of youthfulness on this side of the river, a frontier feeling of wide open spaces, as if the long arm of Pretoria had to pull its punches here because of 435, and everybody knew it. He stopped at Noordoewer, which is a little hotel on the other side. There were a score of Coloureds squatting around, doing nothing. He filled up with diesel and drank a row of cold beers, and the Afrikaans words he had not used for twelve years came flooding back to his tongue without thinking: and, by God, it was a strange but nice feeling. These were people he just naturally knew and understood, and he almost felt like an African again.
He bought a six-pack of beers and set off north again. And there was nothing beautiful in that flat, hard, grey-brown desert stretching on and on, blistering hot, and maybe it was the beer he was drinking as he drove, but he found himself almost happy, and it almost felt as if he was coming home. At Keetmanshoop he turned west, towards Lüderitz on the faraway Atlantic, and now he was driving through thorn-tree country with sparse yellow grass, and he saw wild horses and ostriches. Near Aus he turned north again, through the vast cattle country, ranches thousands of square kilometres in size. That night he slept beside his Landrover, under the stars, near the oasis called Sesriem, where the creeping sand dunes are three hundred feet high and change colour from pink to mauve to apricot to gold in the shifting light. Maybe it was because of all the beer, but it seemed there is no feeling like an African night, no stars so bright, no night sounds so intimate and significant, no smell and light of fire so true to life. And even the next afternoon, when he came grinding down out of the hot hard hills of the Namib desert onto the vast sand-duned plains, and then the distant hostile Atlantic began to show through the shimmering haze, until finally, the flat white smudge of Walvis Bay, one of the drabbest ports in this world, began to coagulate in the distance – even then he still felt better about coming back. As Nathan had said: ‘Once a South African, always a South African – you cannot expect too much of us.’
PART ONE (#ulink_9a768279-8d6d-54c8-913b-c24dd15b589a)
1 (#ulink_62bc6dcf-de73-5d59-a741-4158e7daf95a)
Nowadays, beyond the cold horizon, the Atlantic is lit up like a fairy land at night with the fishing fleets from around the world raping the icy Benguela current; the Russians, the Japanese, Norwegians, Spanish, Portuguese, the South Africans, all with the most sophisticated gear, and factory ships for refrigeration. The South African boats bring their catch back to Walvis Bay, and the smell of fish hangs like a cloud. Yet it is said that you only cry twice in Walvis Bay: the day you arrive, and the day you leave. McQuade couldn’t understand it: the town was an eyesore, row upon row of squat, drab dwellings with corrugated iron roofs standing in dismal plots of desert sand, stretching back from the odiferous wharfs and the railway line. The shops are aggressively unattractive, and the sand blows down the streets and banks up in the gutters. Forty kilometres up the coast, beyond the enclave’s invisible borders, is the town of Swakopmund, with old Bavarian architecture, elaborate old public buildings and homes and nice hotels with gemütliche bars with flowering, shaded courtyards under the desert sun. Both sun-blistered towns were built at the same time, at the start of this century: the difference being (according to McQuade) that Swakopmund was built by real Germans with culture behind them, whereas Walvis Bay was built by Afrikaners who had been detribalized from Europe for three hundred years. Yet he was always happy when he saw the flat, drab port come up over the horizon and he felt an extraordinary affection for the place. Maybe that was because anybody would be happy coming back after four weeks on the heaving Atlantic, or maybe it was the steamy thighs of the Stormtrooper awaiting him – (‘When will you marry me, you englisches Schwein, you cad, you unspeakable bounder?) (‘Liebchen, I’m still married.’) (Liar …) Or maybe it was the magnificent desert. But it was more: there was a colonial youthfulness about this ancient land, a sense of optimism, a comradeship amongst its people, almost a conspiracy against the heavy hand of faraway Pretoria. He had been back two years and the company was still in debt, but although it was still the plan to sell up as soon as possible, go back to Australia and start that passenger line, till then he was glad he had come back to Africa. That is how McQuade was feeling that afternoon of the 20th April as his trawler, Bonanza, came churning through the oily harbour of Walvis Bay to off-load her refrigerated catch, and give the crew a few nights’ shore-leave. He tied the Bonanza up alongside the Kuiseb wharf, where he always sold his fish, and left Potgieter in charge while he went to the bank to draw some money for the Coloured crew.
McQuade and Tucker and the Kid and Elsie went uptown in the Kid’s new car. The Kid’s real name was Nigel Childe and he used to be a captain-gunner in the All England Whaling Company fifteen or more years ago. His father had been chairman of the board and the Kid had come into a lot of money, but he had spent most of it before McQuade persuaded him to invest in Sausmarine. The Kid could not afford this new car, but said that he could not afford to do without it either on account of he was now forty years old, a sombre anniversary for a hedonist, and he was madly in love with his wife, Beryl the Bitch, who was always threatening to leave him; while he was at sea, she prepared long memoranda of her grievances. Today the Kid was hurrying uptown to the dentist to have his new smile fitted, which he could also ill-afford, as a surprise for Beryl: last month the dentist had filed his upper teeth down to points and fitted temporary caps while his smart permanent ones were being made, and now he wished he’d kept his own old ones. Hugo Tucker was the ship’s engineer, the smallest ex-shareholder in Sausmarine, and he could play the mouth organ, music as mournful as his countenance. Tucker was always worried, often about the Bonanza’s engines, mostly about his own money, and always about his wife. He was a South African but married to Rosie, an Australian who used to earn her very own money as a dress-maker in Adelaide – and now where was she? – broke in fucking Walvis Bay! From heaven to hell in one airline ticket, and all because of McQuade, the Kid and Elsie and their hare-brained schemes. Elsie’s real name was L. C. Brooks, the ship’s cook and book-keeper, who had been with McQuade and the Kid on the whalers in the old days. Elsie did not have woman-trouble because he did not like women but now that he was over fifty he had given up the other way too. ‘There’s nothing more pathetic than an ageing queer,’ Elsie said, ‘I’ll just bite the bullet and grow old gracefully.’
They all got into the Kid’s new car. It was a Renault and he called it Rene because it was electronically programmed to speak to him. ‘Bonjour, Rene,’ the Kid said as he switched the ignition on.
Rene said: ‘Fasten your seat belts please.’
‘You heard him,’ Kid said, ‘fasten your bleedin’ seat belts before he calls the gendarmes.’
Rene said: ‘Oil pressure is satisfactory.’
‘Merci, Rene,’ Kid said.
‘Water pressure is satisfactory.’
‘Merci, Rene.’
‘All systems are satisfactory.’
‘Merci, Rene.’ He put the car into reverse.
‘Release your handbrake,’ Rene requested.
‘What happens if you actually drive off with your handbrake on?’ Tucker asked with morbid professional interest.
‘He screams Mon Dieu, mon Dieu! and heads straight for the AA.’
They drove out of the sandy compound, into Oceana Road. There were big oil tanks and acres of container-yards on the raw desert shore, and the sand lay across the tarmac road in thick streaks and ridges. They drove past the fishing compounds and the Kid said mournfully, ‘At least you’ll grow old gracefully with your own teeth to bite the bullet with, Elsie.’
‘But why did you do it?’ Elsie complained.
‘She wrote me this memorandum,’ the Kid said, ‘which went: “Nag-nag, nag-nag, and furthermore I wish you’d do something about your teeth.” And that got me right here.’ He tapped his heart. ‘She’d never complained about my teeth before.’
‘The only time she won’t complain is when you strike an oilwell in your backyard!’
‘Please,’ the Kid said. ‘Please, don’t talk about her like that.’
‘I’m very sorry,’ Elsie said firmly, ‘but why don’t you let her go if she’s always threatening to leave, instead of borrowing thousands of rand to have your perfectly good teeth filed down like a goddam Amazon headhunter. Honestly, what you boys do for women!’
‘We don’t want to grow old gracefully, Elsie,’ McQuade said. ‘We want to grow old shagged out.’
‘I’m serious,’ Elsie said seriously. ‘Look at you all! You’re all a mess! Kid should be a millionaire and all, but what is he? – an ageing playboy! And look at you, James, the Stormtrooper’s always throwing tantrums because she’s thirty-five and wants to get married so you can spend the rest of your life supporting her—’
‘In be-yoo-tiful condition for thirty-five,’ the Kid murmured.
‘And look what happened to you when you did get married: Vicky writes you a Dear John letter while you’re in prison—’
‘It wasn’t exactly a Dear John,’McQuade corrected mildly.
‘But the state you were in when you came to England, and the money you spent looking for her! You were all screwed up for years, but look at you now, forty years old and with all your brains, you should be at the top of the tree, but instead you’re a rolling stone who’s gathered no moss. Look at Tucker – every penny he earns he gives to Rosie but does he get any gratitude? Moan, moan, moan.’ He snorted. ‘And now Kid and his stupid new teeth!’
‘Please don’t say they’re stupid,’ the Kid whined. ‘It’s done now.’
‘Yes, Elsie,’ McQuade agreed.
Elsie suddenly looked worried. ‘Oh, I’m sorry. What I mean is I worry about you boys! Look, I’m not against women – I just wish you’d marry the right girls.’
‘You better be careful, Elsie!’ Tucker suddenly shouted. He looked close to tears.
Elsie groaned and sat back. ‘Oh dear.’ Then he put a hairy hand on Tucker’s shoulder. ‘Look, all I mean is, I do the accounts and I know every penny you earn. Remember … you guys are the only family I’ve got.’
The episode was terminated by their arrival at the municipal market. Elsie got out to do the revictualling for the ship. He leant in the window and shook the Kid’s shoulder. ‘I’m sorry.’ He turned and lumbered off into the market. McQuade said:
‘He means well, Kid. And Beryl’s going to love ‘em.’
The Kid groaned. ‘Will you please, please, please for Christ’s sake quit talking about my stupid new teeth!’
They parted outside the dentist’s surgery. They wished the Kid luck but he did not even answer, just stomped off belligerently. McQuade and Tucker walked to the bank and cashed a company cheque for the Coloureds. Tucker returned to the ship to pay them, and McQuade walked to his house in Fifth Street.
He called his house Railway Yard View, which is a pretty bloody awful name for a house, but then, as McQuade said, Walvis Bay is a pretty bloody awful town. Half the houses in Fifth Street were empty, windows broken, paint peeling, abandoned. McQuade’s windows were intact and the Stormtrooper had made him some curtains (‘How you can live likethis, Englisch!’), he had a coloured maid called Maria who came once a week to sweep up the dust that came in every crack when the Ostwind blew, and the second-hand furniture he had bought was not too bad. He had built the big double bed himself by knocking together stout planks, and had put in some nice lamps and indoor plants, but it was still a bloody bleak old Railways house, and the garden was desert sand, one cactus plant and a rubber bush alongside the garage and servants’ room, as depressing as all get-out but what the hell, what do you expect for thirty rand a month in Walvis Bay? He was here only temporarily, he would have a proper place in Australia, next year. He let himself in the front door and walked through to the room which he used as the company office. There was no mail except a bank statement which he did not care to open. There were no messages on his telephone answering-machine. He dialled the Stormtrooper’s cottage in Swakopmund. It rang and rang. He glanced at his watch. School was over and today she had no hockey practice. He went to the bathroom and ran water into the old enamel tub.
He proceeded to scrub himself up for the Stormtrooper. He washed his hair cheerfully to be beautiful for the Stormtrooper, then shaved and put on Eau de Cologne to smell nice for the Stormtrooper. Thinking about her magnificent thighs.
He still had the old Landrover he had bought two years ago in Cape Town. He drove over the railway bridge and the desert opened up, the barren coast on one side of the tarred road, yellow sand dunes towering up on the other, ridged and fluted by the wind. He was in a good mood. Twenty-five minutes later he crossed the bridge over the dry Swakop River, into the little German town that is so different to bleak Walvis Bay.
He turned down a wide sand street towards the sea and parked outside a house. He walked down to the cottage at the back, and entered the Stormtrooper’s sandy garden. All the windows were closed. He tried the front door. Locked. He knocked, and waited. Then he retraced his steps. It was after five o’clock, so she could not be shopping. He drove to the Europahof Hotel.
It is built in Alpine style, with beams inlaid into the walls. There was singing in German as he walked into the bar. There were a dozen men whom he knew by sight. As he entered, the singing abruptly died away. McQuade gave them a polite nod and went to the empty end. There was a moment’s hush, then conversation picked up, in German. The bartender came over. Maybe it was the way the singing had stopped but McQuade had the feeling the man’s smile was frosty. ‘Good afternoon, Klaus,’ he said. ‘A beer, please.’ He put the money on the bar. ‘Have you seen Helga this afternoon?’
‘Not this afternoon.’ Klaus took the money to the till.
McQuade was surprised. He felt distinctly unwanted. Yet he had often used this place, and the Germans had always been polite. He could only think that they knew something about Helga. They knew he dated her, but something had happened. He felt uncomfortable. He could feel them looking at his back. He thought, Well to hell with this. He lifted the glass and just then there was a shout:
‘Heil Hitler!’
McQuade turned, astonished. A fat man stood in the door, his right arm out, his feet together, a drunken solemnity on his flushed face. There was a silence, then several men admonished him in German. The fat man dropped his arm, glanced around drunkenly and then came in, grinning unsteadily.
McQuade turned back to his beer. Jesus Christ. He drank the rest of his beer down, down. He got up and turned for the door. ‘Auf Wiedersehen,’ he muttered.
He walked back to his Landrover, and sat behind the wheel, thinking about the atmosphere in that bar.
Never encountered it before, and he didn’t simply mean the man giving the salute. That was just a drunken fool. No, it had something to do with Helga. Had she found herself another boyfriend? He wouldn’t have credited it but he felt a stab of jealousy. Anyway, he was going to get to the bottom of this. He started the Landrover, and drove up the sand street, to Kukki’s Pub.
Which is another nice bar, in an old German building, patronized by the younger South Westers. English was the language most heard in here. It was half full. McQuade got a stool at the bar, nodding greetings. Kukki came over. ‘Beer, please, Kukki. Listen, have you seen Helga today?’
Kukki looked blank. ‘No.’ He reached under the counter for the beer.
‘No idea where she might be?’
Kukki looked puzzled. ‘No.’
‘Would you tell me if you knew?’
Kukki looked mystified. ‘Sure. Why?’
McQuade felt embarrassed saying it, but Kukki was his friend. He beckoned. Kukki leant closer. ‘If she’s found herself another boyfriend, I’d like to know.’
Kukki smiled patiently. ‘If she had, I’d know. And I know she thinks you’re the greatest thing since bratwurst and sauerkraut. Which shows there’s no accounting for taste.’ He moved off down the bar.
McQuade sipped his beer. All very well, but that wasn’t solving his problem of getting laid. Where was the Stormtrooper? She of the magnificent Teutonic thighs goldened by the desert sun, her magnificent sweaty arse in her scanty skirt as she bullied for the ball on the hockey pitch, she of the magnificent breasts which gave him such bliss when she wasn’t giving him a Teutonic hard time. (‘You think I just do this for dinners, huh?’) Well, he wanted to buy her the finest damn dinner, then take her back to that gemütliche cottage and make havoc with her well-nourished body. He went to the public telephone and dialled her again.
Still no reply. Well, he had better leave her a note telling her where he was, so he quaffed back his beer.
The cottage was still silent. He pinned the note to her door and walked back up the sandy lane. As he passed the window of the front house there was a tap on the glass. Annie, the neighbour, beckoned him. She opened the window.
‘Hi! Helga’s gone to her parents’ place for the night.’ Annie said.
McQuade’s heart sank. Helga’s parents lived on a ranch near Usakos, two hundred kilometres inland. ‘She’s spending the night there?’
‘She said she’d be back in the morning in time for school. She’ll be mad that she missed you.’
‘Not as mad as I am. May I use your phone?’
He went into the house, without optimism. He dialled exchange and asked to be put through to the radio tower. He asked the operator to try the call-sign of the Schmidt ranch’s two-way radio.
‘Sorry, no response,’ the man said.
‘Oh shit …’
And he made up his mind. No way was he going another night without a screw. He thanked Annie and drove back to Kukki’s Pub. He bought four cold beers, two bottles of wine and borrowed a glass. He drove out of town, onto the tarmac road for Usakos and the Schmidt ranch.
The sun was going down as he roared out into the desert, gleaming golden pink on the dunes and rocky outcrops, the big water pipeline stretching away into the darkening east. He snapped the cap off a beer, and it tasted like nectar.
2 (#ulink_b69a8e0d-cc70-5927-8ebc-189e9ecc1c50)
He had finished the beers by the time he reached the farm gate shortly before Usakos. Here the desert was turning to thorn trees, scrubby low mountains. This was the start of the cattle country. McQuade closed the gate behind him and set off on the long dirt road through the Schmidt land. It was nine o’clock when he rounded the hill and saw the Schmidt homestead twinkling ahead.
He was taken aback by the number of cars. It appeared that a big party was in progress. There was a black guard with a flashlight at the gate. McQuade wondered if he was doing the right thing, showing up uninvited. The black man recognized him. ‘Goeie naand, Baas Jim.’ He pointed his flashlight, indicating parking space. McQuade parked near the back of the house, and when he switched off the engine he heard orchestra music.
He felt very doubtful about this. This was a large formal party and he didn’t even have a tie. But, hell, he’d just come back from sea and the old people always made him welcome. (‘You come to marry my dodder, aha-ha-ha!’). He mounted the steps to the verandah and walked towards the front door. As he passed the living-room window he stopped, and stared.
The big room had been cleared of furniture and two dozen couples were waltzing. From one wall hung a massive flag, red, white and black with a huge swastika in the middle of it. On another wall hung another flag, almost identical, but the swastika was three-legged: the flag of the AWB, the Afrikaner Weerstand Beweging, the right-wing Afrikaner movement. The women wore ball gowns; half the men were in military uniforms. Some wore black, some grey, with shiny black boots, and each was wearing a swastika armband. Some younger men were in smart khaki uniforms, wearing the AWB swastika armband. McQuade stood on the dark verandah an astonished moment, then suddenly a voice boomed behind him, ‘Willkommen!’ He turned around. Helga’s father was lumbering down the long verandah towards him.
He was a big man, with a barrel chest and a balding head with a round face wreathed in beery smiles, his big arms extended. On his arm was the swastika. McQuade took an uncertain step towards him, and the old man stopped. He stared at McQuade in surprise; then he dropped his arms. ‘What are you doing here?’
McQuade said: ‘Excuse me.’ He made to turn and leave.
The old man cried: ‘Who invited you?’
McQuade stopped. ‘Nobody. I’m sorry, I’ve just got back from sea.’
‘Not even my stupid dodder would invite you today!’
‘She didn’t.’
‘So can’t you see today is a private party?! So what we going to do now?’
‘Forget it, I’m leaving.’
McQuade strode across the verandah. The old man suddenly lumbered after him. ‘Jim – Jim, I’m sorry …’
‘Goodnight, Herr Schmidt.’
‘Jim …’ the old man pleaded, then he bellowed: ‘Helga!’
McQuade was on the lawn when Helga burst onto the verandah. She stared at McQuade disappearing into the darkness, then she clutched up her evening gown and ran down the steps. ‘Jim!’
McQuade was halfway across the lawn when she caught up. ‘Jim!’ She grabbed his arm. Her blue eyes were aghast. ‘What are you doing here?’
McQuade looked back at the house. Half a dozen figures had emerged onto the verandah. ‘What are you doing in there? Dancing under the Nazi flag. With gentlemen wearing uniforms and swastika armbands! And wearing this!’ He pointed at a black velvet choker around her neck, from which dangled a little gold swastika.
‘Didn’t the guard stop you at the gate?’
‘Yes but he thought I was a Nazi too.’ He frowned with amazement. ‘Do you do this often?’
She glared. ‘Don’t be ridiculous. Don’t you know what the date is? The twentieth of April!’
‘So?’
She glared at him. ‘Oh, don’t be dense! Whose birthday is on the twentieth of April?’ She waved a hand at the homestead. ‘This is just … a little traditional celebration. The English do the same thing on the Queen’s birthday.’
‘Whose birthday is the twentieth of April?’
She glared at him sullenly. ‘Adolf Hitler’s, you fool!’
McQuade stared at her. Absolutely amazed. He couldn’t believe this. But suddenly he understood what had happened in the bar of the Europahof Hotel, and he was staggered that she was part of this. ‘Jesus Christ.’
She opened her mouth but he went on in wonder: ‘So every year you celebrate the Führer’s birthday? With great big swastika flags and SS uniforms and Nazi armbands? And this …?’ He flicked the little golden swastika.
She hissed. ‘That is just jewellery – the swastika is an ancient international symbol of good!’
‘The Nazi Party was good?’
‘You drink a toast to the Queen on her birthday …?’
He wanted to shake her. ‘The Queen of England happens to have an unblemished political record! You are celebrating the birthday of the most brutal mass-murderer the world has ever known! The man who ordered the Holocaust of six million Jews!’
Her hand flashed in the moonlight and cracked across his face. He stared at her, shocked, his face stinging, and she screamed: ‘That’s the hoax of the twentieth century! There was noHolocaust!’ Her breasts were heaving.
McQuade took a deep breath to control his fury. ‘Goodbye, Helga.’ He added sarcastically: ‘Heil Hitler.’ He turned and strode away.
Helga stood on the lawn, her eyes bright; then she shrieked; ‘Yes, Heil Hitler!’ She stamped her feet together and shot out her right arm and screamed: ‘Heil Hitler!’
A man leapt over the verandah rail and started running towards the Landrover. McQuade got in, slammed the door, and started the engine. He roared off down the gravel drive.
3 (#ulink_18b092bf-3a6a-57c1-b551-daf79571b3e7)
He drove hard back towards Swakopmund, the desert flashing by in his headlights. He was over the anger of the confrontation: now he was left with the shock. It made his flesh creep. It was macabre. Not just because she had obscenely shrieked Heil Hitler at him; it was the whole nine yards of the great swastika in all its frightening glory, the arrogant uniforms, the strutting jackboots – it evoked a legend of dreaded times, a legend he had learnt at his mother’s knee had been brought to life before his eyes. He had just seen ordinary, decent people ritualizing it, rejoicing at the altar, and if ordinary people were doing this on a remote farm in the heart of Namibia, what was happening in the rest of the country tonight?
Almost everything in life is a coincidence, in that something happens because something else has just happened to happen. If the good ship Bonanza had not come back to port a day early so that the Kid could have his new teeth installed for Beryl, this story would never have happened: if the Bonanza had returned any other day, the Stormtrooper would have been waiting for McQuade with open arms, he would not have driven out to the ranch in his determination to get laid, and he would not have come roaring back into the little German town of Swakopmund, angry and determined to get drunk, and parked outside Kukki’s Pub at the moment that the drunken Damara tribesman lurched around the corner and offered to sell him an Iron Cross.
McQuade was in no mood for drunken peddlers and he glared at the German medal because he presumed the man was also trying to exploit the birthday of Adolf Hitler. ‘No thank you.’ But the drunken Damara had more to sell. He buried his hand into his pocket and laboriously extracted a piece of white paper. He thrust it at McQuade dramatically and said: ‘Sell you this for only one rand!’
McQuade looked at it in the lamplight. A banknote? A white banknote? On the corners were the symbols £5, and the text read: The Governor of the Bank of England promises to pay to bearer on demand the sum of five pounds sterling … McQuade turned it over. The other side was blank. A banknote printed on one side only? Its date of issue was 1944. An old English fiver? He looked at the Damara. ‘What’s your name?’
The Damara said drunkenly; ‘Skellum Jagter.’
‘No, man, your real name.’
‘Skellum Jagter!’
McQuade half-smiled, despite himself. Jagter means hunter and Skellum is slang meaning sly. ‘Where did you get this?’ It was then that he saw the identification tag in the man’s dirty open shirt-front, and the words stamped on it, Seeoffizier Horst Kohler.
He frowned. Seeoffizier is German. Horst Kohler is definitely a German name. How did this drunken Damara come into possession of such a personal thing? ‘Where did you get that?’
Skellum suddenly looked alarmed. He tried to snatch the banknote back. McQuade said in Afrikaans: ‘No, I’ll pay for it! Just tell me where you got it.’ He pointed at the identification tag. ‘And that. Five rand and a bottle of wine.’
They sat in the front seats of the Landrover, outside Kukki’s Pub. It was a long story, difficult to extract, because McQuade made the mistake of giving Skellum the bottle of wine immediately, and the drunken Damara got drunker.
‘And where is your father now?’
Skellum waved the bottle northwards: ‘Damaraland.’
McQuade said in Afrikaans, ‘And are you sure he says there was no boat? These two men just came up out of the sea?’
‘No boat! They were just white wizards!’
Then they came from a submarine, McQuade reasoned. Absolutely fascinating. Forty years ago. It must have been a German submarine, with an officer named Horst Kohler, and it must have been wrecked. Why else would two men erupt out of the sea? ‘And one was wounded?’
‘Blood,’ Skellum said happily. He wiped his hand downwards over his face. ‘Blood.’
‘And the first man was carrying a package.’
‘Ja.’ Skellum clutched one hand to his chest and made exaggerated swimming motions with the other.
‘And then they fought on the beach?’
‘Fight,’ Skellum said joyfully. He punched the air aggressively. Then drew his finger across his scrawny throat cheerfully. He collapsed back onto the seat, to signify death.
McQuade thought: two submariners escape from a sunken submarine, then fight to the death when they reach the shore? Why? ‘And then the man who won the fight forced your father to lead him down the coast? But your father hit him with a piece of wood?’
‘Wham,’ Skellum said joyfully, reliving the battle. ‘Whok!’ He smashed one hand down on his forearm. ‘Blood!’ He made the clubbing motion again. ‘Whok!’ He curled his arm over his head and cowered theatrically. ‘Finish,’ he said triumphantly as if he had laid the man low himself.
‘And your father returned to the place where the other man was buried? And the jackals had dug him up? And he took this tag from him. Did he ever return to the place where he had hit the first man, to see what had happened to him?’
‘Gone.’ Skellum waved his hand extravagantly at the horizon. Then he fixed his eyes on McQuade’s nose. He slurred conspiratorially, ‘Does the Baas want to buy some more white money?’ He burrowed into his pocket, and pulled out a black wallet importantly. ‘My father found this after the fight.’
McQuade took the wallet. It was bulky and made of leather. Some initials were imprinted on it. He switched on the cab light. The letters were in Gothic style: the initials were H.M.
The wallet was packed with white paper money. He pulled a note out. It was the same as the one he had bought. He pulled out some more. They were in good condition, though the edges of some were worn. He counted them. There were ninety-seven notes. Four hundred and eight-five pounds. He turned to Skellum. ‘This is old English money. It is not used any more. How many of these have you managed to sell?’
‘None,’ Skellum proclaimed. ‘Only to you.’
McQuade did not believe him. ‘So this wallet did not belong to the man who was stabbed to death? The man this tag came from. It belonged to the first man?’
‘Ja.’
Then McQuade noticed something else: the serial numbers on two notes were the same.
He flicked through a dozen notes. They all had the same serial number.
Counterfeit money …
He had read somewhere that during the war the Nazis had counterfeited tons of English money which they intended to flood onto the market to destroy Britain’s economy. He thought, this gets curiouser and curiouser. Two men escape from a sunken German submarine over forty years ago. One, a man called Horst Kohler, is already wounded but is chasing the other man, whose initials are H.M. H.M. is carrying a package. On the beach they fight to the death. H.M. is also carrying a wallet containing a lot of counterfeit English money.
Where had he got that money from? And why did they fight? Over the money? The contents of the package? Why did only two men escape from the submarine? Why was Horst Kohler chasing H.M. so furiously? H.M. was armed with both a pistol and a knife, Kohler had nothing but his fists, yet he persevered. Surely he would not have done that just for five hundred pounds. That meant H.M.’s package contained something much more valuable. Like diamonds?
Another point: H.M. was carrying the package as he swam ashore: he swam with difficulty. Only after the fight did he open the package and put the two bags into his pockets. Why did he not do that before he escaped from the submarine? Answer: H.M. did not have time to open the package inside the submarine – he only had time to snatch it up. That suggested that he left behind more valuables.
The more McQuade thought about it, the more convinced he became. That submarine was shipwrecked, because only two men emerged from it, in disarray, one pursuing the other. So, it was still where it sank, and inside was a hell of a lot more valuable stuff than H.M. had managed to struggle ashore with. Why? Because of the counterfeit fivers. Surely only a very senior Nazi official had access to counterfeit money and a submarine. McQuade had read somewhere about the vast treasures the Nazis were said to have accumulated and shipped away to South America. Well, here we have another case. To arrange a submarine you must be a very senior official, and a high-up Nazi official has more loot stashed away against the day the shit hits the fan than five hundred counterfeit English pounds and one package of diamonds.
McQuade stared down the sandy street, his excitement mounting. God, if all that was correct, there was a fortune somewhere down there, in that submarine. Crates of the stuff.
But why was this German submarine off the coast of South West Africa? That’s a long, long way from South America where all the Nazis ran to.
McQuade stared through the windscreen, trying to think as a seaman.
Two possibilities. One: because of Allied maritime patrols in the Atlantic, the commander decides to hug the coast of West Africa. He has navigational problems and because of treacherous currents, the submarine crashes into a sandbank off the infamous Skeleton Coast.
McQuade shook his head. All right, it was a possibility, but the Skeleton Coast was simply too far off the route to South America for it to be a credible course for even the most cautious submariner.
So, possibility two. Namibia, or South West Africa, as it was called, was a German colony until the First World War. It was then occupied by South African troops to protect the Cape sea route from German warships. At the end of the war, the colony was handed over to South Africa to govern as a trusteeship territory. But the country remained heavily pro-German. So this submarine had been heading for this vast, sympathetic, pro-German territory to unload its Nazis and their loot. However, before it could do so it came to grief on the treacherous Skeleton Coast, and H.M. escaped with some of the loot, with Kohler pursuing him to get his share …
This was the most likely scenario: Namibia was so vast and so German that it would be a good place for Nazis to hide, to become absorbed. This scenario presupposed that arrangements had been made with German agents in Namibia to rendezvous with the submarine, in a fishing trawler, for example, to receive the Nazis and the loot. This also explained why the submarine was so close in-shore, waiting for the rendezvous, that it came to grief on sandbanks.
But why did only two men escape? What happened to the rest?
McQuade sighed. He knew very little about submarines. Was it possible that two men were discharged, and the submarine sailed away happily? It was not likely. For several reasons:
Firstly, H.M. was struggling to swim with his package. Surely, if the disembarkation was planned, he would have secured his package in some way to enable him to swim properly. Secondly, Horst Kohler was injured, and he was furiously pursuing H.M. Kohler was trying to prevent H.M. from escaping. And thirdly, the most compelling reason of all: if the disembarkation had been planned, why would they choose the killer Skeleton Coast? Why not further south, close to Swakopmund, and why not come ashore with some kind of raft carrying some food and water?
So, it was obviously a case of shipwreck.
But why did only two men escape?
But all those questions surely did not matter. The only thing that mattered today, forty-odd years later, was that somewhere on this Skeleton Coast lay a German submarine with a lot of Nazi treasure in it. In water so shallow that two men could escape from it.
McQuade sat back. Excited. And he made up his mind. ‘Have you got a job, Skellum?’
Skellum turned to him, his eyes glazed. ‘Nee.’
McQuade pulled out a fifty-rand banknote.
‘You and I are going to drive up to Damaraland. To meet your father. So he can tell me this story himself.’
4 (#ulink_25850467-8f8e-5c89-b5eb-57d17826cf33)
He first went back to his ship and collected the sextant, the nautical almanac, the sight-reduction tables, an Admiralty chart of the coast, a plotting sheet and parallel rulers. He grabbed some cans of food, beer, two bottles of brandy, some cooking utensils and four blankets, which he slung in the back of the Landrover. Then he drove back towards Swakopmund and the Skeleton Coast beyond. Skellum was sprawled in a drunken sleep. That was okay with McQuade: he expected no great meeting of minds on this journey and just hoped that the man had not made up the whole story.
The road north from Swakopmund was smooth, compacted sand. To the left was the moonlit Atlantic, in all other directions was only sand, hillocks and humps going on and on. At three o’clock they came to Henties Bay, a little resort for sport-fishermen, holiday houses sitting on bare sand, and McQuade swung off the coastal road, north-east, towards Uis Mine. Now they were in the dune country, hills of yellow and white in the flashing headlamps, going on and on. Then, gradually, the dunes began to turn flinty hard, impacted with the brown gravel hurled into them by the winds, and now the earth was turning into flinty rockiness, hills of rocks rising up into the starry sky, stones flying up from the wheels. Then the dry scrub began to appear. The first light came, greyness turning to pink. Outside Uis Mine he turned left, towards Khorixas, and now here and there were iron windmills. Sunrise came, red and gold fanning up behind the rocky mountains; it was early morning when McQuade drove into dusty, dry Khorixas and stopped at the service station. He shook Skellum awake.
‘You must show me the way from here.’
Skellum blinked around, all hungover and horrible. Then memory dawned on him. He suddenly looked uncomfortable.
‘Ah – I cannot take you to my father’s kraal.’
So it was all a hoax! ‘Why not?’ McQuade demanded dangerously.
Skellum shifted. ‘Because he will beat me.’
‘Why will he beat you? Because your story is a pack of lies?’
‘Because,’ Skellum shifted uncomfortably, ‘he does not know I took these things from his hut.’
‘You stole them from your own father?’
Skellum waggled his hungover head. ‘I only borrowed them …’
McQuade grabbed him by his shirt front theatrically. ‘Last night I paid you fifty rand to take me to your father. Now get on with it! And if you’re frightened he’s going to beat you,’ he snatched a bottle of brandy off the back seat, ‘fortify yourself with this!’
It was nine o’clock when the Landrover went grinding up the stony track through the yellow brown rocky hills and came to a halt at Jakob’s kraal. It consisted of three small stone huts, plastered with mud, roofed with flattened paraffin tins. A cooking fire smouldered outside the central hut. A scrawny old man and an old woman appeared in the dark doorway, astonished.
Skellum was right to be nervous. As he and McQuade climbed out of the vehicle, the old man’s astonishment gave way to fury. He snatched up a thick stick and came charging at Skellum, swiping. Skellum flung his arms up and his father swiped him on the shoulders, swipe, swipe, shouting curses, and Skellum scuttled about backwards, his scrawny old father swiping after him. ‘Stop!’ McQuade shouted. ‘Stop! I am not the police! I am a friend!’ He grabbed the stick. ‘I am a friend!’
They sat around the smoky fire, on the ground, while the old woman made tea. Skellum sat against a hut wall, malevolently nursing his bruises and his hangover. Scrawny chickens scratched in the earth and half a dozen goats wandered around. Jakob had been pacified by a present of a bottle of brandy and assurances from McQuade that he had not come to make trouble. Why did the Baas want to hear the story? Because he was interested, McQuade said, and as he already knew the story, why should not Jakob repeat it truly? The old man was sullenly impressed by these arguments and the brandy, whilst still glancing malevolently at his son.
He solemnly told the story again. McQuade had to be careful how he asked his questions lest it appear that he criticized his conduct. They spoke in Afrikaans:
‘And you’re absolutely sure only two men came out? Is it not possible that more emerged after the fight?’
‘Not possible. I would have seen their footprints when I came back.’
‘Why did you go back?’
‘Because I had left my bag when I ran away. I hoped it would still be there.’
‘But you only found the wallet?’ He did not believe that – the old man had stolen it. ‘How many bottles of water were in your bag?’
‘Five.’
About five pints. A determined man could get a long way on five pints. ‘And how much dried meat?’
Jakob put his finger on his wrist, indicating a piece of meat the size of his hand.
‘And where is Petrus now, the other man with you?’
‘He has died.’
‘Have you or Petrus ever told this story to anyone else?’
Jakob shook his old head.
‘Do you remember the time when the great war ended?’
‘I remember hearing it was ended.’
‘Did this happen before or after that?’
‘After,’ Jakob said.
‘How long after? One month? Two? Four?’
‘Maybe one month.’
Oh yes, McQuade thought.
‘And was there water to be found in the river beds near the coast? If a man dug for it.’
‘If he dug for it he would find some water.’
‘And game?’
‘Yes, there would be some game near the river beds.’
So he could have got food and water. And he had a gun. ‘Why didn’t you take his gun?’
Jakob said, ‘I was frightened. I ran away. I did not think about the gun until afterwards.’
‘And the man’s front teeth were definitely broken?’
‘Broken.’ Jakob pointed at his own gums.
So he was in pain for a long time, McQuade thought, so the first thing he would have done when he reached civilization was go to a dentist. ‘Can you describe this man? How old was he? Was he younger or older than me?’
Jakob glanced at McQuade. ‘About the same age.’
‘And how old am I?’
‘Maybe you have forty years.’
Not bad, McQuade thought. That meant that if H.M. had survived, he would now be an old man of about eighty. ‘What colour hair did he have?’
Jakob pointed at a dark rock.
‘Was his hair curly or straight?’
‘Straight.’
‘Eyes?’
Jakob indicated his own eyes. ‘Brown.’
‘Anything else? Scars, for example?’
Jakob shook his head. ‘I saw no scars.’
‘What was his nose like? Broad; thin, straight, crooked?’
‘It was straight, like yours.’
‘How was his mouth?’
‘He had thin lips.’
‘How was his chin? Did it have a dent, like mine? Or was it round, like yours?’
Jakob thought. ‘I think it had a dent.’
‘How tall was he?’ McQuade stood up. ‘Taller than me? Or shorter?’
Jakob stood up. He compared McQuade to himself, then touched the tip of McQuade’s shoulder.
That’s short for a white man, McQuade thought. He himself was six foot so H.M. was about five foot three or four.
‘And was he fat, thin or average?’
‘He was not fat, he was not thin.’
‘Did you get anything else from the dead man apart from the cross and the tag? A piece of paper, maybe? Another wallet?’
Jakob shook his head. ‘Nothing.’
‘And what did this man look like?’
Jakob said: ‘He was dead. His face was covered in blood and sand. And the jackals had been eating him.’
‘All right. Now please –’ he was going to say ‘be honest’ but changed it, ‘– please think carefully. Was there anything else in the wallet apart from the white money? You can tell me without fear. Was there a card, perhaps? Some papers?’
Jakob glanced away. ‘Nothing.’
McQuade thought he was lying but let it go for the moment. ‘Did you ever exchange any of the white English money for our money?’
Jakob said emphatically: ‘No.’
McQuade knew he was lying. Four hundred and eighty-five is an untidy number of forged English pounds. But only a few people had trusted the strange-looking money. ‘Why not?’
‘Because I was afraid the police may say I stole it.’
McQuade nodded. ‘How many people know about this story, Jakob?’
‘I told only my wife and my son.’ Jakob gave a truculent glance at Skellum.
‘Did Petrus keep anything taken that day?’
‘He did not want anything.’
‘And how did Skellum get hold of it?’
‘He stole it! From my hut!’ Jakob said indignantly.
‘When?’
‘Last month he ran away. Later I found he had stolen these things.’
Skellum was sitting against the hut wall, a big bruise on his temple, one eye swollen, looking murderous. McQuade wanted to ask him how many people he had told the story to, but didn’t think he would get any truth from Skellum. Now for the all-important question.
‘And can you remember the place on the shore where the white men came out of the sea? The exact place?’
Jakob glanced at him. Then looked away.
‘I do not think I remember.’
‘But why not? Damara people remember the eyes of a buck they shot fifty years ago!’
‘Because the coast walks.’
This was true. The Skeleton Coast changes, the winds and tides slowly shifting the great expanses of sand, so that old wrecks are sometimes found buried hundreds of yards inland. McQuade burrowed his hand into his pocket. He counted off four fifty-rand banknotes elaborately. He held them out to Jakob.
‘Please take me to this place.’
5 (#ulink_dc957417-4755-55a7-a010-3e2ad135d445)
They drove back through the scrub-rock hills towards the Skeleton Coast, stones flying from the wheels, dust billowing up behind. McQuade wanted to make the coast while the sun was still high enough to use the sextant. Then the yellow-grey hills gave way to the rock mountains heaped up on the horizon, iron-brown and shimmering under the merciless blue sky. It was afternoon when they reached the ranger’s post at Springbokwasser, midst a clump of reeds. McQuade got a twenty-four-hour permit.
They drove on. Slowly the iron-brown mountains gave way to the flinty dunes, grey-brown and yellow. McQuade said to Jakob:
‘This man spoke in German. You understand German?’
‘I understand many words.’
McQuade said: ‘How was it when the Germans ruled this country?’
Jakob stared through the windscreen. ‘Sleg,’ he said. Bad.
‘Why?’
Jakob shook his head. ‘Twenty-five lashes. And if the whip does not whistle that lash does not count.’ He added: ‘Blood.’
‘For what offence did people get twenty-five lashes?’
‘For anything.’ He added: ‘For falling down. Even women and children.’
McQuade frowned. ‘Why did they fall down?’
‘Because the loads were too heavy. When the Germans were building the harbour at Lüderitz. I was a boy then.’
‘Were you ever lashed?’
For answer Jakob pulled up his shirt. His back was a mass of scar tissue.
McQuade was shocked. ‘For what offence?’
Jakob said: ‘The sickness of hunger. And the cold.’
‘But did they not feed you enough?’
‘There were no crops. The Germans had killed very many men in the wars, and so no crops were planted. The women and children had to build the harbour because there were no men left, but there was no food because there were no crops.’
McQuade did not believe this. The old man was repeating folklore. History was not McQuade’s strong point, but nobody had taught him this at school. He knew something about the German colonial war against the Hereros, and presumed it was a pretty bloody affair, as wars of pacification were in that era. What about the Red Indians in America? What about the Aborigines in Australia? But he did not believe this story about women and children being worked and starved and lashed by the Germans of South West Africa.
The gravel-encrusted hillocks gave way to the yellow sand dunes, row after jumbled row, going on and on: then, way ahead, a haze came onto the horizon and then the mauve-black of the Atlantic.
McQuade stopped where the road joined the coastal track. He made a note of the mileage, and said to Jakob, ‘Which way?’
Jakob pointed left. South.
‘Are you sure?’
‘Sure,’ Jakob said.
But Jakob was not so sure. On his instructions McQuade drove off the road half a dozen times in the next two hours, grinding down to the shore, and then along it, while Jakob peered all around for landmarks. He said he was looking for a promontory of rocks sticking out into the sea. It was after four o’clock when he pointed with conviction.
McQuade stopped. From Jakob’s description he had expected the rocks to reach much further into the sea. ‘How can you tell?’
‘By the shape of that rock. Like a seal.’
‘So where did you first see the two men come out of the sea?’
Jakob pointed behind them.
McQuade turned the Landrover north again and drove along the sandy, hummocked shoreline. After about a mile Jakob signalled him to stop. Jakob got out, looked up the shoreline, at the pounding, seething surf, then down it. He studied the sea for a full minute, then began to trudge northwards, up the coast, with conviction.
McQuade followed him in the Landrover.
After ten minutes Jakob stopped, looked at the sea, then at the sky. He looked south, at the featureless surf. Then he looked east, inland, at the featureless sand dunes. He announced, ‘Here.’
McQuade looked at the moonscape of desert and sea.
‘How do you know? The coast has changed much in forty years.’
‘I know.’ Jakob pointed at the black Atlantic, the rows of breakers rolling in, the flatness beyond. ‘There,’ he said.
McQuade had to work fast. It was after five o’clock and the sun was dangerously low on the horizon: any angle approaching ten degrees had to be treated with suspicion. If he had to wait for tomorrow for the sun-sight he would have to wait until noon because the morning sun would be in the east, over the desert, and he would not have a usable horizon because of the dunes. He sat on the sand, hastily opened his notebook, put the sextant to his eye and pulled down some shades. He fiddled with the angle-adjuster, until he found the image of the sun. Then he slid the adjuster and brought the sun’s image down, until the lower limb of it just touched the horizon. He rocked the sextant, so the sun just skimmed the horizon in an arc. Then he looked quickly at his digital watch. He noted down the exact hour, minute and second, allowing for reaction time. Then he read off the angle shown on the adjuster, and sighed.
The angle of the sun was eleven degrees, twenty-four minutes and about thirty seconds. That was perilously close to ten degrees. If he had been at sea, where it did not much matter if he’d been a mile or two out, he would have used the angle: but in this case, if he was a mile out in calculating where on the earth’s surface he was sitting, he could waste a lot of money, and not find that submarine at all. The only sensible thing was to spend the night here and get a noon-shot tomorrow to verify his position.
Jakob had been watching him in amazement. McQuade picked up a piece of driftwood, and stuck it upright in the sand. He went to the Landrover and got out the provisions and the pots.
He poured brandy into two mugs, added a dash of water, and gave one to Jakob. He sat down.
If Jakob was telling the truth, somewhere just out there was an old German submarine. Loaded with loot. And James McQuade was going to be a rich man. He said to Jakob:
‘So somewhere near here lie the bones of the man who was killed? Do you think we will see his ghost tonight?’
Jakob stared at him.
‘Baas, we must not sleep here tonight! We must sleep a long way down the beach from this place!’
And McQuade knew that Jakob had been telling him the truth.
They slept two miles down the beach. McQuade was awake at sunrise, and thank God the sky was clear. He would get his sun-sights.
He built up the fire. Jakob was still asleep, curled up in his blankets; he had got drunk last night. McQuade put a pot of water on the fire. There was nothing to do but wait till noon. He went to the Landrover and got his fishing rod.
He walked along the beach, looking for bait. It was plentiful, in brown, spongy lumps the size of fists. He selected one and cut it open. The bait was inside little pockets – meaty, pink, like plums. He thought: H.M. could have survived on this stuff alone. He threaded a lump onto his hook. He swung the rod and cast out into the surf.
In fifteen minutes he had caught four good fish. He cleaned them and went back to the fire. Jakob was still asleep.
He made coffee. There was nothing to do but eat and wait.
At eleven-thirty they drove back to The Haunted Place. Five minutes before local noon McQuade sat down and faced north. He put the sextant to his eye, found the sun and adjusted the shades. He slid the adjuster and brought the sun down until the lower limb of it just skimmed the horizon. He looked at the angle, then at the time, but did not make any notes.
Jakob was watching him in amazement. McQuade smiled at him. He waited half a minute, then raised the sextant again, found the sun, tweaked the angle-adjuster, and skimmed the sun on the horizon again. The angle was a minute of arc higher than last time. He waited half a minute, and did it again. At noon the sun stays at its zenith for about four minutes before it begins to descend into afternoon. About five minutes later, after measuring half a dozen times the angle between the sun, his eye, and the horizon, he was satisfied about the zenith.
He noted down that angle. He allowed seven feet for Dip, and allowed for the sextant’s Index Error. He then subtracted the sun’s noon angle, in degrees and minutes and seconds, from ninety degrees, zero minutes, zero seconds. The final result was an exact parallel of latitude.
This piece of beach he was sitting on was exactly nineteen degrees, seventeen minutes, forty-eight seconds South. Assuming Jakob was right, somewhere out there, due west along that latitude, lay the submarine. Probably about half a mile out.
With the next part of the navigational calculation he could take his time. He had a coffee. He gave the sun an hour, then took another sight with the sextant. He noted the exact time.
He used the Landrover’s flat bonnet as a table, and began his calculations. He unfolded his nautical chart of the Skeleton Coast and drew in his latitude. He read off the longitude of the point where his latitude line crossed the coast. That in itself was enough to tell him exactly where on the earth’s surface he was. But, to double-check, he wanted to put in the afternoon position line as well. He calculated his Local Hour Angle, noted down his post-noon sun angle, allowed for Dip and Index Error, opened the nautical almanac to the page for that day, found the hour, did the calculations and arrived at Height Observed. He then opened the sight-reduction tables to the appropriate page, and worked out Height Calculated. He subtracted that from Height Observed and came up with a minuscule Intercept. He then drew in the position line on the chart. It intercepted at the point where his latitude line crossed the coast. He was quite satisfied about where on the earth’s surface he was standing.
He took a deep breath. Okay, the first step was to verify the submarine’s existence. Bring the Bonanza up here and sweep the ocean floor in a pattern. Her depth-sounder would show up anything as big as a submarine lying on the ocean bed.
Then dive down and have a look at it.
How do you get into a sunken submarine?
He had no idea. Worry about that later.
What were the legal ramifications? And if word got out there’d be fortune-hunters from all over the world looking for this submarine. So, consult a good maritime lawyer, and meanwhile tell absolutely nobody. He’d have to tell the Kid, Tucker, Elsie and Potgieter of course, but he’d give the Coloureds a few days leave and bring the Bonanza up here with a skeleton crew.
6 (#ulink_e26506f2-2282-54d1-8a69-50c2c28d6fb8)
It was a long shot, but it was worth looking into: had H.M. survived the Skeleton Coast? Was he alive today? He might well have survived: he was a youngish man in 1945 and he had had Jakob’s water bottles, which he could have replenished at the Ugab river by digging. He had a gun and he might have shot a buck at the Ugab. Or a seal. If he reached Swakopmund, he would have gone immediately to a dentist because he would have been in pain. And probably seen a doctor, to treat his gashed arm. Records of all this might still exist. If McQuade could uncover those records he might find out H.M.’s name.
It was two o’clock the following afternoon when McQuade drove into Swakopmund, after returning Jakob to his kraal. He parked outside the old municipal buildings, under the palms, and went into the information bureau. A coloured woman came forward. ‘Guten Tag.’
‘Can you advise me please?’ (People like to be asked their advice) ‘I am writing about Swakopmund during the war period. Is there a municipal archive I can research in?’
The lady said, ‘Only the Sam Cohen Library.’ She produced a glossy brochure and opened it at the map. ‘Here. And the Public Library’s here.’
McQuade circled them. ‘How would I find out …’ he waved his hand, ‘… how many dentists there were in Swakopmund in 1945, for example.’
‘Maybe at the library.’
‘And do you happen to know what hospitals there were in 1945?’
‘Only the Antonius Hospital. Across the street there.’
‘Thank you.’ He went downstairs, back into the glaring sunshine.
The Antonius Hospital was an attractive old German building. He walked into the small foyer. A number of black women were sitting on chairs with infants. On the walls were government posters about nutrition, infant care, family planning, and the smiling people depicted in them were all an attractive shade of brown. McQuade went to the door marked Reception. A black woman in a white smock was sitting at a typewriter. ‘Good afternoon,’ he said in Afrikaans, ‘is this where all the records of patients are kept?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Do you have the records for 1945 here?’
The woman looked nonplussed. ‘No. In those days this was a German missionary hospital. It was later taken over by the government.’
‘Do you know where the old missionary records are?’
‘The missionaries took them away.’
‘And where are the missions’ headquarters now?’
‘In Windhoek, maybe. Or maybe in Germany.’
McQuade thanked her and left the hospital. Well, he’d drawn a blank there. He walked towards the main street, Kaiserstrasse.
The public library is in the old Woermann-Brock Shipping Line building, built in Bavarian style around a large open courtyard. McQuade asked the librarian what books she had on German history of Namibia in general and Swakopmund in particular during the war period. ‘Giving me details like how many dentists and doctors the town had in those days, et cetera.’
The librarian was a cultured, elderly German lady. ‘For that you must go to the Sam Cohen library. It is dedicated to the local history. Mr Cohen made a great deal of money out of Swakopmund and built the institute out of gratitude. Meanwhile, sit at a table and I’ll bring you what books we have.’
He found a table in the reference section. The librarian arrived with a pile of books.
The topmost book was by a Professor du Passani on the constitutional history of South West Africa. McQuade flicked through it. It seemed erudite stuff, more than he needed.
The next book was written by Adolf Hitler himself, Mein Kampf. McQuade put it aside. The next was a large tome about the Nuremberg Trials. He resolved to read it one day but it seemed hardly relevant to Namibia. However, a chapter had been marked by a pencil line, so he speed-read it. The gist of it was that many people challenged the legality and the morality of the Nuremberg Trials. They were without precedent in history. Before these trials, there was no such crime as ‘crimes against humanity’, a legal concept that was invented only after the war, so it could not legally be applied to deeds perpetrated before its conception. Furthermore, it was argued, the court did not have jurisdiction to hold the trials. Only a sovereign state had such power and the Allied forces were not a sovereign state, only an occupying army: so only the state of Germany itself had the legal power to try these ‘criminals’. Furthermore, was it morally right to hold these ‘criminals’ responsible for obeying orders? McQuade skipped the rest – he had no patience for such arguments. There were photographs, however. A photograph of the principal war criminals in the dock at Nuremberg: Hess, Göring, Dönitz, Ribbentrop, Keitel, Kaltenbrunner, Speer and others.
Some of the names he knew as legendary villains of the war, others meant nothing to him. It struck him how ordinary these notorious men looked in civilian clothes, stripped of their awesome uniforms. There was a photograph of the gallows, specially built in a gymnasium for the executions. A photograph of the hangman, Master-Sergeant Woods of the United States Army, preparing a noose. A photograph of the bodies after the execution, lying in a long row on top of their coffins: some had blood coming from the eyes and nose. A macabre but interesting detail, McQuade learnt, was that the condemned were not told until a few hours beforehand that their executions were ‘imminent’, so each day they woke up not knowing whether it was to be their last. Furthermore, they were hanged one at a time, so once the executions started, some had a long wait before their turn came. There were photographs of concentration camps, the likes of which he had seen before, shocking pictures of emaciated people behind barbed wire, trainloads of Jews lined up on railway platforms outside concentration camps undergoing selection by SS doctors for the gas chambers and slave labour, crematoria chimneys belching smoke, emaciated corpses filling open graves.
It was shocking, but it was distant history to McQuade and had nothing to do with the modern Germans whom he knew and liked – except for what he had seen three nights ago on the Schmidt ranch on Hitler’s birthday, and what Jakob had told him about the harbour at Lüderitz. If Jakob’s story was true, the Second World War was not the first time the Germans had used slave labour.
The next book was a pictorial history of Hitler’s rise to power. It was vaguely familiar stuff. The goose-stepping armies on parade, the gleaming jackboots, the square helmets, the phalanxes of trucks, the armadas of battleships, the skies dark with Messerschmitts with the cross emblazoned on their wings. Here were the swastikas, flying, draped dramatically on walls, and the massive crowds, right arms out rigid in the Heil Hitler salute – you could almost hear the roar coming up out of the pages. McQuade had seen such pictures before and he would not have spent time on them now, but for what he had seen on the Schmidt ranch.
God, the whole thing gave him the creeps. He thrust the book aside and picked up the last one.
It was called The Hoax of the Twentieth Century, by Arthur Butz. McQuade stared. These were Helga’s words three nights ago when he had said that Hitler had murdered six million Jews. ‘The hoax of the twentieth century!’ she had shrieked before she hit him. McQuade turned to the back cover. The publisher’s blurb read:
Dr Butz gives the reader a graduate course on the subject of the Jews of World War II Europe – concluding not only that they were not virtually wiped out; but, what’s more, that no evidence exists to date to confirm that there was ever any Hitler government attempt to do so … He focuses on the post-war crimes trials where the prosecution ‘evidence’ was falsified and secured by coercion and even torture. He re-examines the very German records so long misrepresented; he critiques the European demographics which do not allow for the loss of the ‘Six Million’; he reevaluates the concept and technical feasibility of the ‘gas chambers’ with some startling conclusions, and separates the cold facts from the sheer tonnage of myth and propaganda …
McQuade thought, God … This was what Helga, an educated woman, believed? He flicked open the book. Many passages had been underlined. He speed-read a page which had been flagged:
The thesis of this book has been proved conclusively. The Jews of Europe were not exterminated and there was no German attempt to exterminate them … The Jews of Europe suffered during the war by being deported to the East, by having had much of their property confiscated and, more importantly, by suffering cruelly in the circumstances surrounding Germany’s defeat. There may even have been a million dead.
Everybody in Europe suffered during the war. The people who suffered most were the losers, the Germans and Austrians, who lost 10 million dead due to military casualties, Allied bombings, the Russian terror at the end of the war, Russian and French labour conscriptions of POWs after the war, Polish and other expulsions from their homelands, under the most brutal conditions, and the vengeful occupation policies of 1945–1948.
The ‘gas chambers’ were wartime propaganda fantasies … The factual basis of these ridiculous charges was nailed with perfect accuracy by Heinrich Himmler, in an interview with a representative of the World Jewish Congress just a few weeks before the end of the war: ‘In order to put a stop to epidemics we were forced to burn the bodies of incalculable numbers of people who had been destroyed by disease. We were therefore forced to build crematoria, and on this account they are knotting a noose for us.’
It is most unfortunate that Himmler was a ‘suicide’ while in British captivity since, had he been a defendant at the Nuremberg Trials … he would have told the true story … But then, you see, it was not within the bounds of political possibility that Himmler live to talk at the Nuremberg Trials …
The author went on to describe ‘holocaust’ literature as ‘supreme examples of total delusion and foolishness and will be referenced only in connection with the great hoaxes of history’.
McQuade soberly went back to the librarians’ counter with the books. ‘I’d like to take this one out please. On the constitutional history of South West Africa.’
The librarian said, ‘Another book has just come back. Do you know it?’ She held it out.
It was called For Volk and Führer. ‘No.’
‘Take it also, it is a true story about South Africa during the war.’
Swakopmund is a friendly town. The Sam Cohen librarian gave him a charming smile. ‘Ah so, the Englishman! The public library telephoned me and I have prepared a pile of books on German history in South West.’
The books stood on a polished table. ‘Thank you. May I take them home?’
‘Nein, but you can read them here as much as you like.’
‘Thank you. I’m also particularly interested in Swakopmund during the war period.’ McQuade waved his hand. ‘How many doctors there were.’ He tried to say it casually: ‘For example, can you tell me how many dentists there were in Swakopmund in 1945?’
‘Yes. One. Doctor Wessels.’
This was lucky! ‘Only one?’
‘Yes, he died only in the last couple of years.’
McQuade’s hopes sank. It sounded a strange question but he could not dress it up. ‘Where are his old records now?’ He added, trying to make it sound casual, ‘I mean, has his old surgery been taken over by a new dentist?’
‘No. We have several dentists nowadays, but they have their own surgeries. But maybe Doctor Wessels’ son has his father’s old stuff.’
McQuade’s hopes rose again. ‘His son’s here?’
‘He lives in his father’s old house.’
‘I see.’ McQuade tried to conceal his eagerness. ‘Well, it’s after four o’clock. Can I come back tomorrow to read those books?’
‘Natürlich.’ She handed him a piece of paper. ‘Here is a list of the books, in case somebody moves them.’
He walked out into the glaring desert sun, feeling lucky. Only one dentist in 1945.
He hurried down the Kaiserstrasse to the Hansa Hotel to telephone Doctor Wessels’ son. He looked up his number in the directory. He rehearsed his story. Then dialled.
The telephone rang, and rang.
He hung up. The man might not come home for hours.
He telephoned Roger Wentland, the attorney for his fishing company, to consult him on the law of salvage.
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