Courtney's War Read online

  •••

  Saffron could not have wanted a better cousin-in-law. They could both understand the pleasures and irritations of being taller than most other women, and quite a few men, but their looks were so sufficiently different that there was no sense of competition. Tara was intelligent, competent and awesomely efficient. She had her house, her husband, her child and the poor of Cape Town scheduled and organized with a skill that would have made her an instant success in Baker Street.

  “My commanding officer would love you,” Saffron told Tara. “He’s the fiercest, most determined, hard-working man you’ll ever meet, but he’s a great believer in women. The brighter and busier they are, the better he likes them. You’d be right up his street. You’d be running the whole show in no time.”

  “Thank you,” said Tara, beaming with pleasure.

  “I mean it. By the way, I’m not quite sure how to put this, but what exactly is happening between Centaine and your father? I mean, what is one supposed to say?”

  Tara giggled. “It is complicated, isn’t it? The simplest way of putting it is that they’re both madly in love and have been for years and years. Everyone knows that they’re a couple, and since they’re both unattached and grown up, I can’t see that there’s the slightest thing wrong about it. They have to be discreet in public, though, because Daddy’s a government minister and it wouldn’t do to offend the voters.”

  “Well, I’m not going to be offended, so that’s all right.”

  •••

  Blaine Malcomess arrived and Saffron saw at once why Centaine had fallen in love with him. Blaine was tall, with rough-hewn features and that indefinable yet unmistakable air of a man whose strength is as much moral as physical. In his younger days he had been a fine polo player and a distinguished soldier, who’d won the Military Cross in the First World War. Now, at fifty, he was still in his prime, but moving from the life of a man of action to the gravitas of a statesman.

  “Look at you, Saffron,” he said, standing back and examining her admiringly. “One minute you’re a Roedean schoolgirl and now here’s this ravishing woman of the world. How times fly, eh?”

  A little later, before the gong sounded for dinner, he took Saffron to one side and said, “Look, I don’t want to make a fuss about this in front of everyone. Suspect you wouldn’t like it. But I want you to know that we’re damn proud of you. I spoke to Ou Baas today. He asked me to send you his special regards. Said you were a credit to the Courtney name.”

  “Oh,” said Saffron, who was taken aback at the thought that Smuts should even think about her, let alone give her so fine a compliment. “I . . . I don’t know what to say.”

  “You don’t have to say a thing,” Blaine assured her. He raised his voice and announced, “I shall have the honor of escorting our guest into dinner . . . Ready?” he asked.

  Saffron nodded.

  “Then let’s go in. And I mean it . . . damn proud.”

  •••

  There was no rationing in South Africa and the dinner Centaine laid on for Saffron’s arrival at Weltevreden was a feast. They started with a mousse made from fish bought in the market that morning, within hours of being caught, accompanied by a salad of fresh green leaves and herbs picked from the house’s own vegetable garden. The main course was roast beef with all the trimmings. Thick slices of meat, still pink and bloody in the middle, were accompanied by Yorkshire puddings that were crisp to the bite, but soft in the middle, with perfectly roasted potatoes, peas and carrots from the same beds as the salad.

  Saffron was shameless. She made no concessions to ladylike concern for her figure but tucked in like a ravening beast.

  When the main course had been removed and the table cleared, a magnificent peach and raspberry pavlova was brought into the room and placed at the center of the dining table, for all to admire the extravagance of meringue, whipped cream and fresh fruit. Hidden away inside it, as a special indulgence for a starving refugee from England, was a core of rich, home-made vanilla ice cream.

  All the courses were accompanied by local wines, made from grapes grown at Weltevreden, or in the other vineyards nearby, and the final treat was a cup of strong, rich Kenyan coffee.

  Shasa chuckled to himself as he watched Saffron emptying her cup and then saying, “Oh, yes, please,” as one of the staff approached with a silver pot, offering to refill it.

  “I don’t think you’ve said a word all meal, except ‘please’ or ‘thank you,’” he said, with only the mildest note of affectionate teasing in his voice.

  “Oh, I’m sorry. Have I been terribly rude?”

  “Not at all, darling,” Centaine assured her. “You have clearly taken pleasure in the meal, and what hostess or cook could possibly be offended by that? You poor thing. Are the rations in England very bad?”

  “Well, it’s not as if we starve,” Saffron said. “It’s more that we only get enough to survive on and the way one gets anything nice to eat is through the black market. So we do get the occasional treat. But nothing like this dinner. Do you know, I think that was the best meal I have eaten in my whole life!”

  “In that case,” said Blaine, “we had better let you digest it. Saffron, I was going to suggest that you and Shasa and I had a bit of a chat, just to go over a few things. But on reflection, I can’t see the point of ruining a delightful evening. Darling, can we commandeer your study for a meeting tomorrow morning?”

  “By all means,” Centaine replied.

  “Excellent. Saffron, might I be able to interest you in a drop of brandy? Awfully good for the digestion, you know.”

  “Excuse me, sir,” Shasa piped up. “I believe we’ve neglected something. I won a bet today. Now I want to collect my winnings . . . in full.”

  Centaine sighed theatrically. “Must I?”

  “In full,” Shasa repeated.

  “If you insist . . .”

  Centaine pushed back her chair. She stood up, squared her shoulders and raised her chin as she said, “Darling Shasa, I apologize. You were right and I . . .” She let the silence hang over the table, so that the other four found themselves leaning forward in their eagerness to hear the fateful words. And when they came, no great actress could have delivered them with more intensity or defiant pride as Centaine declaimed, “I was wrong.”

  Blaine leaped to his feet. “Bravo! Magnificently said!”

  All eyes turned to Shasa as he rose and walked, straight-backed and handsome, around to his mother’s place at the table, where she was seated once again.

  He bowed before her, as seriously as if before his sovereign. “Thank you, Mama. It is my great honor to accept your most gracious apology.”

  Blaine nodded. “Spoken like a gentleman. Honor has been satisfied all round. And now I really would like a drop of that brandy.”

  •••

  Saffron felt weightless, as if gravity had been sloughed off, as if she was floating in the depths of the ocean. And then she was in mid-air with her arms outstretched, rolling and tumbling with the innocence of a child. A fighter plane plummeted in a dive toward her, its guttural roar deafening, its cockpit canopy open. It was Gerhard, waving to her. Then he was by her side, holding her so tightly that the air was expelled from her lungs and she thought she was going to pass out, but he held her safely, her head up, and he kissed her with such tenderness their breath became one. She had never known such happiness.

  Saffron awoke, having had the best night’s sleep in as long as she could remember. She retrieved her canvas shoulder bag from under the bed and took out the photograph of her and Gerhard in front of the Eiffel Tower. His shirt was open, and she could almost feel the sensuous sheen of his silk cravat between her fingers. His smile was radiant, guileless, and she wanted to kiss those eyes that lit up her world and ignited her heart. She felt the stab of loss that memory always brings and suddenly Gerhard was unreachable, a dissolving speck in the sky, dipping in and out of darkening clouds. She brushed away a tear.

  Downsta
irs she demolished a full English breakfast and another two cups of coffee, and went into her meeting with Blaine and Shasa full of renewed determination.

  •••

  Blaine had allotted himself the place of honor, behind what was normally Centaine’s desk. As she walked in, Saffron could see him moving a vase filled with a beautiful arrangement of freshly cut flowers out of the way, with the disapproving frown of someone who was not used to having his work surface cluttered with such fripperies. Shasa was seated in another chair.

  “Morning, Saffron,” he said, catching sight of her. “Take a pew. I’ve got a plane to catch to Jo’burg, so we’d better get straight down to business. I assume you got the details of the young woman that we sent you.”

  “Yes . . . Marlize Marais . . . Poor girl,” Saffy replied. “Her sad life-story was received safe and sound. We have a Belgian passport in her name, backdated to 1937. In my legend, Marlize grew up in Jo’burg, so I’ll need to get it stamped again, and back-dated at the Belgian Consulate General there. Apparently the consul is passionately anti-Nazi. He’ll make sure everything’s done and then forget it ever happened.”

  “What do you need from us here?”

  “To get as close as I can to the key men in Ossewabrandwag, and I have to get physical evidence of that, something a third party can hold and look at and see with their own eyes that this young woman really is a committed fascist.”

  “Hmm . . .” Blaine gave the matter some thought and then looked at Saffron again, not as a devoted, avuncular friend of the family, but as a man involved in serious business. “Look, I appreciate the need for security. I respect it too, and if I were this Gubbins fellow, who claims to be your boss—”

  “He really is,” Saffron assured him.

  “Then I’m sure he’d be pleased to know you were sticking to the letter of the rules. But there’s no point having rules if they make it harder to run an effective operation. We will help you to the utmost of our abilities. But we can’t do that unless we have more to go on.”

  Saffron nodded. “I can see that. And I know that I can count on both of you to do the right thing. But I have to decide where to draw the line . . .”

  “I understand.”

  “Well, then, I will say this much . . . For reasons that I cannot disclose, I plan to penetrate the pro-Nazi political parties in Flanders and then, through them, the Netherlands. First, though, I’m going to present myself, as Marlize Marais, to the Germans in Lisbon, telling them that I’ve come from South Africa and want to go to the Low Countries.”

  “My God, that’s cheeky, even by your standards!” said Shasa.

  “Maybe, but I think it will be easier to persuade the Germans that I am Marlize if I turn up at their consulate in Lisbon as someone who wants to join their cause.”

  “It’ll make a change for the Jerries to have someone wanting to travel in their direction,” said Blaine. “Lisbon’s packed to the gunwales with people trying to get away from them. Not too many going the other way. You never know, they might be pleased to see you.”

  “That’s what I’m hoping. But the key to it is that they have to believe in the reality of Marlize Marais, a young woman who was born and raised in South Africa, but had a Flemish mother, now deceased. Marlize lost both her parents. For various reasons, she blames the British and the Jews for hurting her parents and causing their deaths. This has led her into fascist politics in South Africa. Now she wants to do her bit for the Nazi cause, and that of the Greater Netherlands, by traveling to her mother’s homeland and working in the women’s wings of the fascist parties.

  “In order to establish her credentials, I want her to be carrying letters, photographs and so forth, clearly linking her to men here of whom the Nazis are aware. Ideally, I’d have my picture taken cozying up to a well-known fascist bigwig, and come clutching a letter from him, on headed paper, saying what a thoroughly good Nazi mädchen I am.”

  “There’s a minor problem in that a significant number of those bigwigs are now in detention,” said Blaine. “I take it McGilvray told you about Koffiefontein?”

  “Yes.”

  “There’s something else too, sir,” Shasa interjected. “Saffy might be able to persuade a German or a Belgian that she was an Afrikaner maiden, but I’m not sure she could fool an Afrikaner.”

  “I’m working on it,” Saffron assured him. “I was going to say that it would be a great help if we spoke Afrikaans when we were talking about this.”

  “Fair enough,” Shasa said, and switched languages, for, like most white South Africans, he was fluent in both tongues. “It’s not what you say, but how you act. Your attitude isn’t quite right. You’re too independent, too sophisticated.”

  “And too single,” Blaine added. “The kind of girl who believes in the ideas these people peddle also believe that her first duty to the cause is to get married and produce as many white babies as possible. She stays at home looking after them while her man goes to the meetings.”

  “Hmm . . . What if I’d like to be making babies, but my man has been locked up in Koffiefontein? That would make me hate the British even more. I could say I was fighting in my way because he couldn’t fight in his.”

  “That could work,” Blaine conceded.

  “But again, sir, only with the Germans,” Shasa pointed out. “We’ve got about eight hundred members of various subversive groups under lock and key. That’s not very many. It certainly wouldn’t be difficult for someone here to check whether your man existed. We’ve done our best to make sure that none of the guards at Koffiefontein is on the same side as the internees, but I’d be amazed if one or two haven’t slipped through our net.”

  “The Germans would have a hard time checking, though, wouldn’t they?” Blaine said. “Or rather, they could, but it would mean taking a lot of trouble to check out a woman who posed no apparent threat.”

  “There’s no reason why I can’t have two different versions of the story: one for here and one for when I get to Europe,” Saffy pointed out.

  “Why can’t Saffron write to one or two of the top OB men in Koffiefontein—you know, chaps like Vorster, Erasmus and van den Berg?” Shasa asked. “She sends them a letter telling them how much she admires them, maybe she even puts in a picture to think about when they’re all alone in their beds at night. If she had letters from them, all signed and everything, that would be a start.”

  “If I had handwriting samples and the correct paper—blank sheets, I mean—that would be a great help. I could do a lot with that. And I got the impression from McGilvray that there were still some OB people you hadn’t put in prison.”

  “There are plenty. We only interred men who had either taken part in, or actively supported acts of criminality and subversion. We didn’t arrest people just because they said they didn’t like us.”

  “Which brings us to Johannes van Rensburg. Am I right in thinking he’s the top man?”

  Blaine nodded.

  “Does he attend any social events?” Saffron asked. “I don’t mean party rallies, but more informal occasions where a person might bump into him.”

  “I’m sure he does, but I don’t have his diary to hand.”

  “Don’t worry, Saffy,” said Shasa, “we’ve got people in place who are very close to the OB leadership, in and out of prison. It shouldn’t be too hard to find out what van Rensburg is up to.”

  “Could I meet any of these people of yours? I have a feeling that would be useful. Even a couple of hours talking to someone who understands the way that the OB and organizations like them operate, the way they talk to one another, the slang they use . . . all that sort of thing would tell me more than any amount of notes in files.”

  “I can’t let you meet our undercover agents,” Blaine said. “We too have security procedures and I can’t take even the risk of compromising their cover. But I can put you in touch with people—journalists, academics and so forth—who can help. Remind me, what were you reading at Oxford?”
r />   “Philosophy, Politics and Economics.”

  “Perfect. You can say that you’re working on an academic thesis about fascist politics in South Africa. We can also supply you with files on significant OB supporters and sympathizers, though you’ll have to come to my office in Jo’burg to read them because they cannot leave the building. What else?”

  “Well, Marlize will need a South African passport, of course, because she’s got dual nationality, and a birth certificate. Oh, and can you recommend a photographer? If I’m going to send saucy letters to randy, sex-starved prisoners, I might as well do the job properly.”

  SS-Hauptsturmführer Dietrich Horst was an ambitious young officer. Though he only held the equivalent of an army captain’s rank, he had every intention of rising to the highest reaches of the SS apparatus, as high, indeed, as the man on whose door he was now about to knock. Horst steeled himself. He was in no way responsible for the news he was bringing, but he lived in a world in which the old saying “shoot the messenger” might literally come true. He had no alternative. He was the duty officer, and Brigadeführer Konrad von Meerbach was the man whose orders were required.

  Horst knocked.

  “Enter!” barked the voice from within.

  Horst did as he was told. He grimaced inwardly. Von Meerbach was looking more red-faced with alcohol and bile than usual.

  “What is it?” he demanded.

  “I have a report from Taganrog, sir. An incident in a bar. It involves treasonable speech insulting the Führer.”

  “Then what the hell are you doing bothering me with this trivia? Why wasn’t it dealt with there and then?”

  Horst’s collar was feeling tight around his neck. “Two reasons, sir. In the first place the only witness willing to talk is the owner of the establishment, a Ukrainian. He is a useful source of information.”

  “There were other Germans there at the time of this incident?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Then get hold of them, take statements and tell them they had better describe what they saw and heard, or they’ll face the same punishment as the traitor.”