The Angel of Whitehall Read online

  “I don’t know.”

  “Her name perhaps?”

  “I have no idea. But I do know it was her last run. So perhaps she’s still there?”

  “During the war?”

  “No, much later than that. I think.”

  “Thanks Tom. This has been really useful.”

  They both knew it wasn’t.

  Chapter Four

  Kamsar, Guinea, West Africa, 2015

  The town of Kamsar is approximately three hundred kilometres from the capital Conakry in the West African country of Guinea.

  Guinea is one of the wealthiest nations in Africa, yet paradoxically its people are among the poorest. As a result, many seek to exploit anything or anyone in order to eke out a living.

  Heading inland from the Port of Kamsar you could be forgiven for assuming there is very little, other than open countryside and rivers to see. If you thought that, you would be right. With limited development outside of the capital and fewer opportunities, the majority either chose to live in Conakry or gravitated there hoping and praying at their mosques for change and a brighter future.

  The population is predominantly young, mainly Muslim. A child is born every minute. An adult dies, on average, every five.

  The nation is surrounded on six sides and by the Atlantic Ocean to the west. Tensions have long been fraught along the borders with Sierra Leone, Liberia and Cote d’Ivoire. During the 1990s, Guinea, whether it appreciated it or not harboured half a million refugees from the bordering countries, more than almost any other African nation during that time period.

  Cross-border attacks were relentless and in a region where democracy was a swear word you learned how to survive not just the military regimes and hostilities, but also persistent natural threats such as bacterial and protozoal diarrhoea, hepatitis A and typhoid.

  With a largely sedentary youth population disease was a constant reminder to leave and start anew, somewhere else.

  But where? And yet people still came. They fled their own countries, comparatively worse than Guinea. They gathered what they could, from who and where and left. And they arrived into a land, where frankly they were no better off.

  The locals, mainly Fulani and Mandinka looked to their aging president, Alpha Conde with a mix of pride and concern. He had survived assassination attempts by his own military leaders, however; he continued to rule.

  Those that aspired to be like him, a boy from a small town, followed him and admired him. He had left Guinea aged fifteen and headed to France the adopted motherland of many a country in the region where he became an educated man. A man of the people. And in doing so he became a target. Fleeing the country days after a failed election bid, he was imprisoned and remained there until pardoned by the then president.

  He ran for election again and eventually succeeded. A small-town boy was now the president of one of the wealthiest African nations, and conversely, the poorest.

  Vote rigging, fraud, violence, misunderstandings. Corruption. Call it what you like the country had experienced it all. Money was the root of all evil they said. And to gain money you needed to be either corrupt, successful or have a commodity that people wanted.

  In Guinea’s case, that commodity was Bauxite.

  Bauxite was rich in many things, but mainly prized as a source of Aluminium. And in Guinea the speculators saw tonnes, and tonnes.

  And on the not too distant horizon, they saw oil.

  A powerful new company, as French as the local language, had moved into the region and brought with it exceptional experience and a drive to open up and exploit the rich vein of oil in the region. Two thousand people would be needed to construct the refinery at Kamsar. Two thousand. And hundreds more to run it.

  They needed capable individuals to secure the operation too. And that meant one thing, hiring the right people. Ex-military men and women were ten-a-penny since the last real conflict had ended. But those that were specialists knew how to charge like a wounded rhino. Equally, they knew how to suppress a threat.

  In a country known for violence, robberies, car jackings you took your chances and that often involved being stopped at dubious roadblocks, manned by police or military staff, that were as far removed from either organisation as they could be, just men, in familiar uniforms looking to make a killing.

  If you were putting your best people on the ground in West Africa, then money was never an issue. Companies got what they paid for. And they were always recruiting.

  Regardless of the statistics and the negative media and foreign-agency reports, a sense of hope echoed around the region. Dusty roads, almost pink-stained from the mining brought taxis and aging four-wheel-drives into the area. They were laden with people. And the people wanted more than work, they wanted their pride back and to be well paid too. Above all, they wanted a future.

  Now, for different reasons they came to Kamsar.

  The men in two-thousand-dollar suits and two-hundred-dollar shoes, yellow construction hats and state-of-the-art cell phones stood and admired their blueprints. It was a modern refinery; polished steel, brightly pained gantries, defined walkways, bright lights, efficient and a guarantee of safety and above all, profit.

  They knew that social and economic development had to feature too. A new company such as GLOACO LLC wasn’t just there to take, it had to give, be seen to provide.

  You couldn’t just take, could you?

  They would come to Kamsar, and they would come in droves.

  And this time it would be different – some might even stay.

  Chapter Five

  DS Stanafjord, Atlantic Ocean, late Winter 1943

  She pitched and tossed, her aging hull twisting and moaning, fighting against the pull of the sea and the roar of the ocean storm. The crew were below deck, safe as they possibly could be in such seas. In the bridge, three people gripped onto rails and prayed silently that the next wave wouldn’t consume them.

  Each wave hit them, a lightweight fighting off a super-heavyweight. Punch after punch struck, forcing the energy from deep inside them.

  Black seas, black skies and darkness on the land somewhere to their right, they pushed and pressed on against the very worst that Mother Nature could conjure up. There were no distant lights, safe harbours or maritime guardians. Just them and the sea. Again.

  The captain was in his room, far from asleep, he lay listening to ‘her’ attempting to tear his ship in half, trying to toss it around like flotsam, the result of a shipwreck, not jetsam, where the Master had deliberately thrown debris overboard to lighten the load of a ship in distress.

  She would be fine. She was a belligerent old lady who had endured far worse.

  He spoke, in English, “Come on girl, perhaps this might be our last run home.”

  On the bridge the Second Mate stood watch, guiding the ship in a northerly direction, altering course as he saw fit. The Chief Engineer stood with him, trying to consume a rapidly cooling cup of tea from his favoured mug, stained, battered and much-loved, just like the ship he admired.

  “Should we think about calling the Master?”

  “She’s seen worse, Tom. Much worse. We all have. Her engines are strong. She was built for this sort of thing.” He sounded as if he was trying to convince himself.

  The Third Mate, who should have been sleeping, joined them, slamming the door to the bridge shut one last time, before locking it, closing down the screaming wind that wrapped itself around anyone who dared to venture outside, drawing the air from their lungs and willing them overboard in to the maelstrom where death would need to come quickly.

  The Chief Mate was also in his cabin, one of a few private quarters on board the mid-sized ship. He was also one of the few that had lived to tell the tale.

  He was a defiant Norwegian, with hands as big as shovels and twice as industrious, and he was smiling for the first time in months, through a bristly, greying beard that sheltered a quiet but calming voice. He was one of many crew on board who had been interned d
uring the Second World War.

  Interned on his own ship. A prisoner by any other name.

  The DS Stanafjord was a steamship, built in Glasgow forty years before, she had been renamed at least three times and had become part of the vast Nortaship fleet, owned by the Norwegians but administered by the British – a calculated decision to enable the fleet to continue to support the Allied war effort.

  In total, twenty-six Norwegian vessels were interned by Vichy France and then requisitioned to support the French, or more realistically the German efforts to win the war. Some sailors chose to stay on board and work with what they saw as the enemy, others were offered the choice of returning home, which in turn meant serving the German authorities at sea and the risk of being killed at the hands of the allied fleets – or an uncertain future in internment camps.

  Despite the conditions in the labour camps many sailors chose that option, with only ten percent returning home to Norway. They were defiant to the end.

  What followed was a series of wartime stories to match the greatest, as crew members escaped and made their way to neutral ports and re-joined allied ships. Many men were lost in the labour camps, but many more survived.

  The Stanafjord had her own story.

  Chapter Six

  The Wise Man Hospice

  “She was a beautiful old ship. Around five thousand tonnes, she wasn’t the fastest or prettiest thing on the ocean, not compared to the Impulsive, anyway. But she was strong. She had proved herself time and again on those Russian convoy operations. They knew how to build ships back then…”

  He trailed slightly before blinking away the need to sleep.

  “And best of all Jack she was stealthy long before that word meant anything. An old hulk like that, no one bothered her. Except possibly a few subs that were out there hunting and looking for target practice and the bloody French of course. They interned her and the crew all the way down there in the Atlantic. Now, some of those sailors gave up, thought it was the right thing to do. But others received word of a team that were going to rescue them…so they waited.”

  “And let me guess…” Cade was already two steps ahead of the older man.

  “You can guess all you like lad, but you’d be wrong.” He paused, waiting for his audience of two to quieten.

  “No, you see when they chose us to head to Guinea, they did so for our ability to sail, not to be there and cause havoc like the expeditionary teams did. Yes, they chose us because we knew how to sail ships, small ones, large ones, steam powered, sail, you name it. And that’s exactly what we did.” He rubbed his hands vigorously, his eyes were brighter now.

  “Oh yes, we sailed down there in smaller warships, only what we could spare at the time and we practically walked into the region and took back the Norwegian ships. The local Vichy armies put up a bit of a fight but our boys had already gained a few years’ experience in Europe and soon outflanked and overwhelmed them. And before you could say Robert is your mother’s brother we were on board and sailing them back to England!”

  “Pirates of the time?” Cade’s eyebrows raised slightly.

  “Hardly, the pirates were the bloody French. So, there we were, sailing old steam ships back into the allied war efforts and at the same time we were loaded with food and essentials and Bauxite by the tonne. We were desperately short of aluminium you see. I’ll leave you to work out why.”

  “So, you literally sailed into port and took the ships back?” O’Shea was holding his hand again, which appeared to help.

  “That’s right. And we went one better. On the way out of the area we flew under a French flag, and as soon as we were steaming north, we hoisted the British one. Nearly got us torpedoed by HMS United once though. Luckily for us they couldn’t shoot straight. I heard the torpedo in the water. You never forget that sound Carrie. An almost silent shark. Just waiting for the bang. Braced yourself and started praying. But nothing came. Perhaps the skipper took a quick look at us and thought, ‘Oh Christ what have I done?’”

  “You must have been scared? How old were you?”

  “I was lass, terrified at first, but I’d survived the arctic convoys and there wasn’t much worse than that. And after a while the adrenaline makes you immortal. My biggest fear wasn’t the supplies on board…” He stopped, realising there were two questions.

  “How old?” He counted on the fingers of one and half hands. “Why I was only eighteen. But I learned really quickly. They made me a Second Mate on the merchant ships and that was unheard of back then, especially for a young lad from Burnley. But with a number of successful Russian convoys under my belt I was considered a very experienced mariner.”

  O’Shea squeezed his hand. “And now you are a sprightly ninety-year-old. I am so impressed.”

  “Well don’t be. I was one of the lucky ones. Of the seven ships we took back four didn’t make it. A couple of hundred crew I guess. All dead or dying at sea, drowning, or eaten by sharks. But it was the Prince of Oslo that I shall always remember. Those poor, poor people.”

  Cade looked puzzled and wondered whether the old man needed to rest. “You OK to carry on Tom? You seem tired.”

  “No, lad, just sad. Like I tried to tell you earlier, it wasn’t the supplies we had on board that worried me. It was the people.”

  “Stowaways?”

  “Hardly. They were escaping the country as much as we were. Hundreds and hundreds of them. Mainly men, we needed fit men you see, from anywhere, most of them were put to good use in army units, put back into North Africa as soon as they were able to fire a weapon. I bet you’ve never even heard of African soldiers supporting the allies?”

  He hadn’t. Many hadn’t.

  “When the Oslo went down all we could do was look back and pray. We had to steam out of there as fast as the old girl would carry us. I saw young men waving frantically. It haunts me to this day. Waving, shouting, attracting the sharks. One by one they either got ripped to shreds, or if they were lucky, they just quietly drowned. I am ashamed to say I looked the other way. They were a commodity Jack and at eighteen I was partly responsible for taking them from their homes to Britain to a so-called brighter future.”

  “They must have been willing to go Tom?”

  “I guess so lad. But if that was the standard of living you were used to and a white man offered you money and a place to live in return for fighting for a few weeks you would agree, wouldn’t you? Sadly, it went on for two long years and many of them didn’t make it. Those that did started a new dynasty in Britain.”

  “Post-war workers? Filling the jobs that many didn’t want?”

  “Spot on, Jack. Along with those from places like the Caribbean, and India, driving the buses, working in the factories. Some stayed in the army and soon found themselves moving from Africa to Burma to fight the Japanese. British West Africans they were called. I think they got a single medal between them. Makes me queasy Jack just thinking about it. We exploited them and we still do.”

  “So, essentially you were an undercover unit? Dressed as merchant sailors flying under a foreign flag, reconnoitring the ports before taking the ships back? Pretty brave at eighteen. You could have been shot as spies. I salute you.”

  “Well, you can’t salute me as we are not wearing hats. But you can go and put the kettle on and when you come back, I’ll let you know why you are here.”

  “I thought that was it? You wanted to tell us about the ships?”

  “You daft bugger, who in their right mind would travel all this way to hear a silly old sod like me reminiscing about the war? I thought you were supposed to be bright?”

  “You may have a point. But I was being respectful.”

  “Respectful be damned! Get that tea made and get back here sharpish and that’s an order. Now Miss O’Shea, if you’d be so kind as to pass me my stick. I need some fresh air.”

  He eased himself up with his cherished cane and allowed O’Shea to open the sliding door, letting light into the room and giving him chance
to breathe.

  Chapter Seven

  “That’s better. Loose lips and all that. I cannot allow any of them in there to hear this.” He looked all around him. A gardener was busy pruning roses, oblivious.

  “Come on, let’s walk.” He led the way until they got to a bench, big enough for three, stained oak with a small plaque that reminded people of the need to live life to the fullest. The little girl had been nine when she had lost her battle. The seat was brightly painted with balloons and unicorns.

  “This is my favourite seat. They’ve just unveiled it. I think we would have got along well. In a way, I still feel like I never had a childhood. The war came along too soon.”

  Cade stood, stretching his legs, the sun shone and created a spectacle in the garden, which sang with the noises of bees and blackbirds and hung with a heady scent of rose petals and freshly mown grass.

  “I’m here to learn what you have to tell me, sir. I suspect that is why we are outside in this glorious garden. Please take your time.”

  “Thank you.” A tear fought for attention in his right eye. He nodded then began.

  “Jack, Carrie, an awful lot of bad things happened during the war. On both sides. We were far from innocent. But you did what you thought was right at the time. The turning point for me was watching those young men in the water. Most of them couldn’t swim, anyway. One after the other they just disappeared. They had no life jackets and less hope. And below decks their families cried out, those that had a view. Word spread. We almost had a mutiny on our hands, the older men were courageous, one or two had to be dealt with.”

  He continued to nod as if somehow it helped the words to leave his mouth.

  “Their families. We loaded the boats with as many as we could. Stacked them six deep, children too. The storm that followed killed a dozen, thrown around, smashing their heads against the hull, or dying of starvation on the way. We simply didn’t have enough food. Not enough. Nowhere near. And yet we were full of the bloody stuff!” His breathing was becoming laboured.