Andrew Williams - The Poison Tide

It was a shock to find his interrogator waiting for him in the hotel lobby the following morning.

‘I’m to escort you to the camp today,’ Maguerre said with a wry smile. ‘We’ll have the journey to discuss a few matters’. He didn’t waste time on pleasantries. ‘You keep giving my men the slip, Herr de Witt,’ he observed the moment the motor car pulled away.

‘I don’t like being followed.’

‘Do you have something to hide?’

‘Oh, I expect so.’ Wolff reached into his jacket. ‘Cigarette?’

Maguerre dismissed the offer with a flourish. ‘Cronje doesn’t like you, Herr de Witt. He says you can’t be trusted.’

‘Look, I don’t want someone breathing down my neck every minute of the day,’ Wolff explained irritably. ‘It wasn’t difficult to lose your men, so I did. Understand? You’d probably do the same.’

Maguerre stared at him intently. Was he satisfied? It was impossible to say. He began to talk about the Boer rebellion. Was Herr de Witt following the papers? It had fizzled like a damp firework and now it was over. ‘You don’t seem very surprised,’ he remarked. Wolff said it had ended just as he’d expected it to.

‘If that’s true, why did you go to so much trouble?’

‘For the money,’ he said casually.

‘Money?’

‘Yes.’

‘But you told me you hated the English.’ Maguerre frowned. ‘And Sir Roger says…’

‘I do hate the English.’

‘And Cronje — you told him the rifles were paid for by friends who wanted the same as you.’

‘They were. They paid me too.’

‘You made a profit?’

‘Naturally.’

Maguerre began to chuckle, then to laugh out loud, and he slapped the leather seat between them so hard that the driver slammed his foot on the brake.

‘But why didn’t you tell us it was for the money?’ he enquired when the car was moving again.

Wolff shrugged. ‘“My enemy’s enemy is my friend,” you said to me, and it’s true.’

Maguerre evidently remembered because his tone became a little warmer.

‘Sir Roger says you’re kindred spirits, that you share his high ideals. He thinks you’ll help him.’

Wolff didn’t reply, but drew on his cigarette and turned to gaze out of the window. They were crossing the bridge into Spandau, the citadel to his right, and in a few minutes they’d be in open country.

‘What is your opinion of Sir Roger?’ Maguerre asked carefully.

‘Do I respect him, do you mean? Yes. And I share some of those high ideals, but…’

‘Yes?’

‘Well, I’ve told you before, I’m a businessman.’

‘An engineer or a gun runner?’

Wolff looked at him steadily but said nothing.

‘Are you prepared to help him?’

‘He doesn’t need my help.’

Maguerre leant forward and tapped the driver on the shoulder. ‘Slow down, would you. No need to hurry.’

‘Look, what do you want, Lieutenant?’

‘All in good time.’ He paused and scratched his nose thoughtfully. ‘And his man, Christensen, what do you think of him?’

Just his name made Wolff tense. ‘I don’t know him really.’

‘Why would you? Ah, we’re almost there.’

They were approaching a checkpoint in the perimeter of a military training zone. It wasn’t the sort of place foreigners were invited to visit, even in peacetime, but Wolff had heard that the open heathland to the north-west of the city was used as a proving ground by the Army. The car stopped at the barrier and Maguerre got out to speak to a stout-looking reserve officer. Through the open door, Wolff could hear a blackbird trilling in the stand of birches behind the guard post. The sun was blinding through the windscreen, bleaching the red leather seat, almost too hot to touch, and for a few seconds Wolff closed his eyes to soak in its warmth.

‘A perfect spring day,’ said Maguerre as he slipped back on to the seat beside him. The car pulled away, but was forced to slow again minutes later while a work gang of prisoners broke step and cleared the road. They weren’t much to look at, Russians for the most part, a few British and French, uniforms dusty and torn; some had lost their boots and were wearing clogs.

‘I hope none of them are Irish,’ Wolff remarked laconically.

The irony was lost on Maguerre who assured him that the Irish had been separated from the rest.

‘And you, Herr de Witt, when will you be returning to America?’ he enquired archly.

‘Soon, I hope. In the next week.’

‘I see.’

They drove in silence through a collection of large red-brick barracks buildings to another checkpoint where they were directed to the gate of the Döberitz camp. It was much larger than Wolff had expected and he said so. Ten thousand prisoners, Maguerre informed him, other ranks only. It reminded Wolff of a Klondike mining town he’d visited years before, on shore leave from his first ship: behind the ten-foot wire fence, one-storey wooden shacks as far he could see, and not a blade of grass. Icy in winter, oppressively hot in summer.

Casement was waiting in the commandant’s office, plainly out of sorts. He was as surprised as Wolff by the travel arrangements, and angry that the Army wasn’t prepared to issue a security pass for ‘poor Adler’. A bureaucratic oversight, Maguerre assured him, too smoothly for it to be anything but a lie. Before they left the office, the charmless old aristocrat who was in charge of the camp insisted on ‘instructing’ them on how to speak to the prisoners. The English were lazy and troublesome, a dirty and ill-disciplined mob; if only they were prepared to work like the Russians. Casement tried to remind him that they were there to meet Irishmen but he didn’t recognise the distinction.

Eighty or so men in a ragtag assortment of uniforms were gathered in one of the camp canteens. Wolff recognised the cap badges of Irish regiments but also the artillery, engineers and the naval division. They got reluctantly to their feet when the commandant and his party entered the room but made no effort to fall into line. Nor did they welcome the patriot. Casement was on edge. He’d taken off his trilby and was gripping it firmly in both hands.

They were all a long way from home, he said. Was anyone from Ballymena? Oh, how he longed for the soft wind from the west on his cheek, to stride out at first light, the bright mist dissipating in the glen, scald crows cawing, the comfort of family, craic with ‘our friends’. Then he told them why he was an exile in Germany. Irishmen should only give their lives for their own country. The war against Germany wasn’t their concern, the slaughter, the waste, for what? Let England fight her own battles. They must save their strength for the rebuilding of their nation. He spoke with quiet passion; he spoke with the colour and romance of one who loves the timbre of words; he spoke of their Christian duty; he spoke in his soft, educated English accent; he spoke like a gentleman, and they listened in attentive silence but they listened without respect. Hands aggressively on hips, shuffling their feet; Wolff could see from the frowns, the sideways glances, that they thought little or nothing of the man. Regulars, they owed their duty to the uniform and when the lousy war was over they would be content to draw an army pension.

‘You’ve all heard tell of MacBride and his Irish in Africa. Mr de Witt here,’ Casement placed a hand on Wolff’s arm, ‘fought alongside MacBride. Now Irishmen like you are volunteering for a new brigade. Germany will win the war…’

He was interrupted by an angry murmur. Someone shouted, ‘Shame.’

‘…but it isn’t our war,’ continued Casement. ‘Let England fight for the extension of her Empire. What matters is that…’