Redfalcon, page 11
‘Well, scout, is there any sign of our ride?’ asked Dougal.
‘I reckon we’ve a quarter hour or so to wait yet,’ Jaikie answered.
I recalled that each of the members of the Gorbals Die-Hards had his own particular role within the group. Jaikie was the scout, while Dougal himself acted as captain, always in the lead when they charged into action. The others I had met during our last jaunt were Peter Paterson, their medic, and Thomas Yowney, now an army parson, who was the strategic genius of their little band.
*
The first glimmers of dawn were beginning to break over the distant foothills, slowly lending shape to the surrounding landscape of rocks, bushes and dry trees.
‘You’d best keep your head down, Douglas,’ Karrie advised solemnly. ‘If the sun catches that red hair of yours, it’s liable to stand out like a bonfire.’
Dougal glowered at her, then gave a belated chuckle as he realised she was only teasing him.
‘You’re a right minx for vexing a man,’ he muttered. ‘I’ve never known the like.’
‘Listen!’ Jaikie interrupted.
It was a few moments before the rest of us could hear what his keen ears had already picked up: a car was approaching from the west along a straight, dusty road that was now becoming visible. We crouched down among the rocks and peered out from our hiding place. Soon we saw a green Buick with American consular plates rolling towards us, a miniature Stars and Stripes fluttering on the bonnet.
The big car coasted to a halt and by squinting at my watch I could see that it had arrived spot on time. The flare of a match as he lit a cigarette showed us the silhouette of the driver, who was waiting expectantly. This dawn rendezvous had been arranged by Turpin, using secret radio contacts with the US consulate in Casablanca, and every moment of it had been closely calculated. Even so, I decided it would be best to make sure there was no trickery afoot before revealing our whole party.
‘The rest of you stay hidden in the rocks,’ I ordered. ‘I’ll go and have a word with that chap to assure myself that he’s sound.’
‘But surely he must be our contact,’ Dougal objected, ‘or he wouldn’t be here at all.’
‘You’re probably right,’ I agreed, ‘but I’ve walked into one of Ravenstein’s traps once before. I intend to be doubly cautious from now on, even at the risk of being a bit of an old woman.’
Leaving my cover, I walked openly towards the Buick. The driver rolled down his window and took a long draw on his cigarette as he watched me approach. As I drew closer, his features came into focus and I was delighted to find that I was already acquainted with him.
‘Willis!’ I exclaimed. ‘Ellery Willis!’
Willis flung open the door and climbed out. He was dressed in a slightly rumpled white suit and a Panama hat with a Harvard class pin prominently clipped to his red silk tie. Tossing away his cigarette, he offered me his hand and we shook.
‘General Sir Richard Hannay,’ he exclaimed heartily. ‘I’m guess I’m to be your taxi service, sir.’
I had known Willis in the Great War, when he commanded a field battery with the American 2nd Corps, and met him again in the 1920s while he was serving as a military attaché at the London embassy. He had always struck me as an earnest young man, but with a quick sense of humour that kept him from becoming too solemn, and Mary had once assured me that he was the best dancer in London.
Seeing that all was well, my companions emerged from concealment to join us.
‘John Galt, Captain Dougal Crombie, and Dr Adriatis,’ I told him.
‘I’m mighty pleased to meet you all,’ said Willis, fetching a large manila envelope out of the car. ‘I’ve got your papers with your new identities here. Since Brits are real unpopular in these parts, you three gents are now American citizens, part of our programme to boost trade relations between Morocco and the USA. Do you think you can pull that off?’
Dougal and Jaikie exchanged grins as Willis handed out the documents.
‘Why, I sure reckon we can, pardner,’ said Dougal in a thick Texas accent.
‘It’s a sure enough dead cert,’ Jaikie agreed, following suit.
‘Okay, tone it down,’ Willis admonished them. ‘You’re supposed to be businessmen, not cattle rustlers. Dr Adriatis here remains her own sweet self but under the auspices of the University of Maryland, who’ve sent her here to study some of the local archaeology.’
‘I’m certain I can “pull that off”, as you say,’ said Karrie. ‘It’s close to the truth, after all.’
‘We’d best get moving into town,’ said Willis, throwing open the car doors. ‘It seems to me the lady will be more comfortable riding up front with me, rather than being squeezed into the back seat with you fellers.’
‘I suppose so,’ Dougal agreed grudgingly. Resuming his American accent, he added, ‘It sure is mighty chivalrous of you.’
Once we were all inside, Willis performed a smooth U-turn and took us speeding down the road to Casablanca.
18
CASABLANCA
Once we were under way, Willis cast an admiring sidelong glance at his beautiful passenger. In a courtly drawl he said, ‘I confess, ma’am, that I’m kind of surprised to see a lady like yourself in cahoots with these desperadoes. Their brand of excitement is liable to get pretty tough.’
‘You think I am not tough, Mr Willis?’ Karrie turned the full force of her penetrating gaze upon him. ‘Perhaps you think I am like one of your American women with their lipstick and mink coats and little poodle dogs.’
I could see that Willis was taken aback. ‘I wouldn’t say that’s all our women,’ he protested mildly.
‘I am Greek, Mr Willis,’ Karrie informed him sternly. ‘It was my people who invented the very notions of freedom and democracy, and we have been fighting for those ideals ever since. We fought the tyranny of the Persians, then the Turks, and now the Germans. Greece will be free and I will do my part to make it so, even at the cost of my life.’
‘I sincerely hope it won’t come to that,’ said Willis, dropping his bantering manner. ‘Speaking of which,’ he added to me, ‘that was dashed bad news about old Blenkiron.’ Willis was something of an Anglophile, and during his time in London he had consciously adopted what he fondly supposed were some typical English speech mannerisms.
‘I suppose in time bad luck catches up with all of us,’ I responded noncommittally.
‘Of course, Blenkiron always had an extra ace up his sleeve,’ he recalled with a smile. ‘Maybe, like Mark Twain, reports of his demise are premature.’
‘With a man like that, you never know,’ I agreed.
Like me, Willis was well aware that Blenkiron had been supposed dead once before, only to reappear in the thick of some foreign gambit. I supposed it would not take long for his presence in Washington to become common knowledge, much to the consternation of his enemies.
‘Now, if you’ll look over your papers, gents,’ said Willis, getting back to business, ‘you’ll see that you’re here as representatives of the Socony-Vacuum Oil Company. It’s one of a number of outfits importing American goods into Morocco, along with Douglas Aircraft and Singer sewing machines. In return we’re opening up markets to export Moroccan goods like olive oil, almonds, snails and animal hides. The French and Moroccans alike are more than happy to welcome anybody who’s lending a helping hand to their economy in these tough times.’
As we neared the city, we passed by an impoverished shanty town. Its ramshackle dwellings had been patched together from rotted planks of wood, ragged patches of tarpaulin, overturned handcarts, and every sort of junk from broken furniture to the rusting doors of wrecked cars.
‘Peasants have been drifting in from the interior for ages,’ Willis explained, ‘looking for work and an escape from the hard life of the countryside. Out there all it takes is a drought or an invasion of locusts to devastate the harvest and leave families starving. In the city they might find jobs in the harbour or the canning factories.’
Once we entered the city proper the contrast could not have been more extreme. Here, in what our guide described as the Ville Nouvelle, French architects had taken the opportunity to create a model town, with wide boulevards and elegant buildings whose simple style exemplified the efficiency of the French colonial administration. The art deco architecture was more suggestive of the south of France than Africa, though many of the buildings were embellished with colourful Moroccan tilework.
The city had been awake since dawn, and the streets were already filled with coughing motor cars, horses, and wagons drawn by sleepy-looking donkeys. ‘Officially the French classify Morocco as a protectorate,’ said Willis, ‘and the sultan is still the ruler. In actual fact, though, the only thing he has any real authority over is the religious life of his people, who are Muslim, of course.’
We pulled up outside the Hotel Excelsior and entered through a shady portico. A small fountain in the centre of the lobby helped to cool the air while a row of fans whirred overhead. Tapestries made up of brightly coloured geometric patterns hung from the walls, interspersed with glamorous photographs of French film stars.
Willis was clearly acquainted with the clerk at the desk, so we left it to him to check us all in under our assumed identities. Though we had brought only one small bag each, a scrawny porter, whose French came with a heavy Eastern European accent, insisted on carrying them to our rooms for us, while treating us to a stream of incomprehensible local gossip. He departed at last only after receiving a generous tip from Willis.
Following an uncomfortable night on the open sea, the others were all too ready to freshen up and catch up on their sleep. I invited Willis to join me so that he might give me his assessment of the situation in Casablanca. Once we were settled down on a pair of rattan chairs on the veranda of my room, I lit my pipe while Willis tapped out a cigarette from a packet of Marlboros.
The breeze wafting in from the Atlantic carried a salty tang. It mingled evocatively with the dusty haze rising up from the busy streets and the scent of jasmine drifting from the garden below us.
Beyond the orderly boulevards I could see a maze of narrow twisting alleyways interspersed with lively open-air markets. Willis informed me that this was the medina, the heart of the old town, crammed in between the French Ville Nouvelle and the busy harbour. Above the background noise of car horns and the cries of street sellers rose the voices of the muezzins echoing from the minarets like muscular birdsong, summoning the faithful to prayer.
‘So,’ I began, ‘what brings you to this exotic part of the world?’
‘I’m stationed here as a cultural attaché.’ The American took a long draw on his cigarette, as though considering his words carefully. ‘It gives me plenty of scope for sight-seeing.’
From his cautious phrasing I inferred that his duties had more to do with intelligence-gathering than diplomacy. No doubt he was providing Washington with detailed reports on the defensive positions of the Vichy forces.
‘I’m sure there’s no shortage of interesting things to see,’ I remarked. ‘I expect it won’t be long before there are a lot more American visitors in these parts.’
Willis squinted into the middle distance. ‘Yeah. I’m guessing the tourist industry is set for a boom.’
‘By then you Americans might not be so welcome,’ I suggested. ‘Not if your tourists bring a lot more than cameras with them.’
Willis acknowledged the point with a slight tilt of the head. ‘The war’s a pretty touchy subject around here. The French have taken a licking and they know it, so their pride is smarting something awful. The fact that the Brits have refused to cave in like they did just makes it worse, plus they’re real sore about you guys shelling their fleet.’
‘It was a hard choice to make,’ I said, recalling the various intelligence assessments that had been produced regarding the possibility of the French ships falling into Nazi hands. ‘I suppose we can’t blame them for taking it badly, though. I heard that the women and children evacuated to Casablanca from Gibraltar were driven out by a hostile mob.’
‘Yeah, that was an ugly scene all right,’ said Willis with a grimace. ‘That’s why you need to pass yourselves off as Yanks.’ He added casually, ‘If you don’t mind my asking, where are you folks headed?’
I shrugged. ‘Like you, we’re just here to see the sights.’
‘Well,’ said Willis, accepting my need for secrecy, ‘I reckon you and your pals will get along fine so long as you don’t give yourselves away.’
The drone of an aircraft passing overhead drew our attention skyward. Watching its flight, Willis went on, ‘The Cazes airfield is about five miles outside of town and the flights are pretty tightly regulated. With all the security there, no way could we get you out by that route without raising a ruckus. When you’re through with this caper of yours, we’ll have to cook up a different plan to get you back home without falling into the hands of the local authorities.’
I chewed thoughtfully on my pipe. ‘It’s hard to judge just how far the Vichy are prepared to go to keep their peace with Germany. We used to be allies, but now . . .’
‘Well, they’re keen to hang on to what they’ve got left,’ said Willis reflectively, ‘and not give the Nazis an excuse to march into their colonies. It gives them the feeling they’ve still got some shred of la liberté left to them. This peace deal is kind of like a friendly handshake where one hand is putting a tight squeeze on the other. It’s only a matter of time before some bones get crushed.’
‘Are there any Germans here in Casablanca?’
Willis pulled a sour face. ‘There’s the twelve-man German Armistice Commission stationed here to make sure the French are sticking to the terms of the peace deal. It’s an open secret that most of them are actually Gestapo agents keeping an eye out for any enemies of the Reich who might be passing through town.’
‘I suppose there are quite a few of those, not to mention locals chafing under this enforced cooperation.’
‘You’ve got that right. There are plenty of people in Morocco who favour the Free French over their Vichy government, and there are Resistance cells here and in Algeria just itching to blow something up.’
‘Where do the local authorities stand?’
‘They’ve got their hands full, for sure,’ said Willis with some degree of sympathy. ‘The city’s swarming with refugees from every part of Europe, everything from White Russians to Spanish republicans. The police chief, Colonel Riveaux, tries his best to be fair-minded and keep the peace.’ He broke into a smile. ‘In fact, even though he’s cottoned on to the fact that we’re operating an illegal radio transmitter out of the consulate, he’s been nice and sloppy about tracking it down, which has got our Gestapo friends pretty hot under the collar.’
‘I think he’s going to find it harder and harder to stay neutral,’ I said.
Willis stubbed out his cigarette and there was a hard glint in his eye. ‘Let’s just hope that when push comes to shove, most of the French will realise which side their bread is buttered on, whatever they think of Pétain.’
With a final assurance that I could count on him in case of trouble, he returned to the consulate. Following his departure I treated myself to a bath and a couple of hours’ sleep, and awoke in the early afternoon feeling sufficiently refreshed to face the hardships that undoubtedly lay before us – above all, dealing with Karrie’s stubborn insistence on keeping her vital information to herself.
I joined the others downstairs in a dining room adorned with green and white mosaic tilework. We refreshed ourselves with some of the local sugary mint tea, a basket of croissants and a bowl of figs while we contemplated our next move.
‘Well, Karrie,’ I said, mustering as much patience as I had in me, ‘now we’ve brought you to Casablanca, what’s next?’
She took a sip of tea. Surveying us over the rim of the cup, she said, ‘Well, the first thing I must do is go shopping in town for some clothes.’ In answer to my nonplussed expression, she explained, ‘I’ll need to be well dressed when we visit the Blue Paradise.’
‘Blue Paradise?’ Dougal echoed. ‘What’s that, then?’
‘It’s a night club,’ the girl replied with the faintest hint of an impish smile.
‘We’re surely not going dancing, are we?’ I protested.
Karrie dabbed her lips with her napkin and reached for a fig. ‘No, Richard. We’re going fishing.’
19
THE BLUE PARADISE
That night Karrie and I approached the Blue Paradise Club across a tiled courtyard with a small rectangular pool in the centre of it. The entrance was flanked by a pair of palm trees which bowed their heads together over the doorway. Above this arch a neon sign read Le Paradis Bleu.
Upon entering, we were greeted by a cacophony of hoots and crashes from a raucous jazz band and the lively chatter of the customers. Painted pillars and Moorish arches divided the large room into discrete sections where blue table lamps illuminated the crowds of revellers partying beneath a floating canopy of tobacco smoke. Ornate brass lamps suspended on chains from the ceiling added to the suggestion of a sheik’s desert palace.
The round tables could comfortably accommodate four people and some of them had been pushed together to seat larger parties. The cosmopolitan clientele were clearly out to enjoy themselves, the men in their tailored evening wear, the women in daring dresses that flashed with every shade of crimson, emerald and azure. The air was filled with the buzz of conversation, outbursts of laughter and the clinking of glasses, all of it audible even over the noise of the band.
If a man of my advanced years were to enter a club or restaurant in London accompanied by a girl so beautiful, and so young, there would have been raised eyebrows and loud murmurs of disapproval. We were in French territory, however, so no one batted an eye, although I noticed that one or two of the tables were concealed behind carefully positioned wooden screens, perhaps to hide an assignation that would be considered scandalous even in these exotic quarters. Karrie drew one or two admiring glances before the gentlemen with their roving gaze were brought sharply to heel by their lady friends. Even in the simple white frock she had purchased in the medina, she struck me as the most attractive woman in the place.
