The Enemy Within (17 page)

‘Do we need a diagram of the docks?’ Joel said to Robert.

Robert shrugged. ‘It would be useful. We’d be there at night. Won’t be able to see a bloody thing.’ He thought for a moment. ‘I'm sure we’ll find workers who will help, but we can’t expect them to do more than give us information. We’re going to have to steal any explosives ourselves. The more we know about the docks, the better. Manny’s right.’

Manny basked in his father’s approval, shooting Tinie a look.

‘But Manny’s wanted,’ Joel said, ‘same as me.’

Robert shrugged. ‘Obviously, he’ll use his false ID. We’ll maybe change his occupation to doctor, to give him a better reason to be travelling. He
might
actually be safer away from here.’ Robert paused. ‘Mind you, if he
is
caught, he’ll be tortured. That will be the end of this place, and the end of us.’ He looked at them all, sitting on the cement floor, in a cell of a room, stinking of petrol. ‘Do you want to take that chance?’

‘Yes,’ said Ben Bril.

‘If any one of us is caught, it would be the same,’ Lard Zilverberg said. ‘Not just Manny. Let him go to Rotterdam.’

‘If Manny wants to do it, we’re behind him,’ Gerrit Romijn said, as ever speaking for his group, as well as himself. .

‘All right,’ Robert said. ‘You’re on, Manny. But before you get too excited,’ Robert nodded at Tinie. ‘you can’t possibly go together. Public transport’s far too risky. You both go by bicycle. Separately. ’

‘Sure!’ Manny said, nodding. ‘We’ll cycle there separately, meet up in Schiedam.’

Robert nodded. ‘OK.’

*

Tinie and Manny cycled slowly along, side by side. The by-way meandered parallel to the main Amsterdam-Rotterdam road. He had set off ahead of her, but stopped and waited for her, at a pre-arranged spot, less than half-a-mile from the
knokploeg
hideout.

He had planned a mazy route to Rotterdam, avoiding the main roads. The sun was shining, with just occasional wisps of fragile white cloud. Tinie had brought as much food as she could carry. It was in a basket, at the front of her bicycle.

She had put on weight, in her happiness. Whenever Manny told her how lovely she was, she occasionally dared, if not to believe it, to believe that at least he thought so – which was all that mattered to her.

‘I don’t want this to end,’ he said, as they cycled along, as slowly as possible, their shoulders almost touching.

‘Neither do I.’ She gave him a shy, toothy smile, turning her face into the wind, so it ruffled her short dark-blonde hair.

The endless narrow road was flanked by evenly-spaced plane trees. Manny thought it looked like a Hobbema painting –
The
Avenue
at
Middelharnis
.

They stopped behind a hedge, lay the bicycles down, kissed and made love. He was becoming an intuitive lover, understanding what she felt, wanting her pleasure before his own. It had never occurred to him to use a sheath, and she had decided not to ask him to. They lay in each other’s arms, afterwards, smiling, laughing, dozing, talking, all at the same time.

After a long while she stood up. She took a threadbare tablecloth from the basket. On it, she carefully arranged slices of
niew
Gouda cheese, good ham with fat on it, bread, milk, sausage, some tomatoes. There was a bottle of water and a single flower. It was a white carnation, Prince Bernhard’s flower, one of the emblems of Dutch defiance.

He looked at her, blazing with love, as she made the food as wonderful as she could. She was doing her best for him, creating something for them to share. Nobody had done this for him before, nobody had cared enough. Nobody thought he was worth it. Nobody.

There were tears in his eyes. Understanding, she broke off from her creation and stroked his head.

‘It’s for you, because I love you,’ she said.

As they ate, they snuggled down into companionship. Tinie could have done this with silence, but Manny always needed to talk, so she did, too. They discussed where they would like to go on holiday.

Tinie sat with her knees pulled up to her breasts, her arms wrapped round her knees, pulling the skirt of her nurse’s outfit taut. ‘As I’m a girl from Batavia Straat, I’d like to visit Batavia,’ she said. ‘Maybe see the whole of the Dutch East Indies. End up splashing in the surf, somewhere hot.’

‘Did Hirschfeld tell you about the Dutch East Indies?’ Manny said, sharply. He knew his uncle had worked for a bank out there – he often talked of it.

She looked stunned. The colour bled from her face; she stopped with food half-way to her mouth.

Manny hit himself on the forehead. ‘Oh, I’m a fool! I’m a fool! Why do I always do that? Why do I always say the wrong thing? I’m cursed.’

‘It’s alright,’ she said, pulling herself together.

‘No, it isn’t.’

He did not get the expected hug and consolation.

‘You know …,’ she said, in a quiet, confident voice he hadn’t heard from her before. ‘ …now, since we’ve been together, I believe Hirschfeld hasn’t touched me. Not deep down, where it matters.
I
believe that, as long as
you
believe it, too.’

‘Of course I do!’ He sensed she didn’t want him to touch her right now. ‘I love you. I will always love you. I
have
always loved you, even when we were children. If you’ll have me, I want to marry you, as soon as I possibly can.’

‘I’d love to marry you, Manny. I just hope we …’

‘What?’

‘I hope we have a life to live. Together. That’s all.’

*

Late in the afternoon, when they hoped Ben Bril’s cousin would have returned from work, they rang the bell of his flat. Ben had got a message through that a nurse and a doctor would be coming on a house call. So Arie Allegro was not completely surprised to find a uniformed nurse, and companion, on his doorstep.

The welcome was warm. Allegro was a swarthy, rangy man, taller and slimmer than Ben, but with the same air of toughness. He waved them to a vinyl covered sofa and made coffee.

‘How’s Ben?’ he called through, from the kitchen

‘Fighting fit,’ Manny shouted back. .

‘Good,’ Allegro said. ‘I’m glad he’s fighting. We all need to fight.’

Manny made no reply. The Rotterdammers were more than entitled to their own special anger. When their undefended city had been bombed by the Luftwaffe, hundreds had been killed, hundreds wounded, hundreds more made homeless. Over coffee and home-made cake, made by Allegro’s wife, who put in a shy appearance, Manny outlined the reason for their visit.

As he spoke, the plan sounded more far-fetched than it had in the
knokploeg’s
hideout, in Amsterdam. But Allegro, nodding keenly, did not pour scorn on the idea. He said he knew several men working at the docks, who would be happy to help. He would go and see people right now, he said. Meanwhile, his wife would make up beds for them on the sofa and on the floor.

Tinie blushingly, but firmly, explained that only one bed would be necessary.

‘That’s nice!’ mevrouw Allegro said. ‘How long have you been married?’

‘Two years now,’ Manny said. ‘But it seems like only yesterday.’ He turned to Tinie.

‘Doesn’t
it, darling?’

Both the Allegros burst out laughing.

‘Are we as obvious as that?’ said Tinie, now red to the roots of her cropped blonde hair.

‘Love is always obvious,’ mevrouw Allegro said. ‘What’s that English saying? All the world loves a lover.’

Later that evening, a tough-looking fitter from Schiedam docks was introduced to them as Johnny. Johnny was carrying a parcel wrapped in brown paper, and wasted no time on small talk. He said that when refitting had started, all the
Prinz
Eugen’s
armaments and ammunition had been stripped out, and put in a temporary store. The guard on what was little more than a complex of emergency huts was light, just as the Amsterdam KP had hoped.

He, Johnny, had been in there that day, checking the state of the
Prinz
Eugen’s
boilers, which were also stored in the complex, as were its turbines. As luck would have it, he had told the bosses there was more work to do on the boilers tomorrow. So, as Johnny put it, ‘You’re in, if you want to be.’

Manny nodded, trying to stop himself feeling excited. ‘What ordnance is being stored?’ he asked.

‘There’s no explosive on the docks,’ Johnny said. ‘But the
Prinz
Eugen
carries depth charges. And she also has two limpet mines. Do you know them? They’re new weapons. You can drop them onto a sub. But they can be put on the hull of a ship and they stick. I think you want one of them.’

‘Yes, so do I.’

‘I can get you in, tomorrow,’ Johnny said. ‘I brought you some overalls.’ He nodded at the brown paper parcel. ‘They might be a bit big.’

‘I can take them in, overnight,’ Tinie said.

Johnny stood. ‘Allegro, here, can take you to a side gate where we can let you in, without a check. Don’t carry any papers at all. Once you’re in, I’ll show you where the limpet mines are.’

‘Thank you,’ Manny said. He stood and held out a hand, which was enfolded in Johnny’s huge calloused paw.

‘You don’t have to thank me,’ Johnny said. ‘Our place was in the centre of Rotterdam. I live in a corner of a comrade’s room, now. And I won’t be seeing my mother or my sister again.’

‘He’s a communist,’ Arie Allegro said, when Johnny had gone. ‘So are all the others who will look after you tomorrow. They hate the
Moffen
as much as we do.’

*

A horse-drawn milk cart collected him from outside the Allegros’ building early in the morning. Manny, in blue overalls, hid himself among the churns on the back. As they approached a gate in the perimeter fence to the Schiedam docks, it opened. A blue-overalled figure closed it behind them, then disappeared. As the gate shut behind them, Manny glimpsed two black-uniformed SD sentries, armed with rifles, patrolling the perimeter.

The cart stopped outside the back of the canteen; Manny dropped to the ground.

Another overalled figure was waiting for him, his face smudged with oil. ‘I’m from Johnny,’ he said. ‘Where do you want to go first?’

‘Round the perimeter,’ Manny said. ‘Then work in to where the ordnance is kept.’

The worker nodded and they strode along together. The
Prinz
Eugen
, propped up in dry-dock, towered over the dockyard. They could hear the screaming of machine drills, backed by thudding hammering, as the refit proceeded.

The canteen was breezeblock, the workshops corrugated iron, but most other buildings were shaky-looking sheds which looked as if they had been thrown up only long enough to serve their purpose. While they were walking, Manny saw one or two unarmed SD walking about, presumably off duty, but no guards.

‘This is where the ordnance is. Wait here.’ The worker walked off. The large ramshackle shed was unguarded, but heavily padlocked, with its windows barred.

Johnny
appeared. Without a word, he unlocked the padlock and they went in.

‘Just a minute,’ Manny said. In the gloom of the cool, dark shed, he pulled sketch paper from under his overalls, a pencil from his pocket, and rapidly sketched an elevation of Schiedam docks, showing the buildings he had seen.

‘If they catch you with that, we’re dead,’ Johnny said.

Manny nodded. ‘I know. But I can’t keep it all in my head until we get back.’ He looked round the shed. The cruiser’s guns had been dismantled and stored for the refit.

‘SK guns and flak guns,’ Johnny said, nodding at them. ‘There’s no ammunition here. It’s been taken away.’

Manny nodded. He peered round, then stopped to clean his spectacles on a handkerchief. He saw a stack of torpedoes.

‘They’ve been disarmed,’ Johnny said, following his gaze.

Manny had a cold feeling, wondering if this was all for nothing.

‘The depth charges and limpet mines are over there.’ Johnny nodded at a corner of the shed. ‘They can’t de-activate them without a lot of trouble. They’re live.’

Manny looked at the limpet mines. He took in the cylindrical body, the two bung-like protuberances, top and bottom, the two metal wings each consisting of three bars. He was reminded of the Torah, the scroll of the law, half opened-out so that day’s portion of the service can be read.

‘We haven’t got all day,’ Johnny said.

‘Sorry.’ Manny pulled out another piece of sketch paper. He drew the limpet mine, to scale, resting the paper on the card at the back of the sketch pad.

Outside, Johnny locked the padlock, which he had left hanging by its hasp, and took Manny’s arm, pulling him away from the shed. He left him by the side of the dry-dock, with a muttered ‘Wait there.’

Within seconds, another figure had appeared, saying ‘Follow me,’ as he walked by. He was led back to the waiting cart, now piled with empty milk churns. Again, Manny hid in the back. The carter took him back to the Allegro place.