The Generals (38 page)

Lieutenant Brown
: Appendix V X/41, concerning the disturbances. Testimony of Sergeant Alaric Scott, alien citizen. The document is marked Secret to the Third Degree. The text is as follows:

Shortly before eight o’clock in the evening, the first transport ship was towed into the deep harbour, where it was tied up at eleven o’clock. Meanwhile, the other ship anchored in the outer harbour basin, as it proved impossible to have both ships at the quay at the same time. I was at this time, and during most of the night, in the control-tower of the harbour authority’s office building. At about half-past eleven, the officer in command of the troops on the ships, a Colonel Joao Zarco, came into the control-tower with his adjutant. There he had a long conversation with the commandant of the town. This conversation was carried out with the help of an interpreter. Colonel Zarco demanded that the disembarkation should be started immediately, partly with gangways and partly with barges from the anchored ship. The commandant of the town—a major in the National Freedom Army—protested that the vehicles that were to take the troops to their posts had still not been brought up and that from every point of view it would be better to wait until daylight. After a brief discussion, they telephoned headquarters in the first military area, where the officer on duty replied that Major-General Winckelman had retired and was not to be disturbed, and that the Chief-of-Staff, Lieutenant-Colonel Orbal was in Oswaldsburg. The duty-officer referred us to General Oswald’s headquarters, which were situated in Marbella. A major who was clearly guard-officer at headquarters said that the decision should be made by the officer in command of the Peace Corps, whose headquarters were in Oswaldsburg. Colonel Zarco rang there, too, but the general in command of the Corps was at a function at his embassy. However, the Chief-of-Staff was woken up, and he at once referred us to Naval Command. This had been set up adjoining Army Headquarters in Marbella, so we rang there again. The major who had
previously referred us to the officer in command of the Peace Corps turned out to be the officer on duty for Naval Command too. After a while, he managed to connect us to a naval commander, who considered the affair of a local character which should be settled by the harbour authorities in Oswaldsport (Ludolfsport). The commandant of the town summoned the harbour-master, who was in the next room. After a brief discussion, they told Colonel Zarco that he could start bringing the troops on land at once, but in that case they would have to bivouac on the quay until eight o’clock, when they could start marching to the collecting-place. The trucks which were to take them to their posts were expected at the collecting-place shortly after nine. To this, Colonel Zarco replied that anything was better than having the troops left on board the ships. It was now half-past twelve at night. The disembarkation of the troops began at once, but it was rather slow, especially when it came to the ship lying at anchor, from which the soldiers had to get into barges first and then be brought to the quay by tugboats.

Soon after one o’clock, we got a telephone message that one of the rebel patrols had made an attack on the lighthouse on the north-west point. Such raids had not happened for over a month. A moment later, we heard that it was no longer possible to make contact with either the tugboats, the lighthouse staff or the Army post up there and that the defence force at the airfield had been roused and given orders to go north to restore order. Only a quarter of an hour later, a very unclear report came in to say that other rebel patrols had started a series of attacks on Army front line positions by the motorway, fifteen kilometres south-west of the town. The town commandant put this report aside and said that there was no reason to make Colonel Zarco even more anxious than he had already seemed earlier. After yet another half an hour, a regimental officer at the front line reported that there was rebel activity in a limited sector and that a few patrols may have penetrated the front and continued in the direction of Oswaldsport (Ludolfsport). The commandant then regrouped a number of local guard forces towards the south to capture any guerilla units trying to make their way towards the town. At the same time, he informed the head of the riot-police and the gendarmerie. A number of motor-cycle police were also sent to the southern outskirts to stop any possible attempts at sabotage.
The police force in Oswaldsport (Ludolfsport) was relatively speaking smaller than in other parts of the country. Many of the inhabitants were adherents to the Oswald régime and were strongly anti-Communist. This was said to be due to the fact that large numbers of civilian buildings had been destroyed by the demolition commandos on the rebels’ retreat from the northern sector eight months beforehand. Meanwhile, disembarkation continued in good order, but rather slowly, and there were no signs to indicate that anything special was going on. The harbour-master went home to bed, but the commandant and his two officers stayed behind, together with the communications officer from the staff of the military area, Second-Lieutenant de Wilde, who was lying asleep on a sofa in the next room all the time.

At three o’clock, I drove round the harbour area in a patrol jeep with three men from the guard. Disembarkation was continuing normally, and the soldiers who had already landed were lying curled up asleep in their coats on the quay or in the warehouses round about. It was raw and cold and very misty. I also made a tour of the town. The streets were empty—there was a curfew on, of course—and everything was calm and quiet. On the northern outskirts, I noticed that most of the defence posts were not manned, presumably because the men had been sent south. We parked the jeep for a few moments on the hill by the road out to the northern coast road. The town lay below us, dark and silent in the mist, and all we could hear were faint sounds from the harbour area. When I got back to the control-tower, it was ten past four. The commandant seemed tired and sleepy and the other two officers were playing cards in a corner of the room.

At about half-past five, the telephone rang. I picked up the receiver and a voice shouted: ‘This is Lieutenant Olson, the rebel patrols are just …’ Then the conversation was cut off. I didn’t know any Lieutenant Olson and neither did anyone else. Not until afterwards did I realise that it must have been the duty-officer at the airfield. The commandant thought for a few minutes, then he rang up the tele-centre, who said that there’d just been a total break in communications—except in the actual town area. The commandant began to get worried, but nothing happened except that telecommunications were still broken off. There was a radio-centre one
floor up in the harbour office building, but we heard nothing from those manning it. At twenty minutes past five, a dispatch soldier from one of the patrol boats came running in with a message which was not at all clear, but which said that the rebels had tried to break out and that the general alarm had been sounded.

The commandant went into the room next door and woke up Second-Lieutenant de Wilde, who at first tried to contact the military area staff on the Army’s own telephone network. After a quarter of an hour or so, he realised that he couldn’t and he set off for the radio-centre. The door to it was locked and Second-Lieutenant de Wilde called three men from the guard, who blew it open. Inside the radio-centre, one of the radio men was lying dead on the floor. The other was standing with his back to the entrance, doing something to the installations. He turned round and shot Second-Lieutenant de Wilde in the stomach and was himself shot dead by the guards immediately afterwards. Second-Lieutenant de Wilde died half an hour later. The whole of the radio-centre was out of action. The shots were heard up in the control-tower, and the commander ran downstairs one floor. It was six o’clock now and beginning to get light outside. The mist was thicker than ever. The commandant seemed quite bewildered and I can quite see why. It wasn’t easy to grasp how it all connected up. After a while, he realised that one of the radio men had been a Communist fifth columnist, and that he’d first killed his colleague and then put the installations out of action. Yet another quarter of an hour went by before the commandant gave orders to the tele-centre to sound the alarm.

I don’t know exactly what the time was by then, but only twenty minutes later a fierce exchange of shots began along the ridge above the town. This was government militia attacking and beginning to clear the lines of defence posts from the north. The confusion was clearly very great up there. The only sensible report that came in during the next half hour was this: ‘They’re coming from the north, attacking us in the rear with flame-throwers and automatic weapons. Send reinforcements at once.’ Colonel Zarco came rushing up to the control-tower with a couple of officers, who obviously belonged to his staff. He ranted and raved and wanted to know what was going on. The commandant at long last replied that the town was being attacked by rebel patrols and that all communications inland were
broken off. Colonel Zarco turned scarlet in the face with rage and left the room without saying a word. He came back twenty minutes later with signallers from his own force. They had portable radio equipment with them and lots of other stuff. Half an hour later, the radio installations were partially in action again. It was quite light now and very misty. The sound of shooting came nearer and nearer and it was clear that the rebel advance was continuing. In many places in the centre of the town, the gendarmes and police began to build barricades across the street with overturned cars, furniture and other lumber. The disorder grew worse and worse. The only instruction we received was a categorical message from General Oswald that not a square yard of ground was to be surrendered.

A short while later, the military area staff at last reported that reinforcements would soon be arriving and that road communications were to be cleared at once. Everything seemed to be vague and worrying. It was raw and cold out, but the mist was beginning to lift a little. The next time Colonel Zarco came back, he was absolutely beside himself with rage. By then he’d surveyed the situation and knew more about it than the commandant did. ‘You’ve lured us into a deathtrap,’ he cried. ‘The town’s in the middle of the front line! And you’re retreating all along it!’ The commandant, who had gradually become very worried indeed, said that Colonel Zarco’s own troops must be thrown into the fighting. Then Colonel Zarco said: ‘Two-thirds of my men are still on the transport ships, trapped like rats in a sealed tin. The ones who have disembarked are exhausted after a crossing in very bad weather. And many of them haven’t been issued with their equipment. My officers don’t know anything about the situation here, there’s no transport, no maps, nothing. But we’ll fight to the last man all the same.’

The situation was quite hopeless. Of the storm-troopers who had landed, most of them were sitting or lying on their packs. They understood nothing of what was happening, and neither did their officers. The last active attempt made was that two tugs tried to tow one of the transports out into open water after severing the anchor chains. At almost exactly the same moment, two batteries of field artillery the militia had captured began to shell the harbour from the hills west of the town. The transport ship in the outer harbour was
hit almost at once and began to burn. That wasn’t surprising, as the harbour lay quite open and any gunner could score with almost every shot. It was about as difficult as hitting a barn with a rifle at a distance of fifty yars.

At eleven o’clock, Colonel Zarco came into the control-tower for the last time. By then one of the transport ships had keeled over at the quay and the other was drifting round the outer harbour basin on fire. He was very formal and said icily that the situation was hopeless and that he had decided that he would rather allow his men to capitulate than to see them slaughtered to no purpose. He then made radio contact with Army Headquarters and requested permission to capitulate. At headquarters, this request clearly hit them like a bomb. They still didn’t seem to have realised what was happening and repeated again and again that Zarco should counter-attack with units from the National Freedom Army. Finally the Chief of State himself came to the microphone and said that not even a square yard was to be lost. Five minutes later, all resistance ceased and the militia stormed the harbour area. Colonel Zarco was killed by machine-gun fire from an armoured car ten steps from the harbour office building. Most of the troops on the quay and in the warehouses did not even have time to give themselves up. Some tried to entrench and offer resistance, but everything was too late. Thousands of gallons of oil and petrol, which had poured out of the transport ships, caught fire and washed over the men swimming in the harbour basin. The militia took practically no prisoners.

Major von Peters
: Schmidt, what the hell do you mean by forcing us to listen to this kind of endless harangue?

Captain Schmidt
: The case for the prosecution intends to demonstrate the results of the evil deeds the accused planned and cooperated in executing. The massacre in Oswaldsport is in my view the most serious and terrible of Velder’s crimes, although he himself sat secure and safe in a bunker many miles away while it was all happening.

Colonel Orbal
: What did this sergeant, Scott or whatever his name is, do?

Captain Schmidt
: Alaric Scott, who had for many years been infected by Communist ideas, disarmed the officers in the harbour office building and hung a red flag out of the window.

Colonel Orbal
: Where did he get that from?

Captain Schmidt
: I’m afraid I don’t know.

Colonel Orbal
: Well, it doesn’t really matter, but I just wondered. Peculiar.

Colonel Pigafetta
: Just as well to have a lunch break, then you can think about the matter in peace and quiet, Orbal.

Colonel Orbal
: Excellent idea. The session is adjourned for two hours.

*   *   *

Colonel Orbal
: Dreadful food you give us, Pigafetta. Greens with everything. It’s not good. Builds up gases. I was farting half the night. No, give me a beefsteak and beer …