All night long almost 1,000 men—and two women, officers’ wives, and a five-year-old boy—waited for rescue, some in boats, but most of them just clinging to rafts and floating pieces of wood.
Soon after dawn a plane flew over the area, and within a very short time—for the coast of England was only two hours’ steaming away—the Frenchmen in the water were overjoyed to see four British warships steaming down on them at high speed.
The rescue work was swift and efficient, and all the survivors—with the exception of some who were thought to have made for the French coast and another couple of lifeboats, with 100 sailors in them, that had to be searched for and located by a Blenheim bomber—were back in England in a few hours.
Newspaper reports of the time speak of the pathetic spectacle these survivors presented—most of them only in inadequate scraps of clothing, some in pyjamas, some in underclothes, and not a few with no clothes at all. They were dressed in whatever came to hand—some even in women’s frocks—fed in naval barracks and sent to await the next attempt at repatriation in the chalets of a former holiday camp in the northeast. All, that is, except the 150 officers and men who had to be taken straight to hospital.
It was one of the war’s major sea disasters. Almost 300 Frenchmen, none of whom was at that time a combatant, lost their lives that July night. And when it comes to the prime or first cause of the tragedy it is as difficult to discover the precise truth as it is to apportion the blame. There is no question, of course, as to the immediate cause of the sinking. The Germans made rather ridiculous attempts to lay the loss at the door of the First Lord of the Admiralty, Mr A. V. Alexander, on the fantastic ground that he had ordered the sinking of the Meknes as a propaganda movement to stir up anti-German feeling in France. In fact the responsibility for the sinking was obvious, as the Germans issued a statement on 25 July saying that one of their torpedo boats had sunk a ship south of Portland—precisely where the Meknes, the only ship that had been sunk for some considerable time in that area, had been that night.
The ship they had sunk, the Germans claimed, was an 18,000-ton armed merchant cruiser—an obvious fabrication and attempt to explain away their embarrassment at sinking an unarmed neutral with all lights on. Later, the Germans changed their tactics. If the Meknes had been sunk by them, they claimed, it was still the fault of Britain. A broadcast by the official German News Agency stated that Britain had not asked for a safe conduct for this vessel, and had not advised the German authorities of the ship’s departure and route.
This, as first sight, was another bare-faced fabrication. Most of the British national newspapers, reporting the disaster, had attacked the perfidy of the Germans who had sunk a ship to which they had given an unconditional guarantee of safe passage. However, on the following day, to the accompaniment of no great beating of drums, there was an official British retraction of the statement that the Germans had given a safe passage guarantee. What had actually happened, it was carefully explained, was that the Vichy Government had been informed of the British intentions and it had been their duty to pass the news to the Germans.
It appeared, in fact, that not only had the Germans not given a safe passage guarantee—it wasn’t even certain that they knew anything at all about it.
Here the Vichy Government stepped in. The French Admiralty stated unequivocally that the British Government had failed to inform them of the sailing of the Meknes, its route, or even its destination. The effect of this statement in certain circles in this country can well be imagined.
Suggestions then appeared in the British Press—it is a fair indication of the extent to which wartime chauvinism (if not indeed something even more sinister) can affect the judgment of experienced journalists—that the Vichy Government had in fact received all the information, passed on to the Germans the news where a sitting, a defenceless target was to be found, and then officially denied that they had received any information at all from the British.
As a solution, this appears extraordinarily unlikely. Had that been the case, the Germans would not have reacted so clumsily to the accusation of the sinking, and would, indeed, have had their story cut and dried, and, the ship safely sunk, indignantly denied all knowledge of it; and it seems improbable in the extreme that any Frenchman would have willingly and however indirectly been the agent responsible for sending perhaps over 1,000 of his countrymen to their deaths.
There can be little doubt that the prime responsibility for the tragic loss of the Meknes lies squarely at the door of the British Government. The official German News Agency said at the time: ‘It was the duty of the British Government to inform the French Government of their intention to repatriate French soldiers and to wait for a reply as to whether the dangerous transport through the war zone could be assured of safe convoy.’
Did the British Government in fact so inform the French? An ‘authoritative’ British source said: ‘The French…were notified in general terms of our intention to repatriate,’ a vague, obscure and weak-kneed attempt at excuse-making that could hardly be bettered.
The French said flatly that they were not informed of the sailing of the Meknes.
What is beyond all dispute—and this is the crux of the matter—no safe conduct or guarantee was given by the Germans. Yet the criminally negligent decision was made to permit the sailing of this unarmed and unescorted vessel into the Eboat and U-boat infested Channel without waiting for a reply from the Germans. It would be interesting indeed to know what British Service or Government department was responsible for this decision. But one can safely assume that the blanket of official anonymity which covers up such a multitude of sins will remain firmly where it is and that none of the parties concerned is going to lift even a tiny corner lest the answers be found to lie uncomfortably close to home.
Besides, in the press of events of a great world war, the death of 300 non-combatants is a small thing, quickly and comfortably forgotten as the first sharp horror of the tragedy fades and finally passes away.
MacHinery and the Cauliflowers
‘I find you well, Mr MacHinery?’ Ah Wong asked courteously. He pronounced the name as ‘Mackinelli’ and although ten years in the Far East had accustomed MacHinery to this heathenish mispronunciation of a legendary Scottish clan name that ranked in antiquity with anything the Almanac de Gotha had to offer, nevertheless his proud Celtic soul winced whenever he heard it. Still, he reflected charitably, it was hardly Ah Wong’s fault. Some parts of the world were still emerging from the caves, so to speak. Primitive, barbaric—in fact, MacHinery conceded generously to himself, very like the MacHinerys of a few centuries ago when the more pressing business activities of cattle-thieving and hacking opposing clansmen to pieces had left them little time for the more cultural pursuits of life. But twenty intervening generations had had their civilizing effect…
MacHinery fingered a beer bottle scar received in a political debate in Glasgow many years previously, and smiled tolerantly.
‘I’m weel enough, Mr Wong. Fair to middling, you ken.’
‘You do not look it,’ Ah Wong said slowly. ‘You are pale but you perspire freely. You perspire but you shiver and shake. And your eyes are not the eyes of a well man.’ He turned to a wall cabinet and poured amber liquid into a tumbler. ‘A welltried specific from your own homeland, Mr MacHinery.’
‘Och, man, it was chust what I was needing.’ MacHinery drank deeply, shuddered violently and coughed until the tears rolled down his cheeks. Ah Wong looked at him with suddenly narrowed eyes. Less than a month had elapsed since two sailors had inconsiderately dropped dead after drinking, in one of his emporiums, a bottle of what had purported to be proprietary Scotch and had it not been for the prompt midnight transfer of a couple of barrels of wood alcohol to the godown of a cherished enemy and the sending to the authorities of a letter signed ‘Pro Bono Publico’, he might have been in trouble indeed. As it was, any adverse reaction to his Scotch now struck deep at Ah Wong’s sensitive soul.
‘Y
ou do not like my whisky, Mr MacHinery?’ he asked slowly.
‘Not like it?’ MacHinery coughed. ‘Hoots, mon, it’s perfect, chust perfect.’ MacHinery had, in fact, the misfortune to be allergic to any type of whisky but the part of the hard-drinking Clydeside engineer was no more difficult to sustain than the phoney accent that went with it. ‘Chust a touch of fever, Mr Wong, that’s all.’ Experience had long shown him that no one cared whether the fever in question was chickenpox or the Black Plague.
‘So.’ Ah Wong relaxed a minute fraction, the most he ever permitted himself to relax. ‘And you are the new chief engineer of the Grasshopper, Mr MacHinery?’
‘For ma sins,’ MacHinery said bitterly. ‘A filthier, rustier, auld bucket of bolts—’
‘Beggars cannot be choosers, Mr MacHinery,’ Ah Wong said coldly. He waved a piece of paper. ‘And you are a beggar. According to this letter of introduction from my good friend Benabi, you’d been in the Djakarta gutters for weeks before he gave you this job. Even your chief engineer’s ticket is a forgery—your real one was taken from you.’
‘Aye, and a grosser miscarriage of justice—’
‘Be quiet,’ Ah Wong said contemptuously. ‘The Grasshopper’s cargo has been unloaded and cleared through customs?’
‘Aye. Not thirty minutes ago.’ MacHinery shivered again and stirred restlessly in his seat. Sweat poured down his face. Ah Wong affected not to notice.
‘Good. You will have been given a private copy of the manifest.’ He stretched out his hand. ‘Let me see it.’
‘Well noo, chust wait a minute,’ MacHinery said cunningly. ‘You ken who I am. The letter tells you. But I don’t ken who you are. How do I know you ken one another? You and Benabi, I mean?’
‘Fool,’ Ah Wong said shortly. ‘I, one of the biggest food importers in Malaya? Benabi, of Benabi’s Tjitarum’s truck farms, the biggest suppliers in Indonesia? Not know each other? Idiot!’
‘There’s nae call to be personal,’ MacHinery said doggedly. ‘I hae ma orders, Mr Wong. From Mr Benabi himself. You must match this, he says.’ He drew a piece of rice paper from his wallet and showed Ah Wong a curious ink marking, smaller than a thumbnail.
‘Of course,’ Ah Wong smiled. He twisted a signet ring on his middle finger, pressed it on an ink pad and made an identical mark on the paper. ‘The seal of the broken junk. We have the only two such signet rings in the world. Benabi and I—we are brothers.’
‘You wouldna think it,’ MacHinery said candidly. ‘He’s a tall, well built, good-looking cove, whereas you—’
‘I spoke metaphorically,’ Ah Wong said coldly. ‘The manifest, Mr MacHinery.’
‘Aye.’ MacHinery rose, opened the Gladstone bag he’d left in the middle of the floor of Ah Wong’s sumptuous apartment, fished out a manifest and handed it over.
‘Why the bag?’ Ah Wong asked in idle curiosity.
‘Why the bag?’ MacHinery echoed bitterly. ‘The Grasshopper’s two nights in Singapore and if you think I’m going to spend them aboard yon bloody flea-ridden, cockroach-infested hellhole, you—’
‘Silence!’ Ah Wong opened the manifest. ‘Ah, yes. Sides of beef, one hundred. Of pork, two hundred. Bananas, onions, beans, peppers, eggplants, butter. Yes, yes, all seems there. Best Bandung cauliflowers, eighty crates. Lettuce, fifty. Yes, all in order.’ He broke off, looked thoughtfully at MacHinery and said in Cantonese: ‘I am going to kill you, my friend.’
‘Whit was that?’ MacHinery asked blankly.
‘Nothing.’ Ah Wong smiled. ‘I thought you might be a linguist.’ He picked up a telephone and spoke quickly in Cantonese, referring to the manifest from time to time and ticking off items with a pencil, then replaced the phone. He smiled again. ‘Just ordering up some meat and vegetables from my go-down, Mr MacHinery. From your own cargo.’
‘And the very cream of the crop, I’ll be bound,’ MacHinery said bitterly. ‘Nae bloody flies on you Chinese.’
Ah Wong smiled yet again. The kind of smile, MacHinery thought grimly, that you might expect to see on the face of a spider when a particularly juicy fly landed on its web. Ah Wong, for his part, thought it unnecessary to inform MacHinery that he was of pure Armenian stock and had changed his name partly for business reasons in a Chinese-dominated field of commerce, but mainly because he regarded the honourable name of his ancestors as sullied beyond redemption by its frequent inclusion in Interpol files throughout the world.
‘No need to be bitter, Mr MacHinery,’ Ah Wong said pleasantly. ‘I thought you might like to stay for dinner with me.’
‘Dinner?’ After a brief struggle, a conciliatory smile appeared on MacHinery’s face. ‘Well, noo, Mr Wong, that is kind of you. Very, very kind. I’ll be honoured to accept.’ MacHinery hadn’t sat down again, and now he paced the room restlessly, the sheen of sweat bathing his entire face. He was shivering more violently than ever and one side of his face had begun to twitch.
‘You are not well, I’m afraid,’ Ah Wong said again.
‘I’m fine.’ A pause. ‘Dammit, no, I’m no’. I’ll hae to go oot for a minute to get some medicine. I—I know the cure for this.’ He gulped. ‘I feel sick, Mr Wong, awful sick. Where’s your bathroom? Quick.’
‘Through that door there.’
MacHinery left abruptly and closed the door behind him. He turned on both basin taps, pulled the lever that operated the toilet cistern and used the sound of running water to drown the slight clicking noise made as he lifted the Venetian blind that shut out the hot Malayan sun.
Parked on the opposite side of the street below was a dark van with blue-tinted side windows and a ventilator on top. The ventilator was motionless. MacHinery thrust out a hand, waved briefly, withdrew his hand, waited until he saw the ventilator revolve just once, then lowered the blind as cautiously as he had raised it. He turned off the taps and went back into Ah Wong’s apartment.
‘You feel better, Mr MacHinery?’ It was no light task for Ah Wong to get concern into both voice and face but he made it after a struggle.
‘I feel bloody awful,’ MacHinery said candidly. He was shaking now like a broken bed-spring and his teeth were beginning to chatter. ‘I must go oot, Mr Wong. I must. Ma medicine. I’ll no be but minutes.’
‘Any medicine you care to name, Mr MacHinery, I have it. Among other things, I’m the wholesale supplier to many chemists’ shops.’
‘You’ll no’ find the medicine I need in any bloody chemist’s shop,’ MacHinery said violently. ‘A jiffy, Mr Wong. That’s all I’ll be.’ He headed for the doorway, then stopped abruptly. There was a man standing there. By courtesy definition, MacHinery thought, he might be called a man. He looked more like the early prototype of the Neanderthal caveman, only bigger. Much bigger. He had shoulders like a bull, hands like two bunches of bananas and a brutalized moronic face that might have been carved from granite by a power-chisel.
‘John,’ Ah Wong introduced him. ‘My secretary. I don’t think he wants you to leave, Mr MacHinery.’
‘Aye. Your secretary. No mistaking the intellectual type, is there?’ MacHinery shuddered violently again and dropped his voice. ‘One side, laddie.’
‘Don’t be foolish,’ Ah Wong said sharply. ‘He can break you in half. Come now, Mr MacHinery. Just sit down and take your coat off. Madness to wear it in this heat and sweating as you are.’
‘I’m allergic to sunlight,’ MacHinery said between clamped teeth. ‘Never take it off. One side, you.’
‘There’s no sunlight in here,’ Ah Wong said softly.
‘I must get oot,’ MacHinery shouted. ‘I must. Damn you, Wong, you don’t know what you’re doing to me.’ He made a bull rush for the doorway and tried to dive under John’s outstretched arms. His head and shoulders smashed into a five-barred gate. At least, it felt like a five-barred gate. A couple of power shovels closed over MacHinery’s upper arms, lifted him effortlessly off his feet and bore him back to the armchair in the centre of the room.
‘You are extremely foolish
,’ Ah Wong said sadly. ‘I want to be your friend, Mr MacHinery. And I want you to be mine. I think, Mr MacHinery, that you can offer me what a man in my position so very rarely acquires—an unswerving allegiance that neither money nor oaths could buy.’
MacHinery struggled futilely in the grip of giant hands. He said in a strangled voice: ‘I’ll kill you for this, Wong.’
‘Kill me? Kill your doctor? Kill the one man who can give you the medicine you need?’ Ah Wong smiled. ‘You are singularly lacking in intelligence. Take his jacket off, John.’
John removed MacHinery’s jacket. He did it by the simple process of ripping the white lining down the back middle seam and pulling off the two separate halves.
‘Now the shirt sleeves,’ Ah Wong murmured.
John twitched his fingers, the buttons burst from their moorings and the sleeves were pulled up beyond MacHinery’s elbows. For a long moment all three men stared down at the inside of MacHinery’s forearms. Both of them were covered by a mass of pale-purplish spots, none of them more than half an inch distant from its fellows. Ah Wong’s face remained as immobile as ever. He bent over MacHinery’s Gladstone bag, flung a shirt to one side and picked up a narrow rectangular box. He slid a catch, opened the wooden lid and extracted a hypodermic syringe, holding it by the plunger.
‘So very conveniently to hand,’ he said gently. ‘Your medicine goes in this, doesn’t it, MacHinery? And there’s hardly a place left in your arms for you to use it, is there? A junky, Mr MacHinery. A dope addict. And now you’re climbing the walls, as they say, because you’re overdue your next shot. Isn’t that it, Mr MacHinery?’
‘I’ll kill you for this, Ah Wong.’ MacHinery’s voice was weak, mechanical. He was jerking violently in his seat. ‘So help me God, I’ll kill you.’ He arched himself stiffly in his armchair, his eyes showing white, his mouth strained opened. ‘I’ll kill you,’ he croaked.