The Dogs of War

Jean-Baptiste Langarotti would have liked to be there. From the port rail he could have watched the gray-white sun-bleached coast of his homeland slipping past barely four miles across the water. But he was many miles away, in West Africa, where the rainy season had already begun and where, despite the fever heat, the clouds were leaden gray.

Alan Baker came into Shannon’s hotel in Dubrovnik just as the mercenary was returning from the beach on the evening of June 8. He looked tired and dusty.

Cat Shannon, by contrast, was looking and feeling better. He had spent his week in the Yugoslav holiday resort behaving like any other tourist, sunbathing and swimming several miles each day. He looked thinner, but fit and tanned. He was also optimistic.

After settling into his hotel, he had sent Semmler a cable at Brindisi requesting confirmation of the arrival of the vessel and receipt of the waiting letter mailed from Hamburg. That morning he had got Semmler’s telegraphed reply. The Toscana had arrived safely in Brindisi, the letter had been received and acted on, and they would depart on the morning of June 9 to make destination by midnight of the tenth.

Over drinks on the terrace of their hotel, where Shannon had reserved Baker a room for the night, he told the dealer from Hamburg the news.

Baker nodded and smiled. “Fine. I got a cable forty-eight hours ago from Ziljak in Belgrade. The crates have arrived in Ploc?e and are in the government warehouse near the quay, under guard.”

They spent the night in Dubrovnik and the following morning hired a taxi to take them the hundred kilometers up the coast to Ploc?e. It was a bone shaker of a car that appeared to have square wheels and cast-iron suspension, but the drive along the coast road was agreeable, mile upon mile of unspoiled coastline, with the small town of Slano at the halfway mark, where they stopped for a cup of coffee and to stretch their limbs.

They were established in a Ploc?e hotel by lunchtime and waited in the shade of the terrace until the port office opened again at four in the afternoon.

The port was set on a broad sweep of deep blue water, shielded to its seaward side by a long peninsula of land called Peljesac, which curved out of the main coast to the south of Ploc?e and ran northward parallel to the coast. Up to the north the gap between the tip of the peninsula and the coast was almost blocked by the rocky island of Hvar, and only a narrow gap gave access to the sea lagoon on which Ploc?e stood. This lagoon, nearly thirty miles long, surrounded on nine-tenths of its perimeter by land, was a paradise for swimming, fishing, and sailing.

As they approached the port office, a small and battered Volkswagen squealed to a halt a few yards away and hooted noisily. Shannon froze. His first instinct said trouble, something he had been fearing all along, some slipup in the paperwork, a sudden block put on the whole deal by the authorities, and an extended stay under questioning in the local police station.

The man who climbed out of the small car and waved cheerily might have been a policeman, except that police in most totalitarian states of East or West seemed to be banned from smiling by standing orders. Shannon glanced at Baker and saw his shoulders sag in relief.

“Ziljak,” Baker muttered through closed mouth and went to meet the Yugoslav. The latter was a big shaggy man, like an amiable black-haired bear, and he embraced Baker with both arms. When he was introduced, his first name turned out to be Kemal, and Shannon supposed there was more than a touch of Turk in the man. That suited Shannon fine; he liked the type, normally good fighters and comrades with a healthy dislike of bureaucracy.

“My assistant,” said Baker, and Ziljak shook hands and muttered something in what Shannon assumed to be Serbo-Croat. Baker and Ziljak communicated in German, which many Yugoslavians speak a little. He spoke no English.

With Ziljak’s assistance, they roused the head of the cu

stoms office and were taken off to inspect the warehouse. The customs man jabbered a few words at the guard on the door, and in the corner of the building they found the crates. There were thirteen of them; one apparently contained the two bazookas, and each of two others contained one mortar, including the baseplates and sighting mechanisms in each. The rest were of ammunition, four of them with ten bazooka rockets in each, and the other six containing the ordered three hundred mortar bombs. The crates were in new timber, unmarked with any description of contents, but stenciled with serial numbers and the word “Toscana.”

Ziljak and the customs chief babbled away in their own dialect—and it appeared they were using the same one, which was helpful, because there are dozens in Yugoslavia, including seven major languages, and difficulties have been known to occur.

Eventually Ziljak turned to Baker and said several sentences in his halting German. Baker replied, and Ziljak translated for the customs man. He smiled, and they all shook hands and parted. Outside, the sunshine struck like a sledgehammer.

“What was all that about?” asked Shannon.

“Kemal was asked by the customs man if there was a little present in it for him,” explained Baker. “Kemal told him there would be a nice one if the paperwork could be kept trouble-free and the ship was loaded on time tomorrow morning.”

Shannon had already given Baker the first half of Ziljak’s £1000 bonus for helping the deal go through, and Baker drew the Yugoslav to one side to slip it to him. The man’s all-embracing bonhomie became even more embracing for both of them, and they adjourned to the hotel to celebrate with a little slivovitz. A “little” was the word Baker used. Ziljak may have used the same word. He did not mean it. Happy Yugoslavs never drink a little slivovitz. With £500 under his belt, Ziljak ordered a bottle of the fiery plum liquor and bowl after bowl of almonds and olives. As the sun went down and the Adriatic evening slipped through the streets, he relived again his years in the war, hunting and hiding in the Bosnian hills to the north with Tito’s partisans.

Baker was hard put to it to translate as the exuberant Kemal related his forays behind Dubrovnik in Montenegro, in the mountains behind where they sat, on the coast of Herzegovina, and among the cooler, richer, wooded countryside north of Split in Bosnia. He relished the thought that he would once have been shot out of hand for venturing into any of the towns where he now drove on behalf of his brother-in-law, who was in the government. Shannon asked if he was a committed Communist, having been a partisan, and Ziljak listened while Baker translated, using the word “good” for “committed.”

Ziljak thumped his chest with his fist. “Guter Kommunist,” he exclaimed, eyes wide, pointing at himself. Then he ruined the effect by giving a broad wink, throwing back his head, and roaring with laughter as he tossed another glass of slivovitz down the hatch. The folded notes of his first £500 bonus made a bulge under his waistband, and Shannon laughed too and wished the giant was coming along to Zangaro with them. He was that kind of man.

They had no supper but at midnight wandered unsteadily back to the quay to watch the Toscana come in. She was rounding the harbor wall and an hour later was tied up alongside the single quay of hewn local stone. From the forepeak Semmler looked down in the half-light cast by the dock lamps. Each nodded slowly at the other, and Waldenberg stood at the top of the gangplank, consulting with his first mate. He had already been instructed, following Shannon’s letter, that he should leave the talking to Semmler.

After Baker had headed back to the hotel with Ziljak, Shannon slipped up the gangplank and into the captain’s tiny cabin. No one on the quay took any notice. Semmler brought Waldenberg in, and they locked the door.

Slowly and carefully Shannon told Waldenberg what he had really brought the Toscana to Ploc?e to take on board. The German captain took it well. He kept his face expressionless until Shannon had finished.

“I never carried arms before,” he said. “You say this cargo is legal. How legal?”

“Perfectly legal,” said Shannon. “It has been bought in Belgrade, trucked up here, and the authorities are of course aware what the crates contain. Otherwise there would be no export license. The license has not been forged, nor has anyone been bribed. It’s a perfectly legal shipment under the laws of Yugoslavia.”

“And the laws of the country it’s going to?” asked Waldenberg.

“The Toscana never enters the waters of the country where these arms are due to be used,” said Shannon. “After Ploc?e, there are two more ports of call, in each case only to take on board cargoes. You know ships are never searched for what they are carrying when they arrive in a port to take on more cargo only, unless the authorities have been tipped off.”

“It has happened, all the same,” said Waldenberg. “If I have these things on board and the manifest doesn’t mention them, and there is a search and they are discovered, the ship gets impounded and I get imprisoned. I didn’t bargain on arms. With the Black September and the IRA about these days, everyone’s looking for arms shipments.”