The Honest Civil Servant

There was no signature, no heading, no explanation. But he knew who it was from. In all of North Africa, only one person would issue orders this way. Not de Gaulle; de ​​Gaulle habitually signed his initials at the end of telegrams. Not the British; British telegrams were always long and verbose, like their weather. It was Lorrain. Only Lorrain would condense an order into three words. Early morning of the 17th. Port of Brega. Assistance. Assistance with what? Assistance with whom? Assistance from where? He didn't ask. Twenty years of military service had taught him one thing: some orders don't need to be understood, just executed.

He held the telegram close to the kerosene lamp, watching the edges of the paper slowly curl and turn black, eventually turning to ash.

He started preparing two days ago.

The port authority's warehouse held twelve barrels of aviation gasoline, delivered from Algiers earlier that month to supply German reconnaissance planes. He took out four barrels and replaced them with a mixture he had blended himself. The color was the same, the smell the same, the density the same. It burned the same too. It just wouldn't burn for long. At Loran's request, he had the German planes filled with this fuel; they would crash before even reaching Tobruk.

He locked himself in his office and spent the entire night rechecking the fuel depot's shift schedule. Twelve fuel tanks, six anti-aircraft guns, two patrol teams. They were to meet every two hours at the southeast corner, with each meeting lasting ten minutes. He knew all of this. But that wasn't what Lorraine wanted. What Lorraine wanted was precise time windows down to the minute, the name of each sentry and their shift change pattern, and the fuel capacity and range of each patrol motorcycle.

He pulled out all the records he'd accumulated over the past three months from his drawer: duty logs, fuel consumption sheets, maintenance work orders, even the canteen's purchasing lists. How many cigarettes a sentry received per week indicated his night shift frequency. How many kilometers a motorcycle traveled per day, with its oil changed every three days. How many kilograms of coffee a company's canteen bought per week, and how many of their men stayed up all night.

He filled in these numbers into the form and calculated all night. At dawn, he got the answer. After the patrol met at the southeast corner, they wouldn't move for seven minutes. Seven minutes, not ten. The extra three minutes were for smoking and chatting, but the Germans smoked quickly; they used rolled tobacco, not boxed cigarettes, so a cigarette wouldn't burn in three minutes. At the anti-aircraft gun position, a gunner's shift changed at four in the morning; four men left their positions simultaneously to change shifts at the barracks, a round trip taking six minutes. Six minutes, and those six guns were unattended. The sentries at the barracks changed shifts at 3:50 AM; the new ones needed five minutes to wake up. Five minutes, and the officer's tent was completely silent.

He copied the numbers onto a piece of paper, folded it into a small piece, and stuffed it into the sole of his shoe.

Yesterday, he started waiting for someone.

He wasn't waiting for Campbell's tank column. He knew Campbell was coming from the south, 400 kilometers away, arriving before dawn. But the person he was waiting for wasn't Campbell. The person he was waiting for should already have infiltrated the port of Brega. Yesterday afternoon, a convoy arrived at the port, six trucks from Tripoli, unloading 100 tons of ammunition. The convoy had twelve men: eight drivers, two escorts, a mechanic, and a translator.

The translator was a Frenchman in his forties, wearing glasses and speaking with a Marseille accent. He introduced himself as Jean Duval, a translator for an Italian trading company in Tripoli, who had been temporarily reassigned to escort this shipment. The Germans checked his identification three times, found nothing wrong, and waved him in. They didn't know that the translator's real name was Pierre Duval, a liaison for the Free French North Africa intelligence network, codenamed Hyacinth. They were even less aware that the six trucks contained more than just ammunition.

Three days earlier, the telegram Ramorini sent was addressed not to London, but to Tripoli. After receiving the telegram in Tripoli, Duval spent two days bribing an Italian transport official. One thousand francs for a position as a translator on the truck. One thousand francs for permits for six trucks. One thousand francs for twelve boxes of explosives to be smuggled into the port of Brega.

The explosives were hidden at the bottom of the ammunition box, wrapped in oiled paper and covered with a layer of shells. When the Germans conducted a spot check, they flipped over the top two layers, saw the shells, and closed the box. They didn't check the third layer.

Last night, Duval unloaded the explosives from the truck and hid them in the innermost corner of the port warehouse. There were hundreds of barrels of spare engine oil piled up there; the Germans never checked them because the oil barrels were too heavy to move. Duval could move them. He spent the entire night moving the twelve boxes of explosives, one by one, behind the oil barrels, then putting the oil barrels back in their place. By dawn, his fingers were blistered, his nails torn in two, and blood dripped onto the ground, which he covered with sand.

At one o'clock in the morning, Duval knocked on Ramorini's door.

"Colonel." He stood in the doorway, his fingers wrapped in tattered rags, blood still seeping from them.

Ramorini looked at him, not asking about his injuries. "Where are the things?"

"In the warehouse. Behind the oil drums."

How many people?

"Six," Duval said. "I brought six men from Tripoli. They're all top-notch. Retired from the Foreign Legion."

Ramorini nodded. He walked to the window and looked out at the harbor.

"At four in the morning," he said. "The patrols meet at the southeast corner. After they meet, they don't move for seven minutes. At four o'clock, a gunner rotates duty at the anti-aircraft gun position, and there's no one on duty for six minutes. The sentries at the barracks change shifts at 3:50, and it takes five minutes for the new ones to wake up."

He turned around and looked at Duval.

"You have forty minutes. From the entrance to the furthest oil tank, it's three hundred meters. It takes three minutes to run there. It takes five minutes to blow up one oil tank. To blow up all twelve oil tanks would take at least an hour. But you only have one hour."

Duval didn't speak. He knew. One hour, twelve oil tanks, six men. Each person had to blow up two tanks. Each tank took five minutes. Running away took time, laying mines took time, retreating took time; one hour wasn't enough.

Ramorini looked at him. "So you don't blow up the canisters."

Duval was stunned. "Not blow up the can? Then what should we blow up?"

"Before that, we need to blow up the road," Ramolini said. "Lorraine doesn't want the oil tanks. He wants time. Whether the tanks blow up or not is unimportant; what's important is that Rommel thinks they've blown up. Make him think his fuel is gone. While he waits anxiously for those few days, Free France can take over North Africa."

He walked to the table and unfolded a hand-drawn map.

"The entrance, the gap between the sand dunes, is the only passage through the depression. When the patrols meet, the gap is empty. You rush in, but don't go deep; stop at the entrance. Bury the explosives under the sand dunes on both sides of the gap, bury them deep and tightly. When the patrols return, detonate them. The dunes will collapse and fill the gap. The Germans' vehicles won't be able to get in, and the oil won't be able to get out."

His finger moved across the map.

"Then, run to the beach. At low tide, there's a narrow path on the beach that leads around to the dock on the north side of the harbor. There's a fishing boat there, with a diesel engine, that can seat eight people. The owner is an Arab named Abdul; I owe him a favor. He'll wait for you until dawn."

Duval stared at the map for a long time. Then he looked up. "And you?"

Ramorini did not answer. He walked to the window, turned his back to Duval, and looked out at the harbor.

"I'll stay here," he said. "Once you're done bombing, the Germans will investigate. They'll find out who planted the bombs, which spy sent the intelligence out. They need someone to give an account. I'm that person. You know, these people have been with me for a long time, I can't betray them."

Duval didn't say anything.

At 3:40 a.m., six men took out explosives from the warehouse, divided them into twelve portions, and each carried two portions. Duval walked in front, followed by five silent men. They were dressed in German work clothes, wore German helmets, and carried German explosive packs.

Ramorini stood by the office window, watching those figures disappear into the night.

At 3:50 a.m., the changing of the guard took place. The new man leaned against the barracks door and yawned. He heard footsteps in the distance, very light, like the sound of wind blowing through sand. He turned his head but saw nothing.

At 3:55 a.m., six men lay prone behind a sand dune at the entrance to the depression. Three hundred meters ahead, twelve oil tanks gleamed dimly in the moonlight. To their left was an anti-aircraft gun emplacement, where gunners were changing shifts, four men in a row walking towards the barracks. To their right was the barracks, where a sentry leaned against the wall, head down, seemingly either dozing or smoking.

Duval lay there, motionless. He counted his heartbeats. One, two, three. As he counted to three hundred, the sound of patrol motorcycles came from afar. Two vehicles, one convoy clockwise, one counter-clockwise, met at the southeast corner. The headlights went out, the engines stopped. Someone was speaking, in German, but he couldn't make out what they were saying. Then came the sound of a lighter, the glow of a cigarette butt flickering in the darkness.

Seven minutes.

Duval began to move. He slithered down the dune like a snake, crawling close to the ground. Five men followed behind him, each five meters apart, each carrying two bundles of explosives. The sand was soft; each step left a trail, but the wind would smooth it over within an hour. He crawled three hundred meters, taking fifteen minutes, until he reached the back of the first oil tank. He stopped, unloaded one bundle of explosives from his back, and stuffed it into the ventilation pipe at the bottom of the tank. He covered it with sand, pulled out the detonator, and covered it with another layer of sand.

next.

At 4:12 a.m., Duval planted the sixth explosive charge. His fingers were trembling, not from fear, but from exhaustion. His fingernails were all broken, the tips were raw and bleeding, and sand was embedded in the wounds, burning like fire. He gritted his teeth and continued crawling forward.

At 4:20 a.m., Duval planted the last explosive charge. Beside him was the twelfth oil tank, the closest to the entrance. Two hundred meters from here to the entrance. He looked up, gazing in the direction of the entrance. The gaps between the dunes were still there, moonlight filtering through, illuminating the sand like a silvery path.

He pulled a small detonator from his pocket, with only one button. He gripped it tightly in his hand and began to climb back. He climbed past the eleventh oil tank, the tenth, the ninth. At each one, he stopped and connected the detonating wire. One wire, two wires, three wires. His fingers trembled; he couldn't connect them accurately, trying again and again. He gritted his teeth, tucked the wire end into the connector, tightened it, and tightened it again.

At 4:31 a.m., he finished connecting the last wire. He lay down behind the first oil tank and placed the detonator in front of him. His finger was on the button, but he didn't press it.

He is waiting.

At 4:33 a.m., the sound of patrol motorcycles came from the southeast corner. Two vehicles, one clockwise and one counterclockwise, began to move. They would reach the entrance in a minute, see the silver road in a minute and a half, and discover the wires buried in the sand in two minutes.

Duval closed his eyes.

At 4:34 a.m., he pressed the button.

The explosion didn't start from the oil tank. It started from the entrance. Of the twelve explosive charges, only four were buried under the tank. The remaining eight were buried in the sand dunes on either side of the entrance. The moment the explosion occurred, the dunes collapsed. Dozens of tons of sand rushed down from both sides, filling the gap and completely blocking the road.

Then came the oil tanks. The first one exploded, the second exploded, and the third exploded too. The explosions were continuous, like thunder, one after another. Flames shot into the sky, illuminating the entire depression as if it were daytime. Oil gushed out from the blasted openings, ignited by the fire, turning into fiery dragons that rolled, spread, and devoured everything on the ground.

Duval lay sprawled on the ground, his hands clutching his head. A wave of heat rolled over him, burning his skin. Sand stung his face like needles. His ears were ringing; he couldn't hear anything.

But he knew he had to run.

He got up and ran towards the sea. Five people followed him; some were running, some were crawling, and some couldn't stand up anymore. He looked back and counted them. He kept running. The sand was soft; when he couldn't run anymore, he crawled. The sea was ahead, the moonlight shining on its surface, shimmering silvery-white. A fishing boat was moored on the dock.

He glanced back. The depression had become a sea of ​​fire. All twelve oil tanks were burning, flames leaping dozens of meters high, turning half the sky red. The German barracks had been overturned by the blast wave, the anti-aircraft guns were blown to pieces, and the patrol's motorcycles were burned to a pile of metal frames. Corpses were everywhere on the ground, some still burning, others already reduced to ashes.

At five in the morning, the fishing boat left the port of Brega. The diesel engine sputtered, leaving a white trail of foam in its wake. Duval sat at the bow, leaning against the gunwale, watching the distant firelight recede into the distance. His fingers were still bleeding, his nails were torn in two, and the tips were worn down to the bone. He dipped his hands in the seawater, the pain making him tremble.

Someone next to him asked, "Where are we going?"

Duval didn't answer. He looked south, at the still-burning sky.

"Go pick them up," he said.

At 5:40 a.m., Campbell's tank column stopped at the edge of the depression. The oil depot in Brega port had been reduced to ruins. All twelve oil tanks were destroyed.

Campbell stood on the sand dune, looking at the still-smoking fire.

He bent down and picked something up from the ground.

Free France.

Ramolini never accepted money from the British, never sent intelligence to Free France, never planted listening devices in German offices, and never sneaked out of the harbor at night to meet anyone behind the dunes. His file was spotless: retired colonel of the Foreign Legion, joined in 1920, retired in 1940, served for twenty years, with no criminal record. The Vichy government vetted him, and the Germans vetted him as well; both vet visits found nothing wrong. Because there truly was nothing wrong.

He was the administrative director of the Port Authority of Brega, a 52-year-old retired veteran. His daily work consisted of registering ship arrival and departure times, checking fuel inventory figures, and processing leave requests from dockworkers. The Germans considered him reliable, the Vichy government considered him loyal, and the Italians considered him harmless. Every morning at eight o'clock, he would appear in his office on time, make a strong cup of coffee, open the previous day's work log, and sign his name in the lower right corner of each page with an old fountain pen. His handwriting was neat, rigid, and meticulous, just like him.

That's just who he is. A civil servant who goes to work and leaves on time every day. A veteran who spent thirty years in Africa, his face covered in wrinkles. An old man whose fingers are slightly deformed from holding a pen for years, no longer resembling those of someone who could pull a trigger. That's just who he is.

Why would he help Loran?

Because twenty years ago, in the Moroccan desert, he made a vow.

It was spring of 1921. The Rif War had just begun, and Berber cavalry charged down from the mountains, surrounding the French outposts in three layers. Lamorini, a lieutenant in the Foreign Legion, led forty men to defend a fort called Saint-Louis. It was more of a low stone wall covered with palm branches, lacking even a proper roof. They held out for seven days. Every night, the Berbers would charge, hacking at the stone walls with rifles and scimitars, sparks flying everywhere.

On the seventh night, reinforcements arrived. Not French, but a German battalion from the Foreign Legion. A company of German veterans, carrying two heavy machine guns and a box of grenades, circled around from the east, catching the Berbers completely off guard. The officer leading the group was Erwin Rommel, then only a captain, thin as a bamboo pole, his face covered in dust, but his grey-blue eyes were unusually bright. Standing in front of the stone wall, he asked Lamorini in fluent French, "Lieutenant, are your men still able to fight?" Lamorini said yes. Rommel nodded, set up the two heavy machine guns in a gap in the low wall, and personally operated one, firing all night.

As dawn broke, the Berbers retreated. Hundreds of corpses lay outside the stone wall, the sand soaked in blood, gleaming a dark red in the morning light. Rommel leaned against his machine gun, his fingers still trembling, but his face was expressionless. He looked at Lamorini and said only one sentence: "You owe me a life."

Ramorini recorded it for twenty years.

Later, he checked Rommel's resume. The German captain who had saved his life in Morocco had returned to Germany, become a general, fought in Poland and France, and was now in North Africa with 80,000 men and 300 tanks, trying to drive the British out of Egypt. Rommel didn't remember him. For Rommel, that desert night twenty years ago was just one of countless battles, something he would forget after it was over. But Lamorini didn't forget. He remembered the thin German standing in front of the stone wall, saying in fluent French, "Can your men still fight?" He remembered those grey-blue eyes that shone frighteningly in the firelight. He remembered Rommel leaning against that red-hot heavy machine gun as dawn approached, his fingers still trembling, his face expressionless, like a demon from hell.

He did owe Rommel one, but he owed France much more.

In June 1940, when news of France's surrender reached the port of Brega, Ramorini was in his office checking oil inventories. Outside the window, someone was weeping loudly, someone was smashing a wine glass, and someone was singing "La Marseillaise" but couldn't finish the song. He sat at his desk, looking at the armistice agreement that had just been signed. Then he stood up, went to the window, pulled down the blinds, sat back down, and continued checking the numbers.

He didn't cry. A veteran who had spent thirty years in Africa wouldn't cry over anything. He just suddenly felt that those numbers had become very light. The tonnage of oil, the ship numbers, the berths at the dock—all the things he had spent twenty years maintaining had become someone else's property overnight. German property.

He continued working. Every day at eight o'clock, he would arrive at the office, make a strong cup of coffee, open the previous day's work log, and sign his name in the bottom right corner of each page with his old fountain pen. His handwriting was still meticulous. No one knew that from the day of the surrender, he had been waiting, waiting for someone to tell him that France had not yet lost.

That person came this March.

It wasn't Lorán himself. Lorán was fighting a guerrilla war in Libya and didn't have time to come to the port of Brega to meet a 52-year-old veteran. A young man named Duval came, a smuggler who had come from Tripoli and unloaded a shipment of Italian wine at the port. He found Ramolini's office, knocked on the door, and handed over a business card. The card read "Pierre Duval, Import and Export Trade," with a line of very small print in the corner, almost illegible. That line read: "Free France, North Africa Liaison Office."

Ramolini stared at the words for a long time. Then he looked up at Duval. "Did he send you?" he asked. Duval nodded. "He told me to tell you that France hasn't lost yet."

Ramolini didn't speak. He stood up, walked to the window, and opened the blinds a crack. Outside was the harbor of Brega, where German transport ships were unloading cargo, Italian sailors were smoking on deck, and Vichy's gendarmes were patrolling. Everything seemed normal. He watched for a long time, then pulled the blinds down, turned, and looked at Duval. "What can I do?"

Duval didn't answer immediately. He took a piece of paper from his pocket and handed it to Ramorini. On the paper was a map of the oil depots in Brega port, marking the location of every oil tank, the position of every anti-aircraft gun, and the route of every patrol. The map was drawn roughly, as if from memory, but every line was accurate, and every point was correct.

"He needs these things," Duval said earnestly. "He needs to know the defenses of the oil depot, the patrol changing times, and when the Germans are most lax. He needs someone here to watch over things and wait for him. We need your help, veteran."

Ramorini looked at the map, then folded it up and stuffed it into the deepest part of the drawer.

"Tell him," he said, "I'll wait for him."

From that day on, Ramolini began his work. Not the kind of work a British spy would do, nor the kind of work a Free French agent would do. It was the work of a port manager. Every day, he went to work as usual, made a cup of coffee, opened his work log, and signed his name in the bottom right corner of each page. But his hands began to record other things. How many tons of oil went in and out of the oil depot each day, when the anti-aircraft guns were to be repaired, how far each patrol motorcycle could go, and whether anyone slacked off during the changing of the guard. He memorized these numbers, and when he returned to his dormitory at night, he copied them onto a piece of paper and stuffed it into the sole of his shoe.

No one ever doubted him. A veteran who had spent thirty years in Africa, a former officer whose fingers were deformed from holding a pen, a civil servant who went to work and left work on time every day—who would doubt him? The Germans didn't doubt him, the Vichy government didn't doubt him, and the Italians certainly didn't doubt him.

What they didn't know was that this taciturn old man, like a grim reaper, was using his old fountain pen to write Rommel's death sentence, stroke by stroke.

In April, Duval came again. This time he brought a telegram, not from London, but from Libya, from the guerrilla camp in Lorraine. "Early morning of the 17th, Port Regga. Receive." Ramorini read the telegram three times, then looked up. "Receive what?"

Duval shook his head. "I don't know. He only said that someone will come. It could be an Englishman, it could be someone from Free France, it could be himself. He said you'll find out when the time comes."

Ramorini nodded.

Then he began to prepare. Not to fight. He knew he couldn't fight anymore. His hands couldn't hold a gun, his legs couldn't run, and his eyes couldn't see clearly in the night. All he could do was wait. Wait for Lorraine to come, wait for Campbell to come, wait for a moment he had waited twenty years for.

In the early hours of the 17th, Duval led five men to the oil depot. Ramorini stood by the office window, watching their figures disappear into the night. He stood there, motionless, like a statue. The moonlight shone on his face, highlighting the wrinkles etched by the African sun, and a strange light in his grey-green eyes.

It was neither fear nor tension, but a kind of calm that only comes to those who have waited so long and have finally waited for it.

At 4:34 a.m., the explosion occurred.

Ramorini stood by the window, watching the eastern sky turn red with fire, watching the fireballs rise into the air, disperse, and turn into black mushroom clouds. He stared at that sea of ​​fire for a long time. Then he turned around, walked back to the table, and sat down.

He knew that in a few minutes, the Germans would storm in. They would ask who planted the explosives, who laid the mines, who sent out the intelligence. They needed an answer. And he would give them an answer. An answer that would allow Duval to escape further, an answer that would keep Lorraine's plan undetected, an answer that would finally defeat the German who had saved his life in Morocco, twenty years later.