In the picture, De Wet has the unmistakable look of a British military man, despite his Boer origin — if that was in fact his extraction, and perhaps it wasn’t: the moustache is thick and curly and very well groomed, perhaps he kept its tips upturned by means of an indispensable small, special comb. The long tuft on the chin is a bit jarring, giving him the look of a musketeer or an aspiring cardinal — or Buffalo Bill or Custer — inappropriate to a serious soldier of his time; it suggests an extravagant, roguish side to his character that, taken to an extreme in a foreign country, might give rise to an indecent ponytail, of which there isn’t a glimpse here. Nor does he sport an eyepatch or smoked monocle, and as for the famous earring, unless it adorned the barely visible right ear which is covered in shadow, he seems not to have dared wear it for the portrait done by the Weitzmann Studio, London. He’s dressed as a civilian, which he would have been at that time, and very dapper: the tie is elegant and the jacket’s wool fabric is so excellent that its texture is palpable to the eye. He appears somewhat older than thirty-six (his age then, perhaps) but more because of his robust physique and respectably parted hair than because of any noticeable ravages left by his reckless life. Seeing him so imperturbable, no one would ever guess he had been a prisoner for so long or that he’d been tortured. The clear eyes have a penetrating gaze typical of dark eyes, and neither looks sightless, his features are very correct: a fine-looking man easy to imagine in uniform or in some past century, particularly the seventeenth century, as a corsair or noble or both things together in a not infrequent combination, or in the nineteenth century, but farther away, across the ocean in the Wild West. The signature on the photograph is hard to make out against the dark background.
The text on the front flap of the jacket begins and ends with a set of quotation marks and ellipses; the provenance of these citations is then explained on the back flap. “This extract, described by Mr. de Wet as ‘founded on fact,’ though ‘in various respects slightly inaccurate,’ is taken from the Vôlkischer Beobachter’s report of his trial in the People’s Court at Berlin, when he was found guilty and condemned to death.” And, in a more overtly promotional tone, it continues, “In The Valley of the Shadow Mr de Wet gives his own version of his experiences as a secret agent of France in Prague, and of his capture and imprisonment by the Gestapo. It is almost incredible that he should have survived successively the attentions of his gaolers and inquisitors, his own attempts to escape and suicide, and finally, for four years, a death sentence delivered in the earlier part of the war.” The last paragraph is even more market-minded and not worth bothering with. But it is worth having a look at the article from the Vôlkischer Beobachter of Berlin, dated February 8, 1941, partially reproduced in its original language on pages VI and VII, following the table of contents, the half title, an extremely sinister frontispiece in yellow and black showing a skeletal, chained man seated on the floor of a cell with his eyes shut — a drawing done by De Wet himself — and, filling the entire page that opens the volume, a phrase in quotation marks as if it were a motto or a line of poetry or a Biblical citation that I don’t recognize: “And still death passed me by,” it says, in other words, “And death continued to pass me by,” although, with a bit of a stretch, the word still could be understood as an adjective here rather than an adverb, in which case the motto would mean “And silent death passed me by.” But I don’t think so, because “still” in the first sense has, in Hugh Oloff de Wet’s case, all too much significance: the death sentence he received in Berlin was the second of his life, following the one in Valencia five years earlier; he was sentenced to death by the Republicans on whose side he fought in Spain and by the Nazis he fought against in Germany, that is, by both warring parties in the space of a few years. Neither of those two deaths would have been silent. The illustration I described also appears on the jacket and is not the only one in the book, which contains a total of four, all in yellow and black, all sinister, and all done by the volume’s imprisoned mercenary author. The graphic ability thus evinced was the first piece of information that could explain or justify the strange task by which I initially learned of his existence — or only of his name, misspelled — as maker of the death mask of Gawsworth, the poet, who was also Juan I, king of Redonda, Armstrong the beggar, and undoubtedly De Wet’s contemporary, for he, too, was a pilot during those years, under orders from the Royal Air Force in North Africa and the Middle East.
The article, from the North German edition of the Vôlkischer Beobachter, which was kindly loaned by Her Majesty’s Foreign Office according to a footnote, is translated into English by De Wet at the beginning of The Valley of the Shadow and goes more or less like this:
THE DE WET CASE
BERLIN, JANUARY 1941
In a two-day sitting, the People’s Court proceeded against the 28-year-old Britisher de Wet and condemned him to death. De Wet was a paid spy in the service of the French Deuxième Bureau, his task being the spying out of military installations. He was arrested by the German counter-espionage on German territory.
The trial of Percy William Olaf de Wet [an unusual form of his name, perhaps because he was working as a spy, but then it wouldn’t make any sense to keep the family name] was held in camera. A representative of the ‘Vôlkischer Beobachter’ was permitted to be present during the trial. For obvious reasons of military security all participants at the trial were put under an oath of silence. Nothing of such a nature may therefore be reported … But quite apart from secret matters, the person of the accused is worthy of attention from the general human and political aspects.
The circumstances under which the condemned man pursued his activities against the security of the Reich are characteristic of a certain international atmosphere in which the dividing line between politics and adventure vanishes and the Intelligence Service is indistinguishable from swindling. It can, however, be no chance that the enemy Intelligence Service prefer to draw their recruits from such elements. In reviewing this trial, what is most noteworthy is this: in this underground battle against the Reich use appears to be made only of those whose lack of principle and moral instability would seem to fit them for their work. [The edifying commentary is striking, coming as it does from a Nazi publication, but it’s even more remarkable in an account of the trial of a spy, as if moral condemnation were optional or subject to subtle distinctions in such a case.]
Those who took part in the trial have had to weigh in their minds whether this de Wet, who stood before them twisting a thin Don Quixote beard [perhaps the comb had been confiscated when he was arrested] was an adventurous fool or a cunning, cold-blooded, calculating spy resolute in concealing his dangerous secrets. Both may be true. De Wet comes from English military stock. [A statement that puts the lie to the famous Boer grandfather.] His father was a naval officer, Commandant on one of the Channel Islands, now in German possession. The son was also destined for a military career and entered a cadet school, for whose examination, however, he did not sit. He says it was because it was not his intention to enter an infantry regiment. It is possible to believe this, for soon afterwards, having got round the examination for pilot, he entered the Royal Air Force. He left that service in a short time and the reasons are obscure. De Wet maintains that the many medical boards he had to attend on account of some motor accidents had been unpleasant, and he had on that account given up the service. [This is all so preposterous that we’d be justified in conjecturing that De Wet was mocking and pulling the legs of his judges and accusers throughout the trial; it’s impossible to know whether they were aware of this, though it certainly looks bad for the now defunct Third Reich if they weren’t; one person who definitely wasn’t aware was our reporter from the Vôlkischer Beobachter, who painstakingly records everything, word for word, and seems perfectly oblivious to the probable detachment or cynicism of the adventurous spy. That must have been it, I thought as I read this drivel.]