O'Brien, Brian "Jungle Jailor"

Joe Peters, the sole survivor of an American freighter (the fictitious S.S. TOLEDO) which had been torpedoed by a German U-boat in the Mozambique Channel off the east coast of Africa finds himself, after many days adrift in a bullet-riddled lifeboat (the sub had strafed the lifeboat, killing all but Peters), cast ashore in Portugese East Africa. He is soon taken captive by the mad German operator of a secret Nazi telegraph relay station which is located in a nearly impenetrable jungle about 100 miles south of the Portugese colonial city of Beira. It soon becomes apparent to Peters that the sadistic German (one “Flaggleutenant Hennig”) was partly responsible for the loss of the TOLEDO (spies in Beira had gleaned information on the ship’s planned movements and then relayed that information to Hennig, who passed it on to a nearby German submarine). Once Peters learns that the Nazis are planning on attacking an approaching northbound Allied convoy in the Mozambique Channel it becomes imperative for him to figure out a way to overpower his captor and save the convoy. It should come as no surprise to readers that the wily American indeed does defeat the cowardly Nazi (Hennig is last seen trapped in the swamp, frightened to death – and indeed, the German appears to have committed suicide by tale’s end); Peters then escapes from the jungle after having destroyed the wireless station and thus ensuring the convoy’s safe passage.

Readers interested in a more artful look at the World War 2 dangers of shipping in the Mozambique Channel should check out Penelope Lively’s engrossing short story “The Mozambique Channel,” published in 2005. And those looking for a portrait of a similarly off-kilter jungle inhabitant who has taken and used for his own strange purposes a Western prisoner might wish to read the final chapters of Evelyn Waugh’s acerbic 1934 novel, A Handful of Dust.