By Georgina Wilcox

I have to thank Terri Merren for taking much, much time to transcribe the original audio tapes (we do have the same copy given to us by Grandson Gregory Merren - Terri's wife) and saving all of us here a lot of work.

Terri produced a most beautiful book transcribed from these tapes full of photographs - most from the family archives.

The book is called "Roddy Watler - In His Own Words" Sub-titled "Memoirs of a Caymanian legend".

Why there is no mention of Roddy, who was Chief of Police and Captain of the Home Guard (2nd WW), only two of the many posts he held, is a mystery? A HUGE mistake by the very body employed to preserve our history and oversee the editing the history book. Joan (Roddy's youngest daughter) is convinced it was done deliberately. I can concur with that as the history book has a whole section devoted to the Home Guard, mentioning names but omitting Roddy's - who was the Captain!

Anyway, I will save that for another story.

In Colin Wilson's Award Winning Stage Play - "Watler's War" he introduced the story of the German Spy but the happenings surrounding it were fictitious. Joan, however, witnessed the arrest when she was watching un-noticed up in a tree when she was a little girl.

Because members of the immediate family of the spy (he married a Caymanian) are still alive, the Spy's name has been redacted and is referred to as "the German spy” or "he".

Thank you again Terri.

In his (Major Joseph Rodriguez - Roddy - Watler) own words:

THE GERMAN SPY

In 1939, we had living very near to my
compound here a nextdoor neighbour - the celebrated German spy. But,
before '39, I would say about '37 and '38, two boats came out here
from Germany and took [him] on board and went out to the Gulf of
Darien. That boat was tied up near to the Panama Canal. [The German
spy] came back to the island and some of the crew went home to
Germany.

A year later, another boat from Germany
came in and the mate on the first boat returned to the island here as
mate on the SteHa - another German boat. We went on board - Mr.
Ernest Panton [who] was Immigration Officer and myself. We met the
captain and he told us that he had spent 17 years in the Caribbean.
He knew the Caribbean from A to Z, and he was very glad that he came
here but he says, "One thing I have found out since I left
Germany (they sailed from Potsdam) that [he, the spy] is a Jew and we
do not want anything more to do with him. I says, "Well, I don't
know what he is but I know that he lives quite near to me because he
married a girl (my wife's first cousin right over there) and that's
where he lived. But he says, "I will try to get rid of him the
best I know how. I will go and see his wife," he says, "and
I will give her a little bit of money, and I will not take [him] on
this trip with me." Well, I was on board the SteHa (she was a
motor vessel) in the harbour, and he showed me all the gadgets he had
on board, how to get the depth of water from a cartridge and drop it
and it'd explode and it will tell you on the tail there what the
depth [is] and all that kind of stuff.

And everything to him was "the
Fuhrer." We drank a couple of beers aboard there and "Hail,
Fuhrer!" Every time he drank, it was "Hail the Fuhrer."
And he told us, he says, "If you and Mr. Panton would like to go
to Germany," he says, "I'll give you a ticket right now. It
won't cost you a penny. Ohhhhh," he says, "you'll see the
Autobahn, the beautiful highways - five hundred feet wide. Oh,"
he says, "you'll see everything that you want to see." Of
course, war hadn't broke out yet, you know. That was the beginning.
That was in '39.

So, we had here then Commissioner
Cardinall who could speak ... he was educated at the University of
Heidelberg in Germany and he spoke better German than [this German
spy] did, and up at Government House over a few bottles of Rhine
wine, [the spy] would tell him anything. [He] would tell him that he
was going to be Commissioner of the Cayman Islands when war broke
out. He told him that war was pending, it was near at hand and he was
here to take over the island when war broke out. So the commissioner
always instructed me to keep an eye on [him] but never to touch him
until I notified him, as he knew himself that war was coming. So, as
he lived right in behind me here, I used to go to my backyard and
that brought me up to where his room was and, one morning - I think
it was in June in 1939 -I heard him. When I got up to my backyard, I
heard him say to his wife, "Get ready. Kill yourself this
morning. I kill everybody in the house today." Well, I took my
time in coming back because if I had've rushed, it might've caused
him to think that I was coming at him, you see?

So, in coming back down to my house,
his mother-in-law said to me, she says, "Mr. Roddy, you heard
what that old devil said?" I said, "Yes, I heard."
And, just about that time, two youngsters (his two brothers-in-law -
I suppose they were 16 and 18) came around from the south-end of the
house buttoning up their boots on the front step and they says,
"Cousin Roddy, business going to pick up here in a minute."
And, just about then, he swung around the house with a Collins
machete and caused the two boys to bolt/to run. Well, I came back to
the house then to look for my revolver but, having so many children
around the place, my wife had to keep on moving it - hiding it to
keep it out of their reach. I couldn't find it! So, I went out to the
corner there and I met several people there, and one of the boys had
a good club. And I says, "Let me have the club." So, I took
the club and I went on up to the house and the wife said to me ...
She was crying and moaning [and] she said to me, "He's got a
machete in there and a dagger." So I went in the room and took
the machete away from him but I didn't see the dagger. I couldn't
find the dagger. So I left him there then in the house and I went to
Government House and reported to Commissioner Cardinall what had
taken place, and he instructed me to have him arrested. I came back
and, by the time I got back to the house, he had gone into the
hinterland of the mangroves over here, in hiding. Well, I went up
there - all the way up - but I couldn't find him so I put a chap up
in a tree. I says, "You watch the backland for me and, when you
see him coming out, you come and let me know." I came back home
and was getting my coffee and had got my gun when the chap came and
said, "Mr. Roddy, [he's] coming out." So, I went on up the
trail and I saw him coming.

And, when about 50 to 60 feet away, I
ordered him to 'hands up.' I pointed the gun at him and I says,
"Hands up!" and he throwed his two hands up and, when I got
up to him, the dagger was in his belt in front, and I jerked it out
and put him ahead of me. He was a big fat man - about 250 pounds -
and he had walked a long distance and he was pretty groggy. When I
got him back to the house over here, passing the house, he says, "I
want water." And I stopped in and asked his father-in-law to
give me some water. The old man brought out an enamel pitcher of
water. And I knew the 'water trick' that he would either throw that
water in my face and grab for my gun, or else he would hit his
father-in-law with the pitcher. So, I was standing firm in case of an
attack. So, I knew that he would have to finish drinking the water at
just that time because he had drunk a lot. And, as he went to dish
the water at the father-in-law, I struck him under the chin and I
says, "Get outta here!" I says, "What're ya thinkin'
about?" He says, "Ah!" He says, "That's my gun!"
I said, "By God, it's not your gun but I'll put it in you!"
I said, "If you ain't careful, I'll shoot you!" He says,
"That's my gun you got there." I said, "No, no, you
make a mistake. This is not your gun." I took him from there and
I got him to the police station and locked him up and, after certain
preliminaries had been forwarded to Jamaica, we got instructions to
send him on to Jamaica.

Well, we had a Sergeant of Police here. He was a big fella. He had served three and a half years in Mesopotamia as a soldier in the first World War. So, the commissioner directed me to prepare the Sergeant of Police to take [the German spy] down to Jamaica. The boat was leaving on a Friday and, on the Wednesday, the sergeant began to drink, and he was a heavy drinker. Thursday, I went to the commissioner's office and I says, "Your Honour, if you want [this man] to reach Jamaica, you better let me take him, sir. The sergeant is drinking and, if he leaves here under the influence of liquor, there's no telling what might happen at sea. He says, "Right, Roddy. I'll send a wire to Jamaica that you are coming. And leave the sergeant here." I went back down to the police station and I saw the sergeant. I says, "Sergeant, the commissioner has changed the programme. I'm taking [the prisoner] to Jamaica instead of you." He said to me, he says, "Oh! You? You wouldn't get even as far as Cayman Brae." "Well," I says, "under the circumstances, you wouldn't get even that far. Anyway, I'm taking him!" I went into the jail and went into [the prisoner's] cell and I said to him, I says, "I'm taking you down to Jamaica tomorrow evening and, from there, I'm sending you out to Costa Rica." "Ah!" he says, "Good God, that's where I want to go!" He said, "That's where my people is." He says, "I go. You have no trouble with me." That was a brainwave, you see?

So, I got [him] all dressed up the next
day - the next Friday evening - and placed him on board the Cimboco
with my corporal, Nixon, and myself. Just before leaving the dock, he
said to me, "Spect," he says, "you got anything to
drink?" I says, "No, I haven't got anything but if you want
something, I'll send up and get it." So, one of his
brothers-in-law was right present. I says, "Son, run up and tell
Captain Ben, the barkeeper, to send me a bottle of whiskey and a
couple of ginger ales." The boy came back with the whiskey and
ginger ale and, just as we pulled out from the dock, backing out, I
opened the ginger ales, handed one to the corporal and one to [the
prisoner]. The corporal drank his. He gave me the pint and I threw it
through the porthole. I noticed [the prisoner] drank his and kept the
pint so the thought flashed into my head, "What a lick he will
give me tonight with that pint." Just then, he spoke t~ me. He
says, "Spect," he says, "you think I keep this pint
and hit you with it tonight, no?" I says, "Hell, no."
I says, "Look at what I got here." And I lifted my revolver
from under my leg and I said, "This protects me. You got the
pint. I've got this!" I says, "I wasn't thinking that at
alL" He says, "Aye," he says, "I'll tell you what
I keep it for." He says, "I keep this and put my cigarette
ashes in it." And he took out his pillow from under his head and
he laid flat. His belly was up so big, and when he would smoke a
cigar down to say three inches, he would rise and shove the ashes
into that pint bottle and snip it off and, when we got to Port Royal,
he had that pint filled with ashes.

At Cayman Brae (the boat stopped near
Cayman Brae, you see and), he said to me, he says, "You taking
me to the asylum?" "Ah," I says, "What about
asylum? Where you heard about asylum? You dreamt it?" "Oh,"
he says, "I thought you take me to the asylum." I says
"It's just what I told you. You goes to Costa Rica."
"That," he says, "that's very good. Good." Well,
we went on and up along the coast of Jamaica. Sometimes, we were very
close to land. And when he went to the toilet in the night, the
corporal went up with him and I went to the corner where I could
watch him if he come through the window out on the deck. So, one
night, he saw me. And, when I went George Town in the early days
Courts Building to the right (pow home to the National Museum), back
to the room he says, "Hey, you think I jump overboard?" I
says, "Well, you wouldn't last long if you went overboard."
I says, "The sharks is over there waiting for you." "Aye,"
he says, "I don't give a damn." He says, "If they cut
the head off," he says, "but not the foot." He says,
"I go." He says, "I finish. They cut the head off,"
he says, "I finish."

Well, we went on and we arrived at Port
Royal where we were met by the Immigration officers and the doctor
examined the papers and he said to me, "What about this man?"
Well, I couldn't say anything. I had to muzzle my information in his
presence. I said, "Doc, just what you see on the papers is all
I'm prepared to say." And he took stock of that and left it at
that.

We arrived in Kingston and I was very
happy when I saw the police wagon with two constables and an
Inspector of Police. I was a happy man. I had got my man safely into
Kingston. He was taken to the lunatic asylum. There he remained until
the end of the war as a very terrible, crazy man. The second engineer
from the Cimboco used to take a few necessities from his wife here to
him in the asylum. And he reported that he had to put a net over him
to get near him; he was so badly insane.

But weeks after the war was finished, (he) became sane and he was shipped back to Germany as a displaced person. We never heard anything more from him. His wife had a son and that boy has growed up now to be a man, and he's been to Hamburg and Potsdam and several ports in Germany, and he could never find any trail of him at all. The boy is now an engineer in America. Now, that ends the [German spy] affair.