by Walter Ellis
“The phone won’t be installed at the villa for another week. Bomb damage in the area was severe and a lot of lines are still down. Mama would have to phone Uncle Adolfo at his office, which she doesn’t like to do. Anyway, it takes a day to get there. So far, she has no reason to worry.”
“If you say so. Just remember, I can get you the other side of the frontier. After that you’re on your own.”
Isabella nodded, then resumed staring into the street, scanning it from end to end. It was three or four minutes after that she thought she could make out someone hobbling towards them in the distance. She looked again, screwing up her eyes. It had to be, it was Bramall. There was something wrong, though. He was limping. “There he is,” she cried excitedly. “Over that way. But he’s hurt.”
The two draughts players looked out at the street, then resumed their game. They had seen worse and knew better than to get involved in other people’s business.
“Okay,” Romero said, turning to the barman. “Time to get the first aid box out, Francisco. Looks like we’ve got a patient.”
The barman disappeared behind the bead curtains.
Bramall walked in seconds later. There was sweat on his brow. He looked ready to collapse.
Isabella rushed up to him. “Are you all right? What’s happened to your leg?”
“It’s okay. It’s a cut, not a bullet wound. A bit of a clean-up and I’ll be fine.”
Romero motioned him behind the bar. “Let’s go out back,” he said, in English. “How’d it go, anyhow? Did you get it?”
Bramall held up the attaché case. “I got it.”
“Good job! I confess, I wasn’t optimistic. What about Hasselfeldt? He see you?”
“He got to me before there was any chance to hide. Pulled a gun. I had to hit him – and I gave him a good kicking after he went down to make sure he stayed out of it.” He looked at Romero. “Your little diversion worked just fine, by the way … and yours, Isabella. I’m very grateful.”
Romero was incredulous. “You mean you didn’t kill him? Jesus! Typical bloody Protestant.”
“How could I? There was a crowd of people outside in the corridor. The security people were in charge. If I’d shot him, they’d have heard.”
“You could’ve smashed his skull. Been doin’ a lot of people a favour if you had.”
“I didn’t think,” Bramall said, refusing to meet his friend’s eye. “Fact is, I was a bit pushed for time.”
Romero shook his head. “Okay, so you put him out of action. Then what?”
“I got the tape, I got the notebook and I took pictures of the machine. It’s in the bag, Eddy.” He smiled and tapped the attaché case at his feet. “Right here. Mission accomplished.”
“Fair play to you. And you got out after. Even better.”
Isabella looked puzzled. Much of the English had gone over her head. “Please,” she said, “I should wash that cut for you. It looks deep.”
Francisco handed her the first aid kit. Inside were some antiseptic, a bottle of pain killers and various bandages. She took off his shoes and socks, then asked him to remove his trousers, which he did, looking slightly embarrassed, she thought. She bathed the wound in hot water provided by Francisco and dabbed on some antiseptic with a cotton pad. When she was satisfied the cut was clean, she unwound about half a metre of bandage round his ankle.
“You should really have stitches in that,” she said. “But I think you’ll do. A bit stiff, that’s all. But what about your trousers? You can’t go out with them torn at the bottom like that.”
“Francisco’s taking care of it,” Romero said. Isabella looked across to a small table, where the barman was sitting with a needle and thread. He had already steeped the trousers in cold water to remove the worst of the blood. Once he had finished mending the torn material, he would wash them in hot, soapy water and dry them off under the sun in the back yard.
“I take it,” Romero said,” that you didn’t get a chance to play the tape.”
“Just enough to check I had the right one. I couldn’t risk being heard. But the notebook’s there. There must be half a dozen pages of transcription at least.”
“Mind if I have a look?”
“Be my guest.”
As Romero glanced through Hasselfeldt’s notes, Bramall held his hands out in front of him and realised his fingers were shaking. Late nerves, he supposed. A delayed reaction – probably inevitable. Hasselfeldt had survived, which was unfortunate. The main thing was that he’d got the tapes and the notebook. These had to be got to London without delay.
Romero closed the notebook and placed it back in the attaché case. “Definitely a result,” he said. “My German’s not up to much, but Gibraltar, Morocco, Oran: it’s all there, chapter and verse. Franco’s bloody map. You were right, Charlie. If the French don’t act after this, they’re more stupid than we thought.”
Madrid: British embassy, July 13
Hoare would never have thought it possible. That morning, emerging from his official residence and making his way out to his car, he had been confronted by his neighbour, the German ambassador. It was a superb irony, he had always thought, that he and Stohrer should have ended up living next door to one another – a hang-over from happier times, which neither side had bothered to correct. They never spoke to each other, of course – that would never have done – though just occasionally, if they happened to coincide on the pavement, they would nod curtly. This morning, however, Stohrer had blundered towards him, waving a copy of that morning’s Arriba, in which the attack on his Legation, under the screaming headline “¡Traición!”– Treachery! – was the front-page lead.
“You may think,” the German growled, in his excellent English, “that this business has worked out very well for you. But you will soon discover that the Reich knows how to protect its secrets. You are being watched, Mr Ambassador. Everyone around you is being watched. If your man – or whomever you employed to engage in this despicable piece of daylight robbery – should attempt to go anywhere near your embassy – he will be picked up and taken away at once for interrogation, after which he will be handed over in chains to the official executioner. This is not diplomacy, Hoare – it is theft! And we know how to deal with thieves in the Third Reich!”
At the conclusion of his outburst, the like of which the Englishman had never thought to witness, Stohrer thrust his newspaper at Hoare’s feet as if it were a gauntlet and he was challenging him to a duel. Then he turned on this heels and stalked off to his car, his face suffused with fury.
After he had gone, Hoare bent down and picked up the discarded newspaper, planning to have it framed as a keepsake. It was then that he noted a message, in English, scrawled above the masthead.
“You have been warned!”
Sat now at his desk in the British embassy, Hoare tried desperately to make sense of the incident. Was Stohrer simply expressing his rage and indignation, which is what his smirking chauffeur appeared to think, or was he trying to tell him something? He knew, of course, that Stohrer was no Nazi. He was Old School, simply doing his duty. But to risk everything like this – if that is what he had done. It was bizarre. Was it possible, was it conceivable, that something so out of the ordinary had happened that he was prepared to risk his career – even his life – to help ensure a desirable outcome?
The more he thought about it, the more certain he was that Stohrer’s flare-up was an elaborate, and coded, piece of pantomime. The scrawled message in Arriba only confirmed it. The break-in at the German Legation, of which he had been given just one hour’s advance notice by Croft in Lisbon, had obviously succeeded beyond Bramall’s wildest dreams, and for his pains the young man was to be hunted down by both Spain and Germany.
Hoare grunted. Life was full of surprises. What was important now was to let Bramall know that Madrid w
as not safe for him and his only hope was to get out as quickly as possible.
Extremadura: July 14
They had travelled to a farm close by the Portuguese border owned by friends of Romero’s family in Badajoz. Carlo Robles, whose son had been killed by the Fascists during the Civil War, could be trusted not to betray them and his land gave directly onto the frontier. Romero took the main road out of the city, figuring that this would seem less suspicious. He was travelling as a small-time building contractor, using false papers provided by contacts in Madrid. Bramall and Isabella were concealed in two hidden compartments in the van’s rear, covered by sacks of cement and lengths of rusting scaffolding. They were stopped twice, once just beyond the city centre, the second time a few miles further out, where a security perimeter had been established. Both times, officers crawled inside and poked around. On the second occasion, as Bramall and Isabella quite literally held their breaths, a dog was sent in. They could hear its claws skittering on the metal floor. But the rancid smell of the cement, plus a vat of strong glue, newly made from the boiled-down bones of a mule, disguised their human scent. For a second, as Romero looked on, the dog looked to have detected something. It stopped, and its muzzle darted about in tiny circles directly over Bramall’s head. But then the stench of the glue took over and the animal shifted its attention towards the fetid pot until its handler, disgusted, dragged it off.
After that, apart from a routine halt at Mérida, they weren’t bothered. It was as if the authorities were concentrating their effort on the capital. Just before Badajoz, less than a mile from the international frontier, they bore north some 15 kilometres following a narrow, one-track road that twisted between two fast-flowing rivers until it was time to turn off to the farm.
It was a typical Sunday evening, less humid than usual for the time of year. After the intensity of Madrid, the freshness of the upland air, filled with pine, came as a relief to Isabella. The peaks of the Serra de Sáo Mameda rose up ahead. There were wild flowers everywhere. Flocks of newly shorn sheep grazed the rough fields, while a pair of tethered goats stared out at them from a paddock next to the barn.
Bramall felt almost light-headed. He had brought the tape and the notebook with him, as well as the undeveloped photographic film of the Magnetophon. They were in the attaché case, lying by his feet. The important thing now was to see his task through to completion. He would get the material to Croft, who would put it on a flying boat to London, after which it would be up to the Special Operations Executive to present it to Vichy as the genuine article.
Madrid was in uproar after what had happened. People had been rounded up all over the city – not just the usual suspects, but anyone who knew them. The interrogators were working overtime. Some of those who were arrested had already been shot. That was the word on the street. The search for those responsible for the raid was turning out to be relentless, and it couldn’t be long before Bramall rose to the top of the Wanted List – if he wasn’t there already.
Hasselfeldt had recognised him. That much was certain. He might be out cold now – in hospital most likely – but the moment he recovered he was bound to reveal what he knew. Winzer, meanwhile, would be on the case, putting two and two together, working out who could possibly have known about the Magnetophon and who most stood to gain from getting hold of the tape.
An immediate exfiltration to Lisbon (that’s what Croft had called it) remained the only realistic option. Channels to London from the Portuguese capital were more secure, and more reliable, than from Madrid. Just as important, though the Nazis were tolerated in Lisbon, so were the British. Among Portuguese officials and ordinary people there remained a fund of goodwill for their oldest ally.
Romero, who had been driving for the last five hours, yanked the van’s big steering wheel hard left and began bumping up the lane to the farmhouse and its surrounding corral. “Nearly there,” he said, turning round and tapping the metal floor behind his seat. “Time to get up, children.”
Protected by a palliasse from the worst of the buffeting, Bramall yawned. He had been catching up on lost sleep ever since they started the long back roads climb over the Sierra de Guadalupe, 50 miles back.
“Are you going to get me out of this thing any time soon?” he called out, his voice both muffled and tinny. “I feel like I’m the passenger in a hearse.”
“Almost there,” Romero replied. “Hold your horses.”
The van stopped and Bramall could hear the ratchet of the handbrake locking home. Romero threw open the rear doors and began hauling out the sacks of cement. Once he cleared sufficient space, he stuck the heavy blade of a screwdriver under the lid of Bramall’s compartment and levered it up.
“Welcome to paradise,” he said, beaming.
Isabella’s compartment was opened a moment later. “Is this it?” she asked, wiping the sleep from her eyes. “Have we arrived?”
“What do you think?” Romero said.
Robles and his wife, in their sixties, came bustling out to greet them. There were chickens at their feet. Nothing had happened, they assured Romero. No one had called. The nearest police – apart from the occasional border patrol – were back in Badajoz. He should relax. There was nothing to worry about. Romero thanked them and pressed a small wad of banknotes into the farmer’s hand.
“No, no, it is not necessary,” the old man said. “It has been an honour.”
“Yes,” said Romero, but these are hard times. If anyone deserves a little bit extra right now, it’s you and your wife. Take it, please.”
The farmer nodded and put the notes in his pocket. He had a cataract in one eye and could barely see out of it anymore. “Come, come,” he said, pressing the Irishman’s hand. “Your rooms are waiting.”
A goose hissed at a dog that had wandered up from the backyard, anxious to meet the new arrivals. Romero bent down to pet the dog, which rubbed its muzzle against his leg. Then he followed Robles into the house. The walls were two feet thick. The floor was made of earth and in one corner was a black metal stove on which the evening meal was cooking. Whatever it was, it smelled delicious. This was the hidden secret of the countryside. If you were far enough away from a major road and you kept out of harm’s way, most of the time you had enough to eat. There was no school, no electricity or running water, no medical care and no political freedom, and the police were mostly murderers and thieves. But you didn’t starve.
Leaving Isabella to wash off the grime from their journey, Romero and Bramall made their way behind the farmhouse to the fields leading down to the river and the border beyond.
“How far is it?” Bramall wanted to know.
“To the border? A mile. Less maybe. After that, another couple of miles to Campo Maior.”
Bramall took in the terrain. “Have you worked out your route?”
Romero sat down on the grass and leaned his back against the trunk of a Spanish oak – one of a row planted as a windbreak by the farmer’s grandfather. The valley lay open before them, its colours, formerly vibrant, starting to fade as the sun began its long descent over Portugal. The crickets and cicadas were starting up, answered by the frogs on the river bank. “There’s only one route – straight across,” he said. “It’s an easy descent, not much water in the river this time of year. The only risk would come if they’ve stepped up border patrols or installed mines or somethin’. We’ll just have to see how we get along.”
“Simple but direct, Eddy. You deserve both our thanks.”
The Dublin man shook his head. When he spoke, the words came out without any hint of his characteristic bravado or irony.
” No need for thanks,” he said. “Sure I’m only repaying what I owe you.”
“How do you work that out?’
Romero indicated the stump of a cork tree. “Take a seat. There’s something I’ve been wanting to tell you, only I wasn’t sur
e how to start or how you’d react. It’s not easy.”
Bramall did as he was asked. “Go on,” he said. “I’m all ears.”
The sun was turning crimson. A little way off to their right, a heron rose, a silver fish wriggling desperately in its bill.
“You remember I told you my mother was from Monaghan?”
“Clones, I think you said.”
“Right. Well, the thing is, after my father died, I spent a lot of time up there. I was a Dub – a city boy – and we’re not supposed to like culchies. But my family was there and I always found Monaghan people good to be with. When the sun shone there was nowhere better.”
“True enough,” Bramall said, wondering where this was going.
“When the Troubles came and the Tans were on the rampage, there was a lot of resentment towards Protestants. Some of it was fair, most of it wasn’t. Once it was clear that we were winning – before partition, I mean – the feeling was that it was time to get shot of them.”
“Literally, as I recall.”
“That’s what I’m coming to.”
Bramall decided not to interrupt him further. He wasn’t going to like what came next. He could feel it in his bones.
Romero continued. “I’d joined the IRA back in Dublin. Because of my Monaghan connection, I was sent north. The plan was that if the Brits set up border posts Dev would gave the order to go over and take the fight to the Unionists. Except the order never came. The odd raid, a few guns smuggled, that was all.”
He mopped the sweat from his brow. Bramall did not need to be filled in on the background. DeValera was a classic Republican, who had no truck with partition. But in 1922, he had his hands full with the new national government, which having endorsed the division of Ireland was determined to enforce its will, even at the expense of all-out war against former comrades-in-arms. For a time, until the internal battle lines were drawn, the anti-treaty IRA found itself with time on its hands and took to burning the homes of Protestants, murdering hundreds of businessmen and farmers and forcing thousands more to flee to England.
