Eva

by Ib Melchior

  The MP peered distastefully at the blood-smudged paper. Only the official printed heading and the dated stamp were clearly readable. The rest was largely obscured by the blood smears. The MP did not touch the permit.

  “Okay,” he snapped. He turned away.

  Woody pocketed the permit. With his tongue he gingerly probed the reopened wound in his jaw. Shit! It had just begun to heal. Still, he grinned to himself, his ass had been saved by a hole in his mouth. Some trick!

  He sent a fleeting thought to Bernie Haskins. It was just as well that the Corps HQ yank artist had the reputation of being a crackerjack dentist.

  He shifted painfully on the rock-hard bench. As if the ditch in his mouth wasn’t enough, he thought, he’d have calluses up to his damned neck by the time he got to Bari.

  It was late in the afternoon of Thursday, June 14 when Signor Bazzano’s cousin, Mario, piloted his colorful boat into the placid waters of the harbor at Bari.

  Willi and Eva, along with the two crew members, were on deck watching the approach. Although Eva never had found her sea legs she felt much better now that the sea was calm, and she was excited at finally reaching their port of embarkation.

  She glanced at the two crewmen. They stood apart. She wondered about that. She had thought there would be more of a comradeship between them, working closely together on a small boat as they did. Or perhaps too much familiarity did indeed breed contempt. She had been aware of the big man watching her. She had never actually caught him doing it, but intuitively she had known. It had made her slightly uncomfortable, although with Willi constantly near her, she had felt safe.

  The boat chugged through the channel in the breakwater. On the promontory to their right lay the remains of the old city. Willi surveyed it with interest. He had made it a point to find out a little about the place, once he had learned it was their destination. Built by the ancient Illyrians and Greeks and already an important center of the Byzantine rule in southern Italy in the ninth century, it had been cruelly damaged—in fact all but wiped out—in the German air raid on the harbor in December of 1943. At the base of the promontory he could see the big sports stadium presented to the city of Bari by Mussolini as a reward for having had more babies born there than in any other town its size in Italy. Naturally it had been named Bambino Stadium. Ahead on their left, opposite the old city, was the main inner harbor with its wharfs and piers along the east jetty.

  It was still a little too early for the lighthouse on the tip of the jetty to be operating. Or perhaps it was still out of commission.

  He observed the harbor scene with the greatest interest. There was still much evidence of the brilliantly executed air raid against the Allied shipping in Bari harbor ordered by Feldmarschall Kesselring: sunken ships sticking up out of the oily water like the tips of rusty icebergs; demolished warehouses and buildings in ruins; and newly repaired docks and piers. He remembered with pride the accounts of the raid that had filled the front page of every newspaper in Germany. Bari had been the most important Allied seaport in southern Europe. Tankers, ships loaded with ammunition and supplies for the Allied armies, had been piled up in the harbor like flies on a piece of flypaper, moored at the berths at the east jetty, against the breakwater and lying at anchor around the Vito Mole and scattered throughout the harbor waters.

  At 1930 hours on December 2, 1943, about thirty JU-88s of Feldmarschall Freiherr von Richthofen’s Luftflotte II had struck. When the lightning air raid was over half an hour later, seventeen Allied ships—American, British, Norwegian, Italian, and Polish— had been sunk, and eight more severely damaged. The town had been destroyed and the harbor blocked and rendered totally useless. Over a thousand Allied military personnel had been killed outright, and an even greater number of Italian civilians who had been cooperating with them. The raid had all but stopped the advance of Montgomery’s Eighth Army up from the toe of Italy, exactly as Feldmarschall Kesselring had planned it. It had been a glorious operation, the most successful air strike against Allied shipping since the triumphant attack by Japan on Pearl Harbor.

  Once inside the breakwater Mario navigated his boat toward the old harbor where the fishing fleet was tied up. Here, too, was the boat works they were headed for, the Cantiere-riparazioni Battelli di Benjamino Montesano. Willi wondered how long they would be there before boarding their ship for Buenos Aires. At least long enough to get their final papers, he thought, and the medical certificates required by the Argentine immigration authorities.

  He heard Mario shout orders to the two crewmen to make ready for the approach to the pier at the marine railway at the boat works, and he watched them begin to position coiled ropes along the starboard side of the boat.

  SS Sturmbannführer Oskar Strelitz had enjoyed his brief stint as a member of Mario’s crew. It had been a welcome change of pace, and he had been able inconspicuously to keep an eye on his charges. He had enjoyed working with his hands and putting his back into the chores aboard the boat.

  It had not been difficult for him to persuade Mario to take him on for the trip—and to keep his mouth shut. His motorcycle—the one he had confiscated from that fellow Diehl—had changed hands in the process. Even now it was securely lashed to the mast of the boat. Mario was not a man to take any chances.

  They were coming down to the wire. Once Eva and her escort were aboard the ship that was to take them to Argentina, the first part of his duties was done. Phase I of his assignment in Operation Future.

  Ahead was Phase II, the distribution and administration of the funds the Führer had deposited in the Swiss banks.

  As he hauled the coiled ropes into place he chuckled to himself. Listening to the Führer regaling Bormann in the Bunker with tales of the enormous sums of money that would be available to him only if he brought Frau Eva to safety, he had almost been able to see the man drool with greed. As the Führer had known he would. He had been afraid the Führer had been overdoing it, but he had quickly realized that the Führer’s truism—people will believe a big lie sooner than a little one—was quite correct. That idiot, Bormann, had eagerly swallowed the bait, no matter that it barely covered the hook. And of course, when the hour of need arose he had traitorously betrayed the Führer’s trust to save his own miserable skin.

  There were, of course, funds available in Switzerland, huge funds, and he, SS Sturmbannführer Oskar Strelitz, had the key to them. Not Eva Braun Hitler! She had no inkling they even existed, much less how to gain access to them. That had been the lie. That, and the outrageous size of the funds the Führer had dangled before Bormann. A fully justified lie of expedience by the Führer, of course, to ensure his own perpetuation and that of his beliefs. A big lie.

  The last big lie of the Führer, Adolf Hitler.

  The funds would be used for the purpose for which they were intended: Operation Future, providing assurance that the Führer’s heir one day would rule Germany in the image of his father and once again bring the ideals of his father to the world. This time to triumph.

  He looked toward shore. They were approaching the boat works, and Mario was throttling down. Soon they would be safely in the boatyard. Soon Frau Eva would be on her way to Argentina and total safety for her and for her child. There was nothing to stop her now—nor to stop the far-reaching plans of Adolf Hitler.

  Nothing!

  Mario shut the engine down. Slowly the boat drifted toward the pier and the massive marine railway. The railway was hinged down, and the cradle on the solid hauling platform was visible in the water, its two rows of angled, slender supports reaching up patiently from a sturdy base. Like a giant dead crab, Strelitz thought, lying on its back, its legs pointing up lifelessly.

  Four or five boatyard workers stood ready to assist in guiding the boat onto the cradle. It had been decided to go all the way and actually haul the boat up into the yard, rather than simply discharge passengers. The closer to routine the arrival of Mario’s boat at the boat works was, the less risk of anyone becoming curious.


  Slowly, carefully the boat was guided onto the cradle and secured. The operator in the winch house up on land beyond the turntable pit started the winch. The thick cables grew taut, and slowly the railway rose and the hauling platform with the boat gripped in its cradle moved out of the water toward the turntable.

  The massive wooden beams at the ends of the turntable and the hauling platform slipped steadily, inexorably closer and closer until they met over the pulley pit with a resounding thud.

  The cradled boat on the platform was hauled onto the turntable, the oil-soaked landing was rotated in the pit to line up with an empty rail spur, and presently Mario’s colorful boat had joined others in Benjamino Montesano’s boat works, resting inconspicuously in the shadow of a huge crane.

  Willi and Eva had arrived at their final destination on the B-B Achse. Within hours they would leave war-torn, enemy-occupied Europe and safely embark on a new era, an era that in time would see the rebirth of all that had been lost.

  For now.

  The railroad station had been a treasure trove of information. In a dog-eared, grease-spotted telephone directory borrowed from the stationmaster’s office after much dickering and the passing of a few lire, Woody had found the address of the Cantiere-ripara-zioni-Battelli di Benjamino Montesano in the old harbor. Part of a torn and soiled city plan tacked up behind the shattered glass of a display case had, as luck would have it, included the area he sought, but the section of town where the railroad station itself was located was ripped away. However, the San Nicola Basilica in the heart of the old town, where the fishermen and their families lived, was on the remaining part, and he’d had no trouble finding that. The Bari citizens had been helpful—and cluckingly solicitous when he showed them his mutilated mouth.

  The old town was heavily damaged, but Woody was awed by the way the resourceful inhabitants had made makeshift repairs and somehow managed to make the ruins habitable. The place was teeming with people. Barefooted children played in the rubble-strewn streets, and black-haired women were busy hauling in the colorful wash that had been strung out to dry between the windows in the building walls still standing.

  It was beginning to grow dark as Woody walked past the San Nicola Basilica. Though battle-scarred and shrapnel-pitted the famous Apulian Romanesque monument miraculously was still standing, a testament to survival. He looked at the imposing structure.

  The North Pole, Woody thought. This war-scorched, battle-marred edifice was a far cry from the pristine, white wilderness where Santa Claus was supposed to reside. Yet, here he was. Really. At least his bones. It had been one of the first childhood illusions, he recalled with bittersweet remembrance, that had been shattered by his insatiable thirst for knowledge. Santa Claus. In reality, he had found out, his favorite was a fourth-century Bishop of Myra in Asia Minor, a kindly man who became the patron saint of merchants, mariners, and especially children: Saint Nicholas. Some seven centuries after his death, he had read, a band of sailors from Bari stole the saint’s remains and spirited them to their hometown where in time the San Nicola Basilica was erected to house the relics. And here, in the crypt under the very building he was walking by, the sacred bones of Saint Nicholas, patron saint of children, were laid to rest. For a fleeting instant all his present problems and perils vanished, and his childhood disappointment at learning the truth flitted through his mind. He remembered reading how the fame and legend of Saint Nick had swept through Europe, and that in Holland he was known as Sint Niklaas, or as the children would say, Sinter Klaas. It was the early Dutch settlers in New York who brought the name and the gift-giving tradition to the new world, and Sinter Klaas in the cauldron of New World languages was soon corrupted to Santa Claus, the Father Christmas of today. He had felt betrayed. It was the first time he’d realized that sometimes knowledge can inflict hurt.

  When he had first heard the story, he remembered, he had been told that good old Saint Nick was often represented with three golden balls. He’d wondered mightily how a man could have three balls, especially golden ones. He’d even tried to picture himself so endowed, but he’d been left only to speculate. And he’d been too embarrassed to ask. Only much later had he learned that the three golden balls were the symbol of the medieval merchants’ guild, and since the merchants of necessity also were moneylenders, the three balls became the sign of the pawnbroker. How quickly tales of romance and mysticism turn mundane, he mused.

  He looked around as he hurried through the devastated old town. Santa Claus must have been sound asleep, he thought, the day the Nazis rained their special gifts from the sky down upon the harbor of Bari.

  It was a good two hours later when Woody finally made his move from his place of hiding at a derailed flatcar lying on a railroad siding inland from the Benjamino Montesano Boat Works. The yard was dead and apparently deserted, but not entirely dark. There was still a partial moon in the cloudless sky and the boat works were sparsely illuminated by the pitiless glare from occasional naked light bulbs hanging on tall poles throughout the place, creating feeble pools of pale light beneath them. He had long since gotten his night vision and was able to see quite well. In turn he stretched and flexed each muscle in his body to limber them up after his hours of cramped immobility. Absentmindedly he tongued the hole in his jaw. It was beginning to heal again.

  Stealthily, silently, keeping to the shadows as much as possible and avoiding any quick motions, he made his way to the tall fence, part wooden, part wire, that surrounded the boat works. A large, wrought iron double gate big enough to accommodate two trucks driving abreast gave access to the yard. A big sign painted in black letters had been affixed to it: VIETATO L’INGRESSO!—No Trespassing! And to make doubly sure a sturdy padlock effectively barred unwelcome visitors. But in the wooden fence adjoining the gate was a small door, also locked. It took Woody less than thirty seconds to pick it.

  Automatically he checked the Walther 7.65 he’d taken from the SS officer in Merano and eased it into his belt on his left. He stepped inside, closing the door softly behind him.

  For a while he stood motionless, listening to the night noises and getting his bearings. Directly in front of him loomed a huge semicircular ship saw, a pile of heavy timbers stacked nearby. The area was in deep shadow from a water tower rising from sturdy iron supports next to the saw housing. Cautiously he slipped from the door in the fence to the pool of blackness beneath the tower.

  He peered into the gloom surrounding him. A weather-beaten wooden building stretched before him. He could make out a door, and beside it a window, its panes almost opaque with grime. But a faint, distant light shone behind them. Carefully he tried the door. It was unlocked. It opened at his first push. Quietly he stepped inside.

  He found himself in a large plant, the combination joinery and machine shop of the boat works. In the middle of the spacious area stood a single work light, its caged bulb totally unable to reach the far corners of the cavernous hall. The big shop was cluttered with boxes and benches, crates and casks, and rolls of cordage and canvas. The place was deserted, but only by humans. Spaced throughout the shop stood massive pieces of machinery poised like menacing, misshapen sentries of age-tempered steel; black-silhouetted planers, caulkers, sanders, and shapers seemed to watch his every step malevolently as he slowly made his way through the area; lathes and broachers, milling machines and compressors seemed to lie in wait for his slightest misstep.

  His heartbeat was rapid and loud in his head. He knew he was letting the eerie atmosphere of the damned place get to him. He took a deep breath and willed himself to ignore it. Dammit!—it was nothing but a bunch of dirty and decayed machinery.

  But sometimes death does hide in dirt and decay.

  At the far end of the shop area he came to another door, leading to the outside. For a moment he listened, then—slowly—he pushed it open.

  Before him, bathed in the pale light from the moon and the feeble spots hanging high on the naked poles, lay the yard area of Benjamino Montesano’s Boat Works.
Dominated by a great, circular turntable pit from which radiated more than a dozen rail spurs like spokes from the hub of a gigantic wheel, the yard was a jungle of shapes and shadows. On the spurs, ringing the turntable pit, wedged in their squat, iron-wheeled cradles, stood a conglomeration of boats in various stages of breakdown and repair, like skeletal behemoths huddled around a dry watering hole, each tethered to an A-shaped scaffolding stand. And keeping them in check, positioned around the periphery of the yard, he could glimpse several stacks of drums and barrels, empty cradles, broken scaffolding, and a few shacks and sheds, lorded over by a tall crane.

  Woody stood statue-still, breathing shallowly through his mouth so he would be able to hear the slightest noise. The only sound that reached him was the ripple of the wavelets slapping at the piers and the floating docks at the water edge to his right. With his eyes he made a thorough search of the area lying before him, picking a spot, studying it until he knew it in detail and moving on to the next, until he had surveyed the entire yard. He had seen no movement at all, nothing out of keeping.

  The massive landing in the turntable pit was empty, forming a solid bridge between the marine railway and the winch house, but there was a six-foot gap between the landing and the hauling platform which had not been pulled all the way up, to leave room for repair or maintenance work in the pulley shaft. It showed up as a pitch-black hole in the ground, and puzzled Woody until he figured out what it was. Over the door to the ramshackle shed that housed the winch machinery was painted in big, black letters: PERICOLO!—Danger! He could not make out the legend written beneath, although a little blue light bulb, fixed over the open doorway, spilled a puddle of pale light on the oil-soaked ground outside which glistened with a septic, iridescent shimmer.

  Danger!

  The hackles rose on the back of his neck. He felt the familiar tightening sensation in the pit of his stomach. That gut feeling that had become so familiar to him since he had first felt it, how long ago? When for the first time he had stood in the dark outside a barred door, gun in sweaty hand, ready to break in and grab a cornered enemy agent.