‘‘You don’t want to know,’’ he said.
‘‘Yes, I do,’’ she said.
‘‘Because Coronel Perón is there with a lady friend,’’ he said.
‘‘A lady friend, or one of his little girls?’’
‘‘You know about that?’’ he asked incredulously.
‘‘Everybody knows about that, silly,’’ she said. ‘‘What about going to the estancia?’’
‘‘I suppose we could. I have some things I’ve got to do at the estancia . . .’’ He paused as reality interjected itself into his mental image of the last time she was in his bed at Estancia San Pedro y San Pablo: ‘‘How the hell would you explain being with me at the estancia to your father?’’
‘‘I’ll leave a note saying that I’m spending a few days with Claudia.’’
‘‘Your father won’t believe that,’’ Clete argued.
‘‘No. But he’ll pretend he does. Mother will understand why I have to be with you.’’
‘‘You’re serious, aren’t you?’’
‘‘Of course I’m serious. Give me a few minutes to throw some things in a bag,’’ she said.
‘‘I told you, I have some things to do at the estancia,’’ Clete said. ‘‘I won’t—’’
‘‘Things you have to do tonight?’’
‘‘Not tonight. But in the morning . . .’’
‘‘Then we’ll have tonight, at least,’’ she said. ‘‘Before you showed up here, I had convinced myself that I was never going to see you again. I asked God to please, please let me see you just once more, just for a little while. . . .’’
"Baby ..."
She kissed him very gently on the lips.
‘‘I’ll only be a minute,’’ she said. ‘‘And if you’re not here when I come back down, I swear, I’ll kill you!’’
She turned and ran into the house and up the stairs.
XXIV
[ONE] Puerto Magdalena Samborombón Bay Buenos Aires Province, Argentina 2115 19 April 1943
The voyage of the good ship Coronel Gasparo from El Tigre to Magdalena took just over seven hours. They tied up at five minutes to six, as darkness was falling.
During the voyage, there was plenty of time for Major Freiherr Hans-Peter von Wachtstein, holder of the Knight’s Cross of the Iron Cross, to consider the morality of what he was doing and of what he intended to do.
It was, of course, a question of honor. Intellectually, from the day he received the letter from his father, there was no question in his mind that he was honor bound, as an officer, as a von Wachtstein, to follow the path his father had decided honor required.
Germany was in the hands of a collection of unbelievably evil men. These men were not only guilty of unspeakable crimes against the Jews and other people—including Germans —but were also prepared to see Germany itself destroyed. Clearly, a Christian nobleman of the officer class was honor bound to do whatever was required to take Germany back from the Nazis.
That was the intellectual argument, and he had no doubt that it was valid.
Emotionally, however, he had a good deal of trouble personally engaging in activity that was clearly treason, and would very likely cause the deaths of other Germans who were no more Nazis than he was.
It wasn’t simply a question, either, of the Americans’ moral justification—of his friend Cletus Frade’s, in particular —in sinking the Comerciante del Océano Pacífico. By replenishing German U-boats in protected neutral waters, while flying the flag of neutral Spain, the Comerciante del Océano Pacífico had given up any claim to be other than what it was, a vessel in the service of a combatant power.
And when he helped the Americans sink the Océano Pac ífico, which they obviously intended to do, it would obviously hurt the German ability to wage war, and in some measure contribute to the ending of the war, and thus the Nazi regime.
Peter von Wachtstein intellectually understood this, and was intellectually prepared to accept the inevitable death of much of the Océano Pacífico’s crew.
On the other hand, the submarine crews bothered him. There were a dozen or more submarines somewhere in the South Atlantic who were depending on being refueled and resupplied by the Océano Pacífico.
An hour or so out of El Tigre, as he steered the Coronel Gasparo through nasty choppy waters far enough offshore to avoid being clearly visible, a number of Untersee officers he knew came to mind. And one—Kapitänleutnant Wilhelm von Dattenberg—in particular.
He knew von Dattenberg at Philip’s University in Mar-burg an der Lahn, and ran into him again in Berlin at the Adlon Bar after he himself had just returned from a tour on the Eastern Front. At that time he had the private belief that fighter pilots had seen as much of the horror of war as could be reasonably expected of any human being, including one whose family had been fighting Germany’s wars for centuries.
Von Dattenberg quickly disabused him of that notion. From the moment he saw von Dattenberg’s eyes, Peter knew that he had seen more than his fair share of horror. And Peter saw even deeper into that horror as they got drunk and von Dattenberg talked about service in U-boats.
It didn’t take Peter long to realize that he simply did not have the courage, the moral fiber, to endure what von Dattenberg had endured, and what he would again endure when his fifteen-day End of Patrol leave was over and he would take his boat out again.
Like Peter, Willi von Dattenberg was a member of the officer class whose family had been either admirals or generals for generations. Willi shared Peter’s moral values, including the sense of responsibility he felt for the men placed under his command.
The moral responsibility for the lives of other men was obviously greater for a U-boat commander than it was for a fighter pilot, even for a fighter pilot given command of a Jaeger Squadron. It had occurred to Peter that he was able to discharge his responsibility to the pilots of his squadron —and in the Luftwaffe, only those who flew fought— by doing his best to see they were properly trained and that their equipment was properly maintained.
He of course regretted the loss of any of his pilots— often he privately wept for them. But—because it was at least partially true—it wasn’t hard to rationalize their deaths by thinking it was either simple bad luck or a bad decision on their parts that had caused them to go down.
On the other hand, literally during every waking moment, Willi von Dattenberg was aware that any decision he made was liable to cause not only his own death but the deaths of every member of his crew.
And it was entirely possible that Willi von Dattenberg was now floating around somewhere in the South Atlantic, low on fuel, running out of food, and praying for word over the radio that it was now safe to head for the River Plate estuary for replenishment.
From a ship that his old friend was about to help the Americans sink.
It was his own crew on the Coronel Gasparo, blissfully unaware that they were doing so, who caused Peter to emotionally understand what he was doing, what he would do, what he was honor bound to do, even though that might mean the death of Kapitänleutnant Wilhelm von Dattenberg and any number of other good Germans.
Peter’s first reaction to Herr Gustav Loche, Günther’s father, was unkind, if understandable, given that Peter had been raised to never forget he was a member of the aristocracy. If anything, he thought the father was even more of a fool than the son, a typical member of the German laboring class.
This perception stemmed from the first time Peter met Herr Loche, when he was both embarrassed and repelled by the man’s servility. The plump, balding, ruddy-cheeked sausage maker did everything but tug at his forelock as he made it clear that he felt deeply honored to be in the very presence of a man who was not only Baron von Wachtstein but also a hero of German National Socialism who had received the Knight’s Cross of the Iron Cross from the hands of the Führer himself.
Loche fancied himself a loyal German, honored to make whatever contribution he could to the furtherance of German Nationalism as de
fined by Der Führer Adolf Hitler. He was thus deeply appreciative of the generosity of an important man like Standartenführer Josef Goltz of the SS-SD, manifested in Goltz’s offer to send Günther to Stuttgart. It never entered his mind that Goltz could entertain an ulterior motive.
Peter’s contempt for Herr Gustav Loche grew at first, as the idiot prattled on and on while the Coronel Gasparo moved down the shoreline of the River Plate into the ever-widening mouth of the estuary; but gradually, the contempt turned to pity.
They weren’t bad people, he realized, simply stupid. The father obviously loved the son and presumably had Christian morals. For instance, even though it was financially difficult for him—as he proudly informed Peter—he saw to it that Günther had a Catholic education under the good Jesuit fathers in San Carlos de Bariloche, as opposed to the free, secular education offered by the government.
It therefore followed, Peter reasoned, that Gustav Loche would be outraged if he became aware that the Nazis were rounding up human beings in Russia and forcing them to dig pits, and then standing them on the edge of those pits and shooting them in such a way that their dead and dying bodies fell back into them . . . not to mention gassing women and children by the thousands.
But Loche was unable to accept that anything like this was possible. He regarded as Anglo-American propaganda the stories about concentration camps and death squads and the rest of it that had begun to appear in newspapers and on the radio, ludicrous tales the Allies designed to keep the world in the hands of the Jews from whom the Führer intended to rescue it.
Thus it would simply be beyond Gustav Loche’s ability to comprehend that the benevolent Standartenführer Goltz was involved in a scheme wherein people who had done nothing to harm Germany (yet were nevertheless being starved to death—or awaiting murder—in Nazi extermination camps) could, on payment of a sum of money, be released. Much less could he realize that the money raised was to be used to buy sanctuary for high-level Nazis so they would escape being called to account for their monstrous crimes when the war was lost.
Neither could Loche believe that the so-correct Oberst Grüner and the so-charming Gradny-Sawz could also be involved in such a fantastically evil undertaking.
Loche saw himself simply as a good, patriotic German doing all he could for the Thousand Year Reich. Of course, in its gratitude for his loyalty, the Thousand Year Reich was going to advance him the money to expand his business, acquire an estancia, and send his beloved son to the Fatherland to further his education.
To his surprise, Peter found with little difficulty the mouth of the harbor at Magdalena, and then the pier of the fisherman—Lothar Steuben, another good, loyal, expatriate German who was going to charter his boat to Oberst Grüner. By then Peter had decided that while Loche and his son could not really be held accountable for what they were doing, Standartenführer Goltz—and by extension, all Nazis —could. And there was no longer any question in his mind whether what he would do next was honorable or not.
The problem then became how.
Steuben, a large sunburned man, was a second-generation Argentinian whose family came from near Hamburg. If anything he was more obsequious than Gustav Loche.
He conducted everyone to his small but comfortable home overlooking the harbor. There his wife had laid out coffee and pastry. After introductions—she was a stout woman with blond hair braided and coiled at her ears and she was holding a child on each hip, which made her look like one of the oil paintings Hitler had commissioned to honor Fertile German Womanhood—she shyly inquired if the Herr Baron happened to like sauerbraten, which is what she had prepared for supper. He told her he did.
Despite his promise to contact Peter by six, there was no word from Grüner. And there was none by seven, or by eight. By the time the sauerbraten was eaten, Peter began to wonder whether something had gone wrong.
Maybe the Americans decided the smartest thing to do was sink the Océano Pacífico before she got into Argentine waters? The Spanish would howl in outrage, but what could they actually do about it? Send another division to the Eastern Front? Bomb Washington, D.C.?
At 8:25, the telephone rang.
‘‘Herr Baron Major,’’ Steuben said, handing the telephone to Peter. ‘‘It is Herr Oberst Grüner.’’
Peter took the telephone and said one word: ‘‘Yes?’’
‘‘I doubt if it would do any good, Peter,’’ Grüner said. ‘‘But when we get off the line, why don’t you see if you can’t at least ask him to consider the possibility that sometimes people listen to other people’s telephone calls?’’
‘‘I’ll certainly do that.’’
‘‘He has a map,’’ Grüner said. ‘‘Tell him to bring it to you.’’
‘‘One moment,’’ Peter said, covered the mouthpiece with his hand, and asked Steuben for ‘‘the map.’’
‘‘Apparently what you asked for is being stored under the bed,’’ Peter reported. ‘‘But I am promised it will appear momentarily.’’
‘‘Ach, Gott! How was your ride down there? Get plenty of fresh air? Your mount didn’t throw you?’’
‘‘Actually it was very pleasant. The horses ran well, and Günther was only slightly sick to his stomach. He hasn’t had much chance to do much riding.’’
Steuben appeared with a map, a sheet of paper, and a freshly sharpened pencil.
Without explanation, Grüner gave a list of letters and numbers, which Peter wrote down. He then compared these with the map, the markings on which had been changed.
‘‘That make sense to you, Peter?’’ Grüner asked.
Obviously, he had been given the position where the Comerciante del Océano Pacífico had been ordered to drop anchor in Samborombón Bay.
‘‘Yes.’’
‘‘They may not be valid until later than we thought, if you take my meaning, but they should be good by, say, midnight, and certainly by the morning.’’
‘‘I understand,’’ Peter said.
‘‘There has been a slight change in plans.’’
‘‘Oh?’’
‘‘Frankly, I prevailed in this,’’ Grüner said, a smug tone in his voice. ‘‘I suggested to our friend that there was merit in the principle that the fewer people who know—or think they know—what’s going on, the slighter the chance that it will become public knowledge.’’
‘‘I agree with that completely,’’ Peter said.
‘‘You will therefore have a companion when you take your ride in the morning. Which I suggest should be at first light.’’
What the hell is that all about? Oh. Either he or Goltz is going with me. Goltz. Goltz has to go out to the Océano Pacífico. The captain won’t turn over the ‘‘special matériel ’’ to anyone else. So now Steuben remains in the dark. Even if the BIS grabs him, they can’t get any information from him, because he won’t know.
‘‘I think I know who you mean,’’ Peter said. ‘‘And therefore, we will need one less horse, am I right?’’
‘‘Absolutely. You really are becoming quite good at this game, Peter.’’
‘‘Thank you very much, I’m trying.’’
‘‘Somewhere along the path, I’ll probably meet up with you and take your companion off your hands.’’
‘‘I think I understand.’’
‘‘I’d be more comfortable if I knew you understood.’’
‘‘The only thing I’m a little fuzzy about is what happens to me after we meet up with you.’’
‘‘With a little bit of luck, some of the people you will have with you will be able to lead your horse back to the stable, and then you and I can lunch together.’’
The translation of that is if the Océano Pacífico turns out to be able to take the Coronel Gasparo aboard after we unload the ‘‘special matériel’’—if they have the right kind of davits for that, and, of course, if she can take the strain of being lifted out of the water—her crew will take her from the beach to the ship and take her aboard. In that case, I can
stay on shore and go with Goltz and Grüner.
If the Océano Pacífico can’t take the Coronel Gasparo aboard, then Günther and I will have to take her back here.
‘‘What I suggest is that you have your dinner and get some sleep, and be ready to start out there at first light. Our friend will be there as soon as he can.’’
‘‘Certainly.’’
‘‘The truck is ready?’’
‘‘I have been assured, a half-dozen times, that everything, including the truck, is in readiness.’’
‘‘Don’t fault enthusiasm, Peter. It is to be encouraged. But, of course, at the same time, controlled. Don’t let it get out of hand.’’
‘‘I assure you I won’t.’’
‘‘Well, then I look forward to seeing you, perhaps even to have lunch with you, tomorrow.’’
‘‘I’m looking forward to it.’’
The line went dead.
Peter put the handset back into its cradle.
‘‘There has been a change of plans,’’ he announced. ‘‘You, Herr Steuben, will, from five A.M. hold yourself in readiness to comply with any orders Oberst Grüner may issue.’’
‘‘Jawohl, Herr Baron Major!’’
‘‘You, Herr Loche, will make sure the truck, ready for operation, is at the prescribed place at the prescribed hour. I suggest you leave shortly to make sure all is in readiness. ’’
‘‘Jawohl, Herr Baron Major!’’ Gustav Loche replied, taking his cue from Steuben.
Peter picked up the map, motioned for Herr Loche to follow him, and walked across the room to a floor lamp.
‘‘Indicate where your part in this operation is to take place, if you please, Herr Loche.’’
Loche’s face went white and showed acute discomfort.
‘‘Excuse me, Herr Baron Major,’’ he began hesitantly.
‘‘You have forgotten already? You are not sure, is that what you’re saying?’’
‘‘Herr Baron Major, both Herr Standartenführer Goltz and Herr Oberst Grüner made it quite clear to me that the landing site was not—’’
Blood and Honor Page 68
