Secret Honor

by W. E. B Griffin

The coastline of Uruguay was at first just a blur on the horizon, but then it began to take form as the small airplane neared the end of its flight over the 125-mile-wide mouth of the River Plate. Major Freiherr Hans-Peter von Wachtstein turned the nose of the Fieseler slightly, to point toward a rise in the coastline that he suspected was the old-fort-on-the-hill overlooking the harbor. A minute or two later, now positively identifying the fort, he reached above his head without looking and adjusted the trim tab to put the Storch into a gentle descent, then retarded the throttle a hair.

  He looked at the Feiseler’s fuel gauges and saw that he had more than an hour’s fuel remaining. He glanced at the elapsed-time dials on his wristwatch, a Hamilton chronometer that had once belonged to a B-26 pilot who had gotten unlucky over France, and saw that he had been in the air two hours and fourteen minutes.

  In the detailed records of the Luftwaffe, the downing of an American B-26 aircraft over Cherbourg was Peter’s twenty-second victory. He had received the Knight’s Cross of the Iron Cross from the Bavarian Corporal himself after his twenty-fifth victory, and his total was now up to thirty-two downed aircraft.

  An asshole from the SS had come to the airfield three days after he’d shot down the B-26 and handed him the watch. He had taken it from the pilot of the B-26, he said, and thought Herr Freiherr Wachtstein would like to have it.

  Stealing from prisoners of war was a clear violation of the Rules of Land Warfare; and in a better world, the American pilot would not only have gotten his Hamilton back, with the apologies of the Luftwaffe, but the SS asshole who had stolen it from him would have been brought before a Court of Honor and stripped of his commission.

  But that wasn’t going to happen, and Peter knew it. He could have told the SS asshole what he thought of him, and where he could stick the watch, but that would have meant that the SS asshole would have kept it to wear himself. So he had taken it, which at least kept it off the wrist of the SS Scheisskopf (shithead).

  At the time, he had felt a little sorry for the B-26 pilot, who would have to spend the rest of the war in a POW camp. Now he was jealous. If you were a prisoner of war—and took your officer’s honor seriously—all you had to do was try to escape.

  Living in a POW camp in Montana or Wyoming or some other place in the United States, with no greater problem than trying to escape, seemed to be a splendid way to spend the rest of the war—especially compared to what he was doing now.

  Among other things, POWs were released at the end of a war and could go home to the women waiting for them.

  Argentina had interned the German officers from the Graf Spee in hotels in Villa General Belgrano in Córdoba Province; and they—on orders from Germany—had given their word as officers and gentlemen that they would not attempt to escape. That meant that they spent their days playing cards or tennis, or watching the grass grow. Some of them had actually taken up polo. Patriotic Argentino-Germans, doing their bit for the Fatherland, regularly visited them, bringing them Apfel strudel, Knockwurst, Kassler ripchen, and other little things to remind them of home.

  Once a month, an officer from the Germany Embassy went to Villa General Belgrano to settle their hotel bills and give them their pay (Peter had flown Gradny-Sawz there in the Storch ten days before).

  He had made the mistake of telling Alicia about the officers in Villa General Belgrano. And she had taken from that the obvious inference: All he had to do was go to Brazil and turn himself in, and he would be out of the war. She immediately saw herself visiting him on Sunday afternoons in a Brazilian version of the internment hotels, maybe with a picnic basket full of fruit and fried chicken.

  Even putting aside the question of the trouble his desertion itself would cause for his father, there were serious problems connected with the OSS.

  Specifically, there was no way it would not come to their attention. And the OSS maintained an Order of Battle, knew that he was his father’s son, and would try to use that, even if they didn’t know—or suspect—that his father was part of the small group of German officers who had decided that the only solution to Germany’s problems was the assassination of Adolf Hitler.

  Clete knew, of course. But Clete had given his word that he would not tell the OSS. And Peter believed him. So what did that make Clete? At least an officer willfully disobeying an order, and at worst, maybe some sort of traitor himself.

  The war had once seemed so simple. When he’d been with the Condor Legion in Spain, it had been easy—and even pleasant—to think of himself as a latter-day Teutonic knight.

  By day he brought death, in noble aerial combat, to godless Communists, and spent his nights half-drunk in the beds of women he now remembered only by the shape of their bodies, having long forgotten most of their names.

  It had also been that way in Russia—except that there had been very few women—until he saw what the Einsatzgruppen were doing, and was shamed as an officer and as a German. (The Einsatzgruppen—literally “Task Forces”—were the SS mobile death squads that followed the German regular army into Poland and Russia and were charged with exterminating undesirables.)

  Montevideo was now clearly in sight. On an impulse, he turned slightly away so that he could come in over the ship channel and maybe see the sunken hulk of the Graf Spee.

  At first he thought he’d failed, but then he could make out parts of her masts rising from the murky waters where she had been scuttled.

  As he turned his nose northward, he wondered why he had bothered. There was something sad about a sunken ship. And he had seen the hulk of the Graf Spee before.

  He had also seen the grave of her captain. Langsdorff had put on a fresh uniform, carefully arranged the Graf Spee’s battle flag on the floor, and then stood in a position so that his corpse would fall on the flag after he had blown his brains out.

  He wanted to leave the message that he had scuttled his ship to save the lives of his men, rather than because he was personally afraid of dying. The way to prove that was to kill himself.

  That was something his father would understand, Peter knew…something Generalleutnant von Wachtstein would, in the same circumstances, do himself.

  Major von Wachtstein wasn’t sure if the act was heroic or cowardly. Or even worse, stupid. The more he thought about it, the more he realized that it would have taken more balls to stay alive and be accused of cowardice than to put a pistol in your mouth.

  He flew over the old fort at the mouth of the harbor, close enough to see its battlements and ramparts and the old muzzle-loading cannon still pointing seaward, and then turned north. The altimeter showed 510 meters. He let it drop to a precise 500, then flew along the Rambla, just far enough out to sea so the black cross on the fuselage and the swastika on the vertical stabilizer couldn’t be seen by the people sitting in the sidewalk cafés along the beach.

  Both he and the Storch were diplomatically accredited to the governments of both Argentina and Uruguay, and flying between the two countries was perfectly legal, but he knew there was no sense in stirring up the natives.

  In five minutes, he could see the hotel and gambling casino at Carrasco, and a minute after that, the runways and hangars of the airport. He turned the nose landward, flew over the villas and small business section of Carrasco, and then to the airport on its outskirts.

  As he flew over the airport to have a look at the windsock, he saw a canary-yellow 1941 Chevrolet convertible parked at the terminal building. He knew the car. It belonged to Sturmbannführer Werner von Tresmarck, who had bought it to keep Frau Ingebord von Tresmarck happy. Peter knew that Ingebord von Tresmarck, for a number of reasons, was able to get from her husband just about anything she wanted.

  He wasn’t surprised to see the car. Ambassador von Lutzenberger had said he would try to let Ambassador Schulker know he was coming. As the Montevideo embassy’s security officer, von Tresmarck would be the officer Schulker would
send to meet an officer whose purpose in coming to Montevideo von Lutzenberger had been unwilling to discuss on the telephone.

  As Peter taxied the Storch to the transient-aircraft ramp, two cars followed him—a 1937 Ford Fordor and the yellow convertible Chevrolet. The Ford carried uniformed Uruguayan customs and immigrations officers; in the convertible were von Tresmarck, in civilian clothing, and his wife. Peter had hoped that she wouldn’t show up at the airport, but was not surprised that she had.

  Peter shut the engine down, made the necessary entries in the flight log—turning his landing at Estancia Santo Catalina into “precautionary landing at Pinamar re: compass problem”—and then climbed out of the airplane.

  He peeled off the flight suit, draped it over the cockpit window, then took his suit jacket and suitcase from the backseat. He had just finished pulling his necktie into place and was shrugging into the jacket when he saw that von Tresmarck and the others had walked up to the airplane.

  “Heil Hitler!” von Tresmarck said. He was in his forties and sported a neatly clipped full—à la Adolf Hitler—mustache. “How good to see you, Peter!”

  Peter raised his right hand from the elbow in a sloppy return of the Nazi salute.

  “Herr Sturmbannführer,” he said, and smiled at the Uruguayan officials. “Buenas tardes,” he said, and handed them his diplomatic passport and his carnet, a small card issued by the Uruguayan government to diplomats. “Frau von Tresmarck,” Peter said, smiling at her.

  Ingebord von Tresmarck, a tall, slim blonde, perhaps fifteen years younger than her husband, gave him her hand. He bowed his head and clicked his heels.

  “It’s always a pleasure to see you, Peter,” she said.

  The taller of the two Uruguayans examined Peter’s documents perfunctorily, handed them to the other official, and said: “Welcome to Uruguay. May I ask how long you will be staying, Sir?”

  “I’ll be leaving tomorrow,” Peter said.

  The second official returned the documents to him, and both saluted and got back in their Ford.

  The three Germans walked to the Chevrolet. Peter held open the passenger door for Frau von Tresmarck. After she got in, he then tried to push the seat back forward so he could climb in the back.

  “Don’t be silly,” she said. “There’s plenty of room in front.”

  Von Tresmarck slipped behind the wheel and started the engine. “The Ambassador, Peter,” he said, “said only that you were coming.” It was a request for information.

  “I have a message from Ambassador von Lutzenberger,” Peter said.

  “I thought perhaps it might have something to do with…that unfortunate business last week.”

  You bet your ass it does; we’re being ordered to Berlin.

  “I’m sure the Herr Sturmbannführer understands that I can’t discuss the matter,” Peter said.

  “Of course,” von Tresmarck said quickly. “I wasn’t trying to pry, Peter.”

  “Where will I be staying, Herr Sturmbannführer?” Peter asked.

  “With us, of course,” Frau von Tresmarck said. “We have plenty of room.”

  Shit!

  “That’s very gracious of you,” Peter said. “But I don’t want to impose.”

  “Nonsense,” von Tresmarck said. “You’re our good friend, Peter. We wouldn’t feel right if you were in a hotel.”

  “You’re very kind,” Peter said.

  Ambassador Joachim Schulker raised his eyes from the envelope Peter had just handed him. “Are you familiar with the contents, von Wachtstein?”

  “Yes, Sir.”

  “Did you say anything to Sturmbannführer von Tresmarck?”

  “No, Sir, of course not.”

  “Well, then, I suppose I had better do so, wouldn’t you think?”

  How the hell am I supposed to reply to that?

  “Yes, Sir.”

  Schulker picked up a silver bell from his desk and shook it. His secretary appeared a moment later at the door. “Will you ask Sturmbannführer von Tresmarck to see me, please?” Schulker asked. Then he looked at Peter. “I almost forgot, von Wachtstein, to congratulate you for your courageous behavior on the beach.”

  “I tried to do my duty, Excellency.”

  “There aren’t many men who would have your icy courage under fire,” Schulker said. “Who would have been so—what shall I say?…visibly unaffected—when two of their comrades died in such an awful fashion, right beside them.”

  “It was a very unpleasant incident, Excellency.”

  “Certainly, after both Standartenführer Goltz and Oberst Grüner were shot in the head, you must have thought you were next. And of course the next shot narrowly missed you, is that not so?” Peter gave an almost imperceptible nod. “Yet you saw to their bodies, carried them to the boat without assistance…”

  He’s been talking to somebody who knows exactly what happened at Puerto Magdalena, not just that Grüner and Goltz were killed. Who? I don’t think von Lutzenberger, who would have told me if he had spoken to Schulker. That leaves Gradny-Sawz. Who else knew?

  And did I detect a suspicion that it’s odd I didn’t have my brains blown out when Grüner and Goltz did? Or am I being paranoid?

  There was a discreet knock at the door. Schulker looked up and saw von Tresmarck standing there. “Come in, please, Werner,” Schulker said.

  Von Tresmarck walked in and gave a stiff-armed Nazi salute. “Heil Hitler,” he said. “You wished to see me, Excellency?”

  Schulker returned the salute casually.

  “They want to see you in Berlin, Werner, in connection with the unfortunate recent incident,” Schulker said. “Von Wachtstein will fly you to Buenos Aires in the morning.”

  Von Tresmarck tried very hard, and almost succeeded, to conceal his reaction to the announcement—terror. “Tomorrow, Excellency?” he asked.

  “There is apparently a Lufthansa Condor flight en route to Buenos Aires. You will travel aboard it on its return flight.”

  “I understand, Excellency,” von Tresmarck said.

  “That doesn’t give you much time,” Schulker said.

  “Excellency, did they say how long I am to be gone?”

  “No, they didn’t,” Schulker said simply. “You will check in with me in the morning, though, before you leave, won’t you?”

  “Yes, of course, Excellency.”

  “There might be another message, or something,” Schulker said, and then sat down, making it clear they had been dismissed.

  “I’ll have to clear my desk here, you understand,” von Tresmarck said as they left the ambassador’s office, “but there’s no reason for you to wait for me. I’ll have Inge run you out to the house.”

  “Wouldn’t it be much simpler if I just went to the Casino and got a room?”

  “Inge will be glad for your company,” von Tresmarck said. “Especially if things don’t go as quickly here as I hope they will.”

  Ingebord von Tresmarck was waiting for them in the foyer of the embassy.

  “Take Peter to the house, please, Inge, and make him comfortable,” von Tresmarck said. “I may be here awhile, so don’t hold dinner for me.”

  She nodded. “What’s going on, Werner?” she asked.

  “I don’t think it should be discussed in the lobby of the embassy,” he said. “Peter will tell you what he can.”

  “I am not sure, Herr Sturmbannführer, if I am permitted—”

  “She will have to be told something, Peter,” von Tresmarck said. “Tell her what you think you can, on my authority.”

  “Jawohl, Herr Sturmbannführer.”

  Von Tresmarck turned on his heel and walked out of the lobby.

  When they reached the Chevrolet, Inge asked Peter to drive. He got behind the wheel and drove toward Carr
asco.

  “What don’t you think you are permitted to tell me?”

  “I didn’t want you telling him I told you everything,” he said.

  “You know there are some things I don’t tell him,” she said. “I don’t want to get off the subject, but I am really glad to see you, darling.” She leaned over and kissed him on the cheek. Her right hand moved to his upper leg and squeezed him playfully but almost painfully.

  “Hey!” he said in surprise and protest.

  “So tell me,” she said, squeezing him one more time, then moving away from him.

  “We’ve been ordered to Berlin,” he said.

  “Oh, my God!”

  “I don’t think there’s anything to be worried about,” he said.

  “You don’t think there’s anything to be worried about,” she parroted sarcastically.

  “Considering what happened, it was to be expected that somebody in Berlin would want to talk to both of us, and since they wouldn’t want to come here…”

  “Are you going?” she asked.

  “Of course I’m going. I think we’ll be back within a month.”

  “You have the airplane. We could be in Brazil in three hours.”

  “Inge, calm down,” he said.

  “Calm down?” she snorted sarcastically. “What kind of a fool are you? What kind of a fool do you think I am?”

  “Calm down, Inge,” he repeated.

  She snorted again but didn’t say anything more in the car.

  The von Tresmarck house was a medium-size, two-story, red-tile-roofed building two blocks from the casino. When they reached it, he stopped before the closed steel gate to the driveway.

  “Leave it,” Inge said. “I’ll have someone park it and put your bag in your room. What I need is a drink.”

  He got from behind the wheel and followed her to the house. The large, ornate, varnished wood door opened as they reached it. A middle-aged maid stood there.

  “Take the Major’s things to the guest room,” Inge ordered in heavily German-accented Spanish.

  “Sí, Señora. Bienvenido, Señor.”