Munich Signature (59 page)

Twenty-four hours to raise one million dollars. All for the privilege of camping on Cuban soil. But what other options were there? Could Trump and the others manage to raise that kind of cash?

Murphy met the man’s impudent gaze with a slow nod. He glanced toward the Nazis and suddenly had the sickening sense that the man he was dealing with was just as dark in his soul.

***

There were no little shiploads of news reporters. No one to denounce or threaten. Now Commander Deming could do his job. He radioed for support from a second cutter as the
Darien
again came within American waters. Together these two American vessels flanked the
Darien
even as the skies above them grew darker with the approaching storm.

Bullhorn to his lips, Deming issued the warning, the ultimatum: “YOU HAVE ENTERED AMERICAN WATERS! TURN ABOUT,
DARIEN
, OR WE WILL BE FORCED TO FIRE ON YOU.”

Captain Burton answered: “THERE IS A GALE APPROACHING. WE ASK FOR ANCHORAGE.”

“NOTHING DOING,
DARIEN
. SMALL CRAFT WARNINGS ONLY ARE ISSUED AS OF NOW. NOTHING YOU CAN USE AS AN EXCUSE TO MOOR IN AN AMERICAN HARBOR.”

“CHECK YOUR BAROMETER!” Burton shouted back in frustration.

In reply, the crew of the cutter fired a round above the bow of the
Darien
. “YOU WILL WISH YOU HAD A LITTLE WIND TO SAIL THROUGH IF YOU DO NOT TURN ABOUT IMMEDIATELY!”

Burton looked at the small, timid radio repairman from Berlin who now manned the transmitter. “Send word to Trump. Tell him we’re being forced to turn out to sea. Keep sending word of our position.”

***

First Mate Tucker stood defiantly beside Captain Burton. Together they stared down the barrel of a revolver. It was not a large weapon, but it was enough.

Five other crewmen faced them almost apologetically. “This ain’t mutiny, Captain Burton. We done more than we signed up for, and now we’re finished with it, that’s all.” The leader jerked a thumb toward the lifeboat. “We ain’t more than eight miles from shore, and I ain’t much of a man if I can’t row eight miles.”

“You see, sir,” his second offered, “we signed up from Hamburg to New York. We been on this stinking tub for weeks, and now it looks like you’re gonna have to go back to Hamburg. I don’t fancy another trip across the big pond, not with the weather comin’ up the way it is.”

Tucker drew himself up angrily; he took a step toward the man with the gun. “If this ain’t mut’ny, they why y’ got a gun?”

“Just to make sure we get off.”

Burton had remained silent throughout the confrontation. He placed a hand on Tucker’s chest as if to hold him back. “We can run the ship without them.”

“But, Cap’n . . .”

“No,” Burton said, “I mean it. If we are forced back to Hamburg, then I will at least have a reason to keep a few of the men here onboard as crew. Go on, Tucker. Pick out a few from among the single passengers and let these gentlemen have the lifeboat.” He smiled a thin-lipped smile. “Payment for the lifeboat?” he asked. “I want the marine cards of every one of you. Keep the rest of your papers, but I want your Merchant Marine cards.”

“You can’t keep us from picking up work on another ship. We can get those cards replaced, you know.”

“In Hamburg your cards will be identification for my new crew, that’s all. You are free to go.”

The lifeboat was lowered after the casket of Ada-Marie was gently removed from it. The little coffin was taken to the bow of the ship and secured, then covered with a tarp as the five crewmen rowed toward shore. Fifteen minutes later they were picked up by Captain Deming in his Coast Guard cutter. After showing their papers as proof of American citizenship, they were given a lift into Norfolk even as the
Darien
turned out to sea for the last time.

***

Shimon stood for a moment with his back to the giant mountain of coal. Captain Burton did not look back as he clattered up the metal steps and ducked through the watertight door.

Well, perhaps it is only right,
Shimon thought as he turned to face the broad flat shovel. After all, the fires of the Thyssen Steel Works had brought him here. Now the coal and the shovel and the fires of the boiler would take him home. Wherever home might be.
Leah is where home is.
He grabbed the shovel and plunged it into the coal, then tossed the load into the furnace. He would find her somehow. If this ship was ever brought into a port, he would find a way to reach her.
Was she still in Vienna?
he wondered. Had the Nazis expelled her from the orchestra, or did her cello still sing sweetly from the stage of the Musikverein night after night?

He could picture her most easily at her music stand.
Yes, Leah, I see you there, nodding as the crowds applaud you. You are more clear to me than these fires I feed. My heart glows more warmly than these flames.

He had not yet regained all his strength; the doctor was correct about that, but still he was stronger than he had been working in the steel plant. Good food, laughter, hopeful Jewish hearts and words had brought him back to life again. He did not mind this work at all. His muscle fueled the fires that turned the engines that would somehow bring him home. Home to the only thing that mattered to him. Home to his dear Leah.

As he worked he sang the melodies of a hundred symphonies that they had played together. The clanging rhythm of the engine boomed like the kettledrums. He had not been allowed to sing when he had been under the thumb of the Nazi overseers. Music made the burden of work seem lighter, and always ringing in his ears was the clear sweet melody of Leah’s cello. The music never left him as he labored deep in the belly of the ship. And always she was there: a smile, a nod of thanks to the audience, and then a knowing wink for Shimon across the stage.

***

For a hundred miles into international waters, the Coast Guard cutter of Deming pursued the
Darien
out to sea. In the distance lightning split the black sky like veins on the hide of Satan.

The storm was more than a danger to small craft. Burton could smell it coming, even if the bottom had not yet dropped out of the barometer. The Coast Guard cutter at last turned away to rip back across the water to safe harbor. The lumbering
Darien
had no such advantage.

“Secure lifelines,” Burton instructed Tucker. “Get everyone belowdeck. I’ll bring her around and head for shore in an hour, when I’m sure the cutter is long gone.”

***

From the first assault of the storm, it had been difficult to stoke the boiler. The ship rolled from side to side until the men who manned the engines could not stand up. And then when the
Darien
turned to climb the towering waves like mountains and slide down into the deep valleys, the task became nearly impossible.

Aaron, Fredrik, Klaus, and a dozen others held on to ropes and one another as they manned the pumps. A few inches of water in the bottom of the ship had risen to eighteen inches. Their faces reflected terror. They were pumping as fast as possible, and yet . . .

The moans of the others were covered by the winds until Shimon could no longer tell if the sounds came from humans or from the whole world.

He picked up his shovel as the bow of the ship raised to ascend the face of a wave. “Open the boiler!” he shouted to the terror-stricken young Orthodox man who helped him. “Open, and then close it after I toss in the fuel!”

The man nodded. If he did not move quickly enough the fire would spill out. Shimon braced himself and struggled to stand as the iron door swung back. White heat emanated. It swallowed the black chunks of coal. The Orthodox man slammed the door, looking relieved.

“More men on the pumps!” Klaus shouted. “We need shifts.”

Aaron struggled toward the steps to climb up and raise the cry for more help to combat the mounting seawater.

***

Maria cradled Israel in her arms as the floor of the
Darien
sloped away and another moan rose up from the refugees trapped below the howling storm.

There was sickness. The air smelled of vomit and fear. Somehow the four little girls managed to sleep through this hideous rolling and lurching. And Israel nursed calmly and then paused, turning his wide dark eyes to gaze at his mother. Something in those peaceful, innocent eyes calmed Maria’s own heart. So at rest he was, not aware of the waves that towered over the highest masts of the
Darien
, oblivious to the howling of the winds and the shouting of men who tried to pump the water from the hold of the boat. Slowly but surely, the waves that tumbled over the decks were winning the contest against the men who manned the pumps below.

And yet Israel was not frightened by the shouts of fear and hopelessness that echoed around him. In the arms of his mother he was content.

39

Birds in the Eye of the Storm

In this same hour, all of Europe seemed to be running before the winds. The howling of the gale had drowned out the cries of the
Darien
. Entire nations lost resolve and bent as the gale approached their borders.

Tonight in the home of Admiral Canaris in Berlin, General Halder sat among the other conspirators to listen to Hitler’s speech over the radio. Twenty-five thousand faithful party members cheered the Führer as he spoke to them from the Berlin Sportspalast. Millions of others listened with dread to his words. Only this handful among the German High Command knew that this was the Führer’s last speech, his last threat.

“We have him where we want him.” General Hoepner rubbed his hands together. “Here in Berlin we will bag the whole lot of them at once.”

“Tonight the people hear the voice of Hitler and tremble. On Saturday, when the Führer gives the order to march, it will be General Halder who speaks,” said Canaris quietly. “And then the world will see that this madness is Hitler’s alone.”

Straight and tense, General Halder gazed out the window as the tumult of the crowds at the Sportspalast filled the room. “Perhaps we should not wait until Saturday,” he interjected. “Perhaps we should arrest them all tonight. Himmler. Göring. Goebbels. My Regular Army divisions could march within the hour. We could take Hitler after his speech, even as he leaves the Sportspalast.”

The men looked questioningly at one another. Would it not be easier to accomplish the coup tonight? Three days before the army was scheduled by Hitler to invade the Czech-Sudetenland?

“No, no,” Hoepner concluded. “The plan is right as we have conceived it. There are twenty-five thousand Nazis in the Sportspalast. We do not want to contend with them as well. Better for us to bide our time. Arrest Hitler in the staff room as he hovers over his maps like a vulture.”

Others among the conspirators nodded. The coup against Hitler must not become a massacre. It must not be announced until it was accomplished. Hitler and his head henchmen were in Berlin. The plan of the army staff officers could not go wrong!

The roaring of the broadcast fell to silence. The Führer was about to state his final ultimatum to the Czechs and to the world.

The voice of Adolf Hitler reached into the room.

“On February 22 of this year, I made a fundamental demand calling for the uniting of German minorities and the return of German colonies lost in the war. My nation heard it and understood what I meant.

Once again the spell was conjured and cast. The whole world could hear the tumultuous applause of those in the Sportspalast. The Führer held them by the throat as he began to build one statement upon another. His volume increased, and with it, the volume of applause.

“Today there must be no vestige of doubt in the world. It is not a Führer or a man who speaks, but the whole German people. And if I am now spokesman of the German people, I know at this hour that all the listening millions of these people are one, that they endorse these words and make them their own testimony. Let other statesmen search themselves and see if it is the same with them.
”

Thomas knew these words were spoken directly to Chamberlain who paced, alone and frightened, in his offices in London. The people of England were torn and resentful at the thought of fighting a war for the nation of Czechoslovakia. In France, the leaders were besieged with opposition. This claim of Hitler that he alone had the full assent of his people must have galled other leaders of nations. Those men could not fully know the depth of opposition against the German leader! They would not know until Saturday, when German divisions ordered to march turned their guns instead on the Chancellery and marched back to Berlin.

“Hold firm!” Thomas whispered to Chamberlain and Daladier as if they could hear. “Do not waver in your commitment.” Thomas looked around the room at the pensive faces of Germany’s finest men. Some had closed their eyes as if they prayed. All seemed determined to go through with the plan.

“The question that has been agitating us most deeply for the past months and weeks has been well known to those leaders. Its name is not so much Czechoslovakia. Its name is rather Herr President Beneš. This name unites all that is agitating millions today and drives them to despair and fills them with fanatic determination!
”

Shouts of “Bloodhound!” and “Viper!” echoed from the hall.

“German foreign policy is distinct from the democracies. It is fixed on our philosophy of life. The new Third Reich is based upon safeguarding the existence of our German people. We are not interested in oppressing other peoples. We do not wish to have other nationalities among us. We want to live after our own patterns and let others live after theirs. This racially bound conception leads to limitation of our foreign policy. We want only what is ours!
”