The Madagaskar Plan (30 page)

“Not from here. You passed it on the train twenty kilometers ago. You don’t even know where you are, Leni.”

Madeleine stopped, the chaff of her hair plastered to her scalp. She twirled round, trying to orient herself.

“Listen to him,” said Jacoba. “Please.”

Her brother trotted to her side. “Sorry, Madeleine. I’m playing the fool, I don’t know why. But there’s no point in going alone to Mandritsara—you might as well lie down here and breathe your last. If you want any chance of saving your children, come with me to Antzu.” He was full of coaxing. “We’ll talk to the council, see if we can raise some men and weapons.”

“Since when has the council done anything but talk?”

“I know one of the elders; he’ll help us.”

She couldn’t decide whether to trust him. “Only if I can go with you to Mandritsara. To the hospital itself. They’re my babies.”

“I told you, you’re not a fighter.”

“Lives change.”

He shook his head. “Leni, I saw what happened under the train. With the soldier.”

“What?”

“You couldn’t pull the trigger. Whatever’s happened to you, you don’t have the heart.” There was longing in his expression, gratitude. “Or the hate.”

“I don’t need a lecture about hate. I’ll fight.” She steeled her voice. “I’m not afraid.”

Abner studied her eyes, then bent toward her, the rain trickling down his face. “You will be,” he whispered. “You will be.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

Lava Bucht, Madagaskar

20 April, 02:00

THE SMOLDERING DAMP of the forest came to an abrupt end, and he was at the water’s edge. Burton looked up, arching his neck to read the name on the cruise liner. A cliff face of albino steel filled his vision.

The
Wilhelm Gustloff
rose out of the night, listing and cankered, scoured pale by salt winds. She was seven hundred feet long, the glass that remained in her portholes cracked, a scar of rivets running down her bow to the waterline. The communication masts had been cut down, every lifeboat removed. Only curls of smoke from the funnel suggested that there was life in her.

The
Gustloff
first set sail in 1937 as the KdF’s flagship, a liner with berths for fifteen hundred passengers. After Dunkirk she had been readied as a troop carrier for Operation Sea Lion, the invasion of Britain, and when peace was declared, she’d been converted into a hospital ship to bring back the wounded of Operation Banana, Germany’s conquest of West Africa. On the eve of her return to the KdF as a tourist boat, one of Eichmann’s deputies at the Foreign Ministry calculated that the
Gustloff
could carry six thousand Jews per voyage to Madagaskar. When the KdF protested, Himmler intervened personally, declaring that a Europe free of Jews was more desired by the German people than the so-called glamour of tourism.

Tünscher emerged from the trees. Now that they were on the island he was tense, his swagger more guarded.

“I see you found it,” he said, lighting a cigarette and gazing up at the ship. A Star of David had been painted on the smoke stack. “The Ark.”

She was moored in the middle of the bay, her rear low in the water as if weighed down by an immense load. A series of bamboo jetties, lit with sporadic lanterns, connected the
Gustloff
to land.

Tünscher removed a small, collapsible telescope from his pocket and put it to his eye. “And that’s Analava,” he continued before handing the spyglass to Burton. “A Jew town.” Farther up the shore, among the mangroves, was a ramshackle mass of huts raised on stilts; the stench of sewage simmered above it. “It’s run by the Jupo, the local police. They guard the ship.”

“Why?”

“The record of every last Jew is on the Ark. If that’s all there was to prove I was alive, I’d keep a close eye on it.” He took a drag on his cigarette, the tip flaring. “Beyond the town, out in the dark, are Vanilla Jews—who don’t trust the police to do a good job.”

“What about over there?” asked Burton, swinging the telescope to the far side of the bay.

Across the water, ringed by fences and lights, was a cluster of barracks. Burton glimpsed Walküre helicopters, hovercrafts.

“An SS base,” explained Tünscher. “To watch the watchers, and tell the American Jewish Committee to go fuck itself. Don’t worry, they’re not supposed to come here. Part of the agreement.”

“So why these?”

They were both dressed as Sturmbannführers, not in the black cloth Burton had worn to disguise himself in Kongo but in the tropical uniform of Madagaskar: jacket with shoulder yokes and
Tropenhosen
trousers (both made from tan cotton), straw-colored shirt, Sam Browne belt, and a soft cap adorned with silver skulls.

“All the Jews here are going to know each other,” said Tünscher. “We can’t pretend to be one of them. We’re also too well fed.” He finished his cigarette and flicked the butt away. “Besides, it’s going to be a brave Jew who argues with an SS major. Trust me, this is the easiest ticket on board.”

Tünscher guided them along the mud to the nearest jetty, Burton following closely. A seaplane, crewed by Italian smugglers, had brought them from DOA earlier that night, landing in a bay several miles south of the Ark. Burton and Tünscher had rowed ashore and picked their way through the tamarind trees; they traveled with no equipment except sidearms. As soon as Burton located Madeleine, he would pick up his kit from the plane and head into the interior alone. Tünscher would wait in Roscherhafen before flying back to collect them—or “cash in my diamonds,” as he put it.

The jetty was guarded by Jewish policemen armed with sticks. Tünscher passed them with a stride that dared any objection, one hand resting on his pistol, then along the bobbing walkways to a tower that rose against the middle of the vessel; the stairs creaked as they mounted them. Up close, the
Gustloff
was leprous with rust and yellow streaking. Below, Burton saw sea mines encircling the ship like a string of black pearls.

“I’ll do the talking,” said Tünscher as they reached the top.

They stepped off the tower into a reception area. It was bare except for a mural showing three rabbits chasing each other’s tails, and a table with two bespectacled Jews behind it. They were dressed in shabby uniforms.

Tünscher circumvented the table and yanked at the door to the ship. “Open it,” he said when it didn’t budge.

“Herr Sturmbannführer,” said one of the Jews, rising from the table, “I must respectfully ask for identification and your letter of authorization.” He indicated a leather-bound book on the table and steadied his voice. “You will also need to sign the ledger.”

“What did you say, Solomon?”

Although Burton was useless at this type of thing, Tünscher relished it. Patrick had once said that he should have joined a theater troupe rather than the Legion.

The Jew spoke to Tünscher’s feet. “It’s protocol…”

“You hear this?” Tünscher said to Burton. “The fucking Yids are giving the orders now.” He took off his cap and thrust it into the Jew’s hands. “You see that?” Tünscher rapped the death’s-head badge. “That’s all the authorization you need. Now open the door!”

“Please, Sturmbannführer.”

Tünscher took out his Luger, grabbed the Jew by the ear, and dragged him toward the exit. As he passed Burton, he winked.

“Are you with the Oberstgruppenführer?” The second Jew was on his feet.

Burton and Tünscher glanced at each other.

“He was here earlier.” The Jew indicated the ledger. “If you’re on the same business, I’m sure we can overlook the usual formalities.”

“Of course we’re with him,” said Tünscher, shoving the other Jew away. “Why else would we be in this shit-sink?”

“Then, please…” Blinking behind his glasses, the Jew unlocked the door and dipped his head in welcome. Tünscher strode through it.

“We’re looking for Section C,” said Burton.

“The decks are arranged alphabetically, top to bottom. C is this level, toward the front of the ship.”

“And W?”

“Bottom deck. The lights aren’t so good down there. You’ll find lamps in the stairwells.”

Burton ducked into the ship.

For several years, the
Gustloff
ferried between Trieste and Diego Suarez, until 1947, when her hull was ripped open as she approached Madagaskar. It was during the first rebellion, when the United States sent a battleship to the region. The passengers, having seen the Stars and Stripes, believed they were going to be rescued; they mutinied. A court-martial agreed that the captain had no choice other than to scuttle the liner. Hundreds drowned in the aft compartments. The damage was patched up, but when engineers said it would be too costly to restore the ship, the
Gustloff
was towed to Lava Bucht—Lava Bay, an inlet on the northwest of the island—and left to rust, until Heydrich found a new use for her.

As the uprising and its brutal repression continued, America’s Jewish population demanded that action be taken, regardless of the country’s neutrality. Washington edged toward an ultimatum, insisting that the Jews of Madagaskar must be the guardians of their own records: while the SS controlled the files, Globus could act with impunity. This was to be the cost of nonintervention, and America’s conscience. Heydrich convinced the Führer that it was a pittance to pay.

The door slammed with a clang that wanted to reverberate along the walls but was instantly strangled. The air was noxious: the stench of a mausoleum dense with rotting damp and fried meat. It pressed against Burton’s throat.

He was in a dim corridor, buckled floorboards beneath his boots, dripping metal rafters above. This was the covered promenade deck where once Germans on vacation would have strolled to the strains of Mozart played over the public address system or dozed in deck chairs before the next round of compulsory activities. Now it was crammed with row upon row of filing cabinets. Hundreds of them, stretching in both directions, with only the narrowest channel between to squeeze through.

Burton flapped the air in front of his mouth. “You could have been easier on the Jews,” he said.

“Got us in, didn’t I?” Tünscher retorted.

The cabinets consisted of five drawers, the highest as tall as Burton. On each drawer, written in Gothic script (and, below it, in Hebrew) were three letters indicating the names of the files within. Burton read the nearest:
CAL
.

They headed toward the bow of the ship, past
CAL
 …
CAM
 …
CAN
, till the
CA
s gave way to
CE
s. Burton felt the pressure of the names around him, the silent cacophony of millions of files. In places the floorboards had caved in, and they had to navigate their way using the iron supporting beams beneath as stepping-stones. Their boots slipped on the girders as they continued past the
CH
s.

There was a sudden rap of metal.

Burton started; he’d been absorbed in watching the floor for weak timbers. One twisted ankle, and the terrain between the Ark and Madeleine would prove impossible. Tünscher had knocked on one of the cabinets.

“What is it?” asked Burton.

“COL,” replied Tünscher, indicating the label. He wasn’t good with confined spaces; the claustrophobic gloom had stunted his poise. He grinned, trying to regain some bravado. “Stick here long enough and that’s where you’ll end up.”

Finally they reached
CRA
. Burton began opening drawers, searching for “Cranley,” though he suspected he wouldn’t find Madeleine here. Each one was solid with files; the smell of moldering paper burrowed into his nose.

Tünscher wedged himself between two cabinets and lit a cigarette.

“Do you think that’s a good idea?” said Burton. “One stray spark…”

Tünscher shrugged, inhaled deeply. The glowing tip illuminated his pupils; they were tiny black holes.

Burton frowned. “You’re smoking a Bayerweed?” He should have noticed in Roscherhafen.

Tünscher nodded and offered him a puff. When Burton shook his head, he sucked in another lungful.

Bayerweeds were cigarettes laced with heroin, initially prescribed for soldiers with respiratory injuries in the air of Siberia. A trade in them soon spread to every garrison east of the Urals, until Germania outlawed their production. In the months that followed, there was a rapid increase in the number of soldiers suffering nervous breakdowns. The ban was quietly forgotten.

“It’s not a concern,” said Tünscher, taking a final, deep drag and squashing the butt against a cabinet. “These things keep my head clear. And the stink at bay.”

Burton went back to the files, working through them with tense determination. Sweat trickled down the sides of his ears. He took his cap off and screwed it up in his pocket. In the end he found thirty Cranleys, none of them Madeleine. He slammed the drawer shut, the sound echoing away to nothing.

“Now what?” asked Tünscher.

“We head below, look for Weiss.”

“Weiss?”

“Madeleine’s maiden name. Her Jewish name.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

“LOUDER!” SHOUTED GLOBUS as he staggered to the cockpit. “Make us roar!” He was wearing his dress uniform, and in his fist was a bottle of cognac: VSOP, thirty years old, his second of the evening.

The pilot dipped the throttle, the hovercraft skimming across the bay. There were three ships: the troop carrier Globus and his guests were in and two smaller escort craft mounted with machine guns.

As the armies of the Reich had penetrated deeper into Russia, they overran research facilities before the Soviets had a chance to destroy their secrets. Once purged of Communist ideology, this work proved a trove of new weapons. The initial design for the BK44, the Nazis’ ubiquitous assault rifle in Africa, had been stolen from an engineer called Kalashnikov. In Gorky, a prototype hovercraft was discovered, perfected, and put into service. Globocnik employed the craft during his time in the East and subsequently added them to his arsenal for Madagaskar: they were ideal for patrolling the mangroves of the west coast.