Authors: Dave Boling
Renée made him comfortable in Saint-Jean-de-Luz from the first moment. While trying to brag about his brother’s skillful adaptation
to the ways of the
travailleurs de la nuit
, Renée inadvertently diverted Miguel’s concentration by serving him foods with scents and flavors that caused him to focus
intently on his plate. He listened, to a degree, while he inhaled a plate of red peppers stuffed with cod. He grew less attentive
when the fillet of salmon with white asparagus arrived, and he almost completely tuned out when Renée presented the
gâteau Basque
for which her family had gained some regional renown.
“Good,” Miguel said when he finished. The residents of Guernica were living on old sardines, chickpeas, and bread fashioned
of sawdust. This was food he’d never had even in the best times. As he suctioned up the plate of
piquillo
peppers, Renée explained that there were hardships in Saint-Jean-de-Luz and in France, too, but those in their business developed
sources to supply almost anything.
They didn’t have to go far for anything, either, as many of their business meetings took place downstairs at the Pub du Corsaire.
Once Dodo had sanctioned the bar and discovered that it was Renée’s primary haunt, he found a cheap room on the top floor
of the building. His rent was offset by various procurements he arranged for the bar’s owner. Yes, after a few mishaps in
the mountains, he had learned the ways of trafficking goods from Renée and her family. And then he started inventing methods
of his own.
“Dodo was made for this job,” Renée told the distracted Miguel.
“That’s not what your father said,” Dodo objected. “He claimed I was too big and not ordinary enough.”
The best smugglers, Santi Labourd told Dodo, were so non-descript as to be nearly invisible. They were unnoticed background,
insignificant scenery. They needed to be strong enough to carry loads and tireless enough to walk the mountains all night,
but small enough to remain nimble and fit through passages in brush and boulders that might challenge a hare.
“Maybe you weren’t the perfect physical design, but mentally? You have it; even Father says so,” Renée said with pride, placing
another basket of bread on the table, as Miguel had eaten most of the first loaf and was still intent on sopping up the abundant
sauces.
“At the start, his experience and connections on the water were most important to us,” Renée continued. “For a while, we traded
services and surplus goods for grain and whatever food we could collect, and then we got it to your father, who shipped it
to Biscaya. We then moved on to weapons and munitions.”
Miguel looked up from his plate at Dodo. He had no idea the
patroia
was so involved.
“Discreet, eh?” Dodo said.
“There was a small mention, but I didn’t know how far it had gone.”
“Not so much anymore,” Renée said, putting her plate, still colored with sauces, on the floor for Déjeuner to lick clean.
“He’d still be working with us if he had his way, but it has gotten too dangerous to use the boats much now. Still, when the
cargo is merely information, he’s extremely valuable.”
“Information?” Miguel asked, distracted by the sight of a dog licking up the remnants of the dinner.
“Deployments, the movement of men, defenses, that sort of thing,” Dodo said. “Patrols can inspect boats as much as they wish,
but if the important cargo is in the head of the
patroia
, it can’t be detected or confiscated.”
“Then what?”
“Then maybe he sails to Bilbao to off-load the catch . . .”
“And?”
Dodo knew the next link in the network would jolt Miguel. “Then the most natural thing in the world might be for the
patroia
to visit his new favorite priest, Father Xabier, and then it might be equally natural for the good father to hear the confession
of men who are, let’s say, of British heritage, perhaps working at the consulate, who might be able to pass along portions
of his divine message.”
Miguel shook his head numbly, still several steps behind Dodo.
“How do you get such information?”
“How does he get anything?” Renée laughed. “He’s clever.”
“We have a network of helpers—sympathizers, Resistance,” Dodo said. “Sometimes it’s a barmaid overhearing drunken Nazis, or
an officer who is trying to impress her; sometimes it’s a maid at a hotel where an officer is staying while on furlough who
manages to go through his papers after making the bed. Sometimes there is information in a letter home from a soldier that
happens to get opened at the post. You’d be amazed by the bits and pieces we can pick up.”
“
Patroia
?” Miguel asked, still trying to process the information.
“Yes, yes, Miguel,” Dodo said. “And now we’re working with a Belgian group that is relocating RAF fliers who have been shot
down, working to get them back to England. They’re very brave. They pick up the crews, sew them up if they have to, hide them,
forge papers that are good enough to get them through Paris and down here. Then we move them across the border into Spain.
Once they’re across the river, helpers take them down the line to the consulate in Bilbao, where they arrange to get them
on a boat out of Lisbon or Gibraltar.”
The German occupation had changed so many elements of their work. The gatherings at Dodo’s apartment stopped as the inner
circle was pulled tighter for security reasons. The chance to add a trustworthy blood relative like Miguel felt like a blessing—but
also a serious responsibility. Despite being older, Dodo had seen Miguel as an equal as early as their teen years because
of Miguel’s physical and emotional maturity. In some ways, Miguel was the wise older brother. This, though, was Dodo’s world,
and although he knew Miguel could take care of himself, he wanted to do everything possible to keep his brother from suffering
more pain.
“All this is why Papa is so proud of him now,” Renée said, turning to Miguel. “Even if he is too big and a bit conspicuous,
he never tires and he always seems to find a way.”
Dodo accepted the compliment with a lengthy kiss. Miguel looked puzzled.
“He was quick to learn the paths and the signals we’ve used forever,” she said. “Stacking stones or notching tree bark. And
he worked out a perfectly natural identifier of our ‘brotherhood’—the beret. All smugglers wear berets. It does not mean everyone
in a beret is a smuggler, but he’s certainly no guard and he’s no patrolman. He might be someone who has turned informer,
true, but Spanish guards and Nazis will never wear them.”
“So,” Dodo interjected, “you’ll have to start wearing one again.”
“I haven’t worn one since we were fishing together,” Miguel objected.
“I know, but you’ll start again and get used to it or one of our friends might decide to drop a rock on you in the mountains
some night.”
Dodo called the dog to his side and placed him on his lap.
“We’ve put Déjeuner to work, too,” Dodo said, petting the strange little beast, the obvious product of a series of crossbreed
liaisons. “If I’m walking in public with a flier, another healthy young man, then it’s suspicious. They might wonder: If these
two aren’t in the service in some capacity, then maybe they’re Re sistance. If Renée and a young man have a dog on a leash,
they’re merely enjoying each other’s company and getting a little exercise for
lepetitchien
. And Déjeuner is the perfect little dog of the Re sistance.”
“Oh?”
“Yes, he all the while pretends he knows nothing of the charade.” Dodo laughed. “There’re other things: Walking with a limp
is good, too, or bent over with a bad back. The crippled are not likely to be carrying illegal goods over mountain passes.
There’s a human sympathy that takes over.”
“At least it does with the French and Spanish,” Renée said. “You can’t count on it with the Nazis.”
“What about bad hands?” Miguel asked.
A calm overtook Charles Swan. He felt as if he had broken free from hell’s torments and was ascending peacefully to heaven.
Except that he was headed in the other direction, floating to earth through the sublime tranquility that attends the end of
chaos. A flock of Messerschmitts had caught him in a frantic fire fight and his Blenheim had broken apart as metal screamed
around him like the death howl of a giant mechanical animal.
He now floated in a flawless sky without a sound except for the pulse hammering in his ears. Silence. Sudden silence, he thought,
oddly flashing on his favorite readings from Lewis Carroll’s Alice story when he was young.
Anon, to sudden silence won,
In fancy they pursue
The dream-child moving through a land
Of wonders wild and new,
In friendly chat with bird or beast—
And half believe it true.
He had never quoted that verse for Annie, his bird-talker, and he decided he would have to tell it to her when he returned
home. Annie, yes. Home. The place that isn’t war. Of course, there was no place that wasn’t war anymore. But it was at least
life alongside war. Life and Annie. He scanned downward for the first time. There was no sign of his plane or his squadron
or the gnatlike fighters that had arrived in a lethal, buzzing cluster.
The mission was nothing out of the ordinary; they were to bomb troop positions and tank formations in southern Belgium. But
fighter defense was heavier than Charley had seen, and half the group had been shot down or forced to turn back before his
Blenheim was set upon. The first wave must have put out his dorsal turret, as he couldn’t hear return fire. He dipped from
the second wave, but the instincts that allowed him to react to the threat of one attack caused him to bank slightly into
direct fire from another pair of fighters on the other side, and he could hear bullets bite the metal skin of the fuselage.
It took only the span of several racing heartbeats for the plane to disintegrate. He signaled for his crew to bail out, but
both the bomber and gunner had been killed in their positions, and when the craft started spiraling, he knew he’d never maintain
flight.
As the earth eased up toward him, he took a quick inventory. His crew was dead. Nothing he could do about that. Fisher was
single, the son of a vicar (a Fisher of men, they kidded), but Maple-stone had a wife in Dover. He would have to contact their
families at some point, he thought, hoping that he would arrive at their doorsteps and tell them in person rather than them
having to learn the news through an impersonal post.
The air collecting in the parachute caused the cords to whisper. He wasn’t going home tonight. Fisher and Maplestone certainly
weren’t. The crews that made it back tonight would say nice things about them, lift a toast, and then make jokes to relieve
the pain. They all had done it, trying to create distance between themselves and the friends that had died last month and
last week and yesterday. There wasn’t time to grieve or you’d never take off again. You could remember them all later, after
the war, all at once, and for a long time.
Focus, Charley, focus. Below was a pastoral land overrun by the enemy. He had no weapon, no survival kit, no food or water.
A knife, a map, and a picture of Annie and Blennie. Trying to calculate the drift caused by the wind, he pulled at the cords
of his parachute to guide himself closer to a small cluster of trees. It would either give him quick cover or break his back
if he got caught up in a limb. He floated in just short, though, and when he collided with the ground, a jolt of pain caused
him to make another entry in his mental inventory.
A German bullet had gouged a deep furrow through his right thigh.
The march up the River Nivelle valley in his brother’s wake gave Miguel the clarity of mind to order his thoughts. Dodo had
been uncharacteristically quiet, having learned the value of silence when exposed in public. The path to Sare had been rutted
by footfalls since medieval times, and it followed a gentle grade through fallow pastures and shady woodlots. They had no
reason to skulk on a more sheltered route because they were merely two men on a hike, carrying no contraband and having no
subversive intent. This was orientation.
“Sare is the hub of our business,” Dodo said, “with spokes of trails heading toward the border up every small watershed. Sometimes
we arrange for herders to raise a ruckus up one pass to draw attention while we go through another.”
“Do we have to go up there?” Miguel asked, gesturing with his head toward the peak of La Rhune, rising into a cloud cap above
them.
“Only as a last resort. Don’t worry, you’ll get enough terrain to get that heart pumping.”
After lunch with Renée’s parents—more delicious peppers and sauces, roasted chicken, and cake—Miguel’s lessons in the ways
of the smugglers continued as Dodo led the way toward the border.
“You look good in your beret,” Dodo said.
“Makes me feel like vomiting.”
“No, no . . . no seasickness up here,” Dodo said, and after a pause, he added, “I’m glad you’re here, Miguel. We need your
help. We’re getting more British fliers coming down; we need to keep Renée in town and off the trails as much as possible,
and we need to keep me out of town equally as much. She’s so good at getting everybody off trains and into safe houses; it’s
more important than having her hiking around in the hills. Nazis look at her and their first thoughts are not of the Resistance.”
“How do I help?”
“I lead and you follow,” Dodo said. “Sometimes we’ll have one guest and sometimes as many as four or five. I want you to be
the trailer, keeping everybody up to speed and watching for patrols coming up from behind—mostly shepherding the stragglers.”
“I think I’m up to that.”
“The one thing I had to learn first was to slow down,” Dodo said. “As much as I wanted to race, this is a matter of pace and
timing and of staying together. Anybody who’s in a hurry draws attention. Nature doesn’t rush; we have to move steadily.”
Dodo led Miguel up the east side of La Rhune, following a rill that cut a small wedge into the hillside.
“You’ll want to follow the water,” Dodo explained. “It’s found the best path for centuries, and there’s normally better cover
there. But the brush is sometimes thicker. If it’s a good, dark night without patrols, getting out at the edge of the trees
and brush is not a bad risk if it helps you make up time. If the moon and patrols are out, stay covered or stay home.”
“But you’ll be there leading all the time, right?”
“I hope so,” Dodo said. “But you never know. Here’s where it gets tricky.” Dodo led him out into an exposed meadow that took
up the better portion of the eastern ridgeline. Granite boulders cluttered the slope, looking like sun-bleached skulls of
long-dead giants, turning this into a hiker’s nightmare.
“It’s hard to tell from here, but there are paths through the rocks,” Dodo said, gesturing with a sweeping hand. “Which is
good for us and bad for them. I’ll show you the signs and the markings. Always, always stay on the paths and make sure the
guests do, too. Getting off the path means a broken ankle or leg—or maybe worse, depending on how you fall or trip.”
“And we’re going to be going through here in the dark?” Miguel asked.
“Dark . . . darker than you can believe—and sometimes wet, too,” Dodo said. “Our safest times are when it’s darkest, which
means cloudy nights, which means rain sometimes. The rocks get slippery in the rain, and if you slip on a boulder up here,
you might tumble all the way down to Sare.”
Dodo laughed. Miguel did not. He looked down. The wrinkled valley, of varying hues of green in the afternoon sunlight, made
him think of being in the hills above Guernica, and of fishing with Justo, and of logging with Mendiola’s mule. And at the
moment he had that thought, he heard his mule whiffle.
“Meet the noble
pottok
,” Dodo said, pointing across a meadow at a group of the sturdy little Basque ponies that have run wild in the Pyrenees for
generations. “The old-timers used them quite a bit when the loads were heavy. The night workers have a great love for them.
They work hard, never complain, are sure-footed, and they have the delightful ability to fart whenever border guards are near.”
A group of six, including a foal, grazed, oblivious to the presence of humans. The newborn romped around its mother with abandon,
and Miguel wished he could simply stop to watch.
“I first met some alone on the mountain one night, and they had me convinced they were mountain bears about to kill me,” Dodo
said.
Even with the daylight and his brother to follow, Miguel found it difficult to stay on the trail and not be diverted into
a cul-de-sac of boulders. Without explanation, Dodo led him off the ridge and into a forest of beech trees, which seemed like
a city park to Miguel, with no undergrowth to entangle them or boulders to trip on. It was beautiful and cool, and a small
white butterfly bobbed ahead of Miguel along the path. A flock of sheep appeared along the trail, with their muffled bells
and melancholy bleats sounding like an ambling chorus. A shepherd stepped out from behind a tree, Miguel never having noticed
his presence.
“
Ami
,” the shepherd said, addressing Dodo as “friend.”
“Eh,
ami
,” Dodo returned.
“New herder?” the man asked. He was dressed exactly as Dodo, carrying a
makila
, with a
bota
slung across his chest.
“
Oui
, my brother,” Dodo said. Names were not used. “He is going to help tend the flock. Are there others about?”
“No, quiet,” the man answered. “But it is early.”
They nodded to each other and the man locked eyes with Miguel, held an index finger under his right eye, and winked. It was
to say, Welcome to the brotherhood, my friend, but if you see me outside these hills, I am a stranger to you.
After clearing another ridge and dropping into a glade, Dodo stopped to show Miguel a small boulder-covered cave in which
they cached bottles of Izarra and tins of cheeses. They could hide inside if necessary.
“There’s a cave we spent the night in once that winds back into the hills for half a mile,” Dodo said. “It’s been there since
the cavemen shared it with bears. Our guests were not very happy with the chirping of thousands of bats hanging from the roof.
To keep their minds off that, we told them stories about how the spirit of Mari and the
lamiak
lived in there, and how for so many years the witches held meetings in there until they were burned at the stake.”
As usual, Miguel never knew how much of Dodo’s commentary to believe, but he hoped that spending the night in a bat-filled
cave would not be a part of his new job.
“Are there fish in here?” Miguel asked as they walked parallel to a stream.
“The best fishing is up in the forest of Iraty, I’m told,” Dodo said. “Since when do you care about fishing? I thought you
despised fishing.”
“I like it when I’m not in a boat—fishing in rivers and streams,” Miguel explained. “Maybe some time when we’re not working
we can go to the Iraty and I can show you how to fish streams.”
“What do you know about it?”
“Justo taught me.”
“How is Justo?” Dodo asked, his first direct question about Guernica and those living there.
“Still strong,” Miguel said.
“Even with one arm?”
“The number of arms has nothing to do with it.”
Dodo let the subject hang as they started to descend a ridge. “We’re in Spain now,” he said. “Down there’s the Bidassoa. The
river is always the biggest problem. The Spanish guards mostly sit on their asses on the south side and wait for us to come
to them.”
“The river?”
“It cuts a gorge west of Vera, closer to the source, with steep slopes and a strong current,” Dodo said, laying out the terrain
and pointing to the forest below them. “As it gets toward Irun, it widens and slows, depending on the time of year and volume
of flow. It’s easier to cross below, and that’s why there’re guard shacks down there at every bend in the river.”
“How do we cross?”
“We row in a boat that a farmer leaves for us, or we wade, or we swim,” Dodo said. “Probably wade and swim now, since a boat
is too obvious these days.”
“Dodo?”
“What?”
Miguel held up his partial hands. “I don’t know if I can swim anymore.”
Dodo hadn’t considered that. He thought of challenging his brother to a rematch of the Loop but remained quiet.
Aside from his solitary walks through town in the early morning and late night, and his work trying to keep Errotabarri from
falling apart, Justo spent much of his time in Bilbao, a short train ride away. He enjoyed helping his brother at the Basilica
de Begoña and visiting Sister Incarnation at the hospital. He owed much to these two, and it felt good to get closer to his
baby brother and to the nun he so admired.
Sister Inky humored Justo by allowing him to act as her enforcer with stubborn patients. Assisting his little brother, Father
Xabier, was more difficult. Now that Justo was back on his feet, the priest felt that it no longer seemed appropriate for
him to go around sweeping up the rectory and doing work on the grounds.
In truth, Xabier had become a visible political figure, as his connection to exiled president José Antonio Aguirre had made
him a target of some scrutiny for Franco’s security and intelligence forces. Xabier knew he was being watched and he feared
this might endanger his brother. It would have been better if their meetings were less obvious for a while. But he so enjoyed
Justo’s presence that he could think of no tactful way to discourage his visits.
Justo was not surprised that Xabier had grown increasingly political. He had become known as a force in the Basque consciousness,
an anti-Fascist voice when so many had been silenced. As assiduously as Xabier kept his pulpit free of politics, many parishioners
still sought his opinions on the state of the Basque Country, Biscaya, and Spain. Most frequently, he was asked, “Have you
heard from Aguirre?”
“No, no, no,” he said. “Why would a great man want to talk to me?”
But he had heard from Aguirre, who had followed a dangerous path across Eu rope, at times barely escaping Gestapo agents on
his heels. His sister Encarna was shot to death by Germans while their family was in Belgium.
When Aguirre needed a sense of the political climate or news on the ground at home, he got word to Xabier. It was not as simple
anymore as showing up at the back confessional at the basilica, but such things were still possible.
Xabier knew without question that Justo would have loved to be involved. But Justo surely was incapable of stealth. He had
the bravery to meet a battalion head-on if needed, but to be sneaky? That wasn’t Justo.
“Justo, it is so thoughtful of you to come and help, but there is really no need,” Xabier said. “I know you have so much to
do at home and I hate to take you from your chores.”
“It is not a problem, Your Excellency,” Justo said. “I get my work done well enough, and our family home is recuperating well.”
“Of course, of course. Justo, I have to just come out and tell you this, then. It might not be good for you to be seen with
me a great deal at this point.”
“Little brother, I have to tell you that it might not be good for you to be seen with me at this point,” Justo countered.
In spite of his serious intent, Xabier laughed. “I mean it; I’m considered a political figure now, and other priests all over
the country have been imprisoned or killed—you know that. I worry they might try to get to me by attacking you if you become
too visible.”
“Me?” Justo raised his deep voice, holding in the air the broom he had been carrying. “I can be the essence of discretion.
I can be a whiff of smoke. I am a thought, a memory. I can come and go unseen.”
Xabier laughed harder. “You see?”
“We will discuss this at some other time, Your Eminence,” Justo said, taking the broom to a closet. “I’m going to see Sister
Inky now.”
Justo walked down the hill toward the river to the hospital and spent the afternoon helping the tiny nun with her rehab patients.
“I enjoy seeing you, Justo,” she said. “You’re one of our success stories. It does the patients good to see how well you have
learned to adapt.”
Justo followed Sister Incarnation’s tone with her patients; those in need of nurturing benefited from his patience and good
nature. Those needing to be jolted from their self-pity were frightened into action by the forceful man.
“Anything I can do to help, sister,” he said.
“You’re helping enough, Justo,” she said. “You’re spreading a good message and being a good example.”
Well, this is some progress, Annie Bingham decided: Now I have two jobs that don’t pay. The small stipend for her work with
the Basque children had run out. Their numbers had dwindled by half anyway, as some had been repatriated and some adopted.
Many of the older ones had just grown up and, in large part as a result of Annie’s teachings, were able to join the community
on their own.
Even without pay, she continued helping those remaining; they felt like family. And now, having joined the Women’s Voluntary
Services, Annie Bingham was spending her nights bundled up at her station, manning her searchlight. She thought that her eyesight
might be an issue when she volunteered for the job, but the recruiter seemed only too delighted to welcome her in any capacity.
Night work would not interfere with the children’s aid, and she didn’t need much income, anyway, as she lived with her parents.
She wanted to write Charley with the details of her new job and how she was contributing to the war effort, how she practiced
by training the light on seagulls and tracked the poor confused birds through the sky with the high-powered beam. But she
was warned that her placement was considered a secret and she should tell no one.