Authors: Dave Boling
“Let me ask you this, Xabier,” Justo said, replacing the broom. “What does Alaia think of it?”
Xabier stopped and thought back through the chain of information as it arrived to him. Actually, as best he could recall,
no one had asked her.
Charley slipped, muttered, and smelled an odor.
“
Pottok
crap,” Dodo whispered after a quick sniff. “It’s everywhere.”
Telling Charley to watch his step would have been futile as they felt their way through a tunnel of night. They moved well
together in the darkness, through the uneven boulder fields and up the brambled rills. Above, they skirted the tree line at
the mountain pass that would funnel them into Spain. For the short descent along this path, they would be across the border.
But to work their way toward Irun and the coast, they had to veer west across the invisible boundary again and ford the Bidassoa
where it served as a very tangible barrier.
Once they crossed the river and hiked down to Irun, Miguel and Dodo would place Charley with helpers prepared to drive him
to San Sebastián. From there, with the greatest danger behind him, Charley would board a train to Bilbao, where further plans
would be finalized at the British consulate.
With Charley easily keeping pace and Miguel alert against followers, Dodo led them through a little-used pass and started
traversing a side-slope to the west. They stopped once for water, a few splashes of Izarra that had been cached in a cairn
near the pass, and some bread that Dodo carried in his pack.
“To calm the stormy seas,” Dodo whispered to Miguel as he tossed the first small piece off toward the rocks. Miguel nodded.
It was a time to respect all superstitions.
Miguel stiffened, motioning for Charley and Dodo to be still. All held their breath. Within a few moments, Dodo heard the
muffled bell, too. A herd was bedded down somewhere nearby and a bell ram had repositioned.
“Sheep,” Dodo whispered. “It’s okay.”
Charley hadn’t heard a thing; in fact, he’d barely heard Dodo speak. He hadn’t been aware of it until now, but it was apparent
that the hours near his Blenheim engines had damaged his hearing.
They moved on. This route, it seemed, had been a good decision, and the extra walking to the east of the area that had been
most heavily patrolled had been worth the effort. But the real test always came at the river, and Dodo had planned to cross
some six or seven miles upstream of Béhobie. There the slope was gentle and protected by woods on the French side, and although
there were guard stations at intervals on the Spanish shore, bends in the river created gaps in the lines of sight at some
places.
Since no German patrols had been seen and they were still well protected by the night, Dodo hoped to have time to probe the
north bank to find the best combination of cover from Spanish spotlights alongside the most manageable water.
The width of the river was not as grave a concern to him as the speed of the current and depth of the water. Although the
river rocks were slippery and unstable, if the men were able to maintain their footing, it was much easier to wade a greater
distance than to have to swim in the current even a short way.
Now creeping with frequent long pauses as they reached the fl at terrain created by the flood basin, they passed directly
across the river from a large guard house. From that position, the three-sided porch commanded an arc of river that bent in
a crescent of several hundred yards. Spotlights made a deliberate scan of the water and the three dropped fl at.
Ahead, the river curved back away from the guard house, and Dodo indicated the crossing point. Charley had tired now, and
his right leg throbbed from the exertion. The weeks of inactivity in the attic had drained him of stamina. The sight of the
water reenergized him, though, and when Dodo stopped and gestured toward the river, Charley realized that he was no more than
thirty yards from Spain.
Dodo evaluated the terrain. A gently sloping rock shore extended out of the forest on the French side. As the river, over
centuries, had eroded rocks on the outside of the arc and accumulated detritus on the inside, it had cut deeper toward the
opposite shore. The bank was steeper on that side and thick with wild roses and horsetails. It would be a difficult climb,
but at least it was sheltered from sight.
Dodo pulled them together and they knelt in a three-sided pack, arms on each other’s shoulders.
“It won’t do any good to follow too closely; you’ll have to pick your own way in the same general direction,” Dodo told Charley.
“Take small steps. Feel for the next rock with your feet before you change your weight. Try to stay as low in the water as
you can. You’ll naturally angle downstream with the current. That’s fine, but try not to go too far around that bend. We’ll
gather once we all get up the other slope.”
Charley listened hard and felt as he had when he first began soloing in the Tiger Moth, so excited that it seemed almost possible
to fly without the plane. He slotted the information in his organized mind: Small steps, feel each rock. Stay low. You can
do this.
“Same order . . . go slowly,” Dodo said. “Wait until I get near that large rock in the middle and then start.”
Dodo was soundless, his rope-soled shoes conforming to the surface of the tumbled rocks along the shore as he kept his eyes
turned toward the guard house upstream. As Dodo slipped into the river, Charley watched his pace and his path, and saw how
the current grabbed at his pant legs and how he moved slowly and half-bowed at the waist, as all little boys had learned to
do while trying to sneak up on a friend in the schoolyard. The extruding rock near the middle and slightly downstream was
the limit of clear vision in the darkness, and when Dodo faded from sight, Charley stepped out exactly as he’d been instructed.
The current was stronger than he had expected, and it nearly sucked him off the slippery rocks when he was only ankle-deep.
Small steps . . . smaller steps, he thought. He envisioned flying against a strong crosswind and banked his body upstream
to try to counter his drift. By the time he was waist-deep, Charley knew his right leg was losing strength against the drag
of the current. Every time he lifted his left leg to inch forward, the right threatened to surrender and release him to the
river.
His analytical mind sought a better method: short steps with the left leg, long ones with the right, turn upstream and shuffle
sideways with the strongest leg doing most of the support. Several times he slipped forward onto his hands, with the water
deep enough for his head to go under before he could get upright and regain balance. The dunks into the cold rushing water
stole his breath, and he gasped when he surfaced, dizzy now from the exertion and lack of air, and from the pain shooting
up his right leg.
The Spanish spotlight broke its cycle of regular scanning and turned its beam in their direction. Miguel, ready to enter the
water, backed slowly into the trees, waiting for the light to pass.
Nearing the opposite bank, Dodo heard barking from the downstream arc, on the French shore. The curve of the river that shielded
them from the Spanish exposed them on the French side. The barking could be a shepherd’s dog or one belonging to a farmer.
But it could be a German patrol.
Dodo waved Charley back, but he was weak against the current, and his path had already taken him downstream. He fell into
an unseen pool, and when he surfaced, splashing and sputtering, search lanterns stretched wrinkled streamers across the river.
They scanned the darkness just as the tentacles of antiaircraft lights had groped the skies for his plane during night bombing
runs.
Charley went under again, and Miguel broke from the shore. Stumbling as far as he could into the current, he dove on the run
as he had so many times in Lekeitio while racing Dodo. He kicked and clawed at the water, but his hands cut through it without
effect. He could not cup the water and pull at it to power himself.
“I’ll get him,” Dodo shouted to Miguel. “Get yourself across.”
Having been trained in survival techniques, Charley didn’t panic and tried to guide himself to the south shore by kicking
and paddling as he bobbed.
Miguel flutter-kicked toward the large rock, where he could collect his balance and his breath as the noise of Charley and
Dodo pulled the scanning lights into focus on them. Several other dogs had joined in an escalating chorus of howls.
Dodo caught up to Charley, and both righted themselves as they floated almost even with the position of the patrols but within
mere yards of the Spanish shore. As Charley scrambled up the bank through the thick bushes, Dodo stopped on the rocky southern
shore and turned back upstream to help Miguel.
Bullets sprayed at the water, pinging off the rocks. A row of splashes raced up the river toward Dodo as he began to swim.
And then he was gone, dragged under by the current.
With the lights and attention focused on Dodo, Miguel kicked himself to the shore upstream. He scrambled up the slope, gathered
Charley down the shore, and climbed up the path above the bank in search of Dodo, hoping to find him already on the shore
and prepared to join them. But he hadn’t surfaced. He wasn’t along the bank or the path.
The weapons fire alerted the Spanish guards, and patrols set out on both sides of the river now. Miguel and Charley stopped
searching for Dodo and covered themselves. They made short advances and then hid for long periods, once ducking into a notch
in the rocks while guards searched within mere paces of them. Dodo was gone downriver—shot or drowned. There was nothing Miguel
could do except take over and get the pilot to Irun as planned. As well as Charley had kept up on the taxing path from Sare,
his resources were exhausted by the river crossing. He limped badly.
They needed to stay unseen, but they also had to gain distance to the west. With halting progress, they sneaked along the
edge of a road that occupied the first plateau of land above the riverbank all the way to Irun. Motor patrols cruised past
at irregular intervals, rarely separated by more than five minutes. Some stopped and combed the riverside in small squads,
often firing into the brush when movement was detected.
To cross the road and advance on the other side would provide level ground but no cover. It left them to fight through the
undergrowth and washouts along the edges of the slope down to the river and hope a patrol didn’t stop exactly where they hid
at the moment.
“We’re going nowhere like this,” Miguel told Charley. “And if we’re out here when it gets light, they’ll have no trouble spotting
us.”
Charley, out of breath, nodded.
“Let’s hide and rest until a patrol passes, then pick up as much ground as we can on the road until we hear the engines again
and then duck into the brush.”
Charley nodded again, willing but doubtful. And when the first truck passed, Charley advanced no more than ten paces along
the road before falling.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “Just go. I’ll find my way.”
Miguel saw lights on the road coming from the west and dragged Charley into a tangle of undergrowth. Unable to grasp his jacket
and pull him, Miguel had to throw both arms around his chest and lift.
“I don’t think I can keep going now; if we rest awhile I’ll be better . . . just a few minutes.”
“We don’t have the time,” Miguel said with enough force for Charley to understand.
The truck sputtered past, and while the exhaust fumes still clouded the air along the roadside, Miguel rose again.
“Stand up,” he demanded. Charley complied, wobbly in the attempt.
Miguel dipped his shoulder to Charley’s waist, folded him over his back, and lifted. With the flier on his shoulder, Miguel
clamped his arms around the back of Charley’s knees and set off on a staggering run along the roadside.
Within a few minutes, another droning truck engine was heard, and Miguel and his cargo dipped into the brush. Charley protested
the second time Miguel moved to lift him, but he knew they were making progress. He trusted Miguel’s strength and his judgment.
The cycles of hiding and running continued until Charley simply could no longer stand to be lifted.
Shortly before dawn, they found concealment among a tangle of windthrow beeches and collapsed. They’d made it no more than
two miles from their crossing point.
The fish returned to gnaw on Miguel’s hands; the old octopus from his bed in Lekeitio wound around his legs and squeezed them
so they ached. After a long while, the fish began laughing at him, spreading their huge lips to expose their rows of pointed
teeth. Laughing. Laughing. And then talking.
Arise, the fish yelled at him. Arise. At a sharp jab to his chest, Miguel opened his eyes.
A Guardia Civil officer, in his patent-leather tricorner hat and cape, held a rifle at his chest. He laughed and made an exaggerated
snoring sound.
Snoring? Miguel looked at Charley, who was being roused by another guard. They shook their heads, seeing the futility of escape.
How would he ever tell anyone that after the trip through the mountains and the crossing of the river and the loss of his
brother, they had been captured because they had been heard snoring in the bushes?
Miguel thought as quickly as he was able and claimed that they were a pair of shepherds who had been lost and disoriented
in the night, who started trying to swim across the river when they heard hounds chasing after them. Was there some problem?
Was there some law against sleeping near the river? That was legal in France. If there was a fine, they’d gladly pay it, even
though they were just shepherds who needed to sleep like anybody else.
The Spanish guards didn’t care if they were Charles de Gaulle and Marshal Pétain; they would be confined in the Irun jail
for two days, until Monday morning, when the Germans across the border would be notified. If the Germans had no need for them,
they’d be taken before a local judge. If the Germans wanted them turned over, well, what happened after that was nothing they
cared to know.
Guards shoved them into the back of an aged truck with a balky transmission, and they jerked and bucked to Irun. The old stone
jail there hid dirt-floored cells in the basement. Before stretching out on the floor, Miguel and Charley removed from their
pockets the still-wet photos of their families and laid them flat on a dry rock ledge at the back of the cell. Side by side.
Neither had been ruined, but the backing was soggy and the corners were more frayed than they had been.
“What now?” Charley asked, removing his borrowed beret and running a hand through his black hair.
“We wait. See if they believe us. If we go before a judge you can just tell them who you are and demand to see someone from
the British consulate.”
“Is that possible?”
“If they get here before the Germans, yes.”
“I could be free?”
“Yes . . . maybe . . . the Spanish aren’t at war with you.”
“What about you?”
Miguel had known of captured helpers who had been shipped away, presumably to concentration camps. Others who had been found
guilty of minor violations had been added to the rolls of forced labor conscripts.
“Maybe the consul gets me free, too,” Miguel said. He saw no point in elaborating on his future for Charley. He might as well
be left to envision the best possible outcome.
The day, a Saturday, was surprisingly pleasant for Charley. His fatigue and the possibility of a release to the consul allowed
him to rest and sleep well.
If he were to face time in a Spanish prison, Miguel could deal with it. What was left to give up? But the loss of Dodo broke
his spirit. Maybe he had made it downstream and away from the patrols, or maybe he had been captured and was in a jail somewhere
else. But the way he disappeared did not suggest it.
The months in Saint-Jean-de-Luz and in the mountains with Dodo had been healing for him. Dodo, with his enthusiasm and infectious
playfulness, had helped him gain distance from Guernica. They’d been drunk together again. They’d talked of Lekeitio and family,
and even of the future. Miguel wanted to stay with them awhile, to see the thing out to the end, to help in the war, to be
with his brother, whom he liked more than ever. With maturity, and his relationship with Renée, Dodo had shed the contentiousness
that had sometimes made him difficult. Dodo had discovered his place, and he had been happier than Miguel had ever seen him.
Now? Who knew? Would Renée want him to stay? Why would she? Why would she want to be around someone who was such a magnet
for bad fortune? All had gone well with Dodo until he got there, Miguel realized.
“We used to swim to an island outside our harbor,” Miguel told Charley, feeling the need to speak of Dodo. “Dodo would do
anything to win. You’ve never seen anybody like him.”
“I saw him get us across the mountains and the river,” Charley said.
“Nobody had a greater hatred for injustice, even when we were little. He was always trying to take on a bully. He always had
more passion about what ever he was doing than anybody. Even if it was work, or fishing, or drinking . . . or chasing girls.
There’s no one like him.”
Miguel started laughing, interrupting his serious monologue. “It would drive you crazy sometimes,” he said. “If the fishing
was bad one day, he would try to convince you it was caused by the politics of the Spanish government. If a pretty girl looked
in his direction, he was certain she was dying for his love. If she didn’t want him, it was because she was a member of the
wrong party.”
Charley smiled at Miguel’s stories. With no siblings, he’d never experienced that kind of relationship. Maybe that’s good,
he thought; it saved him the pain that Miguel now suffered.
“Keep on,” Charley said. “Tell me more about him.”
“Well, it was never boring,” Miguel said, starting another story. “Life was a game to him . . .”
A few minutes after eight Sunday morning, the phone at the jailer’s desk echoed through the main-floor office. The sergeant
of the guards, in charge of the lightly manned Sunday shift, was called to the phone.
A few indecipherable words leaped at him from the receiver, sounding like the growl of a mean dog. Ah, a German officer, he
deduced. Then, in perfect Spanish, the officer began a lengthy excoriation of the guard.
“
Sí
. . .
sí
. . . ah . . .
sí
,” he tried to interject. He placed the handset down gently. “Shit.”
Gathering himself, the sergeant resumed his air of authority before entering the cell of the new prisoners.
He descended the cellar and opened the door, and with an underling at his side, he roused the prisoners. The sergeant could
not have weighed more than Annie, Charley thought. He had an arrowpoint hairline and a sapling neck that did not touch the
circumference of his buttoned collar at any point. He assumed a theatrical stance with his feet apart and his hands on his
hips.
“
Señors
, we have just heard from our friends in the Gestapo,” the sergeant said. “They have identified you as a famed Basque smuggler
known as ‘the Claw,’ and his escaping
anglais
flier. They have demanded you be given over to their custody for shipment to concentration camps. Details will arrive within
the hour. Make yourselves ready.”
He slammed the iron door and loudly turned the key in the lock.
The Claw? Miguel thought.
“They even know who we are,” Charley marveled. “Is there an informer?”
Miguel nodded. Apparently, but who?
Shortly after he returned to his office and applied more oil to his hair, the sergeant walked to the front door to await the
instructions he was warned were forthcoming. A black sedan with a red swastika pennant on each front fender skidded in the
dirt in front of the small jail. A soldier in a campaign cap was out the back door before the car had stopped moving. He raced
up the stairs, nearly striking the sergeant in the face with his Nazi salute, and handed over a sealed document. By the time
the sergeant looked up from the envelope, the sedan had sped away.
Under the eagle-and-swastika letterhead, the typed document read:
The two prisoners captured at the border are to be readied
for transport to San Sebastián, where they will be processed and
shipped to Berlin. You will deliver them into my custody at the
Irun train station. To reduce our profile at the station and eliminate
the chances of their compatriots making an escape attempt,
I will meet you on the platform for the train to San Sebastian at
13:00h. Purchase three tickets for the trip and deliver the prison-
ers shortly before the train is to depart. We can tolerate no mistakes.
Heil Hitler,
Major Wilhelm von Schnurr, SS
The sergeant rousted his two guards and arranged the timetable for the detail. They were to clean their weapons and polish
their boots. There would be no blunders, he warned them. They would leave immediately after taking their lunch, and they should
plan on being back in time for their Sunday siesta.
As inconspicuously as possible, Charles Swan examined the station, considering the geometry of the elements—the travelers,
the guards, the exits, the benches—as if they were pieces on a game board, searching for a means of escape. While Charley
considered clever ploys, Miguel sized up the two guards, wondering about the possibility of overpowering them and disappearing
off into the clusters of locals. The Sunday afternoon crowds were their best asset. Surely none of the civilians in the station
would move to halt anyone trying to escape from the Guardia Civil. The sergeant personally led the small detail and there
were only two guards. The prisoners were not shackled or cuffed, as that would be too conspicuous, but the guards’ two automatic
rifles served as a convincing tether.
Miguel acted as if he were stumbling and bumped one of the guards to gain their focus, hoping to give Charley the opportunity
to run if he saw an opening. But a rifle was turned to his face, and Charley froze. The crowds moved out of their way, not
seeing the point in becoming involved.
As no practical means of flight surfaced, the two were led onto the platform with fewer than five minutes remaining before
the departure time. Perhaps the train would offer an escape route, depending on how many would be guarding them.
The SS agent on the platform could not have been more obvious to the sergeant of the guards. He wore a black leather overcoat
that fell to his knees; the collar was pulled high so that it almost touched his black fedora with its brim pulled low.
The agent approached the guards as if they wouldn’t otherwise have been able to pick him out from among the civilians now
moving to board the train. He opened his coat to retrieve his identification and in the process revealed to the prisoners
a highly polished black Walther holster over his right hip. The leather holder for his papers was snapped open for the sergeant
of the guard, who examined the picture of the agent wearing the same threatening outfit. The guard offered a clumsy Nazi salute.
“Idiot . . . I’m trying not to attract attention,” the agent growled.
“
Perdone
,” he whispered back, looking around the platform.
The agent pulled back his coat once again to remind them of his weapon and led Miguel by the arm.
“Do you need help?” the sergeant asked. “Can you handle them by yourself?”
“Why would you think I’m alone, stupid?” The agent dismissed him with a glare and accepted the three tickets. Miguel and Charley
were led onto the train only moments before its gentle forward motion caused the couplings to clank successively down its
length.
Charley’s mind filled with options now, as he saw only one armed agent guarding both of them. He assumed the agent was flanked
by other undercover guards, as he suggested, but if they could overpower him and split, maybe they could jump from the train.
Surely they would have to make the move before the agent met with others in San Sebastián.
With his coat open so he could keep his hand on his holster, the agent led the two to a car that was not yet filled and motioned
for them to sit across from him in a pair of facing bench seats.
“I’m glad you’re well,” Miguel said to the agent.
The agent tilted his head up and removed his hat. Charley inhaled loudly. It was Dodo.
“What?” Charley started elbowing Miguel and leaned across and hugged Dodo. “How?” He laughed so loudly it echoed above the
rolling of the train.
“Once they started getting close with those bullets, I decided I’d be less of a target underwater and I swam as far as I could
that way,” Dodo explained. “When I found a spot downstream, I got out and collected some friends in Béhobie, who talked to
some friends in Irun, who discovered you were captured.”
“Where did you get the Gestapo gear?” Charley asked.
“What Gestapo gear?” Dodo laughed. “Anybody can wear a leather coat and dark hat.”
“What about the pistol?” Miguel asked.
“What pistol?”
“I saw it, the guards saw it.”
“No,” Dodo clarified. “They saw a shiny leather holster.” He took off his coat and flipped open the flap of the empty holster.
“We sent a letter to the guards that was typed on paper Renée’s mother stole from an officer. The black sedan belongs to a
helper in town. We even put a couple of swastika flags on the fenders. The Nazis gave them to Renée’s mother when she asked
for a couple she could put up at the hotel to dress the place up and make it more homey for the officers.”
“This is unbelievable,” Charley marveled. “You’re brilliant.”
“That’s not the best part,” Dodo said, grinning at his deviousness and eager to tell Santi Labourd about this.
“The best part?”
“Yes; the Spanish guards paid for our tickets.”
“To the Claw,” Dodo said, raising his glass at his apartment.
“The Claw!” Renée said, adding her toast and moving in to embrace Miguel and kiss him on the cheeks.
“All right, all right,” Miguel said, tipping his beret. “The real credit goes to Major von Schnurr here. I’d be in a prison
right now if I hadn’t been rescued by the Gestapo.”
“I’ll accept that,” Dodo said, clicking his heels and lifting his arm in a Nazi salute. “I looked good in black, didn’t I?
They never seemed to wonder why I spoke Spanish so well. Or why Major von Schnurr looked so similar to the soldier who delivered
the instructions.”
“All Gestapo look alike,” Renée said. “It is a fact.”
“All they saw was the outfit,” Dodo said. “All they heard was the tone of voice. They’re afraid to look too long at the Gestapo.”
“Mother will be happy to know that her Nazi collection was put to good use,” Renée said. “She’s been gathering up these things
for months.”
After the difficult river crossing, Charley Swan needed to rest a few days at a safe house in San Sebastián before he could
be driven to Bilbao. The friends who had supplied the black “Gestapo staff car” in Irun had shuttled Dodo and Miguel back
into France in a small skiff. The brothers had been back in Saint-Jean-de-Luz a day now. Renée prepared the celebration dinner.
They could hear the patrons drinking and singing downstairs at the Pub du Corsaire—their bar—which Dodo now proclaimed unfit
due to an infestation of German soldiers.