On Desperate Ground (23 page)

“The old Portuguese man, probably going to that hospital again by the direction he took. Follow him and see if that’s where he goes.” The second agent left without a word, thankful to be moving in the damp cold.
 

Senor Gonsaldes did walk directly to St. Ludwig’s Hospital. He smiled when he saw Sister Anneliese at the nurse’s station, his grin a message that everything was ready. She led him by the arm down a corridor and to Elsa’s office. Neither of them noticed the man who entered just seconds later, and sat in a waiting room chair to read a newspaper.
 

“Senor Gonsaldes, it is good to see you again,” Elsa said, rising from her desk and kissing him on the cheek. “How is your arm?”

“Better, and getting stronger. But that is not why I am here, Senorita. Everything is prepared.” Gonsaldes withdrew a packet from his inside coat pocket and laid it down on her desk. He opened it and shook out papers and two Portuguese passports.
 

“The DiGama sisters, Carlita and Consuela, were actually the daughters of our embassy gardener and his wife, another domestic. They were killed along with their mother in an unfortunate traffic accident in 1941. They were twelve and thirteen years old. I handled the return of the bodies to Portugal, but their passports remained in our files here.”

“So these are not forgeries?” Elsa asked.

“No, except that I took the photos you gave me and replaced the originals with them. The passports clearly show that these children entered Germany with their parents in 1939, when they were ten and eleven years old. The ages match well with your two girls.”

“God took those two unfortunate girls so he could save two others,” Sister Anneliese whispered sadly.
 

“They are safe in heaven, Sister,” Senor Gonsaldes replied. “Now let us bring Leah and Sarah safely into Portugal.”

“Are you leaving, Senor?”

“No, not quite yet. I will send my housekeeper and secretary home with the two girls. There are letters here showing that they were employed by the embassy as domestics after their mother was killed in an air raid in 1943.”

“When will they leave?”

“Tonight. There is a Portuguese freighter docked in Hamburg. They will take a train out of Berlin this evening and reach Hamburg in the morning. The freighter leaves as soon as they get there. It will only wait until noon, so it must be now. It is supposed to snow tonight all across northern Germany, so hopefully the bombings will not be a problem.” Gonsaldes felt excited and scared, but not nervous. He felt the danger, but he also felt more alive than he had in years.

“You’ve thought of everything, Senor!” Elsa said with feeling.
 

“Everything but yourself,” Sister Anneliese said, “how will you get out?”

“My government has just ordered me to close down the consulate and return home. The staff departing is a natural first step. I am sending them out via the freighter because it will be less dangerous to board a train in Berlin for a destination within Germany. And once they are on board the ship, they are on neutral territory and cannot be touched. I will fly to Switzerland once I know they have boarded, and then onto Portugal, where I will await them.”

“Forgive me asking, Senor Gonsaldes, but do you trust your staff?”

“I don’t blame you for asking, but do not worry yourselves. My housekeeper is a family servant, as well as my personal secretary. They both live on my family estate and are trusted employees, almost part of the family.”

“What will happen to the girls once they arrive in Portugal?” asked Elsa.

“I know several prominent Jewish families in Braga. There is a small community of Jews there, and I am certain a family will take them in. If not, my family will care for them until they are old enough themselves.”

Sister Anneliese’s eyes brimmed with tears as she folded her hands in prayer. “Bless you, Father, for sending this man to deliver your children.” She looked up and saw Senor Gonsaldes beaming with pleasure and excitement and a tear trickling down Elsa’s cheek. “Now enough of this bawling,” she announced in her best head nurse tone, “we have work to do. Let’s get those children ready!”

“My secretary and housekeeper will be here in the embassy car at 1700. We have just enough petrol left for a drive to the train station. The car has diplomatic license plates, so there should be no problem getting through. Now, I must go.”

Gonsaldes looked at both of them sadly.

“I will not return here again. There is no reason to draw any suspicion to either of you should anything go wrong. After this war is over, if you are ever in need of any assistance, come to Barga and ask for the Gonsaldes family. You will not be turned away. God bless you both.”

Senor Gonsaldes left the hospital feeling an odd mixture of sadness and joy. He hated leaving those courageous women behind, but he also was overjoyed at the thought of seeing his warm, beautiful homeland again. When the Foreign Office found out about the passports, he would certainly be fired. A minor disgrace, the loss of a pension, these were a small price to pay for the honor of doing God’s work. Deep in thought, he never noticed the Gestapo agent trailing along behind him.

Later that afternoon, Senor Gonsaldes escorted his housekeeper down the stairs to the waiting embassy car. He shook hands with his secretary, a tall dark haired and mustachioed man in his late thirties.

“Take care of them, Pablo,” Gonsaldes whispered as they held each other’s grip. Pablo bowed his head, obedient but reluctant to leave the Senor behind. He gathered up the housekeeper’s bags and stowed them in the trunk of the car. Gonsaldes embraced the stout woman and smiled at her. “Soon you will be home!”

He waved as the car pulled away from the curb, then turned and walked upstairs to his office, to await word on their safe arrival. It would be a long night.
 

Across the street, a new set of eyes had taken over the second shift. He noted the departure of the secretary and housekeeper. Nothing unexpected, since many diplomatic personnel were leaving Berlin. It would all go into his report, as usual.
 

Senor Gonsaldes worked at his desk, going through his files. Most would be left in place, unimportant bureaucratic paperwork. He made two piles, one of sensitive documents that he would take down to the building’s furnace room and burn. A smaller pile of documents, reports he had recently written on the state of the Reich government, morale, and military reports, he would take with him in the diplomatic pouch. The work consumed him, taking his mind off the time as he waited for the phone call.
 

The phone rang, surprising him as he sorted through a file on German industrial output. He lifted the heavy black receiver as it rang a second time.

“Hallo. Portuguese Consulate here.”

“Excuse me, I am calling for
Herr
Fischer?”

“You must have the wrong number. This is Senor Gonsaldes, the Portuguese Consul.”

“I am sorry…Goodbye.” The line went dead. Gonsaldes put the receiver down with a smile. Pablo had asked for Fischer, which meant that all was well; they were boarding the train with the girls.
Herr
Fuchs would have meant there was a problem and they were returning,
Herr
Hoffmann a more serious problem and they were leaving without the girls. No call at all would have meant disaster.

Gonsaldes continued to work, finishing near midnight. He lifted the box of files to be burned and carried it down to the basement. The coal fire was low, but hot. He opened the door and threw in the cardboard box. It blazed in the oven, and Gonsaldes felt warm at last.
In a few days at most, the sun over Braga will be warming me!

Very tired now that his work was done, he pulled himself slowly up the stairs. He walked through his office to the small apartment he lived in. He walked to the window and watched the snow starting to fall. There was not a star visible in the sky.
Good, a safe journey and no death from the sky tonight.
He was glad for the fliers and the civilians. There had been enough death and destruction. The war was winding down, and somehow he found death even more offensive now that the end was almost here. He also admitted to himself, perhaps selfishly, that he would be glad to get an uninterrupted night’s sleep. He left the connecting door to his office open, so he could hear the telephone or the door. He fell asleep within minutes.

Gonsaldes awoke at dawn, feeling instantly nervous. His heart was pounding. What if they didn’t make it? The relief he had felt last night at their boarding the train was now gone, replaced by a fear that they wouldn’t make it to the ship. So many things could go wrong. He went through the motions of washing and dressing, and ate a meager breakfast of bread and cheese. And waited.
 

The morning passed slowly, and Gonsaldes realized that he felt very lonely. He was the last of his countrymen in Germany. He bowed his head in prayer, begging for strength. And waited some more. An hour later, there was a sharp knock at the door. It startled him, and as he got up he felt dizzy and sweat broke out on his forehead. He steadied himself for a moment, and the rapping on the door continued, while at the same time the person outside tried to open the door, which was locked.

“
Herr
Gonsaldes?”

“Yes, yes, I am coming.” He shuffled to the door, unlocked and opened it. A young boy, in a messenger’s uniform from the telegraph office, stood outside his door.
 

“Telegraph for
Herr
Gonsaldes, sign here.”

He signed, and gave the boy a mark as a tip. “Thank you, sir!” he said, smiling, as he raced off to his next delivery.

“No, young man, thank you!” Senor Gonsaldes said, scanning the telegram. “And thank God!” He read it again to be sure.

TO: ANTONIO JOAQUIM GONSALDES, PORTUGUESE CONSUL, BERLIN

FROM: CAPTAIN MARTINO ALVEREZ, PORTUGUESE FREIGHTER LISBOA

FULL CARGO RECEIVED INTACT AND ON BOARD THIS MORNING. DEPARTING IMMEDIATELY.

ALVEREZ, 0930

14 MARCH 1945.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

6 April 1945

First Army Headquarters

Spa, Belgium

There are some pleasures to Army life
, thought Mack Mackenzie as he relaxed in the solarium of the chateau that served as General Hodge’s headquarters for First Army.
But not for the GIs out there.
He shook his head ruefully as he looked out the window at the wet, cold, and gray landscape. He shivered, cold as if he were in it.

“More coffee, sir?”

Mack jumped in his seat, startled by the voice. He laid his hand palm down on the table to steady himself. He took a deep breath and answered, wishing the time would come when the slightest sound didn’t send his heart racing.

“Yes, please.”

The orderly poured a hot stream of delicious-smelling coffee from a silver serving pot into a fine china cup at Mack’s table. The chateau’s solarium served as the breakfast mess for senior First Army staff. Normally, a Captain would not be invited, but as a SHAEF officer Mack was granted certain privileges. Class A uniform was required, but today Mack didn’t mind. After a week at the front crawling through mud, spending nights on patrol, and days interrogating sullen POWs, he was glad to be back at HQ, with its comfortable beds and hot food. He had looked forward to wearing clean socks, polished dress shoes, and his London-tailored short Eisenhower jacket. He sipped his third cup of coffee, having finished a fine breakfast of real eggs, bacon, and warm bread. There had been a time when he would have reveled in the luxury, as would any sane man who had been at the front. Instead, he felt empty and guilty, the comfort and fine food as unsatisfying as a drink of warm water in August.

He had brought back the Recce Platoon with him for a rest. They were billeted in a large farmhouse about a mile forward of HQ. They didn’t have these comforts, but they were away from the front, dry, and had ample food. Drink, he was sure, they would find themselves.
 

Mack watched the sky clearing. It had rained all morning, but the clouds were breaking up as patches of sunlight tried to break through.
Could be a beautiful spring day
, Mack thought.
Be nice for those poor slobs out on the line.
He sighed, drank some more coffee, and picked up a copy of Stars and Stripes from the table and leafed through it. The bridge at Remagen was big news, but Mack knew the engineers were racing against time to keep it from collapsing. He also knew something that the Stars and Stripes would never print, that Ike himself had ordered the Remagen bridgehead to be expanded no more than 10 miles, in order to save resources to support Montgomery’s drive in the north.
Can’t afford to upset Monty’s big battle plans, just because we got across the Rhine before him!

Mack read a while longer, glanced at his watch, and then reluctantly left for his desk, knowing he had a lot of work ahead of him. He was here to attend a meeting of all the First Army divisional G-2 officers at 1400 hours. He planned to spend the morning reviewing intelligence reports that had accumulated since he had been at the front. At the meeting, he would listen to each division’s intelligence officer summarize his perception of the enemy’s strength and intentions along his section of the front. For all the self-importance of the senior officers here and their self-assured air, Mack reminded himself that these were the same guys who missed the German build-up before the Bulge, right under their own noses. He doubted they would have anything new, but he would ask them again about Germans taking GI uniforms and weapons, and code names that had to do with chess.
Tough day at the office,
he thought.