‘Kein Problem, mein Freund. The borders are sealed and if they’re attempting to get them out through the docks, we’ll intercept them.’
‘Danke, Adolf. Much appreciated.’ Von Heißen hung up the phone, satisfied the Weizman children would soon be back behind Mauthausen’s walls.
Ramona lay naked on a stainless-steel gurney outside the pressure chamber. She shivered violently in the cold, unable to move. Black metal cuffs bit into her ankles and wrists, and behind her a series of leads attached to her body were connected to a machine. Fear for her children tore at her very being.
‘As soon as you’ve recorded its temperature and blood pressure, have it placed in the chamber,’ Doctor Richtoff ordered his assistant, a lanky pale-faced medical student in his early twenties.
‘Jawohl, Herr Doktor.’
Von Heißen, together with Hauptsturmführer Brandt, stood at one of the observation windows. Two orderlies wheeled the gurney into the chamber and Brandt ran his eyes over Ramona’s naked form. For a woman in her forties, she was in good condition, he thought. The doctor joined them in the observation booth. ‘How long do you think she’ll last, Doktor?’ he asked.
Richtoff shrugged his shoulders. ‘Hard to tell. This one looks pretty fit, but unfortunately we don’t have much data on females, so we’ll have to wait and see.’ Richtoff picked up a small microphone at the side of the observation window.
‘Ready ?’
‘Ja, Herr Doktor,’ his assistant answered, his reply strangely muffled by the intercom. ‘Temperature 99.9. Blood pressure 160 over 115 and heart rate 110.’
‘So,’ Richtoff observed, ‘the specimen is running a fever and the blood pressure and heart rate are up. This may not take long, but we’ll see.’ He pressed a red button and a purple light started to flash above the steel door of the pressure chamber. The two orderlies and Richtoff’s assistant evacuated the chamber, and one of them spun a silver-spoked wheel, sealing the chamber bulkhead.
‘Achtung! Achtung! Wir beginnen!’
The Turkish captain of the coal carrier Wilhelm Kohler, Mustafa Gökoğlan, reached for a frayed cord just above his head. Three mournful blasts reverberated through the mist surrounding the docks. Gökoğlan looked out of his wheelhouse and waved the gangplank and mooring ropes away. He’d been reluctant to take on the human cargo, but he understood the language of money. Now that the twenty-one Jewish children were crammed into four cabins below decks, he was impatient to get away. The rest of his cargo manifest wouldn’t stand too much scrutiny by the authorities either, and he was wary of the German soldiers on the docks. He leaned out of the wheelhouse. ‘Let go for’ard!’ The dockworker loosened the heavy hawser from its bollard. Gökoğlan took a sip from a battered mug of steaming coffee, grasped the smooth, brass handle of the telegraph and rang for ‘slow ahead’. ‘Let go aft!’
Three decks below, the Wilhelm Kohler’s wiry little engineer, a Kurd by the name of Hozan Barzani, wiped his dark brow with some oily cotton waste and reached for the old silver throttle wheel. He opened it gently and steam hissed into the Penn and Company triple-expansion steam engine. Barzani opened it a little further and more high-pressure steam shot into the first and smallest of the old cylinders, expanding into a second and then a third, each piston larger than the first to adjust for the progressive loss of pressure. The old engine towered over Hozan, and the worn big-end bearings on the one-metre-long connecting rods protested as the great pistons slowly gathered momentum.
‘Son of a bitch!’ Barzani swore in Kurdish. He’d been arguing with his obstinate captain for months, but to no avail. Not only were the con-rod bearings worn, but the bearings that held the drive shaft in place were dangerously overdue for maintenance and the lubricating oil was leaking badly, causing the bearings to overheat. Sailing the great river was not without its dangers, especially at night, but Barzani had been told that once they left the Romanian delta, they would cross the Black Sea and enter the Bosphorus Strait: fourteen nautical miles of twisting, turning waterway where thick fog could reduce visibility to a few hundred metres; where ships coming in the opposite direction were obscured by sharp turns. In places the straits were only a few hundred metres wide. When they reached Istanbul, ferries and other small craft would add to the hazards. From there Barzani had been told they were sailing for Palestine.
‘Your father’s a dog!’ he swore, shaking his fist at the rusted deck above his head. It was madness.
Clouds of black smoke belched from the Wilhelm Kohler’s funnel, and the old tramp steamer moved away from the dockside and out into the Danube. Gökoğlan sipped his coffee, oblivious both to the insults being hurled at him from below decks and the sirens gathering in the distance.
The dark, dank cabin to the aft of the steamer smelled of rotting canvas and fuel oil. As the deck vibrated beneath her feet, Rebekkah felt as if she might be sick, and she reached for her brother’s hand.
‘I’m scared, Ariel.’
‘We’ll be all right, Rebekkah … I promise.’
Hauptsturmführer Brandt peered through the observation window at the pressure chamber. The specimen appeared to be crying, but other than that, it was all fairly boring. ‘Not much happening, Doktor?’ the young SS captain remarked, a note of disappointment in his voice.
Richtoff grunted. ‘There won’t be for a while. First we have to reduce the temperature to zero degrees centigrade and pressure to one atmosphere – what we call standard temperature and pressure, which replicates sea level. Under those conditions, our specimen would still take quite a while to die from the cold, but the pressure is dropping now, simulating altitude.’ A large red needle on the pressure gauge started to quiver and slowly wound back over the black gradations that marked the millimetres of mercury.
Von Heißen watched the needle on the temperature gauge plunge past zero. He was still seething over the children’s escape, but his connections with Himmler were well known in the Reich and he was confident the Gestapo would soon recapture the escapees. The borders were sealed and the docks in Vienna would be thoroughly checked, as would the shipping schedules and arrivals in Istanbul.
Ramona stared uncomprehendingly through her tears at the frost forming on the large pipes above her head, and she shivered violently on the bare steel gurney. Her head ached and every so often a razored needle seemed to pierce her wrists. Death would be a merciful escape, but she knew she had to hold on. The children were without their father now and they would need her; but it was becoming more difficult to breathe and she could feel her pulse quickening. Another bolt of pain burst through her brain and she gritted her teeth.
‘Twenty thousand feet,’ Richtoff observed. ‘This one is tougher than I thought.’
Hauptsturmführer Brandt nodded, his eyes riveted on the barometric pressure gauge. The experiment had been running for nearly twenty minutes and the red needle was falling more steadily now. The height equivalents were clearly marked in feet: 20 000 … 21 000 … 22 000 …
‘It’s twitching,’ Brandt observed as the falling pressure simulated 23 000 feet.
‘Much tougher than I thought,’ Richtoff observed. ‘Pulse is now 180. It’s amazing how hard the heart can work before it collapses. See how its head wiggles. Even at this temperature it’s perspiring.’
Ramona fought desperately for breath as violent cramps racked her body. ‘My children. My children,’ she gasped.
‘I think it’s finally unconscious,’ Richtoff remarked casually. ‘The breathing is slowing dramatically.’
‘And there’s frothing at the mouth,’ Hauptsturmführer Brandt observed excitedly.
Richtoff turned to his assistant. ‘Make a note of severe cyanosis.’ The circulation of de-oxygenated blood had turned Ramona’s face a deep blue.
‘And now the breathing has stopped,’ Richtoff observed. Five minutes later he turned to von Heißen. ‘It’s dead, but quite an amazing specimen. Nearly 25 000 feet … I can’t recall one lasting for so long at that altitude, let alone a fe
male. The autopsy will hopefully provide us with some more data.’
‘Good. Let Hans here know if there’s anything else you need.’ Von Heißen headed back to his office where two immediate cables were waiting for him. The first was from Alberto Felici, indicating that he would shortly be travelling to Istanbul on Vatican business. The second was from Adolf Eichmann, indicating the Weizman children were believed to be on a tramp steamer bound for the Bosphorus, and giving him authority to liaise directly with the German Defence Attaché in Istanbul.
Von Heißen buzzed for his adjutant. This time there must be no mistake, he mused, vowing to see to it personally.
‘Herr Kommandant?’
‘Make arrangements for me to leave for Istanbul on the first flight out of Vienna tomorrow, and get this cable off to the Vatican,’ he commanded, handing Brandt his reply to Felici, suggesting they meet at the Pera Palas Hotel in Istanbul.
18
THE WILHELM KOHLER
Hungry, cold and traumatised, Ariel and Rebekkah huddled underneath the Wilhelm Kohler’s wheelhouse. Further aft, some of the other children had sought shelter in the lee of the starboard wing. The rusty deck beneath their feet vibrated to the steady thump-thump-thump of the coal-steamer’s engine. The rain sheeted in from the south across the Black Sea, but the cold air was far preferable to the fumes of the cabin. From the pocket where he kept his father’s maps, Ariel carefully extracted a dry biscuit he’d saved from breakfast and broke it in two. As he passed half to Rebekkah, shouting broke out on the bridge above them.
‘For three months I’ve been telling you the main bearings are too hot! Always you want full speed, but if you keep it up, they will seize!’ Barzani’s black eyes blazed with anger. It was a battle that was as old as the steam engine itself. For Barzani, the overheated bearings spelled disaster. For the stubborn old Turk on the bridge, any slackening in the ship’s speed meant a bad-tempered owner and no bonus.
‘I’m the captain of this ship, mister, and you’ll follow orders. Maintain full revolutions!’
Barzani stormed off the bridge, his dirty overalls unbuttoned to his waist, sweat running down his dark, hairy chest.
‘Son of a bitch,’ he muttered as he clambered down the engine-room companionway. The thumping pistons, hissing steam and roar of the furnace were deafening, but amongst the cacophony, he sensed another noise. Like a great orchestral conductor detecting that an oboe was flat by a fraction of a tone, in amongst the thunderous cranking of the Wilhelm Kohler’s machinery, the engineer had picked up a slight knocking. Aft of the great engine, a single gleaming drive shaft ran the length of the keel, encased by semicircular bearing caps the size of a small car. Barzani checked the blackened steam gauges above the furnace and reached for his battered oilcan. He headed aft, stooping to fit through the cramped bulkheads that enclosed the pulsing drive shaft. He reached the first of the massive bearing caps and felt it. It was hot – far too hot. Barzani injected just the right amount of oil into the filler cup on top of the thumping case. He stopped to shake his fist at the deck above him. ‘Pic! Bastard!’ he swore, and he headed along the shaft towards the next bearing.
The Wilhelm Kohler reached the entrance to the Bosphorus late in the afternoon. The Strait of Istanbul, Mustafa Gökoğlan knew, was one of the most dangerous waterways in the world. Sixteen headlands had to be negotiated along the seventeen nautical miles, and a surface current ran south from the Black Sea to the Marmara; but because of the different salt concentrations between the two seas, a second, deeper current ran in the opposite direction. Gökoğlan alternately puffed on his pipe and sipped from coffee laced with raki, the powerful white spirit the Turks called aslant sütü, lion’s milk.
‘See, Ariel: a fishing village,’ Rebekkah said, pointing to their first sight of land since they’d left the Danube. The Wilhelm Kohler was less than 300 metres from the shoreline. Small, brightly coloured wooden fishing boats rocked in front of the fish market at Rumeli Kavagi. The rain had eased, and on the ridgeline behind the market, they could see houses beneath the plane trees. Further along, the ridgeline was dominated by a huge castle. The fishing villages on the European side gradually gave way to turreted wooden mansions; while on the Asian shore opposite, one of the former Sultans’ many summer palaces commanded the top of a steep hill.
A thick fog began to roll in from the south. Gökoğlan yanked defiantly on the dirty length of rope hanging from the rusted roof of the bridge. Three short bursts of steam issued from the Wilhelm Kohler’s funnel as the foghorn sounded an eerie warning, one that was immediately absorbed by the mists. In defiance of the speed restrictions, Gökoğlan maintained course towards the Kandilli Turn, the notorious Bosphorus promontory that required a forty-five-degree change of course. Any ships heading south were blind to traffic going in the opposite direction. He peered into the gathering darkness, searching for the promontory he’d already passed, and the Wilhelm Kohler crossed into the northbound shipping lane.
Five deep blasts from a ship’s horn, the international distress signal for an imminent collision, reverberated through the fog. A large Russian freighter loomed out of the mists.
Gökoğlan swore and wrenched the telegraph to emergency full astern.
In the engine room below Barzani leapt to the reciprocating lever and immediately brought the great engine to a stop in a cloud of hissing steam and protesting pistons. Just as quickly, he applied full throttle in the opposite direction. Whatever the engineer’s views of his stubborn and irascible captain, Barzani was responding to a fundamental law of the sea. Above the thunderous noise in the engine room, the frenzied dinging on the telegraph meant the ship was in danger. Barzani watched the con rods slowly gather speed. On the bridge above Gökoğlan frantically spun the Wilhelm Kohler’s wheel to starboard, but as the huge Penn and Company engine reached maximum revolutions, the overheated bearing caps finally reached their limits. The number one bearing-case seized and shattered in an explosion of sparks. Freed of one of its supports, the glistening silver main shaft began to flex violently. Barzani rushed towards the reciprocating lever but he was too late. The shaft snapped just for’ard of the shattered bearing casing. Clear of the load of the propeller, the old engine reached revolutions for which it had never been designed. The little end-bearing in the number one cylinder was the next to fail, driving the con rod through the crown of the massive piston. The number two and three pistons shattered in sympathy and the engine disintegrated in an explosion of metal shrapnel. A lump of red-hot metal decapitated Barzani in a bloodied mist of escaping steam.
The Russian freighter hit the Wilhelm Kohler midway between the bridge and the stern on the starboard side. She sliced into the rusted plates in a grinding, sickening crunch. Rebekkah was knocked unconscious as her head slammed into one of the steel bulkheads. Ariel held his sister’s limp body with one hand and clung desperately to a stanchion with the other.
The Russian captain immediately ordered full astern and ever so slowly, steel grating and screeching against steel, the Russian freighter freed herself from the Wilhelm Kohler’s grasp. Tons of icy water flooded the aft coal bunkers and the Wilhelm Kohler listed alarmingly to starboard, the sea foaming through the connecting bulkhead doors that had been left open.
‘Launch the lifeboat!’ Gökoğlan bellowed. One of the deckhands struggled with the ropes on the starboard lifeboat, but to no avail. Mustafa Gökoğlan hadn’t conducted a lifeboat drill in years, and the pulleys in the davits were rusted solid. Gökoğlan fled the bridge to the fiercely listing deck below.
‘Launch it!’ he roared, swinging on the ropes, but the small wooden boat hung drunkenly from the davits. The Wilhelm Kohler shuddered and rolled past forty-five degrees, throwing Ariel and Rebekkah, along with those children not trapped below decks, into the icy sea.
Ariel spluttered and coughed up sea water as he surfaced a short distance from the stricken coal steamer. ‘Rebekkah! Rebekkah!’ he yelled, frantically searching for his sister in the dark, oily wa
ters.
19
ISTANBUL
Alberto Felici leaned forward in the worn but comfortable armchair in Archbishop Roncalli’s book-lined study in the Vatican Embassy on Ölçek Sokak.
‘The Cardinal Secretary of State is sympathetic to the plight of any people who are oppressed, Excellency; but you must realise there are greater issues at play here than the fate of the Jews,’ he insisted.
‘I’d be interested to know what you might consider a greater issue than the lives of children,’ Roncalli replied stonily. ‘Hitler and the Third Reich represent a grave threat to world peace.’
‘That’s not a view shared by Cardinal Pacelli, Excellency. He believes Communism poses a far greater threat to the Holy Church than Hitler. And,’ Felici added pointedly, ‘with the Holy Father now gravely ill, Cardinal Pacelli may well be next to fill the Shoes of the Fisherman.’
‘That will be a matter for the next conclave. It is poor taste, don’t you think, Signor, to be discussing the next Pope before the current one is dead?’ Roncalli’s dislike for the Italian banker-turned-papal envoy grew by the minute. ‘In the meantime Istanbul will remain one of the main escape routes for the Jews. The Nazis have stripped them of everything they have, and I need more funds to help them. But more importantly Rome must understand that the Nazis are committing mass murder. Instead of sending Hitler congratulatory birthday telegrams, Cardinal Pacelli should be urging the Holy Father to condemn this massacre in the strongest possible terms. If the Vatican won’t condemn genocide, what hope do we have?’
‘You don’t seem to understand, Excellency —’ Felici’s protestations were cut off by the strident ringing of the phone on Roncalli’s desk.
‘Angelo Roncalli.’ The archbishop leaned forward into the Bakelite mouthpiece.
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