The White Schooner

by Antony Trew

  ‘By then he’d got a taste for money, and an obsession about the French Impressionists. He’d handled a number of their pictures which refugees had brought over.

  ‘But to acquire these required a lot more money than he had. Anyway, it seems that some time in 1942 he saw the possibility of getting rich quick, and without risk, by introducing a simple but important variation into the escape routine.

  ‘Gottwald’s work from the Zurich end was to meet an incoming motor-launch at varying but pre-determined points on the Swiss side of the lake, and transfer the refugees to his panel van. There they would sign documents appointing him sole agent for the disposal of their valuables, which they then handed over. This done, he would lock the doors and drive into Zurich by roundabout routes, dropping the refugees in outlying parts of the city. He had to vary the routes and points of disembarkation on each occasion so that no pattern was built up which might be detected by German agents. Then …’

  Manuela broke in. ‘What was this variation you spoke of? In the escape route, I mean?’

  The schooner trembled as the bow smacked into a sea and they heard the spray sluice over the deck above them.

  ‘Wind and sea increasing.’ Black’s red-rimmed eyes emphasised his weariness. ‘Now where was I? Oh, yes. The variation. After he’d met the launch, he’d put them in his van. There they’d sign the documents and hand over their valuables. Then he’d lock the van, but instead of driving into Zurich, he’d go to a point on the Swiss-German, or Swiss-Austrian border. He varied them. The distances were never great. He would tell the refugees that they were just outside Zurich, that they must follow a forest footpath he showed them which would lead them to a main road in a kilometre or so. He explained that these precautions were necessary for the safety of other refugees who would be using the escape route in future.

  ‘The refugees would set off up the path and soon run into the arms of a German border patrol which was expecting them.’

  Manuela shivered. ‘What a fiendish thing to do. But he was making money anyway. Why did he do it?’

  ‘Greed. Also, perhaps, some complex hate motive. He was a German Swiss.’

  ‘Why did he help in the beginning?’

  ‘Money, I suppose. He got a lot of money from the commissions. But the only way he could get the lot was to get rid of their owners. Once he’d done that it was easy.’

  Manuela brushed the hair away from her eyes. ‘How did the German border guards know the refugees were coming?’

  ‘Gottwald had a cousin in Bavaria. A man called Halsbach. Well placed in the middle echelons of the Nazi Party. Through him, Gottwald evolved this system for returning refugees. He even claimed out-of-pocket expenses for his services. This was probably done to keep from the Germans the real purpose of his activities.’

  ‘He must be like an animal,’ said Manuela.

  ‘You’re a bit hard on animals.’

  For a moment she watched him in silence. ‘I heard you say that he went back to South America in 1943.’

  Black ran his hands over his face as if to refresh himself. ‘God, I’m tired.’

  She was at once contrite. ‘Oh, Charles. How selfish of me. I will go. You must sleep.’

  ‘No. Don’t go. It does me good to get this out of my system. Anyway I would never sleep. This’ll help to pass the time.’

  ‘You mean until Rendezvous Gamma?’

  He looked up quickly. ‘You know that, too?’

  ‘Of course. Everything you discussed I could hear in the cabin.’

  ‘Lucky we didn’t get on to Helmut’s favourite subject.’

  ‘It might have been interesting.’ She tilted her head on one side, regarding him curiously. ‘Why don’t you people speak to each other in Hebrew?’

  ‘Two of us don’t speak it well. In any case when this operation began we had orders not to speak Hebrew at any time, in case we gave away our cover. English is the one language we all speak reasonably well. And it suits me. I am English.’

  She repeated an earlier question. ‘Why did Gottwald go to South America in 1943?’

  ‘Because that year the escape route dried up. Rosenthal disappeared, and Gottwald’s cousin in Bavaria sent word that the Jewish underground in Germany had got wind of the double-sell.

  ‘Gottwald left Switzerland for South America almost immediately. I expect he was terrified of reprisals. He took with him the pictures. You’ve seen many of them at Altomonte. A good part of that collection was built up during the war years. Either with the wealth he stole from refugees, or simply by keeping their pictures. Like my uncle’s Cézanne.

  ‘In the Argentine, he took the name “van Biljon” and had extensive plastic surgery. The idea was to simulate facial injuries and burns in an air crash.’

  Manuela said, ‘He certainly succeeded.’

  ‘Afterwards he moved from the Argentine to Peru, shifting to Brazil when the war ended. In 1949 he moved again, this time to the Paranà area of Brazil. Bormann, Mengele, Gluck and others were in those parts, and Gottwald evidently wanted to be near them. I expect it gave him a sense of security. But there is no evidence that he had any connection with them. From the start he chose the life of a recluse.

  ‘As it happened, his first serious mistake was to take the name of van Biljon, although he had good reason for doing this. But it provided the first, the essential, clue to his identity. He had been married before the 1939–45 war to a woman who came from a Transvaal family which had settled in the Argentine after the Boer War. In this way he had an intimate knowledge of the background he’d adopted.’

  ‘What happened to her?’

  ‘She died of leukemia in Zurich less than a year after their marriage. There were no children.’

  ‘I believe he adored children,’ she said. ‘Is it not strange?’

  ‘No. I understand this. He had to live with his conscience. We all do. He had sent many people to their death, some of them children. I imagine he thought in a twisted way that he could come to terms with himself if he gave happiness to children.’ Black pulled at his beard. ‘It is impossible to know what goes on in such a mind. Perhaps it also was that they gave him company, and were too young to menace him with awkward questions about the past.’

  ‘Tell me about yourself.’ She looked at him curiously. ‘What happened to you?’

  ‘I must get a drink,’ he said. ‘I’m getting hoarse. Something for you?’

  ‘A Coke or milk. Anything.’

  As Black stood up, Dimitrio flung into the saloon. ‘Quick! Aircraft flares astern,’ he shouted and ran back.

  After a moment’s hesitation, Manuela followed. As she emerged from the companionway into the wet windy darkness, she heard Black’s urgent shouted order, ‘Reverse course. Stop engines. Hoist sails,’ and she saw by the reflection of the compass light that he was at the wheel.

  There was a flurry of activity and the schooner’s bows came round until she was heading for Ibiza. The big diesels coughed to a stop and the hull vibrations ceased. Kamros came from the engine-compartment and lent a hand with the running gear.

  Halyards were run to the winches, sails hoisted, sheets slackened and the booms swung broad-off to catch the wind. Within minutes Snowgoose was under sail, moving slowly through the water, making the most of the wind from astern, her navigation lights burning.

  Fine on the starboard bow, Manuela saw a flare flicker faintly then go out, leaving behind a night which seemed blacker than ever. She heard Black say: ‘How many flares were there?’

  ‘Two,’ said Francois. ‘One about thirty seconds after the other.’

  ‘Could you hear the aircraft?’

  ‘No. At first I thought they might be distress signals. But they came down so slowly that I realised they were aircraft flares.’

  ‘Did they illuminate anything?’

  ‘Nothing that I could see. I reckon they were about eight to ten miles off, or we’d have heard the aircraft.’

  ‘Could be closer,’ said Bla
ck. ‘The wind’s carrying the sound away from us.’

  Helmut said, ‘Aircraft don’t drop flares over the sea unless they look for something.’

  ‘That,’ said Kamros, ‘is a fabulous deduction.’

  ‘Magnifique.’ Francois cleared his throat. ‘Deutschland über Alles.’

  ‘Shut up,’ said Black urgently. ‘And listen.’

  After that the only sounds were the slap and gurgle of water along the schooner’s side, and the creaking of running blocks and rigging.

  It was Dimitrio who heard it first. ‘On the port bow,’ he called.

  ‘What?’ snapped Black irritably.

  ‘Aircraft engines.’

  A moment later Black said, ‘Yes.’ What had at first seemed no more than a pulsing in the atmosphere, had grown in intensity to become a rhythmic pattern of sound somewhere out on the port bow.

  ‘Twin piston engines.’ Black’s voice was laconic. ‘I’ll stay at the wheel. The rest of you get under cover. If they drop a flare it’ll look odd if the cockpit’s stiff with bodies at three o’clock in the morning.’

  ‘Three-twenty-seven,’ corrected Helmut, calling back over his shoulder as he shepherded the others down the companionway, shutting the door after him and switching off the lights.

  There was a porthole in the door and through it Manuela watched Black’s bearded face and intense eyes lit by the dim lights of the compass binnacle. Like a bird of prey, she thought. He was watching the compass card, looking up occasionally at the sails and turning the wheel a few spokes at a time to correct the yaw. His calmness reassured her.

  In the darkness at the foot of the companionway, Manuela’s thoughts were of him and not of the unknown aircraft. He seemed to her now such a strong determined character, so different to the good natured, feckless yet attractive man she’d thought him to be. The puzzle that he’d represented, the apparent aimlessness of his life, the unpleasant feeling she’d had that he lived by his wits, perhaps as an art thief—fears which seemed to have been so amply confirmed by the earlier happenings of the night—all were now explained. It was as if she’d been granted a reprieve from a sentence the nature of which she’d not dared contemplate. She sensed that he was in love with her, and she felt a deep contentment. There were difficulties still. The business with Kyriakou must be finished. If Black wanted her then, she would begin a new life.

  She started, her thoughts interrupted by Helmut’s voice. ‘It is close now,’ he said. Through the skylight she heard the noise of engines growing louder, the pitch rising, passing overhead, then fading into the distance.

  Soon afterwards the cockpit lit up as if night had been turned into day. They couldn’t see the flares, but they knew they must be somewhere above the schooner, the parachutes descending slowly, the Snowgoose naked for all to see. They heard the aircraft pass overhead again, the noise of its engines this time so deafening that they knew it was flying low. Manuela, watching the cockpit, frightened and uncertain, sensed that something about the schooner was different. The external paintwork was no longer white but a bright blue, and the lifebuoy had Mistral and Monaco on it, not Snowgoose and Pirœus.

  She whispered to Helmut, ‘Aren’t we in the Snowgoose?’

  For a moment he was silent, then he saw the point. ‘Sure we are.’

  ‘But she was a white schooner. And the name?’

  ‘Paint,’ said Helmut gruffly. ‘Just paint.’

  The brilliance of the flares was fading, the cockpit looking like a stage with the lights going down. Darkness returned suddenly as if a switch had been thrown, and they heard the drone of the aircraft’s engines receding into the distance.

  Helmut opened the doghouse door and they went back to the cockpit.

  Black said, ‘They had a bloody good look. Came really low on that last run.’

  ‘What did you make of it?’ asked Francois.

  ‘Nothing. Couldn’t see a thing except the navigation lights. Might have been civil or military. Probably military. Must have had radar and flare-droppers. I don’t like the look of things. One—they’ve flown off in the direction of Ibiza. Two—they’re probably in radio touch with something seaborne, possibly Nordwind. If it’s her, she can do twenty-five knots to our sixteen. Depending upon where she is at this moment, it could be tricky.’

  Helmut was gruffly optimistic. ‘Is it not for them confusing? The blue hull and change of name? And that we are steering for Ibiza?’

  ‘That’s what we’ve got to hope,’ said Black. ‘But those changes are more effective in daylight than at night. Anyway, an aircraft flying that fast couldn’t read our name, flare or no flare. What they’re looking for is a staysail schooner, Bermuda rigged, about thirty-five tons displacement. And that’s what they’ve just found.’

  ‘There must be others much the same,’ said Kamros stolidly.

  Black ignored him. ‘We’ll stay on this course for another five minutes. Then, if there’s no sound of the aircraft returning, we’ll lower sails, start the diesels and get back on course for Rendezvous Gamma. We’ve lost valuable time and distance.’

  Manuela, looking out over the sea, thinking of the Nordwind, recalled the unsympathetic faces of Juan and Pedro, guns in hand, as they came into the gallery. She shivered.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Once again Snowgoose was heading for Africa, steering 138 degrees now to correct for the northerly drift she’d experienced while under sail. Helmut estimated that six miles had been lost in distance and about twenty-five minutes in time. Even with the extra revolutions from the diesels, the schooner was only logging fourteen knots in the freshening southerly wind. In the cockpit, the lamp under the chart-table screen reflected on the faces of Helmut and Black as they bent over the chart. Francois was at the wheel.

  Black tapped the chart with his pencil. ‘Check our distance from Rendezvous Gamma at daylight.’

  Helmut took the parallel rulers and dividers and checked the course and distance. ‘Thirty-six miles,’ he said.

  ‘Two and a half hours’ steaming.’ Black whistled. ‘No good. Daylight’s at six thirty-one. That means Gamma at about nine o’clock instead of eight-thirty. If there’s anything after us—and we must now assume there is—we’ll be steaming in daylight for two and a half hours. That’s not acceptable.’

  ‘Have we any option?’

  ‘We can try. Let’s plot a new rendezvous which we can reach half an hour after daylight. At 0700. Then we’ll ask ZID if Weissner can manage it.’

  Helmut went to work on the chart again. ‘Here it is,’ he said. ‘Twenty-eight miles west of Gamma. Fifty-eight miles due north of Pointe Shersel. That’s still in Algeria.’

  Black looked at the new position. ‘We’re adding to Weissner’s problems. I wonder if he can make it?’

  ‘You’re worrying about that aircraft.’

  ‘Too bloody right I am. They weren’t doing night flips for tourists.’

  Helmut regarded him thoughtfully. ‘The Spanish authorities wouldn’t assist if they knew who van Biljon was, would they?’

  ‘Probably not. But the protocol’s very dodgy. Until Weissner has rescued us on the high seas, Israel has no official knowledge of Gottwald. Officially he remains a wanted man, thought to be in South America, exact whereabouts unknown.

  The Israeli Government will have no part in abductions on other people’s territory. You know that. That’s why ours is a private venture. Why ZID’s a private organisation.’

  Francois called to them from the wheel. ‘After Weissner has picked us up, will the Spanish Government be informed immediately of the identity of van Biljon? Or will ZID wait for our arrival at Haifa?’

  ‘Haven’t a clue,’ said Black. ‘I can’t say. ZID must decide. Now. Quick! What’s the course and distance to the new rendezvous?’

  Helmut looked at the deck-watch and log repeater before plotting Snowgoose’s position. Then he drew the course line to Rendezvous Delta, rolled the parallel ruler on to the compass rose, and with the
dividers measured the distance against the latitude scale. ‘One-six-five degrees, fifty-nine miles.’

  Black went across to the compass. ‘Steer one-six-five.’

  Francois turned the wheel to starboard and steadied the schooner’s bows on the new course.

  When they had agreed the signal to ZID, reporting the searching aircraft and requesting the new rendezvous, Helmut went off to the radio cabin to transmit it. Black straightened up from the chart-table and yawned loudly. ‘I’m going along to the galley to see how Dimitrio’s getting on with that coffee.’

  ‘Have a rest,’ called Francois. ‘You’re not as young as you were.’

  ‘Go to hell,’ said Black, as he went down the companionway.

  Dimitrio came into the saloon unsteadily, balancing himself against the schooner’s pitching, and put the coffee and sandwiches inside the fiddles on the saloon table.

  Manuela poured two cups and put aside some sandwiches, and Dimitrio went off with the rest to the cockpit.

  ‘Why don’t you try to sleep?’ said Black. ‘It’s just after four. You can get a few hours still.’

  She shook her head. ‘Oh, no. It’s too stuffy and everything keeps jumping about. I would never sleep. I’m too excited. Have some coffee. It will chase away the tiredness.’ She passed him a cup. ‘Now tell me about Gottwald. And about what happened to you. Tell me,’ she said insistently.

  ‘Oh, it’s a hell of a long story. I could never tell it all.’

  She drew her legs on to the settee next to him, wedging herself against the edge of the table. ‘Tell me a little,’ she coaxed.

  He waved a sandwich at her, his mouth full, and pointed to his coffee cup. ‘First these.’

  Later he said, ‘In Brazil, Gottwald led the life of a recluse. Concentrated on looking after his investments and collecting pictures. He had a lot of money in South Africa and South America. On three occasions he visited South Africa. Partly to support his claim to Boer descent, partly to make investments. One of our most valuable clues came from a Johannesburg stockbroker.’