As the Nazi pilot surged past the second peak, he waggled his wings and vanished.
He had signaled the alpine soldiers that someone was on the neighboring peak and climbing down toward the border. Probably unable to determine just who was on the mountain and not wanting to pour machine-gun fire accidentally into his own troops, the Me 109 pilot had simply tagged the three men. The white uniforms of Nazi alpine soldiers and their shiny ski goggles flashed in the strengthening sunlight.
Emil began to move faster in small but quick steps through the snow and loose rocks. Behind him Arthur and Cleaver stumbled, keeping on their feet and fighting to make sure not to lose sight of the guide. Several sharp rocks tore through the beaten leather soles of Arthur’s shoes, but his feet were so swollen and numb that he barely felt the gashes. Every brutal step now to the bottom of the mountain and to the Spanish border was a race against highly trained soldiers with sturdy, fur-lined mountain boots and sniper rifles.
At one point roughly halfway down, the gap between the two mountains dwindled to just five hundred yards, close enough that Arthur, Cleaver, and Emil could see the small silhouettes of their pursuers. Several of the Germans paused, slid their long-range Mauser rifles from their waterproof shoulder sheaths, knelt, squinted through telescopic lenses, and aimed the barrels across the divide. The trio dove onto the trail just as the sharp cracks of the Mausers echoed in the rarefied air.
The bullets whistled across the gap, slammed against the granite walls beneath the three men, and ricocheted with grating whines below. For the moment the three men lay just out of the effective range of the Germans, who needed to close the distance by perhaps a hundred yards in order to pick off their targets. The guide crawled into a small opening that led to a trail shielded from the attackers by a curve of the wall. Cleaver and Arthur crept on their bellies right behind him as another Mauser volley slammed into the rock below them.
As the sun rose ever higher, the three men snaked down one of the tightest, sheerest paths they had encountered on the journey. Emil’s familiarity with every inch of the terrain was keeping them out of the Germans’ sight and range for the present, but at some point, the rarely used hiking trail would inevitably turn back toward the middle of the peak and put them back in eyeshot of the soldiers. Equally disturbing was the possibility that the alpine troops were simply heading down the adjacent slope in order to reach the bottom first and cut off the escape route.
With roughly two thousand feet of mountain left, Emil had no choice but to lead them back on a hiking trail within sight of the Germans again. It was the only route down.
Instead of a half-dozen German soldiers moving single file down a trail on the opposite slope, there were at least three or four times that number. If Arthur or Cleaver expected a barbed-wire fence with sentry posts along the border, they were relieved to see that only a few signs marked the crossing from France to Spain. A swift-flowing river raced along the border, and an uncovered bridge carried travelers from one country to the other.
Of course, the two escapees had no reason to believe that the absence of a fence would stop the Germans from pursuing them past the boundary. The only certainty for the American and the Englishman lay in their need to reach the border bridge ahead of the Nazis and hope for the best. They and their guide had to get there first or not at all.
They could no longer worry about falling. They slipped, stumbled, and slid down the final trail in a spray of snow, cracking twigs, and rocks that tore their clothes and their flesh. Whenever the trail proved too steep for them to stay upright or even dip into a crouch, they slid along on their rear ends or crawled across the rocks. The three men’s sole thought was to keep pushing forward. Across the divide, the Germans were also moving as fast as they could, staggering, too, but their footing aided by their boots.
His breaths coming in gasps and pants, his heart pumping so fast that he was afraid it would literally burst, Arthur scrambled closer and closer to the bottom behind Cleaver and Emil. Somehow, Emil led his two men at least a hundred yards closer to the bottom than the Germans, but as he, Arthur, and Cleaver lurched closer to the Spanish border, the Germans were closing fast.
While most of the soldiers tottered down the slope, several again knelt on one knee, braced their long-range Mausers against their shoulders, and took their bearings through their sniper lenses. The rifles barked just as the three men nearly toppled down the last few yards of the mountain. Bullets slammed into an ancient tree in front of them and a stinging spray of splinters and sheared-off bark cut their faces and hands. All three staggered, recovered their balance, and ran with their last reserves of strength and adrenaline the few hundred yards toward the bridge. The shots whizzed just a few inches above their heads. The Germans finally had the range.
As the half-dozen snipers readied their second volley, the rest of the alpine troops pursued the three men. Cleaver wrote that the Germans “were moving fast down a trail on the far side of a ravine to cut us off at the border bridge across a deep chasm. We did not need our guide’s muttered exhortations to prod us to expend our remaining energy to reach that bridge before the Germans.”
Cleaver continued: “Our guide was relentless, pushing us far past what either Meyerowitz or I could have imagined as our physical limits.
“As we finally neared the border, matters worsened quickly. We got there ahead of the Germans but several aimed their long-range rifles at us. I was certain our end was here.” 1
Arthur, Cleaver, and the guide pounded across the rough wooden planks of the bridge and crossed into Spain.
More than a dozen German soldiers had stopped running toward them and were arrayed in a loose semicircle, pondering whether to cross the bridge and seize the three men or shoot them on the spot.
One of the Nazis bellowed curses at them, placed his Mauser to his shoulder, and pointed it at them. Arthur and the others figured they were finished. After all they had gone through, their lives would end in Spain.
“We crossed less than a hundred and fifty meters ahead of them,” Cleaver wrote. “Why they did not cut us down, I will never understand.” 2
In all likelihood, the snipers who had opened up a minute or two earlier had held their fire as their comrades chased the escapees to the bridge. Still, as Cleaver wrote, why the Germans did not finish off the three men would always remain a mystery. Perhaps because the alpine troops were not SS or Gestapo, some semblance of human decency made them hesitate.
The likeliest reason was that the crossing was patrolled by heavily armed Spanish partisans who could appear with lightning speed and seemingly out of nowhere. They despised the Nazis as much as they did Franco, and on numerous occasions, tore apart German soldiers who crossed onto Spanish soil in pursuit of escapees from France.
The Germans did move right up to the other side of the bridge. Then, an officer who had to be wary that he and his men might already be in the gunsights of partisans concealed in several stands of trees and brush beyond the bridge shouted an order. The soldiers formed a double line and marched back toward the mountains. Like Cleaver, Arthur would never understand why the Germans, so relentless in his long months in France, simply turned around and left.
A new set of dangers faced them, however, and Arthur and Cleaver understood the necessity of safe houses even in “neutral” Spain. With Spain crawling with Nazi and Allied agents alike, the Germans would be sure to try and make a grab for the two escapees.
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In Toulouse, Marcel Taillandier did not yet know whether Arthur and Cleaver had survived the first leg of their escape. The leader of Morhange had suffered a devastating blow on June 2, the very day that the American and the Englishman made their break for the border. One of Taillandier’s most important lieutenants, Achille Viadieu, whom Arthur had met at 96, boulevard Deltour, had been unmasked by the Gestapo.
The thirty-three-year-old Viadieu,
on Taillandier’s orders, had tricked the Germans and Vichy police into believing that he was a staunch collaborator. He so won the enemy’s trust that he was appointed the regional director of the RNP, an ultra-Fascist and collaborationist unit that wore black uniforms similar to the Gestapo. Several times on Paillole’s orders, Viadieu had assassinated notorious traitors in Toulouse.
Paillole wrote: “The enemy had just figured out that Viadieu . . . had been a penetration agent of French counterespionage for the past two years.” 3
Two Gestapo agents walked up to Viadieu and shot him down in the center of Toulouse.
Taillandier had moved Arthur and Cleaver out of Toulouse just in time. Through torture and murder, the Gestapo was closing in on Morhange and other Resistance units. Three-quarters of all Resistance fighters who would die during the war fell from June to August 1944. Viadieu was one of the first of Morhange to be executed in that time frame. He would not be the last.
CHAPTER 26
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STRANDED
Arthur and Cleaver fell in step with Emil. Continuing eastward, he brought them deeper into the Spanish province of Catalonia, across a wide-open plain eventually leading to stands of fig trees and one vineyard after another. They skirted a two-lane highway that cut between the vineyards and the foothills that edged the plain. Occasionally, cars and clattering farm trucks piled with hay passed along the highway, but not once did a military vehicle of any sort appear. To the northeast, the now-muted drone and muffled growl of Nazi scout and fighter planes grew even fainter.
For the first time in three days, the sun’s warmth beat down from a dark blue sky and on Arthur, whose frostbitten fingers and toes alternately ached or went numb. Sweating, he removed his overcoat, slipped his pistol into a trouser pocket, and slung the coat over his shoulder. He was exhausted, hurting from head to toe. Still, the realization that every step farther from the border heightened his chance for escape and for freedom drove him onward.
Emil kept them walking between rows of grapevines and trees. Flowers bloomed everywhere, turning the landscape into a carpet of myriad, almost dizzying colors, a stark contrast to the snow and barren rocks of the mountains.
After an hour or so, Emil turned toward the highway and pointed to several gnarled fig trees flanking the roadway. Attuned by now to every hand signal and gesture from the Frenchman, Arthur and Cleaver understood that he wanted them to wait. They sat behind the trees, screened from the highway by the trunks and by the twisted strands of Catalan grapevines. Emil crouched just off the road, watching and waiting for something or someone.
Glad for the chance to rest, Arthur and Cleaver waited, too. Soon a nondescript old car with a dusty windshield slowed down and pulled off the road a few feet away from Emil. He rose from his crouch and approached the vehicle. As the front passenger window rolled down, he leaned in and began to converse with the driver.
Emil stepped away from the window and waved in the direction of the American and the Englishman. Struggling to get to their feet again, their legs wobbly and twitching from spasms, Arthur and Cleaver leaned against each other to steady themselves. After a few moments, they limped over to the car.
When Emil opened the rear passenger-side door, the two eased themselves into the worn, ripped backseat. Emil slid in alongside them. The car slipped back onto the road and headed off at a leisurely pace.
Emil, pointing forward, looked at Arthur and Cleaver and said one word: “Figueres.”
The driver, in a beret and with a shirt whose sleeves were rolled up to reveal thick, heavily veined forearms, did not say anything, but his nose was slightly twitching.
They all knew the reason for the man’s reaction. The American longed for a bath or shower, but was almost too tired to care or even notice the stench wafting from him and his companions, none of whom had seen soap or water for nearly four days and nights.
Less than an hour later, they reached the outskirts of a town and a gargantuan fortress that loomed from a dark ridge above the streets. Figueres had once been a picturesque blend of medieval and nineteenth-century buildings and homes. The town that greeted Arthur, however, was one battered by the Spanish Civil War.
The thick-walled castle, Sant Ferran, had served as the outpost where the region’s Republican forces had made their last stand against Franco’s Fascist army. With Stuka and Heinkel dive bombers supplied by the Nazis, Franco’s air force had gutted Figueres, which had once been a bustling town of forty thousand people. Only about half that number now remained among the ruins.
The car crawled down rubble-strewn streets and stopped in front of a stucco house whose tan walls were scorched but remained intact beneath a patched red-tile roof. The guide opened the car door and beckoned for Arthur and Cleaver to follow. From behind the scarred shutters of other houses in various states of disrepair, Arthur sensed people watching. It was a hangover from the ceaseless stress of collaborators everywhere he had turned in France. Weariness flooded Arthur’s thought and limbs, but he could not let down his guard, not even for a second.
Once they stepped inside the house, the guide quickly shut the door as the car drove off slowly. The first floor of the building was virtually empty, a few broken chairs on their sides and backs. Dense dust cloaked every inch of the house. A collapsed staircase had once led to the second floor. In one corner, an old cast-iron stove was shrouded by cobwebs.
The guide walked over to the far wall, faced the front door, unslung his carbine, and sat down with the weapon cradled in his lap. Arthur and Cleaver sat down and leaned back against a sidewall.
Half dozing but still alert, Arthur was suddenly startled by several short, sharp raps on the door.
A small man who looked like a clerk in his white shirt, dark tie, and black pants entered with a much larger man in a beret and a leather jacket.
The man in the tie introduced himself to Arthur and Cleaver as “Louis—Louis petit. I am a courier for Marcel.”
He walked over to the guide and stretched out his hand. Then he asked, “Do you have something for me?”
Emil reached into his pocket and pulled out an envelope. Louis opened it and, in English for Arthur and Cleaver, said, “It says that the ‘Marcel and Jeno party has arrived in Figueres.’”
Another set of knocks alarmed Arthur and Cleaver. They relaxed as Louis opened the door to let in two more men, both also wearing berets and leather jackets. The pair also carried large canvas satchels packed with food and a few bottles of wine. There was no mistaking the bulge of revolvers in both men’s jacket pockets.
Inclining his thumb at the two newcomers, Louis said, “I will take this note to the British consulate in Barcelona. These two men will remain with you until I make arrangements for you to leave here.
“You are not to leave this house. Stay away from the shutters and do not open the door for anyone—my men know who to let in.” 1
Louis departed as quickly as he had arrived. Emil went with him, offering a wave and a smile to the two men he had led over the mountains, two more of the many he had taken this way before.
Arthur and Cleaver remained in the house for the next two nights, resting, recuperating from the harrowing trek across the mountains. They needed to sleep, to prepare themselves emotionally as well as physically for the next leg of the escape. Once again, all they could do was to wait for a knock on the door.
Arthur and Cleaver drank a little of the dark red, robust wine and munched soft cheese, bread, and olives from the satchels; they were eating a meal in an unoccupied nation for the first time in months. “Neutral Spain,” however, was far from being free.
CHAPTER 27
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GOOD-BYE, GEORGES LAMBERT
In June 1944, Arthur’s and Cleaver’s lives became a grueling waiting game. Their new guide, a dour middle-aged man named Miguel, returned to Figu
eres two days after their arrival to drive them the eighty-six miles to Barcelona, where Taillandier had made arrangements for an agent to meet them with new identification papers.
No longer would Arthur have to rely upon his “Georges Lambert” photo ID even though he still had it. No one had asked him to give it back. Escapees were usually required to return their IDs to their guides or the resistance groups so that the documents could be reused with different photos. With D-Day so close at hand, it is possible that neither Taillandier nor Emil believed it was necessary for Arthur to give back his ID.
In Spain, escaping airmen and pilots needed papers and a photo card with their actual names and citizenship on the documents. If the Spanish police or Civil Guard seized anyone with forged identification or none at all, they immediately arrested him. German agents tipped off by bribed Spanish officials were allowed to “identify” Allied airmen as “escaped criminals” and return them to Occupied France.
A Spaniard named Joan Garcia Rabascall who worked as an agent for the British consulate in Barcelona often had to rush to various prisons with papers identifying RAF escapees whom the Germans were about to seize. To the terrified airmen, he explained, “In this country the presence of these Germans is more legal than British consulate activities.” 1 Barcelona native Roberto Garcia handled the “extrication” of captured escapees for the American consulate in the city. Any man who required their help was in a dire situation, and many times the Gestapo had removed prisoners before Rabascall or Garcia could arrive.
Every mile between Figueres and Barcelona posed a threat to Arthur and Cleaver if they were caught without proper identification. Cleaver had no way to know that two of his crewmen had experienced this frightening predicament a month earlier.
Thanks to Cleaver’s decision to stay at the controls of the crippled Halifax in April, John Franklin and Ray Hindle had parachuted safely near Cognac and had been taken in and helped by the Resistance (not Morhange). Guides had taken them into Spain by crossing the Pyrénées above the Pont de Rei, farther west than Arthur and Cleaver’s route. In the Spanish town of Vielha, Franklin and Hindle—with no identification—were arrested by the Spanish Civil Guard and moved to the Seminari Vell prison, in Lleida, where German agents often plucked airmen from cells and shipped them back to France.
The Lost Airman Page 23