Artillery of Lies

by Derek Robinson

  Luis rolled on to his side, tucked up his legs and propped his head on his arm. It made him look as if he were making himself comfortable in readiness for an interesting story. “Trouble,” he said. “There’s a word I haven’t heard in a long time.” He was impressed by his own calmness. “Are you sure you don’t mean danger? I’m accustomed to being in danger.” His pulse was hammering like a jammed fire-alarm.

  “I know what I mean, and so do you.” Christian knew he shouldn’t be doing this; he had no authority to interrogate Eldorado; his job was simply to locate him and have him ready for Canaris. But having gone so far he couldn’t back off without losing face; and anyway Eldorado was his creation, he had a right to … Christian couldn’t define the right but he knew it existed. And he knew Eldorado had no right to be so damned off-hand, so insolent. It was time he got cut down to size. “What about Garlic?” he said. “How do you explain Garlic?”

  Luis shrugged. “Garlic is Garlic. What more is there to say?”

  “Garlic is Garlic” Christian found that very funny. “You couldn’t be more wrong, my foxy friend.” He laughed his way to the door. “Tell that to Admiral Canaris when he sees you. He enjoys a good joke.” The laugh became a cackle that faded as Christian departed. There was no humor in it, and this worried Luis more than Christian’s question. The man had changed since the old days in Madrid: his expression was tinged with strain, and Luis had glimpsed the odd flicker of desperation too. He stretched out on the sofa, one leg hooked over the back, and worried. Garlic is Garlic and that couldn’t be more wrong … If Garlic wasn’t Garlic, then what the hell was he? Luis bullied his brains and got nowhere. It was all meaningless. But not to Christian. Christian had said it meant trouble.

  Before dinner, each of the three heads of secret services met in private with his aides and advisers. In the case of the Abwehr it was a very small meeting. Canaris and Oster strolled on deck in the bows of the Barcelona. She was ambling along at four or five knots: enough to create a pleasant breeze.

  “It sounds as if you made an excellent presentation, sir,” Oster said. “I really don’t see how they can refuse.”

  “I do,” Canaris said.

  “A million lives spared? The Allies would have to be mass murderers not to seize the chance and—”

  “Please don’t talk about mass murder. Our hands are not particularly clean in that respect.” Oster was silenced. “Try and think of some other argument,” Canaris said.

  “Well … England must be close to bankruptcy. She’s spent her gold reserves, lost her overseas trade—mainly to the Americans. The sooner she stops fighting, the sooner she gets back on her feet.”

  “You can play that tune backward,” Canaris said. “England has spent all she’s got in order to win this war. She deserves her money’s-worth.”

  “Well, she’ll get it. The Allies will get all they want. We shall pull back our armies inside Germany and the Allies will liberate Europe at a stroke, without losing a man.”

  “Italy, France, Belgium, Holland, Denmark, Norway.”

  “Yes.”

  “Poland? France and England went to war over Poland.”

  “One step at a time, sir. Poland’s still part of the Eastern Front.”

  Canaris nodded, absently, and yawned. “Sorry … I’m not accustomed to this sea air. I wish to hell I knew what they’re thinking.”

  “They’re thinking they could get a lot of big medals for this.”

  Oster was wrong. Donovan’s group was busily telling him the whole thing was a can of worms. The likeliest explanation, they said, was that it was all an Abwehr conspiracy to create mistrust and dissension between the Western Allies and Russia. Start a good strong rumor about a separate peace and Stalin would get good and mad. Anyway, what guarantee did Canaris have that the Wehrmacht would obey a Resistance Government? You might kill or capture Hitler and find German armies refusing to surrender the countries they’d fought so hard to conquer. What then? And there were war crimes. Washington had recently issued a warning that the US government would take war crimes into account when it finally settled with Germany. Was that to be quietly forgotten after a ceasefire? War criminals weren’t likely to offer themselves up for trial. You’d have to go in and get them. It was a can of worms and a bag of nails. It wouldn’t hold water. Donovan listened and smiled. He enjoyed a good argument.

  In another part of the ship, Menzies’s aides were drinking Coca-Cola (a present from Donovan’s group, who had brought a couple of cases from the destroyer) and itemizing their objections to the plan.

  Top of the list: Germany was playing for time. She was on the ropes, getting walloped by Russia and pounded by Allied bombers; and all her fair-weather friends were starting to backslide: Hungary and Romania were looking for ways out and Spain was hedging its bets, which explained why Franco had provided the Barcelona as a neutral rendezvous. So this Abwehr proposal was a device to take the pressure off and win some time. “For what?” Menzies asked. Time to rebuild arms production, they said, time to disperse the new factories about the country where they’d be harder to hit, time to stockpile some oil, train up some pilots, but above all time to complete the secret rocket weapons that Hitler was developing on his Baltic coast.

  “But Canaris tells me that Hitler will be overthrown,” Menzies said. Of course he does, they said, but if the Abwehr removes Hitler on Monday and learns on Tuesday that they can start to devastate London whenever they like, do you seriously believe that they will feel bound by any agreement to a ceasefire? If you were a Nazi, and you could win the war in the west, or at least force an armistice, by breaking your word, what would you do?

  “Canaris says that all the Nazis will be in jail,” Menzies said. The jails aren’t big enough, his aides said. And another thing: if there is a ceasefire in the west, what will be the outcome in the east? Do we expect the full might of the German army to defeat Russia? Conquer Russia? “With any luck they’ll fight each other to a standstill,” Menzies said. His aides seized upon the word luck. Should we base a decision with vast strategic implications upon luck? What if the Wehrmacht has the luck and Germany ends up the master of Russia? Would we in the west feel safe? No, we damn well would not.

  “Don’t forget,” Menzies countered, “the Allies benefit immediately from a ceasefire. No more U-boats, for instance.” That’s true, they agreed. But is it a coincidence that Admiral Canaris makes his offer just when the German navy is suffering its worst U-boat losses ever? All summer we’ve been sinking U-boats at the rate of something like one a day. They’ve had to pull back their wolfpacks from our convoy routes. Just when they’re losing the game they want to change the rules. Well, well, well.

  “One million young lives saved,” Menzies said. “I don’t seem to have heard much about that.”

  Well, let’s analyze that aspect, they said. Leaving all political considerations aside, if the west agrees to a ceasefire, that leaves Russia to fight alone. Russia has been holding down two-thirds of the German army for two years now. One thing that’s kept Stalin going is the promise of a Second Front in the west. A Second Front will make Stalin’s job a lot easier. Now we suddenly tell him there ain’t gonna be no Second Front, Joe, and your job is gonna be a bloody sight harder! Uncle Joe won’t like that. Uncle Joe will feel betrayed, and quite right too.

  “Stalin can go to the devil,” Menzies said. “He betrayed us in 1939. If it hadn’t been for his pact with Hitler, Germany would never have invaded Poland.”

  That’s history, they said, but since you’ve raised the point, what’s to stop Russia and Germany agreeing to another pact? They kissed and made up in 1939. They can do it again, if it suits them.

  “We shall still have saved a million young lives,” Menzies said.

  And got what for it? A strong Germany and a strong Russia; both of them far stronger now than they were when they went to war. The worst possible deal for us. We haven’t won, and neither Fascism nor Communism has lost. What price a third worl
d war, just around the corner?

  The meetings broke up. Just before everyone went in to dinner, Menzies took Canaris aside for a word in private. “You needn’t pay too much attention to Donovan,” he said. “He doesn’t understand Europe; what American does? Frankly, he’s a cowboy, he sees the war as a wonderful chance to have lots of exciting adventures. Did you know he has a plan to use his OSS to restore Prince Otto of Hapsburg to the throne of Austro-Hungary?” Canaris did know, but he raised his eyebrows in polite amazement just the same. “Yes, I promise you,” Menzies said. “We have endless trouble with the OSS. If we support Tito’s Communist partisans in Yugoslavia, Donovan must back Mihailovich and his royalists. For a Republican, the man seems obsessed with kings. I wouldn’t be surprised if he has ambitions in that direction himself. Albania, perhaps.”

  “Isn’t General Donovan originally from Ireland?” Canaris asked. “Surely even the Albanians would not wish to have an Irish king?”

  “He’s a millionaire Irishman,” Menzies said gloomily. “That’s the worst kind.” He turned away, and then came back. “Not that there is a good kind, in my experience.” He left.

  Donovan had seen their discussion and he drifted unhurriedly toward Canaris.

  “Stewart’s a great guy, isn’t he?” he said. Canaris smiled his gentle sea-lion’s smile. “Brave,” Donovan said. “You know he got the MC, well, they were dished out with the rations in the last show. Right? Same on your side, I expect. But the DSO … I mean, that’s not a medal, that’s an Order, it comes straight from the King of England. Stewart’s got guts. Makes you wonder about genetics. Maybe the guy inherited a little … what shall we say? … gallantry. You know what I mean?”

  “I’m afraid I don’t,” said Canaris, who did.

  “Oh, come on.” Donovan took half a pace back to register his amiable disbelief. “Surely your people must have latched on to the rumor about Lady Holford? Stewart’s mother? And Edward the Seventh? Just look at that profile. I’m convinced there’s a resemblance …” They examined Menzies’s profile in silence for a moment. “I reckon it could explain a lot,” Donovan said. “Royal blood in his veins … brave as a lion … natural charm … happy on a horse … drinks like a king. No, make that an emperor … And I’ll tell you the most royal quality of all: he knows he isn’t clever. That’s very smart. Stewart doesn’t kid himself: half the time he doesn’t know what’s going on. So what? As long as he doesn’t show it, nobody’s likely to guess. And the best part is …” Donovan spread his arms in a gesture of helpless admiration, “… he gets away with it!”

  “Extraordinary.”

  Dinner was announced. Donovan went off; and Oster, who had been watching from a distance, came over to Canaris.

  “They hate each other,” Canaris said.

  “Well, we knew that. And I have to say, sir, that neither man strikes me as being highly intelligent.”

  “Correct. Which makes matters even more difficult.”

  “Then …” Oster hesitated, and asked the question anyway. “With respect, sir, why did you go to such trouble to meet them?”

  “Because Menzies has Churchill’s ear, just as Donovan has Roosevelt’s ear. Together, those ears form a unique and invaluable collection, wouldn’t you say?”

  “Donovan and Menzies are just messenger-boys?”

  “Not so loud,” Canaris said. “They think they’re gods, like us.”

  For a drunk, he had an awful lot of pencils in the breast pocket of his jacket. That was his major problem, all those pencils. He had other minor difficulties, such as his unbuttoned flies, and his shoes which were more like slippers because of the way his feet had crushed the backs, and the three big parcels wrapped in newspaper, and the hiccups that struck as unpredictably as earth tremors; but he could have managed all that and still shuffled steadily along the street if it hadn’t been for the pencils. They kept falling out.

  The trouble began with the parcels. With three to carry, he had to tuck one under his arm, and when it slipped and fell he couldn’t just pick it up because he still had a parcel in each hand, so he tucked one of those parcels under his left arm, bent down to pick up the fallen parcel, and all the pencils fell out of his top pocket.

  Julie Conroy sat in the back of her taxi and watched him put all the parcels on the ground and start to pick up the pencils. Behind him a flickering pink neon identified the Hotel Madeira. “This is it, huh?” she said.

  “Hotel Madeira,” the driver said.

  “I’m not even going to go in and ask them.”

  The drunk got all his pencils safely garaged in his top pocket, and stood up. A hiccup briefly ravaged him; then he was ready to go again. He stooped to pick up his parcels and the pencils cascaded everywhere.

  “Good floorshow,” Julie said. “How many more on your list?”

  “Three more. Hotel Cervantes, Hotel Goya, Villa Rosa Linda.”

  “Any better than this dump?”

  “Worse, I think.”

  The name on his license said Antonio Gomez. He was small and thin, and so was his mustache. He had been the only English-speaking taxi-driver at Santander station when Julie’s train pulled in just after 9 p.m. A couple of porters had seemed to recognize Luis’s photograph; at any rate they grinned a lot. They grinned even more when she tipped them. That’s the first rule in Spain when dealing with foreigners, Julie thought: Tell them what they want to hear. Then Gomez came over and asked if he could help. “I’m looking for this guy,” Julie said. “Take me to the best hotel in town. He should be there.”

  As they drove from the station, Gomez said: “You speak Spanish?”

  “Enough to get by.”

  “Here, they speak a dialect. Calabrian, it is called. Very difficult language.”

  “Terrific. Just what I don’t need.”

  “No problem. I translate for you.”

  He took her to the Hotel Marques de Salamanca. It was a rambling sprawl, and the linoleum curled round the edges of the lobby like overdone bacon. The man behind the desk had shaved, but not too recently. He didn’t recognize the photograph. “Ask him if anyone called Cabrillo has checked in,” Julie said. Gomez rattled off a question in Polish crossed with Cherokee. The man shook his head and showed them the register. No Cabrillo.

  The next-best hotel was the Princesa. Its linoleum had curled up and died: Julie’s shoes clicked on bare boards. The desk-man must have been clairvoyant: he shook his head and began making negative noises as soon as he saw Gomez. The photograph meant nothing to him, nor did the name. The Princesa had a distinctive atmosphere. Julie identified it on the way out. Cod. Boiled cod.

  The next-next-best hotel was the Bósforo. They knew Gomez, and didn’t seem too thrilled to see him, but not Luis. Julie looked around. “They wouldn’t recognize a bucket of soap and water if it walked in here,” she said.

  After that they called on the Mercator, the Santa Cruz and the Escorial, before they ended up outside the Hotel Madeira. The drunk had lost his pencils for the third time, while Julie tried to think what to do next. “He can’t have vanished,” she said wearily.

  “Perhaps your friend is staying with friends,” Gomez said.

  At last the drunk got all his parcels and pencils under control, and he climbed the steps of the Madeira. “That’s right, chum,” Julie said, “get your head down and sleep it off, you’ll feel worse tomorrow.”

  “I beg your pardon?” Gomez said.

  The drunk tottered into the hotel and, as if in a revolving door, was immediately flung out and went cartwheeling down the steps, all his possessions flying. A short, wide man in a collarless shirt came to the top of the steps and looked at the wreckage. When it sat up, he went back inside.

  “No, I don’t think that’s Luis’s kind of place,” Julie said. “Are you really telling me these are the best hotels in Santander?”

  “These are the only hotels in Santander,” Gomez said. “Because of the big fire.”

  “Let’s go back to square one,�
�� she said. He drove her to the Marques de Salamanca, and she took a room. She didn’t unpack. She sat on the bed and watched a fly go round and round the ceiling light, circling, circling, endlessly circling. “I know how you feel,” she said.

  After dinner, Canaris, Menzies and Donovan took their brandy and cigar into the adjacent cabin for another exchange of views on the Admiral’s plan. This time, each man was accompanied by one top aide, who made notes of the discussion.

  “War crimes,” Canaris said. “Should we perhaps talk about that and get it out of the way?” Donovan could not suppress a grunt of surprise. “So many of your people were talking about it at dinner,” Canaris said, “I thought …”

  “Sure. Go ahead.”

  “Simultaneously with the ceasefire we shall close and seal the borders of Germany. Our troops will be allowed in, of course, but nobody will be allowed out. Then, as soon as possible, a special military and legal force—staffed by your people and mine—will spread out …” here Canaris made circular, outgoing gestures, vaguely Pope-like, “… and scour and cleanse the whole country.” He turned to Menzies. “Is that correct? Scour and cleanse?”

  “Correct.” Menzies’s aide was whispering in his ear. “Good point,” Menzies said. “We think that some of the most serious war crimes happened in Poland,” he told Canaris.

  “By all means let the investigation include Poland. Please understand that our wish is to find and punish all war criminals.”

  “And Czechoslovakia?” Donovan said. “The sons-of-bitches who executed the entire population of Lidice because your man Heydrich got bumped off? Do we go after them?”

  “Certainly.”

  “There have been other Lidices,” Menzies said. “Some in Yugoslavia, many in Russia. Are you saying that our investigation of war crimes should include the Soviet Union?”