Munich Signature (60 page)

Halder and Canaris exchanged glances. Halder had heard enough. He sighed and shook his head. He had seen the plans of Hitler’s conquest of Europe. Every word the Führer uttered tonight was a lie. From the Czech borders, Poland would be next—then Russia, then France. Even England.

“There is a limit beyond which I cannot go. How right I was is proven first by the peaceful union of Austria with the Reich. Now we must confront this last problem to be solved. This is the last territorial demand I have to make in Europe, but it is also a demand on which I shall not yield. Herr Beneš refuses to withdraw from this territory. He refuses to give legal title to an area populated by racial Germans and being raped by the Czechs. The Germans want peace; the Slovak people want peace! This tyrant Beneš will rush us into war. This territory will come under German rule because it is essentially inhabited by Germans! The final boundaries, however, I will leave to a vote of the people there.
”

Canaris smiled bitterly. Such a vote of approval in Austria had been rigged from the beginning. It would be no different if Hitler took over the Sudetenland from the Czechs. How could the French and British leaders believe such words?

“I have now addressed a memorandum to the British government with this last and final German proposal. Territory that is racially German and wants to join Germany is to go with Germany.
”

The military men gathered in the room tonight knew what acceptance of such a proposal would mean to the nation of Czechoslovakia. If that mountainous region that defended the Czechs from Germany was simply handed over to Germany, then it would only be a matter of time before Hitler marched on to Prague. The defense lines of the Czechs were strong and impenetrable. To turn them over to Hitler would be pure suicide. Beneš would never consent. In his words tonight, Hitler had as much as declared war. Even Chamberlain must admit this now! British Treaty obligations would have to be recognized and conciliation abandoned.

General Beck had resigned his commission after he had explained that the Czech-Sudeten line of defense was too strong to break through without months of fighting. The Führer had scoffed at him and insisted that he would have Beneš served up on a plate the day after invasion.

Tonight’s speech was more reason then ever why Adolf Hitler would find himself in a cell by Saturday morning. In his cry to rescue the Sudeten-Germans, he was willing to sacrifice thousands of young German soldiers. These were facts that Halder would explain after the coup.

The tirade against Beneš continued for an hour and a half. By its end, the thousands in the Berlin Sportspalast were in a hysterical frenzy of hatred against the Czechs.

The conspirators sat beside the radio far into the night as they waited for the opinions of other world leaders to whisper back in answer to the howling. Their jaws set with determination, they strengthened their resolve that Hitler would not again stand before the microphone and shout his threats.

***

Shimon was grateful when two men came to relieve him at the boiler. Beneath the roaring of the winds, they could not hear his voice and so he nodded and demonstrated the method of loading the fire without spilling hot coals out of the furnace.

A pat on his back. His replacement mouthed the words: “Get some sleep.”

Shimon crawled toward the steel ladder leading to the passenger decks. The
Darien
rolled a full twenty-five degrees to starboard and thirty-degrees to port, sending men toppling over like dominoes. The pumps flailed uselessly as men clung to one another and struggled back to grasp the handles.

Shimon climbed three steps and then was tossed back, managing to hold on to the handrail with his left hand while the rest of his body twisted around. Aaron grasped Shimon’s leg and pulled himself up with the man’s help. The young man’s hands were bloody and raw from the hours on the pump. His features seemed frozen with the effort, like a runner pushing himself to finish the race.

Shimon emerged onto the passenger deck and reached back to pull the young man up after him. Together they sprawled on the pitching deck in exhaustion.

***

As Murphy paced the luxurious suite at Hotel Royale, he could feel the eyes of Timmons on him.

“Ah, Murph.” Timmons scowled. “I don’t know if I want to work for you. I mean . . . it’s been great working with you. I don’t know if I want to ruin our friendship.”

“I’m not asking you to marry me, Timmons!” Murphy roared. “I want you to go to work for the Trump European operations. I need a journalist in Munich.”

“But . . . I started as a sports writer.” Timmons thoughtfully probed his ear. “I’m no political reporter. Munich? You want me to cover Chamberlain and Daladier going to bed with Hitler and Mussolini? Huh? Cheating on Beneš in Prague?”

“Exactly!” Murphy exploded. “You can do it.”

“No.
You
can do it.”

“I
can’t
do it; that’s the point.” Murphy whirled around and picked up the sheaf of papers with the list of
Darien
passengers. “I can’t leave now, not until this is settled. I’ve got nearly eight hundred people in my hands.”

“Yeah, well, when the Big Four get finished with their hanky-panky, we’re going to have a few million more.”

“I need you to go to Munich for me. Go to work for me on this, Timmons. I can’t give you a raise, but at least you’ll know you’re working for a good, straight-thinking man like Trump instead of Craine.”

“Or Hearst,” Timmons concluded.

“This is the biggest story of betrayal since Judas kissed Jesus in Gethsemane. And I can’t leave. What do you say, Timmons?”

Timmons exhaled. His breath blew his tousled hair like feathers. “Yeah. I guess you’re right. You’re right.” He grimaced. “But you’re the only man I’d go back into Germany for. I’ve come to hate that place, Murphy. Really hate it.”

Murphy smiled. He was actually pulling together a team. Yesterday he had hired Johnson and sent him to cover Prague. The day before he had lured Phipps away from INS and had pulled together one of the best crews in London.

“Now all I have to do is get the rest of that million bucks, and we’ve got it made!”

***

Manuel Cabrillo studied Murphy with a doubtful look. “We cannot give you any more time, Señor.”

“Raising a million dollars takes time. The
Darien
is still north of Cuba. We can recall her when we get the money. Mr. Trump has personally donated several hundred thousand. There is another account that we have access to. But it is not nearly as much as you are asking for. We could put the money up as a bond, a guarantee—”

Cabrillo shook his head. “We have offered you our terms,” he said with an air of unconcern. “It is, of course, your responsibility to meet them. Or we simply cannot do business.”

“We are asking for a few days. That is all.”

“The government of Cuba is not prepared to extend our deadline.”

“These are
people
on this boat—”

“There are more where they come from, Señor.” Cabrillo smiled sarcastically. “You remind me of my sister. When we were small, a boy in our neighborhood kept snakes. He fed birds to his snakes, and my sister would buy the baby birds from him to keep them from being eaten. He would sell them, of course. She was a fool. The boy always had many more birds to feed his snakes, Señor. The snakes did not care which bird they ate.” He shook his head. “Yes. The Nazis have millions of birds. Why do you wish to save these?” He shrugged. “Why not the others?”

Snakes and birds. Nazis and Jews. A good comparison. “Because these are the ones I can help . . . maybe. They are on the shores of my homeland. And I don’t want—” He did not finish his thought that America was also full of snakes who would watch with cold eyes as the jaws of Nazi Germany opened wide and swallowed whole . . .

Cabrillo did not really care. His question had been purely rhetorical, as he must have asked his sister why she bought the baby birds. “I can do nothing more for you, Señor. If you do not have the money, then—” He shrugged. “You should save it up, however. Who knows how many more refugees will sail by your country, no?”

Was this it, then? Cabrillo was ending the negotiations? “Wait!” Murphy tried again as the little Cuban snatched his hat and moved for the door. “Wait.” He put a hand on the silk suit. He was begging. “Just a few days; we’ll get it.”

Cabrillo looked at the hand touching his suit. There was scorn in his eyes. “Perhaps another time, Señor. I have a train to catch, then a steamer back to my homeland.”

And that was the last of it. The end of options. Murphy had already sent feelers out to most of the Latin American countries. Nothing doing. Nobody was in the market for Jews. Nobody wanted Jews. Not even if you paid for them to take one little boatload.

Cabrillo retreated down the hall as Murphy sank onto the sofa with his head in his hands. What was left? Where could he turn? How could he look at himself in the mirror in the morning when the situation of the
Darien
grew more desperate each day?

***

The wind was up, hard and strong, as Trump left his Times Square office building. He held on to his hat and squinted up at the four-foot high letters that flashed the news:

VICTORY FOR
DARIEN
REFUGEES? . . . STATE DEPARTMENT MAY ISSUE QUOTA NUMBERS FOR 1940 .

It was only a partial victory, but it was something all the same. Those families onboard the
Darien
might be allowed into the United States in the quota of 1940. Two years from now. That guarantee might open the door for a temporary refuge somewhere else now that Cuba had refused.

The chauffeur held open the door of Trump’s automobile as he contemplated the news that now overshadowed everything else.

Since early morning there had been no communication from the wireless of the
Darien
. At every publishing outpost along the entire Atlantic seaboard, Trump had issued orders that all radio transmissions must be directed toward contacting the ship. There had been no luck.

Trump shoved his hat down hard on his head and ducked into the car. What would he tell Mrs. Rosenfelt today? She had not spoken since they had returned by plane from Miami. She had not seemed to hear when he told her about the protests and the thousands of letters that had swamped the offices of the secretary of state and President Roosevelt. She had not listened when he told her how the wife of the President had spoken out against the heartlessness of this policy.

What news could he offer her?
Rejoice; your family will be on a quota list for immigration two years from now.
Would she not reply that two years was a long time to wait for a woman of seventy-eight?

He must not let her know there had been no word from the
Darien
since last night, that they had been unable to contact the ship which was last reported a hundred miles out and directly in the path of the worst hurricane to hit New England in a hundred years.

With a sigh, Trump gritted his teeth. He would tell her only the first headline:

VICTORY FOR
DARIEN
REFUGEES.

***

Klaus crawled over the bodies of his shipmates toward where he knew Maria and the girls huddled. He had stopped thinking long ago about whom he would save. He had little hope now that anyone would live unless Captain Burton managed somehow to drive the
Darien
up on land very soon. One of the pumps had broken. The rolling of the ship made repair almost impossible, although a crew of men worked together to do so.

Klaus had never heard such noise—the wind, wailing like a million souls trapped in hell. A hundred miles an hour, Tucker had guessed. He had never been on seas so rough. But Captain Burton would see them through. He had turned the ship toward land. There would be no Coast Guard out now to stop them.

Maria reached out for him as he neared their corner. She grasped his soaking shirt. She pulled him against her, and only then did he notice that she was cold. Shivering. Teeth chattering. He laid his head against her, although the ship tried to roll him away.

“How much longer?” Maria shouted over the howling gale. “How long—the storm?”

He could not answer. They had survived twenty-eight hours thus far. How much longer could this listing hulk last? And if the
Darien
did indeed make it to a shoal, how could anyone escape this steel shell? Would the winds not tear them to pieces and the waves break each body on the rocks?

Klaus squeezed her arm in reply. There was not a sound from his children.
Trudy. Katrina. Gretchen. Louise. Little Israel
. Had he brought them here to end like this?

He then thought about the little coffin lashed to the deck like a figurehead.
Ada-Marie
. Perhaps soon they would all be together again. He hoped and prayed for the sake of his children that the terror would not last too long, that the pain of death would be over quickly.

40

Who Will Buy the Little Birds?

Elisa could not believe her ears. She wanted to snatch the pipe from Tedrick’s smug lips and throw it at him in frustration. “What do you mean ‘None of this is significant’?” She was almost shouting. She had carried the startling defiance of the German High Command across the Channel to this office, and now Tedrick was telling her a document presented to Hitler on the eve of his announced invasion was without significance.

“I am not making policy,” Tedrick said patronizingly. “The Prime Minister and the Cabinet make policy, and the policy is to prevent a war in Europe if possible!”