Munich Signature (64 page)

Up and up he climbed as the rain slashed sideways against him. Shimon thought of Leah now, and he wondered if Tucker had a family—wondered if the little man had any home besides this fickle, changing ocean.

Tucker reached up, grasping the cable to the radio. He carried it with him as he braced himself against the harsh gusts with each step.

Ten minutes of this precarious maneuvering finally placed him within reach of the severed antenna. He leaned in against the metal mast and carefully fastened his belt around a handhold, securing himself so that he could work with both hands without fear of being swept away. The
Darien
dipped first to one side and then the other, but First Mate Tucker remained in place.

Shimon watched the drama being played out so high above the decks where the motion must have been like the crack of a whip.

“YES, TUCKER!” Shimon shouted. “JUST LIKE YOU SAID.”

Lightning flashed in the distance, and the roar of thunder reverberated against the ship. Then the flash came nearer, fracturing the sky a quarter of a mile to starboard. As if to answer, the light danced to the port, and then—

The light and ear-shattering roar knocked Shimon and Burton from their feet. The wheel spun crazily out of control like the blade of a saw.

The ship bowed to port and then to starboard until Shimon could see the surface of the trough from the side window. Burton thrust out his foot to stop the spinning wheel. He was shouting. Shimon could not understand his words. The whole thing had taken only a matter of seconds, but the
Darien
had been lifted up and spun around a full ninety degrees.

It was a moment before Shimon looked up at the top of the mast. Tucker was still there, dangling from his belt. Was that smoke which surrounded his body, or only spray from the waves?

Burton saw his friend at the same instant. The captain’s face contorted again in rage and grief. “TUCK!” he shouted. Then he screamed something that Shimon could not understand.

The radioman remained on the floor, his eyes squeezed tight. It was hopeless. Hopeless without the antenna. He looked up at Captain Burton for help, then at Shimon. The radio. What were they to do without the radio?

***

The gray-haired proprietor of the bistro was sympathetic but firm. Elisa had sat alone for two and a half hours and Thomas had not come.

“Perhaps he has been delayed, mademoiselle?” The old woman placed a plate of tender veal before her. “You must eat, anyway. Whenever a man has stood me up I have said, ‘Ah, well,’ and I have eaten! And look at me now. A happy old woman, even alone.”

Elisa did not touch the wine. She knew that tonight of all nights she must remain clearheaded. She listened to the sad French love songs played by a girl with an accordion. She drank her coffee and waited with a sense of dread.

It was finished. These weeks of intrigue and anger had come to nothing. By morning the Nazi takeover of the Czech fortifications would be complete. She felt personally betrayed by Chamberlain and his British government. Her father had been betrayed; her mother and brothers; President Beneš. And now what would become of them?

She did not need to think very far for the answer. What had come upon Austria was now to come upon the Czechs. There would be a little time before Hitler broke his promise and marched from the Sudetenland into Prague, but it would not be more than a matter of months. Perhaps it would be time enough for Anna and Theo and her brothers to leave Prague. At least they had their papers. These senseless weeks had been good for that much.

It was nearly eight o’clock. Elisa decided she would not wait more than five more minutes. The concert at L’Opera would begin, and she would be late if she delayed much longer.

Something terrible must have happened for Thomas not to come. She hoped not. She prayed not. She would wait one more minute and then she would leave this charade forever. She would contact Tedrick and tell him she had failed. What difference did it make now if her cover was blown? What possible use was she now that the British government had collapsed before the dragonbreath of Hitler?

Elisa wanted only to find Leah, to embrace her friend and tell her that Shimon was alive! Alive on the
Darien
! This seemed to be the only bright thought in the absolute darkness she felt in her heart tonight. Chamberlain cried, “Peace, peace!” But there was no peace. The last stronghold had been given away by a single signature. She wanted to scream her frustration! How could they do this? Had everything she told them meant nothing? Hitler would have been in a Berlin jail tonight if only the British and the French had demanded that he fight for Czech soil! They were betrayed—not with a kiss, but with a signature in Munich. In her anger, Elisa could not find a fragment of fear for herself. She could only think that her part in all this was at an end.

For a moment she did not recognize the young woman who hailed her from the stone steps across the room. And then, as the girl made her way through tables of single men and eyed each one, Elisa remembered quite clearly the prostitute from le Panier Fleuri. She had once delivered a note to Thomas for Elisa. Now she had come at the request of Thomas for the same reason.

“Hello. You remember me, chéri? I took your note to Thomas. When you were first lovers, I think. Now he asks me to come meet you with this.” The breathless young woman slipped a note onto the table. “The end of things, if you ask me. How many men ask a girl like me to deliver a note to a mistress? If I was you, I would be very angry with him. But if this is the end of things, then—”

Elisa read the note. She felt herself grow pale.

Leave Paris now! Gestapo is very close on our heels. It is finished, my love. No regrets, please. We have done what is honorable. I love you.

“He told me you would pay me.” Suzanne smiled brightly. “He gave me twenty francs. I need at least that much, even though I am a little late.”

Elisa crammed the note into her handbag. She was suddenly afraid. Her hands trembled as she threw twenty francs on the table and rushed from the bistro. Suzanne finished off the untouched veal.

43

“
We Will Not Forget”

Shimon donned the oilskin coat, the cap and the precious life preserver. Captain Burton did not look at him as he thrust open the door and emerged onto the bridge. He held tightly to the rail as the gale opposed him. His hands were strong. Those hands had made thunder a thousand times, and now their strength would help him up the mast.

The coarse hemp of the lifelines did not cut through the callouses of his palms. He could climb the mast! He could climb it as he had once climbed the ladder above the stage at the Musikverein straight up fifty feet.

Would God flip His wrist and send the fire of His tympani to scorch the life from me?
Shimon wondered. He was afraid. He thought of Leah. He wondered where she was and what she would say when she heard about his death. Then he wondered if she would ever hear?

The wind wanted to flatten him, to pitch him off the back of the
Darien
like a horse throwing a rider. Shimon strained forward, looking up, past the limp body of Tucker. He would climb the mast that swayed above him like a giant cross. He lunged forward, grabbing the cold metal of the ladder. As slick as it was, how had Tucker kept from slipping? Water washed over him, and for a moment the
Darien
hung balancing on its side. Slowly, it yawed back upright, and Shimon strained closer to the lofty pole.

He shouted against the wind, unable to hear even his own voice. In the distance lightning flashed and flashed again. The rumble rolled over the waves. And Shimon prayed. He prayed to the God of his fathers; he asked for hands that would not slip, for the lightning to flash somewhere else.

Two hands on the rungs now, he reached upward and put his feet on the ladder. Tucker swung above him like a rag doll. Shimon looked up once.
So high!
He would not look again until he made it to the top. He would just climb this cross one rung at a time. He would take the wire and attach it as the meek little man in the wheelhouse had explained.

A fresh burst of saltwater exploded into his face, blinding him. He shook his head, trying to clear his vision. It did not matter. The water stung his face through his beard. The tempest whined with new fury as he moved up. Metal cables clanged like bells on the crosspiece. Tucker banged and spun above his head.

Halfway up, Shimon looked off the stern. He saw a flash of light.
Not lightning—a lighthouse!
“GOD!” he cried. “GOD, SAVE US!”

Yes, over the tops of the mountainous waves, a lighthouse! “GOD, SAVE US!” Shimon cried again, grasping the cable of the antenna. Then, “GOD, HELP ME!” Tucker’s boots banged against his head. Shimon would have to climb over the body of the dead man. “HELP ME!” he screamed, and the winds carried his voice away. He pushed the dead man to one side. He hung on with one hand as he groped for the buckle that held Tucker to the mast. He pulled. It held and the body swung, smashing against Shimon. His foot slipped and he cried out, “PLEASE!” The wind seemed to have hands, pushing him back onto the rungs. He found the buckle once again and pulled harder, feeling the leather give. The body tumbled past him into the raging waters.

Shimon climbed higher, thrusting his hand toward the antenna. The lighthouse whirled around beyond the surf.
So close. So close. They had not known!
Shimon looped his arm through the topmost rung. He linked the two ends of the cables with trembling hands.

A moment of exultation—it was finished! He cried out with joy at the victory of it. YES! SEND YOUR MESSAGE! He laughed, and his mouth filled with salty water.

He looked toward the lighthouse, which Burton could not see for the height of the waves. And then he looked back out to sea. A hundred yards from where the
Darien
labored, a mountain of water roared toward them! Shimon screamed and clung to the mast. The wave boiled at the top where it crested.

There was nothing to do. Nothing. So close, and now it would end. The tidal wave rumbled deeper than the thunder as it struck, engulfing the ship.

Dwarfed by its force, the
Darien
was lifted up like a leaf in a whirlpool. Shimon was wrenched from the mast. He gasped for air as the water tumbled him over and sucked him down into its blackness. His lungs were scorched in their need for oxygen. He flailed his arms and legs. How long since his last breath? A minute? He reached up, his fingers clawing the water. Blood drummed in his ears, and then the hand of the deep thrust him upward out of the water—long enough for a breath, and then down again. Once more he flailed against death, fighting the water, uncertain if he swam up or down. How long?
How long?
The weight of his oilskins held him down, and he tumbled around and around like a pebble in the surf.
Oh, God
, there was light! He turned his face up and broke through the surface. His life vest buoyed him up, carrying him to the top of another swell.

He coughed and spit up water. Where was the
Darien
? They were not three miles from shore. Where was the ship?

Shimon sobbed. He reached up toward the dark and angry sky. He slid down the face of the wave, and at the bottom, bobbing like a little boat, was the coffin of Ada-Marie Holbein.

Shimon struggled to reach it. He tried to swim but found that he could not lift his right arm. It rested at a strange angle at his side. He kicked his feet and slapped his left arm against the water. The current spun the little coffin toward him and he grasped the brass handle and clung to it while he sucked air into his tortured lungs. Another wave came, but Shimon held tightly to the handle as the water carried them up twenty feet until he once again caught a glimpse of the lighthouse. Kicking off his boots, he swung a leg up and over the little casket, lying across it. He lay his cheek against the little white jewel box. His own blood puddled beneath his face from a gash under his eye. “WHERE IS THE SHIP?” he cried. But there was no sign of the
Darien
.

***

Prague was as still and silent as a tomb tonight. Theo held Anna’s hand tightly in his own as the automobile wound through the streets.

“May we return for our clothing?” Theo asked.

“There is not time,” came the chilling reply.

“Father,” Wilhelm shouted, “why do we not fight them?”

“That will not be necessary,” offered the colonel as they turned onto a dirt road leading to a small, private airfield.

A passenger plane sat on the grassy runway. The headlights of one army truck illuminated the strip with the eerie blue light that had bathed Prague through the nights of the past week.

Anna gasped as she recognized the figure of President Beneš leaning against the plane. His face looked years older. His eyes were red-rimmed.

He turned his head and then walked wearily toward the car as it rolled to a stop. He opened the door and peered in, squinting his eyes to see.

“You are all here? Yes. Good.” He stepped back. Anna could see his wife twenty paces behind him. Down the field a second plane was being loaded with luggage.

Theo climbed out of the car, then Wilhelm and Dieter after Anna. Theo towered over the diminutive Beneš. “Mr. President—,” Theo began.

“Please,” Beneš protested. “I am only a private citizen.” He checked his watch. “In ten minutes I will be Dr. Beneš once again, and all this will be behind me.” He frowned. “In ten minutes I will be unable to help you. But I have an obligation to repay. You are a pilot, yes?” He swept his hand toward the first of the two planes. “Tonight I must fly to London.”

Theo and Anna exchanged looks. They were not being extradited—they were being rescued. Beneš’s last act as president was to make sure the Lindheim family got out of Czechoslovakia safely.