The changing of colors along Roncevaux pass heralded the arrival of autumn
with the crisp, cool, air of the Pyrenees landscape. Alesandro dipped cupped
hands in a stream and drank of it reverently recalling distant memories of an October
in the mountains of Asturias nine years before: a remote image very near. Time
stood still in the sheer and exhilarating beauty of it that stayed with him
time-stamped into the fabric of his soul. He had no time for such nostalgia but
for the second-hand precision ticking of his watch waiting. Alesandro’s
thinking then focused on the task ahead: always aware that his group could be
spotted no matter how careful they were, he had, always, check-lists already in
mind of escape routes.
At nightfall of the
first quarter moon, Alesandro waited with a half-dozen of his most trusted
maquisards, a klic or two in the hills above the main road. His French,
Catalonian and Basque partisans, were lined up and ready to strike flares
illuminating the improvised landing strip at the signal of his flare. One of
his most trusted Maquisards was a Russian woman, Katya (whose tales of Stalin’s
purges of Kirov, Bucharin, Trotsky, and civil war against the peasantry),
further steeled Alesandro’s contempt for any ideology that demands purges.
His assortment of
misfits stood under cover at the edges of the clearing… just in case. The faint
purr of the Lysander in the distant black sky assured him the plane was on
time… within seconds… and there would be no waiting around. He didn’t care for
the help his band was getting from the British. He didn’t believe in the adage,
“The enemy of my enemy is my friend.” After dealing with the Stalinist,
Anarchist and Republican infighting in Madrid and Barcelona, he’d observed that
the worst enemy of the Resistance was the resistance itself. Why would the
British government, and its conflicting agencies, be free of similar
play-ground chicanery?
This was life or death to the Maquis, while the Brits
viewed them as nothing more than pawns in the big game. His heart beat freer
high up in the Pyrenees where his decisions didn’t have to go through
infighting between central committees or directives from amateur territorial
disputes of the S.O.E. (Special Operations Directive) and S.I.S. (Secret
Intelligence Service) in London, as in Southern France. Sometimes the childish
antics behind the scenes between the two British agencies would be laughable
were they not so disastrously fatal.
“There it is!” a young
Maquisard called out.
Alesandro snapped his
attention back to the landing strip… the black Lysander approached… engine cut…
nose tipped up to almost a stall and then, as Alesandro held his breath, it
landed squarely amid two rows of torches, having been lit at his signal only
moments before, coming to a stop in less than a few meters from those marking
the end of the strip. He admired the ability of these British pilots to land on
the head of a pin, and take off again, without a minute lost. A tall, broad
shouldered man with close-cropped blond hair, hauling a bulky canvas backpack,
climbed down the ladder and jumped to the ground. Alesandro thought, “An angel
on the head of a pin, maybe not.”
The plane was unloaded
of several crates and, turned by his men, the plane headed back down the strip
within a few minutes and effortlessly lifted in a few short meters to disappear
into the night. The maquis melted into the surrounding woods, leaving little
trace other than tracks in the grass.
“Síguame, this way,” He
commanded the group. They filed off into the forest leaving nothing of their
presence in the meadow. These men, and women, were trusted friends. There were
no security checks and risk of infiltration, for these were his banda: tried
and tested since the beginning in the trenches and barricades of the Civil War.
Unlike the Resistance in Paris and the cities of France, in the mountains with
Alesandro Gotson Otxoa, there was hardly a chain of command. He led by a common
trust in his ability instead of fear for his authority.
Each of the maquis was
a leader, in their own right, as every man and woman knew the crafts of the
others in weapons and gear. It would be easy to be shot for failure to carry
out an order in the cities; but, in the mountains with Gotson, he luxury of
terrain afforded opportunity to expose a traitor that would be tried and
executed for that and not merely for failing to complete a mission. The green,
inexperienced maquisard who fell short would be excluded from further
operations, to get sent back to their villages, to their homes to garner support,
to tend sheep, or harvest wheat, or sail out on their Tuna Bates. Others, which
were found to be agents sent by rival groups in the CNT, Francoists, or Nazis
from the French side of the Pyrenees would be dealt with differently.
Otherwise, if possible,
a recruit would be carefully tutored, trained, and watched by all, as each was
assigned a guardian. The mountain passes, and forests, of the Pyrenees were the
class room for the Maquis and it was a fail or pass exam that extended the
duration of the war and most were at home there. Death, or imprisonment, by the
enemy was enough motivation and that would be the failing grade in the end.
Alesandro knew, from the capture of his brother in Asturias, that some were
simply not material for guerilla warfare and he knew this not to be enough to
forfeit one's life. Executions rarely evoked loyalty the way mercy dictated
decisions of life and death. He knew that he must master his emotions and to
never be led with a ring in his nose like a beast of burden by his own fears.
After about a half-hour
hike the group came to a small shepherd’s hut above a meadow in which Iniga had
been waiting for their return. She lit a kerosene lamp and put it in the middle
of the table. He thought of the huérfana, Iniga, as a fiery angel with her moon
face and cupid-bow lips framed by unruly and wild brown tufts tied down under a
provocative and jaunty Basque Beret.
Iniga was now nineteen
and, not only was she a ruggedly attractive woman, but she was a veteran of
Asturias, Madrid and Barcelona and as skilled as any special agent or soldier.
Always observant, she’d become just as skilled at sabotage and field-craft as
Alesandro was as a tactician and group leader. During the Civil War, though in
her early teens, and because of her deceptively innocent and natural good
looks, she was able to seduce her way into the trust of every faction and cross
all lines… even deep into the enemy territory to eliminate Falangist officers
and collaborators. Alesandro lost track of her after the government of Negril
surrendered. She had escaped to Catalonia and into the Pyrenees without him
where she held out for some time with maquis of her own. She was eventually
captured by French gendarmes as her small band of refugees were caught
liberating a few hens from a farmer’s coop near the village of Gahardou and
taken to the internment camp in Gurs. Having illegally crossed the border into
France, an indigent, a petty thief, and equally damning, an armed bandit, she1 was slated for a train to Camp Drancy. Her fate once there would have been a
cattle-car to the newly expanded camp in Poland had it not been for the préfet
of Aveyon, Jean Moulin, of the Resistance. He’d used the unrelated authority of
his official office to wrangle the release of many, including Iniga, in ’40 at
great risk to himself before he was stripped of his position in November of
that year. Alesandro had to convince Moulin that the girl was a valued asset…
an experienced Maquisard before the préfet threw the weight of his office to
free her.
A column of Regulars
had left the barracks where the garrison was quartered at the monastery below
on horseback at night. The NCO’s that led the green conscripts and the greener
Alférez had no taste for night operations considering their charges. The sergeant
and Cabo had been on operations in the Pyrenees since the fall of Catalonia and
knew the terrain as well as the tactics of the maquis. The pompous aristocratic
officer looked good on a horse but both NCO’s knew there was nothing of any use
between his ears. A Lysander had been seen by a spotter flying away from the
area and they had their orders.
This was surely a
Maquis drop and, unsure how far away the enemy might be, he was prone towards
caution. The sergeant had more local knowledge and he knew to keep his profile
in the moonlight as low as possible. Once at the meadow he dismounted. He could
see Lysander’s tires left the grass flattened in two parallel tracks along with
clear depressions in the grass around them for a body count.
“There are more than a
dozen,” he called out to the Alférez in a low voice.
The Alférez rode into
the meadow a few meters and then dismounted as though it was his idea to
observe the tracks. The Cabo riding behind stayed near the woods holding his
arm out to stop the troops. Even the rawest recruit could see the officer was
by any measure, an idiot.
The sergeant then
signaled his men to dismount. Because of their inexperienced confusion, he
commanded in a low voice, “Desmontar!” The grumbling was loud enough to cause
him concern for their discipline as he ordered the men to follow him on foot
and to quiet down, “Armar ruido!”
The Sergeant grabbed
the reins of the Alférez’s horse to stop him from riding into the meadow. The
Alférez objected snapping the reins back, “I’ll stay mounted, Sargento!”
“Sir, I’m sure you make
a neatly silhouetted target mounted in the moonlight out there,” the sergeant
suggested quietly while saddling up next to his commander. He must give these
young officers from Madrid the illusion that they were leading the men under
their command, but truth of the matter was obvious; the sergeant and Cabo knew
these mountains and the Alférez had little more experience beyond parade ground
drills at the academy in Madrid.
The sergeant’s hand
signaled to the Cabo to lead his horses on foot taking the Alférez and half the
men around the meadow counter-clockwise while he would circle clockwise. Then
he turned to the Alférez suggesting, “There is a trail on the other side. If we
go around the meadow we can meet at the mountains trailhead.”
Once on the other side
the trail took a nasty turn up and beyond anywhere even their horses could
climb. The sergeant suggested, “We can leave the horses here.”
“Why here?” the Alférez
queried. “It doesn’t look so bad. Mounted, we can catch them before dawn.”
“Sir,” the sergeant
became adamant, he’d lost too many men to the maquis, “hooves make too much
noise and there is no good place to leave them once we get to the escarpments
on this trail.”
“Okay, have it your
way, I’ll ride.” The Alférez mounted his horse and led as he was trained to do.
He’d seen statues in town squares all his life and now, even though this wasn’t
a cavalry charge, he would mount with stiffened back, he feeling noble like a
knight, brave, in command on his steed.
An hour’s hike uphill
from where the Regulars left their horses to graze, the maquisards were in the
business of setting out their separate ways while some gathered in the
shepherd’s hut. It became claustrophobic as several maquisards filled the room
having no more necessity to be there other than curiosity. Iniga became
irritated, “So, what are we doing… no supplies… no ammo… nothing from you Brits
but another face to feed?” She spat out.
Sensing Iniga’s
irritation, the rest of the maquisards filed out of the cramped hut after a few
glanced at the suitcase the tall, muscular, blond man was busy opening on the
table revealing a compact radio set. Off his shoulders came a canvas backpack
stenciled M-209.
“I think he’s an
American,” Alesandro corrected her.
Returning Iniga’s
glare, the American added casually, “OSS.”
“An observer with the
S.I.S in Madrid?” Alesandro remembered.
“Trained with the
Limies… then Pearl Harbor happened.”
Alesandro had heard
that accent in Madrid. It was the accent of the Lincoln Brigades in the last
days of the Republic. He had a casual kinship with the Americans…
more than with the British, who brought with them the sometimes not so subtle
class distinctions of Oxford and Cambridge. In reality though, this was but an
annoyance on the equalizing indifference of the front. But he liked some of the
Americans of the International Brigade in Barcelona… idealists who’d become as
disillusioned as he had by the time of the final assault on Bilbao.
Memory takes signals
obscure and seemingly unrelated to anything going on… like a cue the sound of
an ammo box set on the table… Alesandro recognized the man. So many from the
past had come and gone. He was Harry Baker, aka, Perro de Caza… the Bird Dog.
He had come to Madrid in the last weeks before everyone with any sense
scrambled back to Catalonia. He never got to know the Bird Dog but Alesandro
suspected that Mr. Baker had no ideology. Like a bird dog that persistently
hunts so well but simply points, he rarely pulls the trigger himself. He was
not like most in the Lincoln Brigade: true believers… Marxists… Stalinists or
some Anarchists. No, the Bird Dog couldn’t be trusted that way and he played
all sides of the conflict to his benefit. Regardless, Alesandro could count on
the man for his capabilities. He was no amateur and now he was working with the
OSS… no longer for the Brits. Ah, but Madrid was far away: the wounds… the
distrust… it never heals.
“For our purposes, I’m
still Perro de Caza.” He pulled a machine out of the canvas pack, “There are
more important matters to explain. This Typex is good for immediate action but
its cipher can be broken in two hours by the Germans.”
“I get it,” Alesandro
understood but didn’t like it. Lugging around field equipment required
compromised stealth. But he was aware that it could coordinate operations that
were necessary at times. The Typex was compact, easily hidden, carried from one
place to another and as easy to carry as a day-pack.
After most of the
others bedded down outside the hut, Baker sat at the table and lit a pipe,
“Yes, you are familiar… Madrid at the
bridge?”
“Si, and you were with
the International Brigade at Manzanares…” Inga added, “When Durruti was taken
out… I don’t forget a face.” She then went back out of the hut.
Alesandro’s keen senses
had already picked up on what the girl was implying. She didn’t like this man
and she could be paranoid at times, but he recognized her psychosis was a two-edged
sword that gave her finely honed instincts to sniff out these sorts. His tone
changed from guarded suspicion to prosecutorial, he asked; “It was almost over
then. How did you get out?”
“That’s classified,
sorry,” the end of his stiff upper lip t,urned up in a sardonic grin.
Alesandro yanked an old
Lebel revolver from its holster holding it steady between Baker’s eyes. “This
round is classified too… so tell me, Bird Dog, how did you get out of Madrid?”
Baker didn’t flinch…
there was no reaction, but he spoke using Euskara, “Nire bidea banekien gorputz
atalak eta hondakinen bidez bombardments zehar.” Meaning, I knew my way through
the body parts and bricks during the bombardments. Damned if it looked like he
cared one way or another whether the trigger of the Lebel was pulled.
“They say… some I know
to be reliable… they, and there was more than one, I’ve heard them say that it
was a Stalinist that shot Durruti.” Alesandro had been with Durruti during the
drive to Zaragoza. He knew enough of the Bird Dog to know that he was there
with them to hunt and point but not to kill for whatever agency is was that
sent him.
“It could have been,”
the American still hadn’t blinked, adding in English, “That piece is going to
make some noise.”
Iniga burst in the door
but came to a halt when she saw the two poised in a deadly diorama… neither of
them moved as she spoke using the Basque tongue, Euskara. “I hate to interrupt…
better put a round in his head, Alesandro, we have to get moving.”
Baker smiled without
taking his eyes off of Alesandro’s.
Two more maquisards
entered the hut, “Bind him…,” Alesandro ordered, then added in English. “We’ll
pick-up our conversation later.”
Baker put his hands
behind his back without resistance while Iniga, with a cord of sinew, had begun
to bind them. Alesandro stopped her from binding him that way, saying, “Tie
them to the front, he can move easier that way. We don’t need to have him
stumbling in the dark.”
“Esker nire lagun,”
Baker thanked him in agreement.
“You speak Basque?” she
loosened the sinew so as not to cut off his circulation.
He flashed his white
teeth. He knew several languages but barely knew or understood Basque except
for a few phrases. An MP-40 German machine pistol with a detached shoulder stock,
a makeshift piano-wire garrote along with two knives in shoulder sheathes, were
lifted from inside his heavy jacket after he’d taken it off to be frisked. Iniga ran her delicate fingers across the
smooth side of the peculiar blade of the biggest one.
Baker grinned at the
girl as she examined the odd shaped heavy dagger, “It’s a smatchet. You can jam
that fucker right through an SS helmet.” He lifted his tied wrists to unbuckle
the straps that held it to what she could see was a massive chest, “Take it,
it’s yours.”
Her attitude towards
the Americano softened, “Thanks, I will.”
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