By the time the Communists started the revolution, he had risen to Lieutenant Commander and was in command of the frigate Almirante de Posco. Before the revolution, he hoped to rise in rank to Capitanas his father hador possibly even to Almiranteas his grandfather had.
The revolution changed all that. He was early on detached from the Almirante de Posco to serve on the staff of General Francisco Franco, El Caudillo, when that great man saw it as his Christian duty to expel the godless Communists from Spain and restore Spain to her former greatness.
As the Civil War dragged on and on, his duties had less and less to do with the Navy, but they took him to all fronts and gave him the opportunity to see what the Communists had in mind for Spain. And they were godless, the Antichrist. He saw the murdered priests and the raped nuns.
Hitler, "Der F?hrer," and Benito Mussolini, "El Duce," were deeply aware of the nature of the Communists, and of the threat communism posed to the very survival of Christian civilization; and they sent help. Der F?hrer more than El Duce, to be sure, but both came to the aid of a Christianity that once again had infidel hordes raging at her gates.
Without the help German weapons provided to General Franco's army, without the aerial support of the German Condor Legion, it was entirely possible that the war could have been lost.
The English and the Americans remained "neutral," but that in practice meant they were helping the loyalists. The Americans even sent soldiers, formed into the Abraham Lincoln Brigade, to aid the Communists.
Capitan de Banderano was frankly baffled by the behavior of the English and the Americans. The usual answer to this conundrum was that they were not Roman Catholic, and their "churches" had been infiltrated and corrupted by Communists; but he thought that was too simple an answer. A large number of the Germans who came to help Spain were Protestant. He also thought the other answer was too simple: that the Jews controlled both England and America.
Too many good Spanish Jews had fought as valiantly as anyone on the side of El Caudillo to believe that all Jews were allied with the Antichrist.
But whatever their reasons for opposing Hitler, for refusing to accept that the war Hitler was waging against the Communists was their own war, the fact was that England and America were fighting Germany, and that was sufficient cause for him to do whatever he could to oppose them.
The notion of violating the Rules of Warfare by violating Argentine neutrality would have deeply offended him before the Civil War. Now it seemed only right. The actions of the English during the Civil War were blatantly antagonistic to neutrality. And later, the actions of the Americans after the beginning of the current war, but before they themselves joined the hostilities, were equally contrary to neutrality.
There was no command for Capitan de Banderano in the post-Civil War Royal Spanish Navy. Spain was destituteand not only because the Communists stole literally tons of gold, almost the entire gold stocks of the kingdom, and took it to Russia. There was hardly enough money to operatemuch less constructmen-of-war. The once proud Spanish navy was on its knees, again, thanks to the Communists.
Thus, his service during the Civil War was rewarded with a command in the Spanish merchant navy. He saw with his own eyes and heard with his own ears American Navy ships roaming the North Atlantic searching for German submarineswhich had every right under international law to sink vessels laden with war materiel and bound for England. When the American ships found one, they reported their positions by radio, in the clear. "In the clear" meant that radios aboard English men-of-war were given the positions of their enemy by "neutral" American men-of-war.
In Capitan de Banderano's opinion, the English and the Americans were absolutely hypocritical in their denunciation of anyone else who violated neutrality.
And it was the further judgment of Capitan de Banderano that the captain of the American destroyer Alfred Thomas deserved to be brought before an international tribunal for reckless endangerment on the high seas and put in prison.
He almost wished the American destroyer put a shot across his bows then, or took some other action. He thought there was a good chance he could have blown her out of the water with naval cannon carried aboard the Oceano Pacifico in false superstructure.
He had always been skilled with naval artillery. He suspectedbut did not knowthat someone who knew him in the Admiralty had recommended him to the Germans for command of the Comerciante del Oceano Pacifico because of this skill.
In any event, he was approached about taking command of the Oceano Pacifico on a "special mission"and of course he suspected that mission was to replace the Reine de la Mer that the Americans had sunk. When the command was offered, he made up his mind to accept the commission even before the generous emoluments were mentioned.
Even if there was, so to speak, no command of the Royal Navy available to him, even if he was technically a civilian, he knew in his heart that he would be fighting the Antichrist, the godless Communists.
Capitan de Banderano was in his cabin shaving when the Second Officer knocked and announced that a small boat was approaching the Oceano Pacifico from the port.
"How far?"
"A mile or so, Sir. I would say she will come close in five minutes."
"Thank you, I will be there directly."
Capitan de Banderano finished shaving, put on his tunic, and went to the bridge. He picked his binoculars from its rack and walked out on the flying bridge, where he found the binoculars unnecessary. He could quite clearly read the gold-lettered name of the vessel on its bow with his naked eye Coronel Gasparo.
His first thought was that a boat of that type had no business so far out in the bay. She was a river craft, lean, narrow, and long. In a moment he recognized her for what she was: one of the river craft that plied the maze of waters of El Tigre, north of Buenos Aires.
What in the name of all the saints is she doing out here in the first place, so far from the sheltered waters of El Tigre? And in the second place, why is she pulling alongside me ?
She had neither bridge nor wheelhouse. She was controlled internally by her coxswainor more likely by some sheltered water seaman who proudly called himself "Capitan"from inside her superstructure.
She took water over her bow as she turned to draw alongsidenot enough to be dangerous, he judged. And when the light was right, he could see into the interior of her single cabin.
A young blond-haired man was at her wheel. Beside him, hanging on for dear life, was a man very likely wearing the uniform of the SS.
"Capitan, our accommodation ladder is half-raised," his Second Officer informed him.
"Have it lowered. Have someone on the platform throw her a line. Have an officer arm himself and be prepared on my orders to deny the use of the ladder to anyone."
"Aye, aye, Sir."
It took five minutes for the accommodation ladder to be lowered to the surface of the water, then for an officerde Banderano was surprised to see it was the Second Engineerto find a submachine gun and come to the rail, and finally for two seaman to find a coil of line and descend to the ladder's platform with it.
During this period, the Coronel Gasparo circled, dipping her bow in the swells and leaning almost alarmingly as she waited for the completion of the preparations to receive her.
The first time she approached the ladder, only a last-second desperate maneuver kept her from colliding with the Oceano Pacifico. This, of course, forced her to make yet another dipping and swaying turn.