El Capitán José Francisco de Banderano, a tall, slender, hawk-nosed, somewhat swarthy forty-five-year-old wearing a blue woolen, brass-button uniform with the four golden stripes of his rank on the sleeves, stood on the flying bridge of his ship with binoculars to his eyes. He was making a careful scan of as much of the South Atlantic Ocean as he could see.
There’s nothing out there—not even whitecaps. Just a smooth expanse of ocean.
De Banderano over the years had seen his share of action—had damn near been killed—and knew that an enemy man-o’-war quickly could turn a peaceful patch of ocean violent. Thus he was on a high alert, acutely aware—certainly in broad terms, if not in detail—that while elsewhere in the world the war raged more dramatically, it just as easily could literally explode here.
Indeed, the three-day-old Battle of Kursk—it would last till 23 August— was pitting about three thousand Soviet tanks against roughly that many German tanks. It would become the largest tank battle ever, with the Germans and Russians each losing almost all of their tanks.
Meanwhile, on that very day of 7 July, an Allied fleet of 2,760 ships— primarily from Norfolk, Virginia, and Scotland’s River Clyde—was converging on a rendezvous point in the Mediterranean Sea near Malta. Three days hence, American troops under Lieutenant General George S. Patton and British troops under General Sir Bernard Law Montgomery would execute Operation Husky—the invasion of Sicily.
It would be the first Allied assault on German-occupied Europe.
De Banderano went back on the bridge, set the binoculars in their rack by his chair, and rubbed his hands. The high seas of the South Atlantic in July were cold.
“Herr Kapitän!” announced a young man wearing the white jacket of a steward. He offered a tray on which sat a china mug of steaming coffee.
De Banderano took it.
“Danke,” he said.
As he started sipping from the cup, he thought:
It is highly unlikely that luncheon will be interrupted by a signal from the U-405. It is entirely possible that we will never hear from the U-405, period. The rendezvous was supposed to be within a forty-eight-hour window. That ran out twelve hours ago.
My options are (1) head for Buenos Aires now, or (2) go at midnight, which will mean I give them another twenty-four hours beyond the window, or (3) go at first light, which will mean I will have stayed on station for thirty or so hours beyond the window.
I want this mission to be successful, but I can’t keep making slow circles in the South Atlantic forever.
I will decide over lunch. If not, then at dinner.
“You may serve luncheon whenever it is convenient,” de Banderano ordered.
“Jawohl, Herr Kapitän,” the young blond steward replied, clicked his heels, and marched off the bridge.
Capitán de Banderano, with some disgust, watched him leave. He was aware that the steward spoke little Spanish—and that he was neither a steward nor much less a seaman.
The day before the Ciudad de Cádiz had sailed from Cádiz, the steward— eighteen-year-old Rottenführer Paul Plinzer—was one of fifteen Germans who had boarded the ship. There was “special cargo” aboard, and it had been decided that it needed the special protection that only the Schutzstaffel could provide.
There were three officers, Sturmbannführer (Major) Alfred Kötl and Obersturmführers (Lieutenants) Willi Heitz and Ludwig Schmessinger. They wore their uniforms and lived in officer’s country.
And there were twelve enlisted men, under an oberscharführer (sergeant); two unterscharführers (corporals); and nine rottenführers (lance corporals). They wore civilian clothing and were berthed with the crew.
Sturmbannführer Kötl had volunteered Plinzer’s services as steward almost as soon as they had left port, saying that the young Dresdener might as well do something to earn his keep.
De Banderano suspected that Plinzer’s real function was to report to Kötl what happened on the bridge. He had given freedom of the bridge to Kötl alone, and Kötl obviously could not be there all the time. A steward did not have to explain his presence.
De Banderano did not like Kötl. He thought him to be arrogant and more self-important than he had any right to be. The situation was exacerbated because Kötl did not know what the special cargo was, or what it was for, or where it was going, only that he was to protect it; he understandably suspected that de Banderano knew the answers and was not telling him.
De Banderano in fact knew only where the special cargo was going. His secret orders, sealed until they were at sea, were to rendezvous with the submarine U-405 at sea, about 220 nautical miles due north of the Falkland Islands, which were some 260 nautical miles east of the southern tip of Argentina. There he would replenish the U-405’s fuel, food, and torpedoes, hand her captain his sealed orders, and, as the last step, transfer to the U-405 the crates of special cargo with Sturmbannführer Kötl, an officer of Kötl’s choice, and five of Kötl’s men.
He had not told Kötl about that, and was looking forward to doing so. He doubted the SS officer would be happy to get on a submarine, destination unknown.
Once the transfer had taken place, the Ciudad de Cádiz was to proceed to Buenos Aires, where she was to take onboard as much fuel as they would sell him, and as much frozen meat and fresh produce as possible. In Buenos Aires, he would be provided with a chart overlay marking half a dozen rendezvous points in the South Atlantic Ocean. Once he had sailed from Buenos Aires, he would be advised by a radioed coded phrase at which of the rendezvous points and on what day and at what time he was to rendezvous with other submarines.
De Banderano had no idea what was in the securely sealed wooden crates of the special shipment, although he doubted that it was what he had been told. Oberst Karl-Heinz Grüner, the military attaché of the German embassy in Buenos Aires, had come aboard the Comerciante del Océano Pacífico when she was at anchor, supposedly with “engine problems,” in Samborombón Bay in Argentine waters in the Río de la Plata estuary.
He had told her master—de Banderano—that what he wanted to do was smuggle ashore the special cargo—which contained radios, civilian clothing, and other matériel—to be used to help the interned officers of the Graf Spee escape from Argentina and return to the war.
De Banderano hadn’t believed that the crates contained radios and clothing—all readily available in Buenos Aires—but had said nothing. He had believed the story about helping the Graf Spee officers escape their internment, and that had sounded like a noble effort to attempt.
Two hours later, it had been moot.
Somebody had tipped the Argentines, and as soon as the crates had been placed on the beach of Samborombón Bay from the longboats of the Océano Pacífico —de Banderano had commanded one himself—there had been a sudden deadly mass of rifle fire. Oberst Grüner and Standartenführer Goltz had been killed immediately. Only by the grace of God had the third German officer involved, Luftwaffe Major Peter von Wachtstein, and de Banderano himself escaped death. And only the grace of God had permitted von Wachtstein and de Banderano to get the crates of the special cargo back into the longboats and back aboard the Océano Pacífico.
Within hours, an Argentine navy launch had drawn alongside the Océano Pacífico and handed de Banderano orders to immediately depart Argentine waters and never return.
A week after the Comerciante del Océano Pacífico tied up at Cádiz, while de Banderano had awaited further orders regarding the special cargo still in the hold—but absent the bodies of Oberst Grüner and Standartenführer Goltz, which had been removed for shipment to Germany—he had had a visitor.