“Can you locate the airfield?”
“I will have to fly much lower, Herr Standartenführer.”
“Then do so,” Cranz ordered impatiently.
Reasoning that an SS-standartenführer was certainly a courageous man— at least in his own mind—von Wachtstein dropped the nose of the Storch almost straight down, and allowed the airspeed indicator to get very, very close to the red line before pulling out at about three hundred feet.
The wind whistled interestingly—it sounded like a woman screaming in pain—as it whipped around the gear and fuselage of the Storch at close-to-tearing-the-wings-off speed.
Five minutes later, after dropping even lower—so low that he had to go around, rather than over, various clumps of trees on the pampas—he thought he saw what had to be the so-called airfield. In the middle of nowhere, there were four Ford ton-and-a-half trucks parked in a line about three hundred meters from the South Atlantic.
Two men stepped in front of the line of trucks and began to wave their arms.
“I believe that’s it, Herr Standartenführer,” von Wachtstein said, pointing. “To our left.”
“Are you going to have enough runway to land?”
I can land this thing, if I have to, in about two hundred meters at forty kph.
“I believe I can manage, Herr Standartenführer. I presume that someone has walked the landing area to make sure there are no obstructions.”
There was a perceptible hesitation before Cranz, without much conviction in his voice, said, “I’m sure that’s been done, von Wachtstein.”
Von Wachtstein flew the length of the makeshift runway, could see nothing on it, and noted nothing that suggested strong crosswinds.
“It would have been helpful, Herr Standartenführer, if someone had thought to erect a windsock,” he said, then stood the Storch on its wingtip, leveled out, and landed.
[THREE]
Near Necochea Buenos Aires Province, Argentina 1415 23 July 1943
When von Wachtstein taxied the Storch up to the trucks, he saw that the straight-arm Nazi salute was being rendered by perhaps a dozen men, all but one of whom were wearing the dark blue coveralls of Argentine workmen. The lone man not in coveralls wore a suit.
You are not only paranoid, Hansel, but certifiably insane.
A couple of hours ago, you were scared shitless that Cranz was going to execute you out of hand. Now you’re having a hard time keeping a straight face at the gray pallor of your passenger.
He shut down the engine.
“Well, we’re down, Herr Standartenführer.”
“I see that we are,” Cranz snapped. “Why was this flight so rough?”
“I regret that, Herr Standartenführer, but landing on a dirt strip with the winds coming off the ocean is not like landing at El Palomar. But not to worry, sir. The Storch is a splendid airplane.”
The man wearing the suit walked up to the airplane and again gave the Nazi salute as soon as Cranz had climbed out.
Von Wachtstein busied himself taking tie-down ropes from the Storch and, when he had them in hand, said, “I wonder if anyone has a hammer for the tie-down stakes, Herr Standartenführer?”
“Erich,” Cranz was saying to the man in the suit, “this is my pilot, Major Freiherr von Wachtstein, who received the Knight’s Cross of the Iron Cross from the hands of Der Führer himself.”
Now he’s going to dazzle this guy, whoever he is, with my Knight’s Cross?
The man threw another Nazi salute and said, “A great honor, Herr Major. I am—”
Cranz silenced him midsentence with an imperiously raised hand.
“I think it better, Herr Schmidt, that the fewer facts von Wachtstein knows about you, the better. No telling who’s liable to be asking him questions. Am I right, von Wachtstein?”
“The Herr Standartenführer is quite correct. How do you do, Herr Schmidt?”
They shook hands.
“Now, what is this about tie-downs, whatever you said?” Cranz asked.
“The Storch has to be tied down, sir. I have the ropes and the stakes, but I need something to drive the stakes.”
“If I may, Herr Standartenführer?” Herr Schmidt said.
Cranz nodded.
Schmidt turned toward the workers at the trucks and bellowed, “Two men and a hammer. Two hammers. Here. Immediately!”
There was sudden frenzied activity at the trucks to comply with the order.
Which, von Wachtstein decided, was indeed an order.
“Herr Schmidt” gave it like an officer.
And those guys are responding to it like soldiers.
He talks funny. I can generally tell where somebody’s from in Germany by their accent; I can’t with this guy.
So, what does that mean?
That he’s not a German? Somebody like Günther Loche, maybe? A German who came here from Germany.
What do they call them? Argo-Germans.
The Loche family are better Nazis than Hitler.
And those soldiers understood his German, making them more Argo-Germans?
Argo-German Nazis in the Argentine Army?
What the hell is going on here?
Two of the men in blue coveralls, each carrying a heavy iron hammer, trotted over to them.
“Major von Wachtstein will tell you what he needs done,” Herr Schmidt said.
“Jawohl, Herr Oberst,” the older of the two said, then saluted von Wachtstein.
Von Wachtstein crisply returned the Nazi salutes.
“What I need you to do, Stabsfeldwebel, is have your man drive these stakes so that I can make sure my airplane doesn’t get blown away.”
He pointed to the ground where he wanted the stakes driven.
“Jawohl, Herr Major,” the man said. He turned to the man with him and said, “You heard the Herr Major.”
And then he turned back to von Wachtstein. “Actually, it’s Oberfeldwebel, Herr Major.”
So, not sergeant major, but master sergeant.
Close enough. A sergeant.
Oh, you are clever, Hansel!
“How did you know he was a soldier, von Wachtstein?” Cranz asked.
And stupid, too.
“Well, before I was commissioned, Herr Standartenführer, I was an unterfeldwebel. Willi Grüner and I both were unterfeldwebels, commissioned the same day. One feldwebel can always recognize another, right, Oberfeldwebel? ”
The master sergeant smiled happily.
“I would say that’s so, Herr Major.”
“Willi Grüner?” Herr Schmidt said. “By chance, the son of our Oberst Grüner? I know he had a son in the Luftwaffe.”
“Yes,” von Wachtstein said simply. “The sad duty of telling him the circumstances of his father’s death fell to me in Berlin not long ago.”
Von Wachtstein exchanged a glance with Cranz.
So is this where the standartenführer decides that I really am a loyal officer?
Or that I am not, in which case Cranz takes out his Luger and shoots me?
No, probably not here. He’d have to drive back to Buenos Aires.
Maybe a little later—maybe when we’re back in Buenos Aires—when he can come up with a credible story. Maybe that he caught me trying to tell the enemy about this operation.
“Oberst Grüner died for the Fatherland, for National Socialism,” Schmidt said. “I am proud that he was my friend.”
“I regret that, while I did know him, I cannot claim to have been his friend,” Cranz said. “But back to duty. Major von Wachtstein said that if there had been a windsock, our landing would have been safer.”
“You will have to understand, Herr Major, that I am an officer of mountain troops and know very little about aircraft.”