Griffin W.E.B. - Honor Bound 01 - Honor Bound

When the music was finished, the casket was carried back to the goods wagon and placed aboard, with the photographers recording the event for posterity. The Spanish personnel returned to their passenger car and boarded it, and it immediately moved back across the border.

The German military personnel, except the officers, reboarded the first-class car. The officers entered the railroad station, where refreshments had been laid out for them. Number 1218 then backed out of the station to the yard, where the first-class passenger car was detached for subsequent attachment to Number 1219 (Madrid-Barcelona-Paris), which was due at the border crossing at 1615. Number 1218 then returned to the place where it had originally stopped, and the word was given first to the Feldgendarmerie and then to the French Immigration et Douane and Sfirete Nationale personnel that they might now commence their routine immigration, customs, and security checks of Number 1218's passengers.

A few minutes later, the Luftwaffe captain with the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross came out of the station alone. He had with him not only his cognac snifter, but a bottle of cognac. He boarded the Wagons-Lits car.

At 1550, only twenty-five minutes behind schedule, the conductor signaled Number 1218's engineer that he could proceed through No-Man's-Land to Spanish customs. They were only five minutes behind the regular schedule. The ceremony had not taken as long as they had planned for. They probably wouldn't have been late at all, perhaps even a few minutes early, had not the Suretd Nationale grown suspicious of some travel documents and checked them out. They discovered four more Jews trying to reach Spain on forged travel documents and passports.

[FOUR]

So far as he could recall, el Coronel Alejandro Manuel Portez-Halle of the Office of Liaison of the Royal Army to the Foreign Ministry had never heard the name of el Coronel Juan Domingo Per?n of the Argentinean Army, until three days before when this rather absurd business of the Germans sending a body home to Argentina came up.

This was both surprising and rather embarrassing—he had spent enough time in Argentina over the years to learn at least the names of the more important Argentinean officers. On the other hand, the Foreign Ministry seemed to know a great deal about el Coronel Juan Domingo Per?n , including the fact that he was quite close to el Coronel Jorge Guillermo Frade. Portez-Halle had come to know Frade rather well when he'd been in Argentina. He'd even spent some time on Frade's estancia, San Pedro y San Pablo, shooting partridge and wood pigeon. In the evenings, over cigars and surprisingly first-rate Argentinean brandy, they'd shared stories of their days as junior officers.

Frade was important because of his connection with the Grupo de Oficiales Unidos. According to the latest word from the Spanish Embassy in Buenos Aires, these men were about to stage a coup d'?at. And Frade was reported to be the brains behind the plot, and certainly the financier.

Colonel Juan Domingo Per?n , Portez-Halle had been told, was attached to the Argentinean Embassy in Berlin and would be accompanying the young Argentinean's body to Lisbon, where it would be put aboard an Argentinean merchant vessel for repatriation. The dead officer was the nephew of el Coronel Jorge Guillermo Frade. Which probably explained why the Germans were going to all the fuss they were making. They knew who Frade was, too.

The Foreign Ministry originally intended to send an official of suitable rank—say, a deputy minister—to represent El Caudillo (General Francisco Franco, the Spanish dictator) at the border. But after Portez-Halle had brought up the Per?n -Frade-Portez-Halle connection, it was obvious that he should go. He would, he said, take El Coronel Per?n into his home during the layover in Madrid. And have a dinner for him. Considering the importance of Per?n connection to Frade, it was suggested that El Caudillo himself might come to dinner. Or drop by to show his respect.

There had not been time, of course, to issue a formal invitation to el Coronel Per?n , but Portez-Halle had not considered that a major problem. He would seek him out at the border, identify himself as a friend of Jorge Guillermo Frade, and make the invitation there.

At that point the plans went awry.

"I'm not going any further than the border," Per?n told him. "And if it wasn't for the insistence of the Germans, I wouldn't have come this far. But I thank you for your most gracious offer of hospitality."

"Oh, I'm sorry, I'd looked forward to it."

"It's simply impossible," Per?n replied, "but I'll tell you what you could do."

"Tell me."

"The young Luftwaffe officer, the captain?" Per?n went on, just perceptibly nodding his head toward a blond-headed young German around whose neck, Portez-Halle noticed, hung the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross.

"Yes. That's Baron von Wachtstein. He's escorting the remains. He's a very nice young man. I'm sure he would be most grateful for a hot meal and a warm bed in Madrid. They just took his fighter squadron away from him, and he's very unhappy about that. I don't think he should be left alone in Madrid; he takes a drink sometimes when he perhaps should not, if you take my meaning."

"It will be my pleasure," Portez-Halle said.

"I would be in your debt," Per?n said.

Once the Paris-Barcelona-Madrid train cleared Spanish customs, changed engines, and got underway, Colonel Portez-Halle went into his luggage, took out a small leather box, and told el Teniente Savorra that he was going to look in on the young German officer.

As he walked into the Wagons-Lits sleeping car, he wondered idly what had been the peculiarly Teutonic logic behind the decision to send the Wagons-Lits on to Barcelona and Madrid with a lowly captain as its sole passenger. They could more easily have detached the car at the border and sent it back to Paris with all the other German officers. It would make more sense to have one junior officer change cars than ten or fifteen officers, including a German and an Argentinean full colonel. Colonel Portez-Halle had long ago decided he would never understand how the German mind worked. But it was sometimes interesting to try.

He next wondered if he was going to have to knock at each of the doors in the Wagons-Lits car until he found the young officer. But this didn't happen. He faintly heard an obscenity, and knowing that would have been impossible through a closed door, he walked down the corridor until he came to an open one. And there was the young officer, attired in his underwear.

"Guten Tag, Herr Hauptmann," Colonel Portez-Halle said.

"Buenas tardes, mi Coronel," Hauptmann Freiherr Hans-Peter von Wachtstein replied, visibly surprised, as he started to rise.

"Yo soy el Coronel Portez-Halle."

"A sus ?rdenes, mi Coronel. Yo soy el Capitan von Wachtstein."

"You speak Spanish very well, Captain."

"Gracias, mi Coronel."

"I thought perhaps you might like a small taste of brandy."

"You're very gracious," Peter said. "I was just changing out of my uniform. You'll have to excuse me. I didn't really expect visitors."

"Colonel Per?n asked me to look after you."

"Then you are both very gracious," Peter said.

"An old friend of the family, I gathered?" Portez-Halle asked as he walked into the compartment, laid the small leather case on the seat, and started to open it.

"No, Sir," Peter said. "I met the Colonel when I got involved in all this..." He gestured vaguely in the direction of the goods wagon.

"Then I must have misunderstood," Portez-Halle said. He took two small crystal glasses from the case, then a flat-sided crystal flask.

"Are you familiar with our brandy?"

"At one time I was so fond of it. Sir, that it was said I grew too familiar with it."