The Basque History of the World - Mark Kurlansky [88]
In St.-Jean-de-Luz, la ligne made contact with a refugee from Elizondo in northern Navarra, a smuggler who worked the passes. When in St.-Jean-de-Luz, he could be found at the Hotel Eskualduna. The informal café on the ground floor of the fine old stone corner building, even then was a popular meeting place, a place where someone could contact a smuggler.
All kinds of documents and information were passed through the Hotel Eskualduna by the owners Kattalin Aguirre and her teenage daughter Joséphine, called “Fifine,” women of friendly but rugged demeanor and unmistakably Basque faces. They gave rooms and other help to Basque refugees in need. The Eskualduna became the central point of la ligne in Basque country.
One of the regulars at the café was a sturdy, thick-built Basque named Florentino Goikoetxea, whose name means “the house above.” He was born in 1898 outside San Sebastián. His passion for hunting led to a deep knowledge of the land, which, in time, led to smuggling. Arrested by the Guardia Civil at the outbreak of the Civil War, he escaped to Ciboure, where he continued smuggling. La ligne recruited him as a guide to lead fleeing fliers through the mountains.
The fliers were usually taken from Brussels to St.-Jean-de-Luz by train. Most of them did not speak French and were accompanied by female agents who pretended to be strangers while watching out for them. At Bayonne or St.-Jean-de-Luz, the fliers had to slip out of the train station, past German inspectors, often through the men’s room, which had a door to the street.
They were fed and rested, sometimes at the Eskualduna, which was near the train station, or at the Ocean Hotel by the beach. After nightfall Basque operatives took them to a nearby farm, from where Florentino Goikoetxea led them up along a small stream, climbing 1,600 feet in the dark over a mountain the Basques call Xoldocagagna, to an area of thick ferns. Then they would be led through a small pass to where the trail winds around to another pass and then down along a creek.
All this was done in complete darkness, because the Germans had ordered a total blackout at night. Stumbling in the dark off roads and paths, tripping over branches and into ruts or streams, is slow, exhausting work. It could take hours to gain a few miles. Finally arriving on the Spanish side, they would only be minutes by road from where they started in France. But now they were on the Spanish side and no longer in the sheltering darkness of the blackout. From a distance they would begin to see the lights of Irún and Fuenterabbía, even glimpses of the Fuenterabbía lighthouse at the mouth of the bay. But they had been better off back in the blackout. The lights on the Spanish side helped the Guardia Civil, in their black shiny triangular hats, to closely watch the road. The Basques would try to get the fliers to the Spanish side at about 4 A.M., at the end of the long night when the bored Guardia Civil were chatting or resting. Sometimes the Basques and their refugees would grope across a black and swift Bidasoa to rest at a farm, Sarobe, in a deep and winding valley. Fliers remember the good red wine, fine omelettes, and pungent sheep’s milk cheese the farmer offered them. To avoid arousing suspicion, the fliers were often dressed in traditional Basque peasant shoes, rope-soled espadrilles. Now they could soak their bruised feet in salt water and get a change of shoes. But they always had to be ready to run, to jump out a window at the first odd rustle heard over the noisy rush of river water.
The Basques and their refugees walked for miles, dodging streetlights