DOWN ON THE FIELD one man stood out for everyone to see.
Big Jules Garnier, the French captain, never shaved before an important match. Now his face was black with beard. Sweat poured from his forehead. His red jersey was filthy and torn. Panting, exhausted, he rushed up to Rudy Stampfli, still immaculate in his blue shorts, pointing at Heppner and arguing with what breath he had left.
The French stands, silent, horror-struck after that unexpected goal, understood immediately. Suddenly everyone took up the refrain. “Faute! Faute! FAUTE!”
Obviously Garnier was claiming offside on the last play. The Frenchman towered over the stocky little Swiss. Two, three, four French players, all equally positive and vehement, surrounded the referee as he stood with the ball under one arm.
There he remained, listening impassively, holding his ground, feet apart. Finally he moved away, shaking his head firmly. Then someone caught his free arm and spun him around. He was face to face with Bosquier, the goalkeeper, a hot-headed Marseillais.
“Nein... nein... nein....” Even from the press box you could see Rudy Stampfli’s expression and the set of his jaw.
“NEIN!” There it was. The goal was good. No, there was no German offside on the play. The score stands. The game is over, done, lost, and won.
By this time French troops had swarmed all over the field and were encircling the German players to protect them from an ugly, menacing crowd that had poured down from the stands.
The enraged French fans, milling around on the turf shouted at the Germans and the referee. Good sense, fair play were not at the moment in them. To a man they honestly believed that France had been cheated.
Look, they cried to one another, what can you expect? Rudy is from Zurich. I don’t trust the German-Swiss. Had he been from Geneva, from the Suisse Romande, things would have been different. You know, everyone claims he was a friend of the baron’s family, that he knew the von Kleinschrodts before the war. Besides he often played against him. It’s unfair. The referee should have been Dutch or English or Spanish or Portuguese or even a Macaroni.
Why anyone could see that German halfback was plainly offside on that pass. Otherwise Jules would have caught him and cut him down. France was robbed by that second goal.
Still Stampfli shook his head, pushing away the French players. Still the angry fans howled at the Germans and hurled imprecations at the referee. Soldiers formed a tight ring around Stampfli and the victorious team and forced a passage through the mob. So into a tunnel under the stands they went, past the back of the stadium where in improvised cubbyholes sportswriters were dictating copy to Berlin, Madrid, or Rome.
“Ne coupez pas, mademoiselle, ne coupez pas!” screamed an agonized voice.
“Und dann... Varin... nein, nein. Varin... V-A-R-I-N.”
“Final score: Germany two, France one. Yes, that’s the final. Germany scored in the last second of the game.”
The hot, sweaty, exhausted players and the Swiss referee, as emotionally drained as any of them, rushed by these reporters hard at work and were hustled over to a German bus that was standing and waiting, its engine running, a driver at the wheel.
Beside the bus was a row of police cars and army jeeps. Helmeted soldiers sat in each jeep, cradling tommy guns on their knees. The players’ clothes, bags, and personal belongings had already been loaded, and one by one with Stampfli they filed aboard and sank into a seat. Soon the bus filled up. Behind it was a smaller vehicle a Volkswagen minibus. Into it piled five players who could not get into the larger bus: the baron, Otto Schoen, Sepp Obermeyer, Helmut Herberger, and young Schroeder, the centre forward.
The troops formed a cordon around the two buses, letting nobody near. In three minutes they were off. All traffic was held up to let them get away. The buses swung out with their armed escort ahead and behind, crossed the Seine, and went down a long, straight avenue lined with poplar trees. For twenty minutes they rolled along at a good speed, the jeeps leading the way with honking horns, the police cars following. About fifteen miles from the city and well out into the countryside, they turned into a long driveway leading to a large hotel. Everybody climbed out. Clothes and bags were unloaded, and they all filed into the hotel where the manager passed out keys to rooms with baths on the upper floors.
An hour later they piled back into the buses and the caravan set out again. They had been told to avoid the main roads and take the coastal highway to the frontier. So they rode for an hour through the radiant spring countryside, and when they reached the sea the jeeps and police car honked several times, pulled over, turned around, and left.
Now the two buses went on alone, headed for Munich and its streets packed with thousands upon thousands of celebrating football fans.