As the sun descended behind the tree line in the Mazatlán estuary, the birds and reptiles prowling through the darkening mangroves in search of food were startled by a flash of light and strange sounds emanating from the water near the Cervecería del Pacífico brewery. The electric generator on the gunboat Morelos suddenly whirred to life, illuminating the vessel in a constellation of incandescent bulbs. On the upper deck, a complement of men carrying rifles could be seen making their rounds of the ship. Señor Arzak had recently added another five guards to the night watch to deter any attempts to seize or sabotage his gunboat.
Louis Arzak was becoming increasingly anxious about the security of the Morelos—and with good reason, for he knew that many individuals were now casting covetous eyes on his powerful warship. The Germans had offered him $50,000 in American gold for the gunboat, plus the cost of floating it and repairs to date, most probably to use the Morelos as a commerce raider. Arzak had rejected the offer out of hand, certain that the ship would be worth considerably more after the repair work had been completed. His response had left the German representatives far from happy. He suspected that the Mexican government had designs on the vessel as well. The Morelos had been the finest warship in the Mexican navy and a symbol of national pride. To reclaim the gunboat and return it to the service of Mexico would bring great honor to the Carranza government. Then there were the Americans to worry about. The American navy was now visiting the port of Mazatlán on a regular basis—never exceeding the twenty-four-hour limit, but still a cause of concern to a man in possession of a ship that was likely viewed as a potential adversary. Perhaps the Americans also wanted to gain control of the Morelos?
Arzak’s suspicions were well-founded, particularly in regard to the American government’s interest in the salvaged gunboat. The U.S. Navy had been maintaining surveillance of the Morelos since October 1917, when Consul W. E. Chapman first informed the State Department that a sunken warship had been sold to parties associated with the German trading house, Melchers Sucesores. In the succeeding months, when naval officers visited the American consulate in Mazatlán, the consul kept them updated on the status of the work under way aboard the suspect ship: “A large force is making repairs day and night . . . There is something strange connected with the vessel which is regarded as dangerous. It could put to sea very soon.”
After the Alexander Agassiz was captured by the Vicksburg off Mazatlán, the Navy’s concerns over the suspect gunboat only increased. A report by Lieutenant I. M. Graham of the Pacific Fleet forwarded to the secretary of the navy noted: “It is reported that the (Morelos) machinery is in good shape, that the bottom is not foul, and that there is some coal aboard. Foundry and repair facilities in Mazatlán belong to the Fundicion De Sinaloa, which is under control of the Germans, and may have been utilized in the repair of the Morelos . . . It is considered that there is some danger of her shipping out of port and becoming a raider.”
Lieutenant Commander E. J. Minister of the British steamship Violet, who managed to get aboard the Morelos on March 24, 1918, provided his observations to the commander of the U.S. Navy supply ship Brutus:
There were, by actual count, fifty men working on board, five being Germans . . . Her machinery was in very good condition and seemed to be clean. Steam was already up in the donkey boiler. The entire hull outside . . . was in good condition, but many of the deck beams were rusted and also the deck plating . . . Inside the hull, scaling and painting was going on forward . . . the plating seemed to be in fair to good condition. One gun mount was in place and all sponsons and foundations seemed to be good. The vessel was moored stem and stern, head upstream and is expected to be all ready for sea by April 10th.
A few days before Minister visited the gunboat, Dr. Paul Bernardo Altendorf learned of the Morelos’s existence and decided to investigate this effort, likely sponsored by the Germans, to restore an old Mexican warship. Losing no time, he called at the place where the most reliable information on German activities in Mazatlán could be found, and where his standing “was still of the highest”—the German consulate. Comfortably seated in Unger’s office at Melchers Sucs, through delicate questioning, speaking as one loyal servant of the Fatherland to another, he was able to bring Unger to reveal the complete story of the German plan for the gunboat Morelos.
There would soon be submarines off the coast of California and in the Gulf of Mexico, the German consul informed him. Three submarines were intended for operation off Tampico and another two on the Pacific coast. In preparation for this, it had been arranged with President Carranza for the Mexican government to confiscate the Morelos as soon as Arzak’s team had completed the repairs necessary to make her seaworthy, then the gunboat would be turned over to German representatives for use as a U-boat tender. The fact that the vessel had no armament and was not battle ready was of no consequence; all that mattered was that she be seaworthy and capable of delivering diesel fuel and supplies to the submarines cruising offshore. It was a brilliant plan, Unger confided, a valuable instrument for the destruction of Allied shipping in the Pacific would be acquired at no cost to either government. This would also prevent the Morelos from falling into the hands of the Americans. Unger further revealed that a firm based in San Francisco had already opened negotiations with the Arzak brothers for the purchase of the warship.
A proud smile formed on Altendorf’s face that masked his inner consternation. The German submarines would arrive within a few weeks. Under these conditions, passing the information on to the U.S. Army Military Intelligence office in Nogales would do little good. He would have to derail the German plan himself.
It was up to me individually to thwart this plot—one lone man among enemies pitted against two unscrupulous governments. Then Unger unwittingly placed the winning card in my hands.
“Arzak brothers are good friends of mine,” the consul reflected, “and I do not want to see them get too raw a deal. Suppose you see them and find out what they want for the Morelos.”
Altendorf agreed to see what he could do.
The doctor-spy returned to his office and arranged for letterhead stationary to be printed in the name of a prominent commercial banking house in Valparaiso, Chile. When it arrived, he wrote himself a letter that authorized “Señor Paul B. Altendorf” to negotiate the purchase of the steamship Morelos on the firm’s behalf.
With his cover established, he called on Louis Arzak to open “negotiations” for acquiring the gunboat Morelos. He showed the beer distributor his letter of introduction and cautioned him that their dealings must be held in strictest secrecy. When Arzak inquired how much Altendorf’s firm would be willing to pay for the warship Altendorf replied that he would “cable his principals once he had seen the vessel.” He was immediately taken on a detailed inspection tour of the former Mexican gunboat.
After allowing the amount of time to pass that would transpire during an actual exchange of cablegrams, Altendorf wired himself a message stating that the principals of his Chilean firm would be willing to pay 500,000 pesos for the Morelos, delivered in good condition and ready for sea duty. Then he notified Louis Arzak that he was ready to talk business, and made a verbal offer to pay him 500,000 dollars for the Morelos, intentionally inflating the amount that he would pay in Arzak’s mind.
When Altendorf returned to Melchers Sucesores, he informed Unger that Arzak was asking $240,000 for the ship and that he had no buyers in sight. It was an amount that Altendorf was certain would ensure little chance of a deal taking place between Unger and his “good customer” Louis Arzak, which would let the beer distributor down easy. Meanwhile, the situation regarding the Morelos was communicated through American government channels to Otis McAlister and Company, the San Francisco-based trading company interested in buying the vessel, who were advised “to be on the spot with the money when the proper time came.”
On March 24, Altendorf entered the dining room of the Hotel Francia and saw a stranger in deep discussion with some men whom he recognized as local customs officers. Taking a seat at a nearby table, the American spy was able to eavesdrop on their conversation, and learned that the stranger was a Mexican naval officer named Gómez who had been dispatched by Carranza to carry out his order to confiscate the Morelos. The customs officials informed him that it would be at least another twenty days before the salvaged warship would be capable of steaming out of port. Gómez announced that he would postpone the confiscation until that time.
“Why waste government funds in fitting out the vessel,” Altendorf considered, “when the poor sucker who thought that he owned it was so willing to spend his own money for the purpose?”
The next day Altendorf discovered the name of the Italian engineer who was supervising the restoration of the Morelos. Calling on Señor José Leone, Royal Italian naval architect, the American agent introduced himself as being from an unnamed country in South America, there to purchase the Morelos, while concealing his true intentions from the Germans under the pretense of practicing medicine. He offered Leone a “commission” of 50,000 pesos if he would support his proposal to purchase the Morelos. Altendorf knew that Leone was pro-German, but discovered that a bribe had a wondrous effect in changing his allegiance. The naval architect quickly lost all interest in assisting the Germans.
To further derail the German scheme for the Morelos, Altendorf used a close personal friend of Arzak to convey a rumor that Carranza intended to confiscate the gunboat. He wanted Arzak, already anxious about the security of his investment, to grow even more apprehensive so that he might not complete the sale. The doctor was certain that Arzak would find no buyer other than the Americans, and he wanted them to receive a good bargain.
Altendorf’s rumor achieved its desired purpose. On April 30, the commanding officer of the supply ship USS Brutus sent a wireless dispatch to the commander of the Pacific Fleet:
The following information on the gunboat Morelos was obtained from the consulate at Mazatlán: The men who claim to be the owners say that they are very anxious to negotiate a sale to some American, so as to place the ship under the protection of the American government and thereby prevent its being seized by the Mexican authorities, which they understand to be their intention as soon as the vessel has been put into such condition that it could be taken to Vera Cruz for final repairs. Mr. Arzac, [sic] who claims to be the real owner, fears that if left in the status of Mexican marine property, seizure will be made and probably without any compensation to him, whereas, if sold to any American with proper documentary evidence of the sale, the Mexican government would be powerless to do anything with the vessel. Mr. Arzac is anxious to negotiate the sale at the earliest possible moment, both parties to acknowledge before the U.S. Consul, thereupon the vessel to be given a provisional registry . . .
V. Manoprio, manager of the brewery at Mazatlan has spoken to Mr. Arzac and said that he ought not to allow the vessel to go into the hands of the Americans, even to be repaired in the United States. The Consul was also informed that the German Consul has said that every effort would be made to prevent this, and the U.S. Consul is of the opinion that the Germans contemplate paying the Mexican government officials to seize the vessel should any development arise that would prevent its coming into their own (German) hands . . . the Consul says that he would not trust Mr. Arzac as being sincere in his proposition to sell the vessel to American interests and have it towed to the States.
During the weeks that followed, Altendorf traveled throughout Mexico on other assignments, then on May 7, he returned to Mazatlán and told Arzak that he was ready to close the deal. The meeting went smoothly until Altendorf informed the beer distributor that he was now ready to transfer 100,000 American dollars to complete the transfer of the warship, which at the current exchange rate was the equivalent of 500,000 Chilean pesos.
Thereupon Arzak protested most violently, saying that I had promised to pay $500,000, but by producing my cablegram, which distinctly said “pesos,” he had no alternative but to admit, with many anguished objurgations, that he must have misunderstood me about the “dollars.” Then he flatly refused to carry out his part of the bargain.
I assured him that I was very sorry he had misunderstood me; also, I regretted that he was going to lose his steamship altogether, as it was to be confiscated on the 10th; that I had seen a letter to that effect.
This had the desired effect. That very evening Arzak hunted up the two representatives of the San Francisco firm who had been waiting for him to come to his senses and at 7:15 p.m. closed the sale for $129,000 American gold.
I had won the game.
Three days later, on the same date that Altendorf had told Arzak his ship was to be confiscated, the Morelos was transferred to Otis McAlister and Company. The gunboat was towed to the outer harbor of Mazatlán by the steam schooner San Gabriel, and moored there. Consul Chapman supplied the vessel with a provisional registry as an American ship, transferring the Morelos as the “restos” (remains) of a wreck for clearance to be towed to America, and never to serve as a submarine tender of the Kaiserliche Marine.
During the recent mission to the United States with Lothar Witzke in which Altendorf had arranged Witzke’s capture by American authorities, the British agent Gleaves had seen Witzke tear a yellow slip of paper into pieces and casually discard the fragments. Gleaves was later able to recover the torn paper and deliver it to the U.S. Army Military Intelligence section at Nogales.
Altendorf and Butcher spent many hours trying to reassemble the scraps of paper to read the message, but it proved a difficult jigsaw puzzle to solve. Some of the pieces were missing and the ink had become smudged after days of rough handling. All they could discern was a date—either January 21 or 22, 1918, and that the message was about the visit of some Germans to Las Tres Marías islands, along with a few recognizable words like “oil” and “gasoline.” It did not take a great deal of imagination to infer that the note related to preparations for a possible German submarine base off the coast of Mexico.
On his return to Mazatlán, Altendorf began making cautious inquiries about the islands and learned that five Germans had recently taken a boat to Las Tres Marías. They had stayed on the “big island” several days, before sailing back to port. His curiosity aroused, Altendorf directed an associate to hire a boat for a reconnaissance mission to the island archipelago.
The “Three Marías,” today known as the “Islas Marías,” consist of a chain of three islands off the coast of the Mexican state of Nyarat that are named after three figures in the New Testament: Mary, the mother of Jesus Christ, Mary Magdalene, and Mary of Clopas, who was present at the crucifixion. In 1918, the largest of the islands, Isla María Madre, was the site of a federal prison colony.
Announcing to everyone within earshot at the harbor that they were leaving on a “fishing trip,” Altendorf and his companion departed in a 25-foot sailboat for Las Tres Marias. Seven hours later they sighted the islands, and after sailing around the archipelago, landed at a desolate spot on Isla María Madre. The two men hiked around the area for several hours, but could see nothing through the dense, jungle-like vegetation. They returned to their boat, circumnavigated the island, and moored at a landing where steamers brought provisions ashore for the prison. Once again, they disembarked and reconnoitered the area, but finding nothing of value, returned to the boat and set sail for home.
At a gambling house in Mazatlán, Altendorf uncovered the information that he had been unable to obtain on the fruitless excursion to Isla María Madre. He met a German agent named Graffenberg who introduced him to a fellow spy named Hartmann. While they played the popular German card game of skat, Altendorf engaged the pair in casual conversation on a variety of topics, eventually turning the discussion to Las Tres Marías.
“What do you people think of Las Tres Marías for a submarine base?” he asked.
“Oh, I have been there,” Hartmann replied. “It is too small. It is no good unless we could have complete control. There are a lot of prisoners there. The islands would make a good submarine base in one way, but there are so many rocks that approach would be difficult. There are much better places along the coast.”
The talkative Hartmann then told Altendorf of his visit to Bahía de Banderas, the “Bay of Flags,” a large inlet above Puerto Vallarta that lies two hundred miles south of Mazatlán. It has a most excellent harbor, Hartmann advised, and is approachable by land from both Guadalajara and Tepic. Altendorf learned that the Germans had sent a Spanish engineering team to Bahia de Banderas to scout the area in advance of establishing a submarine base there. A German named Koerner had been in charge of the operation.
Altendorf returned to his office and composed a report on what he had learned for Military Intelligence.
It was typical that Altendorf would find the information that he was seeking in a Mazatlán gaming house, since the port city had become a clearing house for German intelligence and a transit point for many of its agents. Mazatlán provided easy access to the United States by way of Nogales and Calexico, and once over the border, a short trip to San Francisco yielded railroad passage to cities across the United States and Canada, and connection with steamships traveling to Australia, China, Japan, Russia, and South America. Given its geographic location, Altendorf noted that “many things happened in Mazatlán.”
One day in the spring of 1918, while waiting to see Unger at the consulate, Altendorf met four German agents who had just returned from Magdalena Bay on the west coast of Lower California where they had been engaged in making maps and collecting information for the German navy. He came upon them in the street the following day, and proposed that they have a beer together. When two of the agents stopped at the Hotel Francia on the way to the beer garden and had a long discussion with a German youth named Karl Jacobson, Altendorf decided to make it his business to learn more about the young man.
He seemed to visit the German consulate oftener than a man on honest business would need to do; and twice I saw him in the American consulate. Not to make a long story of it, Herr Jacobson turned out to be a German secret agent who had been employed through Consul Unger to blow up American factories. Jacobson drew money for travel expenses and advance salary and promptly blew it all at the gambling table. This process was repeated until Unger threatened to have him arrested.
The American consul was induced to stall Jacobson along until he began to confess, little by little, that he was a German secret agent in trouble. In the end, Jacobson went to Rosario and returned with samples of an ingenious chemical apparatus that would explode 35 minutes after it had been primed. Jacobson also had an ingenious plan for carrying explosives concealed in talcum powder tins. Jacobson said he was engaged to take explosives and invisible ink powder in [his] baggage on a tour to California, destroying everything he could.
The youth began to fear for his life in Mazatlán and appealed to W. E. Chapman for help in reaching the United States. The consul gave him the $24 railroad fare for a trip to Nogales, Arizona, deciding that the best place for the German saboteur was in an American prison. After seeing him off, Chapman sent a cable to U.S. border officials alerting them to the danger posed by Jacobson, which concluded: “For God’s sake, wake up and keep this man in jail.” Through a mix-up at the border, Jacobson passed into the United States without interference and was able to obtain a job at a Nogales saw mill. Altendorf later arranged for him to be apprehended by the Justice Department in Tucson, Arizona, where he once again confessed to being a German spy.
Another dangerous character that Agent A-1 met through the German consulate was a Spaniard named Salvary. The high regard in which the “Austrian” doctor was held by Consul Unger and Vice-Consul Burgmeister inspired great confidence among the enemy agents that he met, and Salvary was no exception. One evening over dinner, Salvary informed Altendorf that he had been recruited by the Germans in Spain for an important assignment in the United States. The mission, which he had recently completed, was so successful that German officials in Mexico City had engaged him to return to the United States again, this time with a fund of $20,000 at his disposal. In a low voice, the Spaniard disclosed his unusual specialty to Altendorf—he was an expert at poisoning cattle.
The movement of Allied soldiers, artillery, and material across the battlegrounds of France was heavily dependent on draft horses and mules from America. Early in the war, German army intelligence had devised a ruthless scheme to disrupt their supply. A German American doctor named Anton Dilger was dispatched to the United States with a hidden cache of deadly anthrax and glanders germ cultures. Dilger established a secret laboratory in Chevy Chase, Maryland, where he used his medical training to propagate the germs into a sizable reserve. Steamer Captain Frederick Hinsch and other German agents in America then hired teams of germ-saboteurs to inject the lethal microbes into draft animals being shipped to Europe, or spread germ-laden liquid into their feed pens and water tanks. The results were devastating. “Within weeks, the first symptoms appeared—staggering, convulsions, skin ulcerations—as the deadly bacteria multiplied inside the unfortunate beasts, and death followed shortly thereafter.” The Germans planned to use Salvary to expand the effort, poisoning the cattle herds of the Southwest to deny beef to the Allied armies.
The procedure was quite simple, the Spaniard explained. The poison would be surreptitiously deposited at night into water troughs located throughout cattle country. Salvary informed Altendorf that he was quite anxious to get under way, and planned to leave for America within the next two or three days.
The potential for destruction posed by Salvary appeared so great that Altendorf considered accompanying the saboteur to the border to ensure his arrest. But the agent now faced a common problem—he was short of cash. He had buried a large sum of money ($14,800) in a remote location in Guaymas, but if he traveled there to make a “withdrawal,” Salvary would be long gone by the time he returned. Since being sworn in as an operative of U.S. Army Military Intelligence, Altendorf had received a salary of $150 a month and an expense allowance of $3 per day, but this was not enough to finance an expedition to the border with Salvary. To supplement his income he had also been spending his own money freely, but at the moment, was low on available funds.
Agent A-1 sent a wire to his superiors in Nogales requesting an additional stipend to follow the cattle poisoner to America, but received no reply. He sent a second, more urgent telegram, and again there was no response. Altendorf watched Salvary depart on his mission to the United States and never learned what became of him. “But he was not arrested.”
One of the assignments that Altendorf had received from Butcher was to learn whether the Germans were operating any radio stations in Mexico. Military Intelligence believed that an enemy wireless station had been established near Tepic, approximately 270 miles south of Mazatlán, where the Germans had established a reservist training camp. Altendorf decided to book passage there to investigate—a trip that he could afford—with his Mexican laundry woman Luisita, who had been raised in Tepic and knew the area well.
If he traveled openly as “Paul Bernardo Altendorf, Austrian doctor,” the visit was sure to raise questions among his German colleagues in Mazatlán, since he had no legitimate reason for going to Tepic. So he decided to make the journey disguised as a Mexican.
In a second-hand shop he purchased used trousers, sandals, a white cotton shirt without collar, and a battered straw hat. To darken his complexion, he daubed a diluted solution of iodine over his body, from the crown of his head to the soles of his feet. Additional preparations for the trip included concealing his remaining cash, $85 in American gold, in a money belt around his waist, and cutting a thin slit in the side of his cotton shirt that would allow his pistol to remain fully concealed, but readily drawn. Altendorf had recently replaced his worn Colt .45 revolver with a new Colt .45 automatic pistol that he secured under his shirt using two belts hidden beneath his waist band.
The train ride to Tepic was uneventful until they reached Acaponeta where the rebels had destroyed the track, burning a number of bridges in the process. Altendorf hired an automobile that carried them to Santiago, and the following day, the remaining distance to Tepic. He knew that the most important German in the area was Herman Gaedke, an engineer he had met with Schwiertz in Hermosillo. Altendorf left Luisita in Tepic, a small town in the mountains, while he hunted down Gaedke.
The engineer was very surprised to see Altendorf. What was one of Herr Jahnke’s secret service men doing in Tepic dressed as a Mexican? Altendorf explained that he had been sent by Mexico City to inspect the German camp, and was traveling in disguise as a precaution against bandits. This seemed to satisfy Gaedke, who informed Altendorf that the training camp had been established on the Hildebrand Farms, five or six miles from Tepic. They were receiving new German recruits daily and had around 240 men for the coming drive into the United States.
At midnight, Gaedke and Altendorf mounted burros and rode five miles into the wilderness to inspect the wireless station, which consisted of a transmitter and receiver, two telescopic steel towers approximately twenty-five feet high, and a forty horsepower gasoline engine to power the generator. According to Gaedke, the station had been built to communicate with submarines in the Gulf of Mexico. The submarines were to hoist their wireless antennae to an effective height for long-distance communication using balloons, and would therefore only operate on moonless nights to avoid discovery. The Germans in Tepic were waiting for the submarines, “which were expected in the Gulf of Mexico any day.”
Early the next morning, Gaedke gave Altendorf a ride back to Tepic in his buggy. The doctor located Luisita and they set out on the return journey, stopping in Santiago only long enough to transfer to another hired automobile. They picked up the train at Acaponeta and reached Mazatlán at five o’clock on a Sunday afternoon.
Altendorf went straight to Luisita’s house, and after prolonged scrubbing with soap, sand, and water, was able to remove much of the iodine dye from his skin and return it to an approximation of his normal complexion. While Luisita busied herself with the domestic tasks that had come due in her absence, Agent A-1 composed a report for his superiors on the visit to the secret training camp and radio station.
After thanking Luisita for her hospitality, the doctor grabbed his belongings and went to his hotel. The “landlord” of the establishment, a man named Pardo, motioned him to the front desk. There had been an odd occurrence in his absence. A German who would not give any name had been inquiring for him. The proprietor’s face held no expression, but his eyes reflected the shrewdness of a life spent in hard circumstances.
“The Germans are after you,” he said in a low voice. “You’d better be careful.”
It was news that Altendorf had long been expecting. He instructed the hotel keeper to tell anyone who came asking for “Dr. Altendorf” that he had gone to Mexico City, and then immediately headed to his room. The next train north would not arrive for another forty-eight hours, so he had plenty of time to plan his escape. He decided to make a sixty-mile detour to the port of Topolobampo on his way to the U.S. border. A message that he had received from Washington asked him to go there to see what could be learned about the schooner Annie Larsen, which in 1915 had gained notoriety attempting to transport a cargo of arms and munitions for a Hindu uprising in British-controlled India. The ship was believed to have been loaded in Topolobampo under German direction, and the conspirators would soon be coming to trial in the United States. Stopping there would be unexpected, Altendorf reasoned—something his pursuers would be unlikely to plan for.
During the long wait for the train, Altendorf remained out of sight. He could not risk appearing in the hotel dining room, and took his meals in his room. He sent word to another American operative in the city to meet with him and discuss the situation. The man came to his room and agreed to follow up on details related to the Karl Jacobson case, then he departed with Altendorf’s final report from Mazatlán.
The Germans were after me all right. I learned that there was a numerous patrol of them guarding the American consulate day and night, and some even entered and asked clumsy questions regarding my whereabouts, as if I would have no more sense than to hang around so public a place. They also set a watch on the clubs and resorts I had formerly frequented, but I contrived to elude them.
Altendorf could not sleep the night before he left Mazatlán, since he knew that he would face a treacherous passage to America. When morning came, he dressed in old Mexican clothes that would not attract attention, shaved off his moustache, and left the hotel without breakfast, stopping instead at a booth near the train station, where he forced down some dirty tortillas, cheese, and a mug of coffee. He paid a Mexican to buy a third-class ticket for him to San Blas.
Altendorf entered the station and casually made his way to the platform. There were a lot of Germans hanging about, some of whom were no doubt looking for him. He slipped around to the far side of the platform and entered a car near the locomotive just as the train began to move. He had not been recognized, and his departure from Mazatlán was without incident.
At 4:00 p.m. the train arrived at Culiacán. As it drew to a stop, Altendorf spotted a number of Germans he knew in the station. He retreated to a lavatory on the train that was as hot as an oven, where he hid for over an hour until the conductors gave the boarding call and the journey resumed. Overwrought with nervous tension, Altendorf remained awake until the train rumbled into San Blas at four o’clock the next morning. Once there, he hired a livery driver with an ancient Ford automobile “in the last stages of senile decay” to take him the sixty miles to Topolobampo.
When he arrived at the rural seaport, he called on Captain Centemo, the collector of the port, and presented him with a letter of introduction from a mutual friend who lived in La Paz, Lower California. It was late afternoon, and Altendorf remarked in the easy Mexican way that he had a small matter of business to discuss, but would not think of bringing it up until they had something to eat, and invited Centemo and his two-man staff to dinner. Over a fine meal at a local restaurant, Altendorf questioned the captain about the Annie Larsen.
“That vessel cleared during the incumbency of the former collector, Captain Cortez,” Centemo told him. “I would consider it a pleasure to show you all the records in the customs house, but I am quite sure there are no records of the Annie Larsen because Unger, the German consul at Mazatlán, came to Topolobampo, and gave Cortez 3,000 pesos, and each of his staff several hundred pesos each to allow the Annie Larsen to sail without clearance. They were ordered to say, if questioned by anyone, that the Annie Larsen had never touched there.”
After dinner, Centemo led Altendorf to the customs house, where the doctor was given free rein to examine the records, which dated back to 1912. Centemo had been right—there was nothing listed about the Annie Larsen. Altendorf returned to the car and headed for the coastal city of Los Mochis, which he reached just before midnight, and continued on to San Blas, arriving at four o’clock the next morning.
When he went to his hotel, he was told that his room was no longer available; it was now reserved for Vice-Consul Burgmeister who was coming up from Mazatlán. Turning away from the desk, Altendorf encountered a Mexican captain named Pérez, who engaged him in a brief conversation. Pérez did not recognize the spy, taking him for the poor Mexican that he was trying to portray. Captain Perez revealed the startling information that Governor Calles had announced a reward of 20,000 pesos for an American agent named Altendorf, dead or alive. Pérez offered to split the reward fifty-fifty with anyone who notified him that they had seen the man. Altendorf assured him that he would be most happy to share the reward if he came across the American spy, and hurried down to San Blas station, arriving just as the train pulled in.
Keeping out of sight myself, I saw Vice Consul Burgmeister, accompanied by three Germans, alight from the train and start toward the hotel . . . Here I was surrounded by enemies hundreds of miles from the nearest place of safety, with only one possible avenue of escape, the railroad, on which only occasional trains were run, and these were carefully watched at all times. Under the stimulus of a large reward offered for my head, vigilance would be redoubled, I had no doubt . . . Catching me seemed so sure and simple an undertaking that nothing but incredible stupidity on the part of my pursuers could have saved my life. Yes there was something more; the intervention of Divine Providence in my behalf.
How otherwise could Burgmeister have been such a bonehead as to stop at San Blas when he was so close on my heels that he moved into my room at the hotel when it was still warm with my breath, figuratively speaking? If he had got wind of my proposed trip to Topolobampo, why did he not send some of his gang down to that port while the rest continued up the main line on the train on which he arrived? And how otherwise, could Captain Pérez . . . have failed to note that I was not of his race and so have seized me on suspicion, instead of babbling about dividing the reward with me for my own head?
One thing was sure: I was determined not to be taken alive. My .45 caliber automatic pistol was concealed under my shirt beneath my left arm with the shirt unbuttoned so that I could draw instantly. If attacked, I proposed to kill as many as possible, but to make sure of an opportunity to blow out my brains at the last. I had seen enough of Mexican and German character to convince me that if I fell into their hands I should be cruelly maltreated. Death by my own hand was preferred to such a fate.
Although he had not slept in three days, Altendorf was abnormally alert, keyed up with adrenaline and nervous tension. He remained out of sight until the train was ready to depart, and then approached the conductor, an elderly American, and speaking in English offered him 10 pesos to allow him to ride in the caboose so that he could “catch some sleep.” Altendorf knew that passengers were not allowed in the caboose, and it would enable him to travel unobserved. The conductor agreed, and Altendorf traveled alone in the car all day. On a slip of paper he wrote a farewell message to Byron S. Butcher: “Goodbye, I have done my duty,” and put it in a pocket where it would be found if he was killed.
The train reached Esperanza in the late afternoon. Peering through a slit in the blinds, Altendorf saw Governor Calles’s son and several other officers he knew on the platform. He retreated to the lavatory, his .45 automatic drawn, waiting for whatever might happen. The soldiers boarded the train and searched the coaches but did not bother to enter the caboose, which they knew was off-limits to passengers. After fifteen minutes, the search ended and they left the station. The period of danger, for the moment, was over.
The train arrived at Empalme four hours later. Altendorf exited on the side opposite the railway platform, and hurried through darkened side streets to the only hotel in town. The contact he had expected to meet was nowhere in sight and, unwilling to risk a telephone call from the hotel, Altendorf returned to the station area. He went to the division headquarters of the American-owned Southern Pacific Railroad and was able to place a call to the man who was supposed to meet him at the station.
Soon a car arrived that drove him a few miles to the outskirts of Guaymas. He jumped out and dodged down darkened streets to the home of his contact, where arrangements were made for him to ride to Nogales on a Southern Pacific freight train. At three o’clock in the morning, he was driven back to the hotel in Empalme. He paid for a room where he sat and smoked until the hour came for the freight train to leave. Altendorf had been without sleep for four days, but could not bring himself to close his eyes; the nervous tension was too great.
He wandered through the railroad yard in the early morning light until he located the train. The conductor was an American who had received orders to place him in the caboose. After departing the station, the slow-moving freight plodded along for three hours until it reached the “passing track” at Escalante, where it pulled onto the siding to make way for the northern-bound passenger train to pass. At this point, Altendorf transferred onto the passenger train. By taking the freight out of Empalme he had avoided the chance of being captured in a search of the passenger train at the station; by switching to the passenger train he avoided the increased risk of traveling on the slow-moving freight. A railroad official on the passenger train who had been briefed on the escape plan guided Altendorf to the caboose and securely locked the door.
Hermosillo would be the supreme test. Like many country towns in Mexico, the populace often suspended their activities to watch the trains come in. Governor Calles himself sometimes joined the throng to see what friends—or enemies—might be passing down the line. The police contingent at Hermosillo station remained ever vigilant in the hope of catching a stray rebel traveling by rail. For the chance to receive a reward of 20,000 pesos they would search every inch of the train, and unbeknownst to Altendorf, Calles had been warned in advance that the American spy would be travelling on that very train.
Shortly after noon, Altendorf felt the train slow as it neared the station. Peering through the blinds of the caboose, he saw Colonel García and several of his men on the station platform. The train was going to be searched. Looking for a place to hide, he spied a closet under the cupola of the caboose where the railway men stored switch ropes, jacks, railing frogs, and dope buckets. He pulled himself into the closet and shut the door behind him. The intelligence agent was forced into a hunched position in the confined space, nearly overcome by the heat and the overpowering stench from the dope buckets.
He remained motionless in the unbearable closet for half an hour, until he heard men at the entrance of the caboose, pounding and shaking the door as they tried to force it open. He drew his .45 automatic and leveled it at the closet door. Seconds passed in agonizing slowness as the clamor continued, then the conductor arrived and assured the men that there was no one in the caboose. The conductor’s bluff succeeded, and Altendorf listened to the men stomp away into an adjacent coach.
When the train was miles from Hermosillo, Altendorf dropped out of his hiding place onto the floor of the caboose and breathed in deeply, filling his lungs with fresh air.
Nogales was reached at one thirty in the morning. He was met by Captain Lipscomb, an army intelligence officer, who directed U.S. Consul Ezra Lawton to bring him over to the U.S. side. Under cover of darkness, Lawton guided Altendorf across the border at a stone bridge that was limited to use of consular officers. No immigration officer was consulted. Lawton had been instructed by Lipscomb that “it was not necessary and exceedingly unwise for anyone to know who he [Altendorf] was, or what he was, due to the value of his confidential work to the government.”
Lipscomb gave him an Immigration Service form to complete and Altendorf carefully filled in the blanks. Under “Personal Description” he wrote: “Nationality: Austria-Polish, Arrived Via: On Foot, Money: $80, Distinguishing Characteristics: two moles, left cheek, large bullet wound on left shin bone.”
Butcher had been wrong—he had come back.