The Eldorado Network

by Derek Robinson

  'You're a genius,' Dru said. 'He's a genius,' he told the others.

  'Get that in writing,' Townsend advised Luis.

  'Okay, okay.' Dru lay back and relaxed. 'You make the wisecracks and I'll make the news, and we'll see who makes more money.'

  That was unanswerable, and the others sat in silence for a moment. Behind them, Guernica smoked listlessly. A distant shout was followed by a grumbling rumble as, somewhere, a ruined wall was pulled down.

  'I can't honestly believe the Nazi air force did all this,' Barker said. 'Look at the shape of the damage: it's all too precise, too tidy. And it's what didn't get blown up that's most interesting. The railway station, the bridge, the arms factory. Things that Franco's people would prefer to capture intact ... I wonder if ...'

  Luis thought hard about what Barker might be thinking.

  Townsend shaded his eyes and squinted at the ruins. 'I wish to hell they'd dig out some unexploded bombs made in Dusseldorf,' he muttered.

  'Senor Barker,' Luis remarked cautiously, 'perhaps the explosions were made by men of Franco's army, agents of Mola . . . Saboteurs, or . . .'

  'Infiltrators,' Barker said.

  It was a new word to Luis. He tried it and liked it. 'Infiltrators . . . who made chaos ...'

  'Spread panic,' Barker said. 'Disrupted communications. Yes, indeed.'

  'Perhaps,' Luis went on, more confidently, 'they even pretended that they were Republican soldiers with orders to ... you know . . .'

  'Bogus miners!' Barker exclaimed. 'Of course! Franco's infiltrators pretend to be Republican soldiers, they blow up the town, then Franco simply waits for the Republicans to blame him for it, and he trots out his ready-made answer.'

  'Which is half-true,' Luis added.

  'Is it?' said Barker. 'Yes, in a sense, I suppose it is.' He sighed. 'Funny thing about working for newspapers: you always get two sides to every story.'

  'I covered lots of two-sided stories in Chicago,' Townsend said. 'Guys found in speakeasies with a dozen bullets in the back. Turned out to be suicide. I tell you, working as a crime reporter in Chicago teaches a man humility. Also modesty and courtesy.'

  'Why is that chap so very interested in our car?' Barker asked. They suddenly became alert, and stared. A Nationalist officer was walking around the car, his hands clasped behind him, his head tipped to one side. 'If he decides to requisition the bloody thing, we're in queer street,' Barker said.

  Luis jumped up and made for the car. Halfway there, he suddenly realised why the officer was interested in the car, especially its numberplate, and his lungs jumped to a little gasp. His legs kept walking forward, but each pace felt uncertain, as if his feet suspected a hidden trapdoor ahead.

  The officer saw him coming, and straightened up. He was in his forties, broadshouldered. with serious grey eyes, a square jaw, and a forehead ribbed like corduroy. He was eating a sweet, and he held it between his front teeth for a moment while he studied Luis. He looked very calm and very fit,

  'Is something wrong with the car?' Luis asked.

  'Is it your car?'

  'No.'

  'Then why do you ask?'

  'I was requested to keep an eye on it, that's all.'

  'Ah.' A fly buzzed annoyingly in front of the officer's face; he caught it with one swift snatch, and held it. 'And who requested you?'

  'If there is nothing wrong with the car,' Luis said, amazed at his own daring, 'then it does not matter.'

  The officer slightly widened his eyes. The fly droned in his fist. 'You are Luis Cabrillo,' he stated.

  'No,' Luis said. 'But if you want him, I know where he is.'

  'Where is that?'

  'I shall have to show you.'

  The officer opened his fist. The fly charged away and banged into the side window of the car. It fell to the ground, buzzing weakly. The officer trod on it and followed Luis.

  They walked into Guernica. Luis had no idea where they were going except that it must be away from the correspondents, and he had to keep walking purposefully, because if the officer decided to search him and found that he really was Luis Cabrillo, they would shoot him inside ten minutes. That was how it was on both sides, Republican and Nationalist: whenever they captured a place, they always shot people. He strode on, making it seem that he knew exactly where he was going.

  Guernica was never a big town and the bombing had made it smaller. Luis soon reached the centre. If he kept going they would rapidly end up in the bare countryside. He stopped at a corner and stared around, as if searching for a landmark in the ruins. The only thing he recognised was the gutted church, so that was where they went.

  The idea came to him as they were going down the steps to the crypt, and it came with such force that his head jerked and he almost stumbled. It was such an easy, obvious idea that he was ashamed for not thinking of it much earlier. He stood aside to let the officer look across the morgue. 'I forgot to ask,' Luis said. 'Is there a reward?'

  'Just find him,' the officer said. He looked bored and disappointed now. As they walked between the rows of bodies, he unwrapped another sweet and held it between his teeth while he balled the wrapper with his fingertips and flicked it away.

  Luis found what he was looking for at the end of the second row: the severely mutilated corpse of a slim young man. The head was in a bad way, and one arm had come off. 'Voila,' he said.

  The officer nodded gently and thought about it. 'And that's Luis Cabrillo,' he said.

  'Well, it isn't the king of England.'

  The officer walked to the other end of the corpse and put on a pair of hornrim spectacles. 'How do you know that this is he?' He took off the spectacles and waved them at the meaningless face. 'In the circumstances.'

  'I recognise the hands,' Luis said. 'If I am right there should be a distinctive scar just about . . .' He stooped, paused, looked up. 'With your permission?'

  The officer nodded. Luis exposed the torso. It was a mess of dried blood and torn skin. 'Never mind,' Luis said, turning his back on the officer and stooping again, 'perhaps there is something in the pockets ...'

  'Leave it!' the officer snapped, Luis stood back, quickly and respectfully. The officer straddled the body and searched it. In a side pocket he found a Madrid hotel bill made out in the name Luis Cabrillo. He read it, and grunted. 'Fetch two soldiers. Also a stretcher. Any two soldiers,' he said as Luis opened his mouth.

  Luis shrugged and turned away. 'And that is my reward,' he muttered loudly and rebelliously. He slouched out of the crypt, and sprinted all the way to the car. The correspondents were waiting. 'Who was that?' Barker asked. 'Just a soldier,' Luis said. 'Looking for a friend.' Two hours later they were back in Burgos.

  Chapter 9

  That evening, they all went to eat in a bar-restaurant just outside the town.

  'Hey, Luis,' said Townsend, while they were waiting for their food. 'Did you know that Guernica got bombed on market-day?'

  'There was no market that day,' Luis said. 'The country people were afraid of an attack and so they stayed at home.'

  Townsend frowned. 'For God's sake,' Barker complained, 'how many damn bodies d'you need?'

  'It's not just a question of bodies,' Townsend snapped. 'It's a question of innocence. You know -- market-day, smiling peasants streaming into town with their fresh country produce, when bang! Out of the blue, without warning, the sinister hail of death. It's twice the story with market-day.'

  'Print it, Milt,' Dru urged. 'You like it, you use it. The bigger you build up your bombing, the louder my dynamite's going to be. Hullo! What's this?'

  A large party of young men was tramping into the restaurant from the bar. They were in civilian clothes which looked as if they had all been bought in the same department store. Many were blond; all looked fit and strong and tanned. One of them said: 'Ich mochte einen grossen Wiener Schnitzel, ja?'

  'Asturian coal-miners,' Barker said.

  'Now's your big chance, Jean-Pierre,' Townsend told Dru. 'Get over there and grab yo
urself a few eye-witnesses.'

  Dru merely smiled.

  The young Germans settled down around a circular table. Their legs were too long and they kept scuffing and kicking each other, which led to laughter and denunciations and insults. Somebody rocked the table, somebody retaliated. Half the cutlery fell on the floor. A couple of drinks got spilled. Much laughter.

  'They're like undergraduates on Boat-Race night,' Barker observed. 'Hard to believe they . . .' He shrugged.

  'One of us should get up and go over and ask them about it.' Townsend said. 'I can't go. My German is lousy and anyway I'm too hungry to move.'

  'They'd never talk to an Englishman,' said Barker.

  Dru ate some bread and looked at the flies circling the lighting fixture.

  'Would you like me to speak to them?' Luis asked.

  It had been a long day, full of travel and questions and typing and then arguments with the military censors, and now that the stories were filed everyone was weary. The German table was boisterous and already slightly drunk.

  'Don't waste your time,' Dru said.

  'They must be from the airfield. Maybe some are pilots.'

  'You won't get anything out of those guys, Luis.'

  That was -a challenge; or perhaps Dru was afraid of what those guys might say. Luis stood up and walked over to the German table.

  He waited until the nearest man had stopped talking; bowed, smiled, and said: 'Excuse me . . . Does one of you gentlemen speak English?'

  'English. . .'The man turned in his chair and looked up. His elbow was on the table, his jaw propped against his hand. He examined Luis closely. Luis was struck by the untroubled self-assurance in his clear grey eyes. The man was only a few years older than himself yet he seemed enormously more competent. He must surely be a pilot.

  The German spoke a few words in German, and all his friends laughed.

  Luis, still smiling, glanced across the table. Another German made a remark, obviously referring to Luis, and everyone laughed again. After that the comments came from all sides, until the table was rocking with laughter. Luis stood like a dummy, not smiling any more, and felt his anger building like steam in a kettle. It was not their making fun that enraged him; it was the fact that he did not understand them and they knew this and they did not give a bloody damn. Eventually one of them, bigger and more red-faced than the rest, lurched to his feet, marched up to Luis, and stamped his boots in a mock-flamenco beat. He gave Luis a patronising pat on the cheek and shouted, 'Ole!' His friends roared.

  Luis went back to his seat, feeling murderous. 'One day I shall kill them for that,' Luis hissed.

  'Forget it, old boy,' Barker said. 'They're just pissed, that's all.'

  The food came and they ate, while the Germans kept up their gusty, guttural good cheer. Sometimes they sang, sometimes they argued, always they drank. They did everything loudly.

  When the correspondents were finishing their coffee, one of the Germans returned from the toilet and came over to their table. He had a keen, intelligent face, and an athletic-looking body.

  'Newspapers? You work for newspapers?' His English was awkward but adequate.

  Townsend took out a pencil and showed it.

  'Ah. You write. My question: what you say about Guernica?'

  Luis hunched over his cup and refused to look up.

  Barker said: 'According to Berlin your Condor Legion had nothing to do with it, so what do you care?'

  'Ja,' agreed the German, 'but does Berlin tell exactly how we did not bomb Guernica?'

  Townsend pulled out a chair. The German sat.

  'Here is Guernica.' He tried to draw a square in the middle of the table with his finger, but the surface was wood and nothing showed. He poured some coffee onto the table and, using his finger, shaped the pool into a rough square. 'Here -- the river.' He found some hot milk in the bottom of a jug and poured a curving trail past the square of coffee. 'Also, the railway.' He searched about and saw mayonnaise on a nearby table. The correspondents raised eyebrows at each other while he dumped spoonfuls of mayonnaise between the milk and the coffee in a globular, glistening line. 'Is all a matter of communications,' he told them cheerfully. 'Of roads, yes?' This time he used a bottle of tomato ketchup and laid two rich red tracks of the stuff, meeting outside the river of milk. Then he poured an even wider strip of ketchup across the river, over the yellow railway, and into the black town. 'You see?'

  The correspondents watched with grudging fascination as the colours contaminated each other. Some of the other airmen had strolled over and were watching. 'Watch closely,' the German said. 'Three squadrons of Junkers fly over, drop their bombs, and bang!' He slammed the palms of his hands down on the mess. A multicoloured spray spattered the correspondents' heads and shoulders and arms. Even Luis, leaning back, got his share of the muck.

  The Germans fell about laughing.

  'So now you know what did not happen to Guernica,' the man said, and went away, mopping his front.

  Luis drove the correspondents silently back to their hotel. Next morning, after breakfast, he took Barker aside.

  'I can get .you a photograph of a German bomber flying very low over Guernica,' he said. 'Do you want it?'

  'You get it,' Barker said, 'and I'll give you whatever it costs.'

  'It will cost you nothing,' Luis told him stonily.

  'All right.'

  Barker watched Luis get into the car. Touchy bloody people, he thought. Who can understand them? He never saw Luis again.

  Chapter 10

  Driving north, Luis felt confused and depressed. For the first time, he did not care who won the war. Before, he had been impartial but interested, ready to see merit in either side, and wondering how the fate of Spain would affect his own future. Now he knew that his past had been a failure (bad schools, makeshift homes, lost jobs) and he saw nothing better in his future.

  Unusually for him, he drove slowly. The day was overcast, neither sunny nor threatening, and lacked all urgency or enthusiasm. Why was he going back to Guernica? It was a stupid thing to do. He was going back to get a blurred photograph of a clumsy aeroplane which had helped to destroy an irrelevant town and kill a lot of people nobody would ever miss. Why? Because it was evidence. Which meant that it would convince those who wanted to be convinced, and the rest wouldn't even look at it. So why bother? Because it made a story, and that was now his job, his skill, his craft: making good stories, whether they were true or not.

  No. Luis knew that was not a good enough reason either. It wasn't worth going back into Guernica just to get a good story for Barker. So there had to be something else. His honesty had been getting Luis into trouble all his life, and now it worried and nagged him all the way up the road from Burgos until it made him give in and own up. He didn't care a damn about Spain, about Nationalist lies or Republican propaganda, about truth or loyalty or skill or success. He was doing this stupid thing purely to get his revenge against those Germans who had mocked and humiliated and finally insulted him. That was all. It was an act of spite. This whole war was an act of spite, wasn't it? All right, then. Getting the photograph would be the first shot in Luis Cabrillo's private campaign.

  He drove down the hill and crossed the bridge into Guernica, feeling better now that he knew he was acting foolishly for his own selfish reasons. He saw fewer refugees but more soldiers: Mola was getting ready for another push towards Bilbao. Rubble had been cleared from the streets. The fires were out. The smell was fading.

  Luis drifted around the main square, looking for a discreet spot to leave the car. He found a gap outside a scruffy-looking barbershop, between a truck and a bus, and backed into it. His fingers were turning the doorhandle .when the officer came out of the barbershop, flicking bits of hair from his tunic.

  Luis made three bad mistakes, one after another.

  First, he let this mild coincidence panic him. He assumed -- without checking -- that the officer must see him. In fact the man was deep in thought and failed to notic
e the car until Luis's hand jumped from the door to the ignition key and made the engine bellow. Even as he did this, Luis knew that he had wasted a stroke of good luck: if he had kept quiet, he could have watched where the officer went and then gone the other way. Too late now. Luis swore, and swung the wheel.

  That was his second mistake. The officer had failed to recognise the car at first. Now he saw the numberplate, and he let out a shout.

  Luis's third mistake was to hit the back of the bus.

  With the engine roaring in protest he heaved on the wheel and ripped his way out, shedding bits of torn metal and shattered glass. The officer came running alongside, his mouth gaping to reveal a flash of gold, and grabbed at the door just as Luis worked both front wheels, free and rocketed into the wide open spaces. The car howled along one side of the square, nearly hit a mule cart at the corner, swerved, and racketed along with two wheels on the kerb, soldiers dodging and whistles blowing. He smashed into and over a parked motorcycle, got the car back on the road, and at last found a split second in which to change gear. The engine responded lustily, but as Luis bowled out of the square the officer, in a commandeered Mercedes, was already after him.

  He began catching up before they were out of town. It was inevitable. Luis was clearing the way, blasting the traffic to one side, making the road easy. By the time Luis blared over the bridge, the officer was only fifty yards behind; and in the mirror Luis glimpsed an army truck bucketing along in the Mercedes' wake.

  The road forked, right to Burgos, left to Bilbao. Luis saw a long, slow convoy hogging the Burgos road and he flung the car, tyres screaming and spitting stones, hard to the left, then let the wheel kick back and spin through his palms while his foot slammed the accelerator to the floor. Rear wheels dithered, skittered, at last gripped and heaved the car forward with a thrust that made his head jolt.

  The Mercedes came around the same corner as if on rails, and gained ten yards doing it.

  Over the next couple of miles Luis began to be afraid. His hands were slippery, his eyes were stinging with sweat, his calves and thighs and biceps were bunched and twitching. The officer's Mercedes had more power and better tyres, and probably more petrol. The road was getting worse: twisting and switchbacking through woods. One bad gear-change, one mis-timed corner, and Luis would be dead.