Dennis Wheatley - Duke de Richleau 03

by The Golden Spaniard

  Few people were about except patrols on each corner and a ragged column of Marxists. Some of the men leading it wore red shirts and carried rifles; on a hand-cart were piled four machine-guns and a number of cases of ammunition. Most of the marching crowd, about two hundred strong, were armed with all sorts of odd weapons; here and there a woman could be seen among them.

  The barricade which had been started the day before was now a long, thick ridge fifteen feet high and twenty feet across. It consisted of overturned cars and vans, furniture from near-by offices, masses of junk from the abandoned fun fair which had been set up a fortnight before in the Prado, paving stones and earth. The three dead Fascists from the previous day’s skirmish and a dead horse still lay sprawled in the roadway near it.

  They exchanged rooms with Doña Favorita for three-quarters of an hour, when she had dressed, in order that they in turn might use the bathroom and dress in it. Swopping rooms again they sat down to wait with what patience they could for Simon and breakfast. The sound of the guns continued to come faintly and occasionally the drone of an aeroplane could be heard overhead.

  At last Simon arrived with some rolls and dried figs. “All I could get you,” he announced, but he smiled cheerfully as he went on, “everything’s fixed up all right. Don Palacio is being fetched from the prison in a U.G.T. van. As soon as it gets here you can join him in it and it’ll take you to the station. But where’s the girl?”

  De Richleau nodded towards the bathroom door. “She’s been here all the time. Would you believe it, we found her perched up on the top of the wardrobe when we woke up yesterday morning.”

  “Really!” Simon’s eyebrows shot up. “Poor dear. She must have spent a jolly uncomfortable night of it while you two snored your heads off in her bed. Still, she’ll be all right now.”

  “What’s the firing?” asked the Duke as the distant explosions came again.

  “Spot of bother at the Montana Barracks. Fanjul tried marching out on us but we’ve had the place surrounded ever since early yesterday morning. Those are the loyal batteries of the Artillery shelling the Barracks now.”

  The Duke looked grave. “I thought some of the Infantry Regiments would refuse to follow their officers. They always do in a Revolution but I imagined the Generals would be able to count on the Gunners.”

  “Well, for once you were wrong. Nobody’s backing the Generals at all except a few criminal lunatics like themselves; mad-dog Fascists and medieval Catholics.”

  “Thanks,” said the Duke gently.

  “Sorry,” said Simon, “I didn’t mean anything personal, but it’s a fact that practically every sane person in Spain is on the Government side. Even the Air Force, where you’d have thought the Generals had a pull. The Madrid squadrons are up now. You’ll hear them bombing the Rebels in the barracks to put an end to this nonsense, on your way to the station.”

  “Where are you sending us?”

  “Valencia or Cartagena. Not certain which yet. But the revolt fizzled out in both almost as soon as it started and communications have been re-established. ‘Fraid you may have to wait an hour or two on the platform as nobody knows yet when a train will be starting, but you’ll be quite safe among the men I’m sending with you.”

  “The Government certainly seem to have come out on top,” said Richard. “How have they managed to put down a nationwide revolt so quickly?”

  “They didn’t,” Simon replied abruptly. “It was the U.G.T. Directly each General declared martial law in his town we called a General Strike to paralyse all communications. Cut them off from each other so they didn’t know what their friends were doing. Nine-tenths of the men weren’t with their officers anyhow. The rest are being dealt with by loyal troops and armed Militia.”

  He left them to see if Don Palacio had arrived, and returned ten minutes later to say that the Deputy was below in the van. Doña Favorita was let out and introduced to Simon. She was crying as she thanked him for having saved her lover, and although he endeavoured not to show it he was obviously affected. The party then went downstairs.

  In the street a tradesman’s van was waiting; across its ordinary lettering three huge letters, ‘U.G.T.,’ stood out in fresh black paint. Beside the armed driver sat a pleasant-faced young man named Antonio Sagasta who, said Simon on introducing him, was to be responsible for them. On the roof of the van perched two more young fellows armed with rifles. Sagasta got down and unlocked the van. Doña Favorita sprang in, and for a moment they left her to her touching reunion with Don Palacio.

  The Duke and Richard said good-bye to Simon, who smilingly wished them a happy journey as he handed them the four safe-conducts, and they followed Doña Favorita into the vehicle, the door of which was locked behind them. It was almost dark inside so they could see little of Don Palacio, who at once began to pour out his thanks to them in a spate of mingled Spanish and English. He was tall, had a firm handgrip and a deep voice; but that was all they could gather about him.

  The van started with a jolt and began to run south towards the Atocha Station. They were moving away from the Montana Barracks but a series of heavy, reverberating explosions came clearly to them. The bombers were doing their deadly work.

  Twice the van stopped, presumably while obstacles were moved from gaps in barricades to allow them to pass, and they heard their guards joking with people in the street.

  They were running along a smooth stretch not half a mile from their starting-point when there was a sudden shouting following by a heavy crash. The van lurched sideways and they were all thrown in a heap on its floor.

  There was a shot, another and another. Someone screamed. There was a violent banging on the door. Before they could scramble to their feet it was burst open and a man shouted, “Deprisa! Deprisa! We are friends! Make your get-away!”

  De Richleau thought of his promise to Simon, to go quietly to the station; but this was none of his doing. If they stayed where they were the mob would be on the scene in a minute and murder them all without asking any questions. He drew his gun and poked his head out of the back of the van.

  “Quick! Quick!” again implored the man who had burst open the van. “See that fellow on the pavement. The one in the beret. Follow him. Be quick, I say, or you’ll get us all killed.”

  A couple of shots slapped into the van. Pandemonium seemed to have broken loose outside it. The Duke and Richard jumped out together. Don Palacio followed clutching Doña Favorita by the arm.

  They saw that a large lorry had deliberately been run into their van from a side turning. Their driver sprawled over his wheel, the blood dripping from his head. Young Sagasta was lying face up in the gutter, his eyes open and staring. One of the other men was staggering down the street at a limping run; he toppled forward, shot again, at the moment they caught sight of him.

  As they dashed for the pavement the driver of the lorry backed it away from the crippled van and a dozen of their rescuers began to scramble on to it. A second-floor window in a near-by house was thrown up and there was a sharp report. One of the men in the lorry flung up his hand in a Fascist salute and pitched backwards among his comrades. The others sent a rapid fusillade at the window; its broken glass tinkled down into the street.

  Suddenly a machine-gun began to stutter in a corner building a hundred yards away and some Militiamen with rifles came into action on the far side of the road. But the lorry was moving forward again towards the turning opposite that from which it had come and its crew were keeping up a constant fire on anyone rash enough to expose themselves. De Richleau and his friends did not see the end of the fighting. The man in the beret yelled to them, “Corre! Corre!” and dived down a side street.

  They followed panting; Don Palacio and Richard half-carrying, half-dragging Doña Favorita as they ran. The Duke dropped back to act as rearguard and constantly glanced over his shoulder to see if they were being pursued. They turned a corner before anyone had appeared at the opening of the street.

  Their guide slackened h
is pace a little so that they could catch him up. “Follow me! Say nothing!” he puffed. “You men take off your ties and put them in your pockets. Nobody with a tie on is safe in Madrid now, but collars don’t matter.”

  They did as they were told and slipping round another corner dropped into a quick walk. A barricade loomed up in the distance. Before they reached it the man in the beret slipped into a small bar, muttered something to the man behind it, and pattered down some stairs at its back to the basement. They came out through an area window into a yard; and so into another street.

  For the best part of half an hour they twisted and doubled, entering several houses and shops, and leaving by their back entrances, to avoid the barricades. De Richleau knew they were heading roughly west. He was not surprised when they entered the broad Calle Alcala, crossed it and slipped into the red light district on its far side, where he had been with Richard only two nights before.

  Off the Calle Jardines they entered a small hotel, the ground-floor room of which was evidently used as a public bar. Several poorly-dressed men were lounging there but they all carried guns and had alert, intelligent eyes.

  “Wait here with the Señorita!” their guide said to Don Palacio. “You can order yourself and her a drink. You two come upstairs,” he added to the Duke and Richard.

  They stumbled up some dark and smelly stairs to a narrow landing. The man in the beret rapped out a little rhythm that had a recurring motif on the panel of a door. A sharp click followed as the electrically-controlled lock was released from inside. They passed into a fusty bedroom. An old woman lay in bed there. She had her right hand under a copy of Claridad, Largo Caballero’s paper, and De Richleau would have made a fair-sized bet that it held a gun. With a little nod at the man in the beret she withdrew her hand and turned a portion of the lamp bracket above the bed. As it operated another secret switch the lock clicked to again and at the same moment the door of a wardrobe swung open. They slipped through it and through an opening in a steel panel on its far side into another passage. At the end of the passage was a single door. Their guide threw it open and stood aside for them to enter.

  They passed into a small, windowless room which was lit only by a desk lamp turned downward upon some papers. A woman was seated at the desk writing. An enormous pile of cigarette-stubs lay heaped on a platter at her side. Her head was lowered over her work but by her golden hair they knew instantly that it was Lucretia-José.

  “All safe,” reported the man in the beret. “I’ve left the other two downstairs as you directed.”

  “Good. Mil gracias, Fernandez. You may go,” she said looking up at the others with a welcoming smile.

  “So you were at the bottom of this,” De Richleau sighed, sinking into a chair. “I guessed as much. I suppose Cristoval told you he had seen us in the Palace lounge with Simon Aron?”

  She nodded. “That made me feel it wise to have an eye kept on you. I learnt you were confined to your rooms and, this morning, that arrangements were being made to deport you with two other people. It was simple enough to have a rescue squad in readiness and the hotel watched until you left for the station.”

  “It was very good of you to occupy yourself with us at such a desperately busy time. You’re looking terribly tired, my dear.”

  There were great, dark circles under Lucretia’s eyes and she passed a hand wearily over them. “Yes, it’s no light job playing this double game. For the time being it’s essential that every moment I get off from Anarchist H.Q. should be put in here. I haven’t slept for over sixty hours.”

  “Can’t you chuck things for a bit now?” Richard urged. “The bombing and the shelling of the Barracks stopped soon after we were rescued, so Fanjul can’t be trying to force his way out any more. They’re probably having a parley.”

  Lucretia frowned. “I had the news just before you got here. Fanjul has surrendered.”

  “I was afraid he’d have to,” said the Duke. “If only he’d done something on Saturday night it might have made all the difference, but he left his bid for the city much too late.”

  “The weak fool!” Lucretia angrily stubbed out her cigarette. “He had trouble with his men but at least he might have led out those who were loyal to him at the proper time. As it is he’s only succeeded in getting a lot of good fellows killed to no purpose.”

  Richard stared glumly at his feet. “Well, that puts paid to any hope of overthrowing the Government. Madrid’s gone Red and if what we’ve heard about other places is true the whole rising is a wash-out. Except for the looting, and shooting of Generals, that’s bound to follow, the whole thing’s as good as over.”

  Lucretia-José drew a sheet of paper that had a long list of names on it towards her and with a firm hand struck a line through the word ‘Madrid.’ “Not many people know as much about what is going on as I do,” she said with a tired smile, “but I’ll give a few facts:

  “General Mola has established his headquarters at Burgos and set up a Provisional Government there. Navarre, Galicia, and many other Northern Provinces have already hailed him as the Saviour of Spain. General Franco has been temporarily cut off from his base in Morocco by the closing of the Straits but reinforcements are now reaching him every hour by air. He entered Algeciras and Cadiz with only a handful of men, but both towns received him with open arms. The great Labour stronghold of Sevile, our third-largest city, was taken by Queipo de Llano without resistance. The entire garrisons of Saragossa, Coruna, Toledo, Pamplona, Gijon, and Granada have declared for National and Catholic Spain. One army will advance from the south and the other will sweep down from the north until these Terrorists here are crushed between them. No, my friends. It is not over. It has only just begun.”

  Chapter Fifteen – Night of Horror

  That’s not so bad,” commented the Duke. “I felt from the beginning that you were over-confident in thinking you might gain control of the whole country without serious fighting.”

  “If we hadn’t failed in Madrid we’d be masters of four-fifths of Spain by now,” Lucretia contended. “Only Catalonia might have stood out against the new Government if it could have been proclaimed from the Capital, and foreign countries could not have refused to recognize it.”

  “Perhaps,” said Richard. “But you’ve failed here, so instead of being the new Government your friends are technically Rebels. Before they can arrive the Marxists will have plenty of time to prepare to defend the city and encourage resistance in Barcelona, Bilbao, Valencia, and lots of other places. It looks like at least three months’ civil war to me. Have you got the money to finance it?”

  “Yes. We shall collect the usual taxes in the territories we control once things are straightened out a little. In the meantime we have the arsenals of the cities we’ve taken, to supply us with munitions, and Señor Juan March, the Royalist millionaire, has given us thirty million pesetas to pay our troops with.”

  “As things have panned out I suppose you’ll decide to throw your own millions into the army coffers?” said the Duke.

  “Certainly. If it proves necessary. I can’t tell you how grateful I am for your foresight in getting them out of Madrid. You might have protected them from confiscation, but we could never have made use of them in such a struggle as it seems we’ve got to face. How are things going at Valmojado?”

  De Richleau told her of their operations during the last week and added, “I want to get back there as soon as possible now. Hardly half the gold can have been dealt with yet and if the factory workers get out of hand they may sack the place—in which case we’d lose it after all.”

  She shook her head. “If they sack anything it will be the local convent. As far as they know there’s nothing at the factory worth the taking, and they don’t burn factories unless they’ve got a very bitter grudge against the owner.”

  “I think you’re right but all the same I’d like to be on the spot again.”

  “I felt sure you would, so I’ve made arrangements for you to get out there. The
buses have stopped running, of course, and you’ll have to walk to the outskirts of Madrid, but if you go to the Calle Alva no. 97, just on the other side of the Manzanares, there’s a lock-up garage there. Ring the bell four times and tell the man who answers it that you come from Buenos Aires. He’ll fix you up with a car. Now, who’re these people that were being deported with you?”

  The Duke told her the story of Doña Favorita and Don Palacio, at which she laughed a great deal. When it was done, she said, “You certainly seem to have got the best of Simon. Don Palacio will naturally wish to join a fighting unit as soon as...”

  “I’m sorry,” De Richleau interrupted, “that is a thing I can’t allow. I fooled Simon into putting us on the deportation list because it was the only way we could be certain of getting clear of the hotel without his having us followed. But I will not take advantage of an unexpected turn of events deliberately to hand over a very useful man to my friend’s enemies when that friend has given him a safe-conduct at my request.”

  Lucretia puffed lazily on her cigarette. “Aren’t you being a little over-scrupulous?”

  “Not to my mind. Either Don Palacio gives me his word of honour not to raise a finger in this war, except in self-defence, or I march him back to the Model Prison with my own gun in his back.”

  “What do you wish done with him, then?”

  “Employ him on non-combatant work. You must have secret hospitals where your people wounded in the street-fighting are being tended.”

  “It shall be as you wish; but what about the girl? The little fool ought to be slapped for having returned here after her father had sent her out of the country. She may find herself compelled to mend a lot of broken hearts she won’t care about at all if she stays on here, and I’ve more urgent things to do than plan the escape of love-lorn maidens.”

  “Would it be possible to get her into one of the Embassies?”

  Richard hazarded. “I remember her saying that her aunt was an Englishwoman.”