by Mathew Carr
“Si, Señor,” one of them replied. “Some foreigners bought gasoline here. They left about half an hour ago.”
Lawton felt hopeful and also impatient as Bonnecarrère pulled away from the village. “Can’t we go faster?” he asked.
“On these roads?” Bonnecarrère said. “I’m already breaking the speed limit. I’ll break the car to pieces.”
Bonnecarrère’s face was strained, and Lawton knew his wound was hurting him, but the Frenchman stepped on the accelerator until they were driving over thirty miles per hour. Soon the road began to climb again through an undulating sea of pine-covered mountains broken by patches of cliffs and giant boulders. Santamaría said that they were now in the Montseny mountains. After a few miles the macadam gave way to a dirt road and the car began to slow down once again, and ground its way around a series of hairpin bends that made Lawton suck in his breath.
“There it is!” Santamaría pointed up ahead, and Lawton saw the Delaunay-Belleville moving slowly along the mountain road high above them. By the time they reached the same spot the car had disappeared, and they found their passage blocked by a herd of goats that completely covered the road. Bonnecarrère honked the Klaxon as the car ground to a halt, and Santamaría shouted at the goatherd at the front of the herd, who acted as if he had not heard. Finally he jumped down and pushed his way through the animals, waving his gun in the air, until the goatherd seemed to recover from his deafness. He flicked a leather switch on the end of his stick and made a series of incomprehensible cries and clucking noises till the animals began to move away from the road.
Santamaría jumped back on board and they moved away once again. There was still no sign of the Delaunay-Belleville, as the car crawled slowly up through wooded mountains that showed no sign of human habitation. They had been driving for another ten minutes when the road flattened out alongside a steep narrow gorge. A few minutes later they turned another sharp corner and Lawton saw the Delaunay-Belleville on the other side of the road about twenty yards ahead of them. The motorcar was slightly raised up off the ground, and Lawton saw smoke coming from the engine where it had crashed into a tree. He also saw that the vehicle was empty as Bonnecarré slowed down and Santamaría turned toward Lawton with a gap-toothed grin.
“We have them!” he yelled.
Lawton was about to tell him to get down when he heard the rifle shot and the blood spouted from Santamaría’s ear. The old terrorist let out a howl, and then another shot hit him in the back of the head and his cap fell onto Lawton’s lap as he lolled back like a drunkard. Lawton slid down into the space behind the front seats as Bonnecarrère wrenched the car to a halt. The Frenchman rolled sideways out of the car as another bullet hissed past the spot where his head had been. Lawton continued to kneel in the narrow space between the front and back seats with his head bent over, and another bullet smacked into the seat behind him. After everything that had happened in the last few weeks it was no surprise to find himself under fire for the first time since the war, and even though he was not a betting man he could not help feeling that the odds against his survival had suddenly increased.
* * *
He reached behind him for the door handle, as another bullet shattered the windshield, and slid backward out onto the road. Bonnecarrère was lying on his stomach with his pistol in his hand trying to shelter behind one of the front wheels, but there was no opportunity for him to shoot as the bullets threw up little candles of dirt just in front of him. Lawton heard a pistol as well as a rifle now, and he could see someone moving through the trees on the other side of the road, who was clearly trying to get behind them. He looked down into the gorge. About thirty foot below he could see a narrow stream, and even though the slope was steep, it was not vertical.
“They’re trying to get round us!” he said. “I’m going after them!”
The Frenchman nodded. His face was glistening and taut with pain and he had still not fired a shot. Lawton could see underneath the car now as he wriggled back till his legs were hanging down over the rockface into the gorge. There was no obvious pathway, but the rock surface was sufficiently disfigured and disjointed to provide footholds and handholds. He lowered himself down until his head was just below the level of the road, and began to pick his way along the rock face, moving sideways away from the car and back toward the bend they had come from. Behind him he heard Bonnecarrère firing from the car, followed by another round of pistol and rifle shots from the forest.
Even as he moved along the rockface he knew he stood no chance if Bonnecarrère was hit and Klarsfeld and his driver came forward. More shots followed, and he continued to pick his way around the rock until the two motorcars were out of sight. He scrambled back onto the road and untucked the pistol as he ran into the forest. He continued to work his way slowly back through the forest, until he saw Klarsfeld’s driver, leaning against a tree almost parallel to the tourer. The driver was holding a Luger in both hands, and he spun around as Lawton took a step forward and fired three times in quick succession.
The driver dropped to the ground, and Lawton heard the rifle and the ping of metal from the car as he turned deeper into the forest. He knew Klarsfeld and Foulkes would have guessed that something had happened to the driver, and he crouched down as low as he could so that he was almost on all fours, with his head flicking back and forth. There were no more rifle shots now, as he turned back in a wide loop toward the Delaunay-Belleville. The forest was absolutely silent, except for the crackle of his footsteps on the pine cones and twigs.
Suddenly he saw the stricken motorcar at the edge of the road, with a waning column of steam still hissing from the engine. There was no sign of Klarsfeld, but he saw the rifle lying on the ground a few feet away from the car and he heard a faint moan from the forest. He pushed his way through the trees and up a slight slope until he reached an overgrown outcrop of rock at the edge of a small clearing. The moaning repeated itself again as he inched his way around the rock and saw Foulkes sitting with his back against the rock. Foulkes’s eyes were closed and blood was oozing through a wound in his head.
In the same moment he heard a sudden movement behind him. He spun around just in time to see the blade in Klarsfeld’s raised hand. Even as it came down toward him he brought the pistol upward, but the point of the knife caught him in the arm and the gun fell from his hand. Now Klarsfeld was on top of him, pushing him back onto a bed of leaves and pines, as Lawton reached out with his bleeding arm. He managed to catch Klarsfeld’s wrist and held it there as the German squeezed his other hand around his throat and dug his fingers into his windpipe.
Lawton could see his gritted teeth and flashing eyes as the knife bore down toward him. He was choking now and beginning to see black patches on the edges of his vision. The point of the blade was touching his chest when he twisted his head around and bit into Klarsfeld’s arm. Klarsfeld swore and released his grip, so that Lawton was able to bring his right hand up and catch the German on the jaw. It was not the most powerful punch he had ever delivered, but it was enough to rock Klarsfeld’s head backward. Before he could recover, Lawton grasped his knife in both hands and reared up, pushing the German off balance.
Now he was on top, and there was a look of panic and desperation in his eyes as Lawton turned the knife back toward him and pressed downward with his full weight, pushing the blade into his solar plexus. Their cheeks were touching now, and Lawton felt the same primal fury that he had sometimes felt during the war, as though he been transformed into one of the warriors in the Greek stories that Father McGuire had read them as a child. Like Achilles and Hector he felt a great rush of joy, pleasure, and exultation as Klarsfeld quivered and lay still. It was only when he got to his feet and stood rubbing his windpipe and panting for breath that he came back to himself and saw Foulkes staring at him.
“You’ve killed him?” Foulkes said weakly. “Well, he wasn’t a great man. Useful, but not great.”
Foulkes’s face was drained of color, there was a f
ilm of sweat on his forehead, and he seemed to be struggling to breathe.
“They’re all dead,” Lawton said. “And there is nothing great about you. And you should know that your little killing house will have been destroyed by now. Burned to the ground with everything in it.”
Foulkes let out a long sigh. “You bloody Irish fool. You have no idea what you’ve done.”
“I think I do,” Lawton said. “And there will be no pilgrimage. No one will even remember you or think of you—except as a criminal and a madman.”
“I could have saved lives—and not just in the war,” Foulkes said.
“You won’t even be able to save your own. It’s over now. And you are going to the gallows.”
“I’m not going anywhere.” Foulkes raised his hand and pointed the pistol at Lawton’s chest.
In the aftermath of the fight, Lawton had completely forgotten that Foulkes might be armed, and now he stood with his hands by his sides and cursed his stupidity.
“You know what they used to call me?” Foulkes was staring at some point in the distance just above Lawton’s shoulder. “The last of the great Victorians.”
“They didn’t know you.”
“I was greater than they knew.” Foulkes said bitterly. “You know the sun really is black today. Or is it the sky?”
Lawton glanced up at the sun, but it was the same yellow ball it had always been. He looked back to find Foulkes pointing the gun barrel into his own mouth. Before he could stop him, Foulkes fired and his mouth exploded in a splash of red. His head jerked back and then tilted to one side as the pistol slipped from his fingers. Lawton knew the investigation really was over now. He stared down at the bloodied jaw and the reflection of the trees and sky in Foulkes’s sightless blue eyes, and felt only a vague disappointment that Foulkes had cheated the hangman. He was just about to take the pistol from his hand when Bonnecarrère came round from behind the boulder with his pistol in his hand. He stepped past Klarsfeld and looked at Foulkes.
“He’s dead?” he asked, lowering the weapon.
“Very much so,” said Lawton. “And good riddance.”
“Then I think it would be better for both of us if we get away from here.”
* * *
One of the tires on the Peugeot had been punctured, and Lawton replaced it with the spare, while the wounded Bonnecarrère sat watching and gave instructions. Both of them agreed that it would not be sensible to drive back to Barcelona with a corpse in the front seat, and Lawton left Santamaría by the side of the road and cleaned the seat as best he could before taking his place. Finally they drove back down the mountain and followed the road back to the plain. The villages were busier now, the peasants and farmers were coming in from the fields, and some of the villagers and militiamen stared curiously at the bullet holes and broken lights as they drove past. They did not stop to explain themselves, and Lawton hoped that they would not need gasoline.
It was nearly seven o’clock when they reached the Collserola once again and began to make their way down to Barcelona. Lawton could still see columns of smoke curling up from various points in the city, but they seemed to be dwindling and there were less of them than before. Even as they entered Gràcia, he heard the distant pop of gunshots, but it was soon clear that the authorities were fully in control of the city, as they drove past cavalrymen and mounted Civil Guard on street corners and intersections, and soldiers in khaki and white kepis standing by the wreckage of barricades, manning artillery pieces or sitting on the pavement.
In the Mayor de Gràcia, they passed a line of men and women being marched down toward the port by a military escort. Further down the Passeig de Gràcia, customers were sitting in the outdoor cafés, and Lawton saw an impeccably dressed couple walk their dog past a corpse that was lying facedown on the pavement.
“I need a favor,” Lawton said. “I don’t want to stay in Mata’s apartment tonight. But I haven’t any money—not till the banks open.”
“Pas de problème, my friend. You can stay at my hotel. Consider it a gift from my government. We fought together as members of the Entente—and we won!”
“We did.”
Lawton felt relieved now as they drove on toward the Plaza Catalunya. The square was still swarming with soldiers and horses, and dozens of prisoners were sitting in a circle with their hands on their heads.
“I shan’t be sorry to get back to my country,” Bonnecarrère said. “But I think you may need the help of your own government if you are going to get back to yours.”
33
That night Lawton ate supper at the Hotel Internacional, at Bonnecarrère’s expense. He fell asleep to the sound of horses’ hooves and military commands coming from the Ramblas. In the morning he woke up to find that Bonnecarrère had already checked out, but he was pleased to find that the Frenchman had left him an envelope with some pesetas and a note “From the Entente Cordiale.” After breakfast he went out to buy cigarettes and get his suitcase from Mata’s house. Once again crowds were flowing up the Ramblas, and the carriages, trams, and bicycles were moving up and down the street on either side of them. Though the fires were no longer visible the smell of smoke continued to pervade the central thoroughfare as he walked past the newspaper kiosks and looked at the headlines on the events of the last week, and the battle in Morocco in the Wolf Ravine, in which two thousand Spanish soldiers had been killed.
Mata’s newspaper bore the headline TRAGIC WEEK! above a picture of Barcelona with smoke rising up from all around the city. Lawton bought a copy of El Diluvio, and sat down in a café to read it. Already the events of the last few days seemed distant and unreal, as he drank his coffee and smoked his first cigarette of the day, with the sun on his face and the birds once again chirping in their cages. Like all the other newspapers, the front page carried a long article on the disturbances of the last week. The article noted that it had been approved by the military censor, and it listed eighty buildings burned and destroyed, and more than one hundred dead and wounded. Hundreds of arrests had already been made, the paper said, and more were certain to follow, as the authorities sought out the terrorists and agitators who had brought chaos and destruction to the city.
The newspaper also reported that one of the city’s most celebrated journalists, the poet Bernat Mata, had been shot dead near the cathedral; that His Excellency the Count of Arenales had been murdered and a chapel on his estate burned by an anarchist mob; that the captain-general Santiago had called upon all citizens of Barcelona to work together to ensure that these terrible events were never repeated. Afterward Lawton walked over to Mata’s house to get his suitcase. He was relieved to find that his wife and children had not returned. For a moment he thought of writing them a note, but he knew that he could not find the words to describe what had happened. After picking up his case he posted Mata’s keys through his letterbox, and headed back out into the city to the post office.
He had hoped to send a telegram to Mrs. Foulkes, but the telegraphist said that the lines were still being repaired. To his surprise, the telegraphist said there was a telegram for him that had arrived before the strike and got lost. Lawton stood outside the post office and read:
Dear Harry,
It’s long time now and I don’t hear from you. I hope you have no problem? Remember to take medication. Everything fine here. I miss you. Lotte.
For a moment Lawton could not think who Lotte was, and then he realized that the telegram came from the widow Friedman. Whether it was the strain of the last few days, or the realization that someone actually cared what had happened to him, Lawton felt genuinely moved by this simple message. Of course her name was Lotte, but he was so used to thinking of her as another man’s wife that it was only now that he remembered the tenderness and concern that she bestowed on him and he felt suddenly grateful for it. He was pleased to think that she would be waiting for him as he walked back down the Ramblas to the consulate.
He found Smither standing in the center of the room, dres
sed in his tennis whites with his tennis racket, practicing his forehand. The vice-consul smiled hopefully as Lawton came into the room.
“Harry,” he said. “You’ve come for the ashes?”
“I won’t be taking them,” Lawton said.
“Why on earth not?”
“Because the ashes in that jar are not Randolph Foulkes.”
Smither’s mouth fell open, and he sat down at his desk as Lawton lit a cigarette and told him what had happened during the last few days, right up to the gunfight in the mountains. He told him about Lieutenant Ugarte, about Foulkes, Weygrand, and Klarsfeld, about the blood transfusions, his kidnapping and escape, and the help he had received from the French secret service agent Captain Georges Bonnecarrère. He did not mention everything. There was no need to tell a representative of His Majesty’s Government that he had shot the Count of Arenales. By the time he had finished however, Smither was staring at him as though he had just fallen out of the sky.
“Good lord,” he said, shaking his head. “Good lord. So Foulkes was the Monster—and a traitor to boot?”
“He didn’t see it like that.”
“And you’re sure this… laboratory has been destroyed?”
“Very much so. It caught fire accidentally. And everyone associated with it is dead—except for Lieutenant Ugarte. And right now, I need your help.”
“Oh?”
“I need to get out of the city.”
“Right-o.” Smither did not look displeased at this prospect.