Coello had funked it and two of his clerks who had turned up kept in the background so, at first, it looked as if the matter were to be argued out between Falcon and Jacinto with the backing of their respective factions.
All but the secret squad were greatly surprised when Richard and de Richleau put in an appearance. Both of them knew that by showing themselves at all they were running into considerable danger. If tempers ran high it was extremely probable that there would be a fight and, as Falcon was reported to have the majority of the men with him, there was a sporting chance that they would decide to lynch the factory-owner and his interpreter.
Actually they had planned their entrance to the yard with great care and had timed it, by watching from an upper window of the office buildings, to coincide with the high spot of Falcon’s first general appeal for the support of the assembled crowd. Directly they were noticed interest was immediately deflected from the orator to them and he suddenly dried up just as he was getting the men really interested.
Once they had been recognised Richard and the Duke strode forward beaming all over their faces as they raised their clenched fists high in the air and cried loudly:
“Salud! Salud! Oo-archie-pay! Oo-archie-pay!”
This took the wind completely out of the sails of the extremists who were preparing to boo them, while the more moderate men enthusiastically took up their cry and gave them a smiling welcome. For the moment there was no question of lynching. On the contrary, with smiles, handshakes, inquiries and congratulations, they played a part more suitable to a Countess opening a local charity bazaar.
It was recalled that Don … no, no, how one forgets … Comrade Ricardo, had increased wages and outlined plans for the building of a workers’ club during his short regime at the factory. Everyone wanted to know what adventures had happened to them and how everything had really gone in Madrid.
Comrade Hypolite stood on a barrel and made a speech in which he congratulated them on the solidarity of the workers against the iniquitous plotting of the Army Chiefs to suppress their liberties. At its end he was given a tremendous ovation and, temporarily, had the crowd in his hands. He then asked what the present meeting was about.
A dozen people all tried to tell him at once but eventually pride of place was given to Jacinto as foreman.
The old Carlist explained the situation and in doing so took the opportunity to address the assembly and point out his own views about there being two sides in making any manufacturing business a commercial success.
Matias Falcon got up to contradict him. He was a young man of not more than twenty-five, with an open face, flashing eyes and a clean-limbed body. His workman’s clothes were better kept than those of the others and he spoke well. He agreed with Jacinto that a business side was necessary to any manufacturing concern but, he asked, why should not the workers themselves handle such matters? Buying and selling was not such a difficult thing. They would soon learn the ropes; particularly men like him, who had gone to the trouble of studying at home and improving himself, as every one of them should do if their freedom was to be of any use to them.
It was only when he tackled the question of the abolition of money and the exchange of goods with other groups of Syndicalists that he lost the interest of many of his listeners.
When his harangue ended it seemed that the meeting was about equally divided but the Commander of the Militia column stepped forward and climbed on to the barrel. It was only when he was helped on to this makeshift rostrum that they noticed he was lame.
Lieutenant Mudra was a man of few words. He told them that he was a Regular Officer, thrice wounded as an N.C.O. in the Moroccan war and promoted to Commissioned rank for gallantry in the field sixteen years before. But had that got him anywhere? Had it Hell! He was just a lieutenant in an infantry regiment and if he’d lived to be a hundred he wouldn’t have got any further. Why?
Because those something, something aristocrats who made up nine-tenths of the officers in the Spanish Army wouldn’t give a chance to any man who’d risen from the ranks. For years smooth-cheeked young pups from the cadet schools, who’d never seen a shot fired in action, had been promoted over his head because they were nephews or cousins of one of the Generals. The whole system was rotten—rotten!
What did they intend to do about it? he asked. He’d been a loyal officer until the dirty Generals betrayed the Workers. He was still a loyal officer, but to the Government of the people, and he owed his present command, not to his rank but to election, because he was the most suitable man to hold it. Men like himself meant to destroy the traitor Generals. It was up to the Workers to destroy the capitalist bosses who hid behind them. It didn’t matter a cuss how they ran their factories as long as they outed the bosses. The bosses had to go.
The abrupt, staccato sentences, delivered in a barrack-square voice which penetrated everywhere, by the thick-set middle-aged ex-N.C.O., had a tremendous effect and four-fifths of the crowd began to shout, “Take over the factory, Falcon! Take over the factory!”
De Richleau saw the game was going against him and that the gold, now worth nearly one hundred and twenty million pesetas owing to the recent fall in the exchange, was likely to slip through his hands, once and for all. His only resource was to play for time and so, leaping on to the barrel, he shouted for the crowd to give him another hearing.
He appealed to them for fair play on behalf of the English Comrade Eaton. If they were given a little time he felt sure that matters could be arranged to the satisfaction of all parties. How, for instance, were they to carry on without money to finance the purchase of raw materials—at least to start with? Comrade Eaton’s firm in Birmingham was very rich and he was anxious to help them. Given a week they could get in touch with England and make some plan to run the factory on a profit-sharing basis with the workers.
“Not good enough! Not good enough!” shouted Falcon and other voices cried, “Too long! Too long!”
“All right—a few days then,” pleaded the Duke. “Let Comrade Eaton see what he can do by cable and we will meet again this time tomorrow.”
The crowd seemed willing to meet him on the last suggestion but Lieutenant Mudra scotched that. Lifting up his foghorn of a voice he bawled, “Comrades! My column leaves tonight and I want to see this through so they don’t cheat you. Give ’em till four o’clock this afternoon and not a moment more.”
Upon this the crowd broke up and the Duke, discomfited, retired with Richard to the office. It was only half-past eleven so if they had really wanted to cable to England they could have done so via Valencia and Marseilles with a reasonable chance of getting a reply before four o’clock; but there was nothing about which they could cable to anyone in England. All the same they sent a long telegram to an entirely mythical firm in Birmingham in case some spy of Falcon’s in the Post Office should report that they had not done so.
The moment they were alone de Richleau explained the position fully to Richard, who exclaimed:
“How absolutely infuriating—after all the hellish work we’ve put in. We simply must keep the gold out of their hands somehow.”
“There’s only one hope now, as far as I can see,” the Duke grunted. “I hate to drag Lucretia-José into this, but we’ve got to get hold of her and see if she can’t do something.”
They rang up the flat in Rios Rosas but there was no reply, and the same thing happened when they tried successive calls, at intervals of twenty minutes, for the next two hours. She was obviously out and even if a telegram might have reached her through the porter of the block they dared not send one because it was certain to be read by the Post Office people in Valmojado.
For a time they discussed the idea of one of them motoring into Madrid to try to find her. Fernandez, at the little hotel in the Calle Jardines, where her secret office was situated, would be sure to know her whereabouts or at least where they would be most likely to find her; but they had to abandon that idea because if Richard did not appear at the afternoon
meeting it would look like cowardice and de Richleau could not go because he was the only one of the two who could state their case in Spanish.
With ever-increasing hope they persisted in ringing Lucretia’s number and at last, to their sudden elation, they got a reply; but it was not Lucretia speaking. The voice was that of an ill-educated and apparently elderly woman. De Richleau asked when Lucretia would be in, but the woman did not know. He then begged her to get a simple message delivered as soon as possible: “Syndicalists are taking over at Valmojado this afternoon.”
He made her repeat it twice, stressed the urgency of it, and hung up. It was then a quarter-past three. The Duke got a Union Jack out of one of his suitcases, they ran it up on a short flagstaff over the office block, and there was nothing more they could do.
Chapter XVIII
The Militiaman’s Bride
By four o’clock the crowd had assembled in the big yard again and, smiling a confidence they did not feel, Richard and the Duke went out to meet them.
De Richleau said at once that they had not received a reply from Birmingham and begged for a further delay on that account, but Mudra would not hear of it. Now that he was, at last in a position to exert his authority on a larger scale than that afforded by a solitary platoon of soldiers, he seemed to have constituted himself the supreme arbiter in this factory dispute.
The Duke then pointed to the Union Jack, hanging limp against the mast in the gruelling, windless heat, and asked them to remember that the factory was the property of a British subject. Arbitrarily to confiscate such a property was, he maintained, the worst possible statesmanship on the part of the new rulers. He proved very eloquent on the subject but Falcon said that Syndicalists took no more account of foreign Governments than they did of their own. The British workers were welcome to any property in their country owned by Spanish bosses and the sooner they took it the better. He and his mates were going to take over the plant in which they earned their living whoever owned it.
The last shot in the Duke’s locker was almost a surrender to Falcon’s demands. He said that Comrade Eaton was agreeable to the factory being run for the benefit of all by a Committee, provided that owner, office staff and workers were all represented upon it. He secretly hoped that if he and Jacinto could get themselves elected to the proposed committee they might yet remain in a position to control the stock and the locked sheds by a little tactful manoeuvring. His proposal was hailed with general applause except by a few extremists and Mudra, who bellowed at once:
“No! No! They’re not going to have any boss’s toadies on their committee.”
“Why not? Since they’re willing to help us?” Jacinto countered stoutly.
“Not if I can stop it,” thundered Mudra. “The bosses are cleverer than you and they’ll only cheat you if you do. I’m against it and what I say goes.”
“What’s it got to do with you?” Richard shouted.
It was a dangerous challenge but he made it because, although he could not understand much of what was being said, he could see the way things were going and knew that, now, they could only play for time in the hope that Lucretia-José had received their message and was sending them some sort of succour.
The Duke translated Richard’s question with the result that Mudra became furiously angry, but many of the workers, who had not the courage to protest themselves, felt that the soldier was taking too much on himself and they backed up their cidevant employer. Amongst them, strange as it appeared, were Falcon and his little group. With their Anarchist ideals they did not like anyone from outside interfering in their affairs.
Richard had set a better rabbit running than he knew, for soon the argumentative Spaniards had resolved themselves into two new camps. Very nearly all the employees at the factory in one party, and Mudra with his militiamen and a crowd of roughs from the town in the other.
They talked at the top of their voices and all at once. Many began to shout abuse at each other and de Richleau encouraged them whenever he could find an opportunity, since he did not mind if they came to blows now that he had the majority of the factory men with him.
It was in the midst of this uproar that the increasing thunder of a powerful motor caused everyone to turn towards the road. From where he was standing on a packing-case the Duke could see over the bobbing heads of the crowd. It was with mingled feelings of relief and anxiety that he saw a long-nosed racing-car, painted bright scarlet, and with the black initials F.A.I, on its bonnet, pull up with a jerk. It was Lucretia-José—and he had not bargained for her putting in a personal appearance.
She made a striking figure as she jumped out and came swiftly towards them. Her head was bare to the afternoon sunshine except for its smooth helmet of golden hair. Her short, black, pleated skirt, black tie and scarlet shirt provided a fine display of the Anarchist colours and the fact that her pretty legs were encased in top-boots somehow gave her a curious air of authority.
Walking straight into the midst of the crowd she wasted not a moment, but cried, “What’s it all about, Comrades? I was passing through Valmojado and I heard there was trouble here. Wherever there’s trouble—I settle it. This is not the time for arguments. We’ve got to get on with the War! Oo-archie-pay!”
Answering shouts echoed the proletarian battle-cry and a forest of clenched fists was thrust into the air but Mudra only gave her a curious look as he snapped:
“And who may you be?”
“Have you ever heard of La Española Dorada?” she cried loudly, thrusting her face up close to his.
“Can’t say I have,” he replied with a grin, but others in the crowd were evidently better informed. A quick whisper ran round: “It’s the Golden Spaniard! THE GOLDEN SPANIARD! You know—the Anarchist girl they tell such extraordinary stories about.”
Lucretia’s exploits, as known to the Reds, were always designed to draw attention to herself in order to strengthen her position as a leader, and most of them, as retailed among the lower ranks of the Comrades, were gross exaggerations; but her picturesque personality had caught the romantic and superstitious imaginations of many Spaniards. Matias Falcon was the first to seize her hand and clasp it warmly. The other Anarchists crowded round her and some of Mudra’s militiamen waved their rifles enthusiastically.
“Now, Comrades,” she cried, jumping up on to the packing-case beside the Duke but completely ignoring him. “What’s it all about?”
Waving the others aside she listened to Falcon’s account. When he had finished she stared round in silence for a moment, an angry scowl on her fine features.
“What’s this?” she suddenly burst out. “Spain! Liberty! Freedom!—in danger, and you rats stand here disputing which of you are to become the owners of a factory. Have your comrades died on the barricades that you should betray them when the work is only half done, to scramble for pesetas in the gutter? Shame on you! Shame!”
For five minutes she flayed them unmercifully with her tongue until their heads drooped sheepishly and none but Mudra and his militiamen could meet her eye. Then she pointed at him and cried in ringing tones:
“Look at the Comrade Lieutenant here. He and his men are on the way to the front. They go to offer their lives for things that we should count more precious than life. Passing through the square here I saw the women who are marching in their ranks because those ranks are not full enough of men. How can any man who counts himself a man among you suffer such things to be? What sort of Spaniards are you, men of Valmojado, that you remain here grubbing for money behind a screen of Spanish women’s breasts? It cannot be true! It cannot be true that you would rather have those breasts pierced and bleeding from the enemy bullets than join up yourselves. I refuse to believe that among Spanish workers such cowards exist!”
A sudden murmur of protest arose as she paused for breath. They were not cowards.… No call to arms had previously come to Valmojado.… No one had asked them to join up.…
In a moment she was contrite: immeasurably distressed, le
aning down to them with outstretched arms.
She had not known that.… She had wronged them sadly.… But now was the time to show their manhood. Never had Spain been in greater need of the valour of her sons. Let those who were brave enough give their names to the Comrade Lieutenant as volunteers.
“I’ll go,” said a brawny workman. “So’ll I,” shouted another.
Lucretia-José sprang down and flung her arms round the neck of the first, kissing him on the mouth. She did the same for the second and a score of others who pressed forward, fired by her words.
De Richleau watched her without a trace of expression on his face. He loathed the sight of her giving her lips to this crowd of strangers. Yet his admiration for her was unbounded. Quite early in her devastating attack on the factory hands he had seen her game and, from that point, their brains had marched together.
With a diabolical cunning, which he was so perfectly fitted to appreciate, he knew that she was deliberately taking the only possible course to rid the factory of its most dangerous elements. When her appeal came he could, actually, have pointed out most of the men who would respond to it and join up. Not the steadies, the happily married men and the youngsters who were keen to hold down a good job and get on. Those were the people on his side already who desired the maintenance of the law and order for which he was fighting.
This was a Civil War. No question of patriotism was involved. Only the hot-heads, the ne’er-do-wells, the trouble-makers who could be swayed by any blackguard with a subtle tongue, would chuck their lives away for a myth which, at best, could only bring them a new set of masters.
And so it proved. Twenty-two excited stalwarts linked arms with the militiamen behind the grinning Mudra. They were all men who had supported Falcon in his demand that the factory should be taken over by a workers’ syndicate—but Matias Falcon himself was not among them. He too was of the ‘steady’ type and was a first-class workman, only dangerous to his employers on account of his political ideals.
The Golden Spaniard Page 25