Richard declared that he did not believe that even life in a German or Russian concentration camp could be quite so grim; at least for those prisoners who behaved themselves. Any group of people, however restricted their liberty, could indulge their natural feelings to some extent—share jokes and play the fool, as the captives had done in the Model Prison—except here where the priests seemed to delight in sucking the life out of everyone.
His two friends agreed with him and the three of them spent most of their time with Mondragon-Villablanca and his cronies, but whenever they appeared outside this circle they were made to feel the shocked disapproval of the majority, which left only the imperturbable Duke unaffected.
Although their undertaking prohibited them from communicating with anyone outside, general news percolated freely by way of the few Legation servants. Before he was out of bed, too, a carefully worded chit was smuggled to de Richleau which informed him that Lucretia had been in Valencia when the mutiny at the Prison took place and, on her return, was overjoyed to learn that they had escaped to safe harbourage in the Legation. A few days later Rex had a similar communication from Simon proving that the Red secret service was as good in Madrid as Lucretia’s.
The wound in de Richleau’s arm healed slowly and the dressings of his hand pained him a good deal. Richard’s younger flesh healed more quickly and he was able to forget his injured leg after he had been downstairs a few days. The thought of Marie-Lou was constantly with him but he was comforted to some extent by the certainty that Simon, knowing where they were, would have written to tell her that they were alive and safe.
Early in September Irun fell to the Nationalists. By the middle of the month it was known in the Legation that Franco had advanced to the Guadarrama Mountains, some forty miles north-west of Madrid, and that San Sebastian had been taken after most bloody fighting. Far from being elated at this latter news the Duquesa’s following could not say anything bad enough about the Generals for, as they termed it, wasting time and men on provincial towns, when all forces should, in their opinion, have been concentrated on Madrid and their own rescue.
The siege of the Alcazar was followed with sympathetic interest, but Colonel Móscardo was credited with doing no more than his duty. The Spanish Government horrified the world by endeavouring to kill five hundred and seventy women and children in the cellars of the Alcazar by exploding mines beneath it, this being no attempted atrocity by an Anarchist mob but a State affair; the Socialist War Minister going out from Madrid himself to press the button with, great solemnity and taking the Press and all his friends to watch him.
The Government confidently expected that the explosion of the mine on 18th September would blow the whole building sky-high, but it only shattered the south-west tower and killed two of the garrison. They succeeded in repulsing the assault that followed and the siege went on.
The defenders had only rifles, twelve machine-guns which were all more than fourteen years old, and a few dozen rounds of ammunition for a light field gun, for use against the massed attacks of the Reds who shelled them perpetually with heavy artillery, bombed them from the air, and exploded mines to blow them up from below. The garrison did not anticipate for one moment that they would be alive when a relieving force reached Toledo but as long as they could hang on they were preventing an enemy force out of all proportion to their own numbers from being utilised elsewhere.
A telephone line still connected the cellars of the Alcazar with the Toledo Telephone Exchange, held by the Reds, and de Richleau and his friends were touched almost to tears when they heard of one conversation on it.
Móscardo’s son had been captured by the Reds. He was brought to the telephone and told to say that he was about to be shot unless the Alcazar surrendered.
“What shall I do?” the boy asked his father.
“All you can do, my son,” replied Móscardo, “is to pray for us and die for Spain.”
“That is quite simple,” said the boy. “Both I will do.”
At last on 29th September the news that one of the most epic sieges in history had been terminated by the relief of the beleaguered garrison of the Alcazar brought genuine gladness to many millions of people up and down the world.
In those last days of September and all through early October desperate battles were raging in the Guadarrama Mountains, but the Nationalists could not break through there. The Madrid wireless spoke glowingly of the special valour of the Communist Fifth Regiment, now many thousands strong, and the armoured train from the North Station was said to be doing splendid work.
Now that Toledo had been relieved by the Nationalists, they were also advancing from the south-west. On 21st October Navalcarnero, only twenty miles south-west of Madrid fell, and the Reds began to talk of abandoning the capital. Next day Valmojado was taken. Richard and the Duke smiled at each other when they heard that Valmojado was in Nationalist hands. Lucretia now only had to get a message through and the gold-lined pots and pans would be collected and despatched to some appropriate quarter. They congratulated themselves on a good job done but, had they known it, they were congratulating themselves a little too soon.
From October on air raids became frequent. The lights of Madrid were no longer controlled to show up military objectives and Franco’s planes were bombing the civil population ruthlessly. Few bombs fell in the Embassy quarter as that was deliberately avoided, but almost every night the refugees could hear the crumping of the projectiles in other parts of the city.
There were many casualties and the Government carried out terrible reprisals by further slaughters of the prisoners in the Model Prison, and wholesale arrests of suspected Nationalist sympathisers.
By early November Franco’s Moors and Foreign Legionaries had half-encircled the city. On the 4th they took Getafe which was only ten miles to its south and the Reds were preparing to make their last stand on the banks of the Manzanares. The rumbling drumfire of the guns both day and night was soon added to the constant succession of air raids. The thought now that gitated most people in the Finnish Legation was the very same that had led to the mutiny in the Model Prison: would they still be alive to welcome their rescuers when the capital was taken by a final assault, or would the mobs break in and massacre them first?
That question was becoming daily more acute. The Nationalists were now acting as ruthlessly as the Reds. Their Italian and German airmen were driving terror into the hearts of Madrid’s citisens. The anti-aircraft guns did little to check the raiders. Night after night tens of thousands of people lay wakeful in their beds listening, listening for the sirens and then sustaining that frightful period of waiting while the enemy planes droned somewhere that always seemed right overhead as they circled to try to find their targets. They shuddered where they crouched as the shattering din of the ‘archies’, the whine of falling shell splinters, the awful roar of the bombs, and the rumble of failing débris made the nights hideous.
Even in the day-time they were no longer safe. Raids occurred at all hours. Women went out to line up in the bread queues; many of them did not return. The sky devils dropped their evil eggs from a mile up in the clouds, leaving a trail of wreckage, acrid stink and screaming humanity in the track over which they had flashed in a moment.
The Socialist Government abandoned to their fate the poor wretches who had put them into power, and ignominiously slunk off to Valencia. Only the two Anarchist members of it have the courage to remain and see the party through. A Junta-de-Defensa was appointed in the Government’s place but its members were kept working overtime in the supreme effort to hold the city. They could not police Madrid as well. The mobs came out again. They had no stomach for fighting the Nationalists and no means of escaping in cars like the Socialists who had loosed them, but they could still prey like packs of wolves on the defenceless while life was in them.
The Embassy quarter was practically immune from bombing. Why? Because the Embassies and Legations were sheltering hundreds of Nationalists. Again and again
the mobs swarmed up the Fernando el Santo shaking their fists at the blank windows and screaming for the blood of the reactionaries who sheltered in the buildings enjoying diplomatic privilege.
De Richleau began to consider the situation with grave anxiety. If the mob did break in the Spaniards there might or might not be massacred. There was a possibility that the bulk of them would be marched off for some sort of trial, a certain number selected for immediate shooting and the rest imprisoned; but Richard, Rex, and himself were marked men. The death sentence had already been passed on two of them and all three had participated in a riot causing the death of a dozen or more Militiamen. Even Simon and Lucretia would be powerless to shield them if they fell into Red hands now.
On the afternoon of 6th November the Duke was standing at a second-floor window looking down into the Fernando el Santo. Once more the howls of a blood-lusting rabble were dinning in his ears. The street was packed with people right across to the British Embassy on the other side of the road, but their faces were all turned towards him. They knew that the Finnish Legation was cram-full of refugees. As though they were one huge beast gentle undulations rippled through them. As they shook their fists at the upper windows he could see the hate and rage which animated their features.
“This is the worst yet,” he remarked to Richard who was beside him. “I doubt if we’ll sleep under this roof tonight.”
“We’ve got our guns,” said Richard.
Rex, who could easily see over their shoulders and down into the street from his superior height, grunted. “Hurl lot of good they’ll be with about four rounds apiece. The Guardias have stopped them breaking in before, though. I guess they’ll function again.”
The little squad of Guardias was now assembled before the door of the Legation. They were arguing, reasoning, pleading with the crowd. It was their job to keep the building inviolate, they said; their honour was concerned in that. It was not right or fair to ask them to give passage, they told the mob leaders. There was nothing they would like less than to have to fire on the people; yet they would be compelled to do so if the Comrades tried to force their way in.
The lean, bald old Marquis de Mondragon-Villablanca came up behind de Richleau and tapped him on the shoulder.
“It’s all up,” he said. “That dirty skunk who’s been representing the Finns here bolted with his ill-gotten gains out of the back door ten minutes ago.”
The Duke swung round. “In that case we’d better get out through the back door too. I’ve seen a lot of mobs in my life and this one means real mischief. They’ll be in here killing people soon.”
“I am too bored with life as it is lived in these days to worry much,” replied the Marquis. “And, in any case, escape by the back door is impossible now. Part of the mob are round there trying to stave it in.”
Chapter XXV
The Scarlet Pimpernel of the Spanish Revolution
For a moment de Richleau considered trying to organise a defence, but he immediately dismissed the idea as useless. He had thought about it several times during the last few days and made tentative inquiries as to how various people viewed it. A number of the men in the Legation had pistols they had brought in with them and, although their ammunition was limited, if they had barricaded the downstair windows they might have put up a show.
The trouble was that everyone realised it was quite impossible to hold the place for any length of time. A mob might be held off for an hour or two but, as such crowds always contained a good proportion of militiamen who had deserted from the front, they would have hand-grenades as well as rifles and would almost certainly set fire to the building.
Resistance would only serve to infuriate the mob and precipitate a general massacre, argued most of the men to whom the Duke had spoken; whereas, if they went quietly there was a possibility they would only be marched off to prison and, in any case, that would increase the chance of the women, at least, being spared.
De Richleau had seen their point of view and had not sought to contest it. On the other hand, nearly all of them had been shut up in the Legation since the first outbreak and so were much more optimistic about a mob proving merciful than he was. His private opinion was that unless Franco took the city by a surprise assault the whole lot of them would be dead within a few hours of leaving the Legation, and he would have preferred to die fighting rather than pay a second visit to the swimming-baths.
Someone in the crowd threw a bottle full of stones and it crashed through the window below which the Duke was standing. A cheer went up and other missiles followed.
By craning forward de Richleau could just see the shiny, three-cornered hats of the Guardias. They were still arguing and pleading with the crowd. Another squad opposite, outside the British Embassy, was calling encouragement to them, but the two squads were no more than a dozen strong, all told, and the crowd consisted of as many hundreds.
“How about trying a get-away over the roofs?” Rex suggested.
“No good,” shrugged the Duke. “The place next door’s a Government building. It houses the Comité de Transporte.”
“Sure. But I meant round the corner. Our neighbour there’s the British Commercial Attaché.”
“I know. I went up to have a look round half an hour ago. There’re a score of militiamen with rifles squatting on the roof of the Transport Building and they’d pot us like rabbits if we attempted scrambling along the roofs in the Calle Monte Esquinza.”
“Look! Look! What’s going on down there?” Richard pointed excitedly along the street to the left.
They followed his glance and saw that a handful of regular soldiers had descended from a small bus and were forcing their way through the crowd.
“If that is all the help this miserable Government can afford to send their Guardias we are certainly lost,” said Mondragon-Villablanca.
“Wait—is it?—Yes!” De Richleau grabbed Richard’s arm and glanced at Rex. “Quick! Both of you—come downstairs.”
They hurried after him, pushing through gloomy groups of people who blocked the stair and landings. In the hall they found the man who acted as Legation porter leaning out of a window talking to someone in the street.
The mob had fallen silent, evidently intent now on watching this development. De Richleau strode over to the porter’s side and thrust out his handsome head. A howl went up at its appearance but his face was lit by a radiant smile. Just below him stood Simon surrounded by six soldiers with fixed bayonets.
Simon’s face expressed sudden relief as he shouted, “Hi! Can you make this fellow let me in?”
“One moment,” called the Duke. “I’ll let you in myself.” Without consulting the porter he ran to the front door and drew back the bolts.
Immediately it was opened the crowd surged forward with a roar but, the soldiers having reinforced the Guardias, the mob was driven back.
Simon stepped inside, lugging a heavy pickaxe in after him, and the door was rebolted.
“Well!” smiled de Richleau, “I can honestly say I was never more delighted to see you in my life.”
“Thank God I got your message,” panted Simon.
“Message?” repeated the Duke in surprise.
“Yes, this,” Simon pulled a sheet of paper from his pocket and taking it from him de Richleau read out the few typed lines.
“If you want to see us alive again you had better come to the Finnish Legation without a moment’s delay and bring a pickaxe with you.”
There was no signature.
“Oh, this!” said the Duke, handing it back. “Of course. I knew you wouldn’t fail us.”
Simon ran a finger up and down his long arc of nose and squinted over it. As he spoke it was obvious that he was most desperately worried. “This is a muddle. A really nasty muddle. I never remember being in quite such an unholy muddle before. Listen now. I’ll tell you. I can get Rex out by arresting him. Could have done that weeks ago—if he’d been agreeable. But he never replied to my letter so I took it he’d ch
anged sides.”
“Like hell I have!” exclaimed Rex. “You should just live with some of the folk in this place for a bit and you’d offer to buy the Government a great, big, nice, new lethal chamber. I couldn’t contact you but I figured you’d have bailed me out directly you got back from Barcelona.”
“Point is I’ve done it now. At least I’ve got a warrant for you because you’re wanted for being concerned in that shooting affair at the Bellas Artes. You started it. Spotted that the moment I heard what had happened, but nobody knows you did. There was blue murder there and about fifty people killed before it finished. Survivors all tell different stories, though. I’ve said you must have shot a militiaman in self-defence and panicked. Bolted and gone into hiding for fear of the consequences.”
Rex grinned. “Swell! I knew you’d fix it all right.”
“Ner. It’s not all right.” Simon nervously wriggled his neck. “Government’s left Madrid. Most of my friends gone with it. Junta-de-Defensa very different. Got this order signed by a Councillor on it. Young chap called Maximo de Dios, but he warned me they’ve got some awkward questions to ask you about that business in the baths. Still, he knows your previous record’s clean and he’s guaranteed your life will be safe.”
The Golden Spaniard Page 35