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So Far From God

Page 8

by John Harris


  ‘How much did you pay him?’

  Graf smiled. ‘I always thought Englishmen were noted for their good manners.’

  ‘Some are noted for their rudeness.’

  Graf’s smile didn’t falter. He shrugged and clicked his heels. ‘You’ll be late for your meal, Herr Slattery. Enjoy your food.’

  Magdalena’s face was expressionless as she collected her cape. ‘I wish you hadn’t goaded him,’ she said. ‘He’s a bad enemy to have.’

  ‘What did he want?’

  ‘To preach at me.’

  ‘Preach what?’

  ‘What he always preaches: Deutschland Über Alles. Germany’s place in the sun. Deutsche Politik in Mexiko.’

  They found a restaurant down a side street. It was in a courtyard where there was wrought iron at the windows, palms and a bougainvillaea dripping rusty leaves into a fountain. Somewhere out of sight someone was softly plucking at a guitar.

  ‘This is how I always thought Mexico would be,’ Slattery said. ‘Most of the time it isn’t.’

  Magdalena smiled. ‘When God made the world,’ she said, ‘I think Mexico was last on the list and He was tired and wanted to put His feet up. He gave her too much dust and, above all, put her next to the United States.’

  Slattery took her hand and she didn’t withdraw it. ‘I enjoyed the show last night,’ he said.

  Her fingers tightened on his, pleased at the compliment. ‘I sang badly. All I did was get the right notes in the right places.’

  ‘You looked superb. You look superb now.’

  She gave a little laugh. ‘When the Almighty created me,’ she said, ‘He could have paid me a lot more attention than He did. And my face has as many cracks on it these days as an antique vase. I am not as young as the one in the hotel with the leather coat.’

  He hadn’t realised she’d noticed Consuela Lidgett. ‘She claims she’s representing Colliers,’ he said. ‘She wants to know what Mexican women are doing.’

  Magdalena’s eyes glowed with unexpected heat. ‘They’re grieving because their men are dead or about to die and the politicians do little to set things in order. Tell her that Colliers should print that. She is very pretty.’

  He affected not to have noticed and she laughed.

  ‘Of course she is! You know she is! And she has her eye on you!’ There was a new admiration in her voice and a friendliness that made him feel warm.

  As they ate, they heard loud voices in the entrance and Slattery saw it was a group of the Germans he’d seen the previous evening at Carranza’s headquarters. Graf was not among them this time and they had several women with them. As they sat down at a table out of sight behind a group of potted plants, they were all discussing Carranza at the tops of their voices. With them again was the ginger-haired young man, his voice louder than any.

  ‘Your brother’s friends,’ Slattery pointed out.

  ‘I know them,’ Magdalena said calmly. ‘The blond one’s a German general, Maximilian Kloss. He’s director of Mexico’s munitions and ordnance. His picture’s been in the papers often. It seems he’s gone over to Carranza. The good-looking one says his name is Franz von Raschstadt but I’m not sure it is. I met him at an Embassy party a year or two ago. I heard he was a naval officer but that he’d left the navy and gone into banking.’

  Slattery wondered if he had. ‘And the others?’

  ‘Probably from Huerta’s army. There are many German officers. It looks as if they’ve gone over, too.’

  He nodded at the ginger-haired young man. ‘And that one?’

  ‘Axel Sjogren. Assistant to Folke Cronholm, chargé d’affaires at the Swedish Embassy in Mexico City. He’s more German than the Germans and complains that Sweden is lacking in glory. Fausto calls him Alexandrine. They laugh at him but he’s useful.’

  ‘Mexico seems full of Germans.’

  She gave a little laugh. ‘A German minister. German consuls. German commercial agents. German wireless operators. German-subsidised newspapers. German admirers. German singers even, like me. Germans work very hard.’

  The Germans had been drinking and they were singing now – arms linked with the women’s and swaying together – a wine cellar chorus that ended ‘Eins – zwei – g’suffa!’ There was a lot of laughter and noise and the Mexican waiter was growing confused.

  ‘I think we should slip out before I’m seen,’ Magdalena said. ‘Or they’ll try to get us to join them and make it a party. I don’t like their parties. They enjoy making me homesick.’

  ‘You surely don’t remember Germany?’

  ‘Germans always remember Germany.’ She laughed. ‘And they are always homesick. They are a very sentimental people. When we do Strauss or Lehár in Mexico City the house is always sold out. They hold balls and dance old German dances and sing old German songs. They have wine-tasting evenings when the wine is always German, and sing “Die Wacht am Rein” and “Deutschland Über Alles”. Don’t the British sing patriotic songs?’

  ‘It’s not a British habit.’

  ‘It’s part of our heritage.’

  ‘Since you took out American papers,’ Slattery pointed out quietly, ‘so is the Statue of Liberty.’

  She was silent and he knew he had offended her. He paid the bill and rose. ‘Let’s go,’ he said.

  As they left, one of the Germans was singing a solo – ‘Hamburg ist ein Schönes Städtchen’ – and there was a burst of applause and the banging of glasses on the table.

  Taking Magdalena’s arm, Slattery led her to the centre of the town where a band in the purple-painted bandstand was banging out music. The tune was ‘La Golondrina’, a Mexican melody of farewell that dated back to the last century and was regarded as safe. Revolutionary ardour being what it was, it was considered highly dangerous to play in the camp of one side any tune that was popular with the other. The wrong tune, a tune associated with Huerta, could mean death.

  They sat in silence for a while on a bench in the shadows and Slattery took Magdalena’s hand again. Under the jacarandas groups of people were taking their evening stroll, the girls arm-in-arm to eye the boys, the boys arrogant and bold, making eyes at the girls. Nearby a group of youths in coloured shirts wearing the big old-fashioned sombreros were drinking brightly-hued drinks they bought from a stall under the trees. Suddenly there was a squabble and a glass of crimson liquid was flung in an angry face. Immediately the little knot broke apart and a knife appeared. Stepping calmly among the scuffling group, Slattery hit the boy with the knife on top of the head with a fist as big as a maul. As the boy collapsed, he took the knife and threw it into the bushes. As the boy was dragged away, the spectators clapped and he removed his hat and bowed. Magdalena laughed delightedly and he leaned over and kissed her gently on the cheek. But, as he did so, the group of Germans appeared again, striding aggressively homewards through the moving crowds and, turning to watch them, he missed the pink flush that appeared as her head swung quickly towards him.

  ‘I think I’d like to go home,’ she said. ‘To Hermann’s house. He won’t be there. Only my maid. Hermannn has a woman he visits on the American side of the road.’

  She insisted on taking a cab. It was lopsided, battered and smelled of horse, and the animal that pulled it looked as if it were about to drop dead at any moment. Stutzmann’s house was on the edge of the town, surrounded by trees.

  ‘There was a Carranza general in here with his woman when we arrived,’ she said. ‘Hermann had to go to Carranza to get rid of him. Madero always tried to keep things legal.’

  ‘Perhaps that’s why he’s dead,’ Slattery pointed out. ‘Revolutions themselves are illegal.’

  ‘Carranza will make things legal when he becomes president.’

  ‘Perhaps he won’t become president. The man who becomes president of Mexico will be the man Washington wants for president.’

  ‘It’s nothing to do with Washington. Too many people are trying to interfere in Mexico.’

  ‘When there are murky waters,
everybody likes to fish in them. Didn’t you hear those friends of your brothers? They were talking about naval bases. They said that, properly exploited, the civil war here could end in a United States invasion.’

  He knew she must have heard but she pretended to be surprised. ‘They were joking. Surely you can’t believe that?’

  Slattery hadn’t really believed anything he’d been told in London or by the languid Horrocks in El Paso, but now, in Nogales, he found he was beginning to.

  ‘What is your brother?’ he asked.

  ‘He raises cattle.’

  ‘Not all the time, it seems.’

  She shook her head silently. ‘He’s head of the North German Bund in Mexico. They’re pledged to help the Fatherland. Some of them are third-generation Mexicans or Americans but they’re still Germans.’

  ‘Is your brother a German agent?’

  She stared at him for a long time before she spoke. ‘Why do you want to know? Are you a British agent? There are known to be a lot of them in Mexico, too.’

  He smiled and patted her hand. ‘I’m exactly what I said I was.’

  She was silent as she let them into the house. There was no sign of the maid and she moved quietly about, finding him a drink. Slattery watched her with interest. Underneath her guarded manner, he suspected, was a full-blooded woman with a determined vitality and a luxurious, healthy capacity for living. There was something alive about her that appealed to his rebellious spirit and, as she lit the lamp with long fine-skinned hands, he found himself face to face with her.

  She was suddenly shy with him, as if she understood the bold appraisal in his eyes. For a long time neither of them moved, then, as he gently put his arms round her, she seemed to melt against him, her face in the curve of his neck. For a moment, she clung to him, holding up her mouth to be kissed, then, as his hands moved, she pushed him away as if she were afraid of her own emotions.

  ‘No,’ she said, her breath coming quickly. ‘No!’

  Releasing herself, she leaned against the wall. A wisp of hair had fallen over her nose and the look in her eyes was suddenly full of doubt. ‘No,’ she said more calmly. ‘You and I can never make anything together.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Our paths are too wide apart. They can never meet. You’d better go now. Before Hermann comes. He might misunderstand.’

  The door slamming behind him was like a clap of doom. As he headed for the hotel, his mind was still full of her perfume, the warmth of her body in his arms. Perhaps, he thought, he should take her to Cuernavaca south of Mexico City. The country was supposed to be softer there than in these harsh northern plains, and Cuernavaca was said to be beautiful and haunted by the ghosts of the Emperor Maximilian and his wife and a great many other lovers. Bougainvillaea and a guitar or two playing softly in the background could make a lot of difference. Perhaps even, he decided, he should be on the doorstep the following morning early, with flowers. Mexicans liked flowers and she had lived long enough in the country to have absorbed the trait.

  The hall of the hotel was full of chattering men when he arrived, and a great many more were trying to sleep in chairs, in corners, under tables. As he entered the lobby, the desk clerk called him over and handed him a letter. It was sealed and he tore it open, his mind still full of the events of the evening. The note inside immediately shattered his plans.

  It was from Atty Purkiss and its message was cryptic. ‘I’ve gone for the motor,’ it said. ‘Villa’s on the move and heading for Torreón. The balloon’s gone up.’

  Part Two

  One

  All the way across the desert from Bermejillo to Torreón, men were gathering like swarming bees, in a dusty, colourful, shabby pageant that seemed to belong to another age. All the former peóns, wagonmasters, farmers, shopkeepers and bandits who now called themselves generals and ran their own ragtag armies began to collect in a noisy, teeming mass of men, boys, wagons, horses, motor cars, cannon, camp followers, flags and tents, all coming together in swirling dust clouds of their own making.

  They were a formidable, loosely-knit force, no longer the guerrilla fighters of Madero’s rebellion but also by no means a formal military force either. With them were their women and children and the air over the whole area was blue with the smoke of burning mesquite as fires were built for cooking or the shoeing of horses. Some of them were trained, some were not, and they were hard to control when they fired their weapons into the air out of sheer excitement, or filled the day with the high-pitched Apache yells of vaqueros herding cattle.

  Villa was pleased to see Slattery back. ‘The boys are coming in,’ he said cheerfully. ‘Ortega’s arrived with a hundred men. Tómas Urbina’s on his way. Herrera’s gathered nearly five hundred and Calixto Contreras another two hundred. Benavides is due, as well as Quijano, Robles and a few more, and they’re all bringing their gente with them. Things are working well, inglés, and those three who came to me from Carranza are pulling their weight. Vegas is a doubtful quantity but Monserrat’s already a good Villista. What did you find at Nogales?’

  ‘Show, Don Pancho,’ Slattery said. ‘Carranza hasn’t much but he dresses it up well.’

  Villa laughed and Slattery went on earnestly. ‘Also Germans, Don Pancho.’ A lot of Germans, he thought. He hadn’t really believed the stories of German infiltration into Mexico but there they had been, clearly scheming and clearly heavily involved. ‘They were talking to Carranza. About arms, in exchange for bases in Mexico.’

  Villa shrugged. ‘Arms are what we need, compadre. What about the enemy? Did you learn how many they have at Torreón?’

  ‘Two thousand, stiffened by Orozco’s men and all well equipped and well dug in.’

  ‘And we are short of ammunition.’ Villa’s heavy face set in a frown. ‘It haunts me, inglés.’

  One after the other, the regiments and brigades began to assemble, all bearing flags with death-defying names. The Brigada Juárez. The Brigada Victoria. The Cazadores de la Sierra. The Cuerpo de Guias. The Brilliant Thirteen. The Red Two Hundred. Last of all, moving in leisurely fashion, came Tómas Urbina, Villa’s bandit friend from the days before the revolution. He was a small ugly man who was unable to read or write and signed his reports with the drawing of a heart, but he had brought six hundred men and wagonloads of loot from Durango which he had just captured and sacked, leaving it full of the burned or dynamited homes of anyone associated with Huerta.

  ‘They know me now in Durango,’ he said as he gave Villa a bone-cracking abrazo. ‘I picked out a man in every saloon I visited and asked if he supported Huerta. If he said yes, we shot him as a traitor. If he said no, we told him he was a liar and deserved to die for it, so we shot him, too. I brought a man called Fierro with me – Rodolfo Fierro – to handle the railways when we have them. He’s an expert. You can now rest easy. The Lion of the Sierras has arrived.’

  As he swaggered away, limping from the rheumatism he had acquired from hiding out in the mountains as a bandit, Villa stared after him with stony eyes. ‘It’s a crippled lion these days,’ he growled. ‘Tómas is past his best, and he’s too fond of wine, women and loot.’

  Despite the reinforcements, they were still only half an army. Apart from the 75s Carranza had sent, their artillery consisted of five homemade cannon and two machine guns, and Slattery struggled in a lean-to garage to make an old Hotchkiss fire. Eventually, he got it working sporadically, but they remained desperately in need of ammunition. Transport was also in short supply and Atty Purkiss was sweating blood trying to make old motor cars and trucks go. The Mexican mechanics, quick to give up, always considered a kick would work wonders, and it was far from unknown for an infuriated man to fire his revolver at a recalcitrant engine.

  Eventually, however, the great mass began to crumble, first one corner, then the next, breaking into groups and columns, swinging round, regiment after regiment, to face south and follow the rails to Torreón. They were the same men who had put Madero in power in 1911, peóns, far
mers, charros, engineers, a sprinkling of American and European daredevils to whom it was all just a lark, a few professionals and mercenaries who knew no other trade but war and had fought in Cuba and the Philippines, in North and South Africa, in Latin America and the Balkans, all of them willing to exchange their skills for money.

  Among the camps, Consuela Lidgett searched constantly for her husband. But Loyce Lidgett seemed to have sunk without trace and Slattery could only imagine he had carved some niche that suited him in one of the minor armies – often little more than regiments – of some obscure ‘general’ and was enjoying himself enough to stay there.

  Because he had captured Torreón in 1911 during Madero’s rising against Díaz and been there again under Huerta during Orozco’s rising against Madero, Villa knew their objective well. It was an ugly place built on an arid stretch of land for no other reason than that there the railway lines to the north, south, east and west came together. It lacked water and drainage, its streets were deep in dust and the most its inhabitants could hope for was a wire mesh screen against the flies during the day and the mosquitoes after dark. But it was important because it lay astride the line that ran from the American border to the Mexican capital, and it was wealthy because it was in the centre of a heavily-populated cotton-growing area. In rebel hands, it would isolate Huerta’s garrisons in the north by blocking the passage of reinforcements from Mexico City.

  As they approached Jiménez, a junction of the vital railway line, they were met by a Federal force under Orozco and swung aside to meet it. The news that his old enemy was in front of him darkened Villa’s brow. He claimed – none too truthfully – that he had never killed in cold blood, but a loathing for the traitors who had murdered his hero, Madero, left him willing to match them grave for grave, atrocity for atrocity, and his hatred drove the Huertistas out of Jiménez towards Camargo, and from Camargo to La Cruz, where he defeated them again, his cavalry tearing the fleeing groups to pieces as they tried to make a stand. As it became a rout, the horsemen pursued the flying splinters towards Chihuahua City.

 

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