by John Harris
With Atty heavily engaged with Pilar in the kitchen of the house in Avenida Versailles, Slattery ate alone in town and, not entirely unexpectedly, Horrocks appeared alongside the table, smiling. He was dressed this time in an immaculate suit with a walking stick, spats and a homburg that made him look vaguely German and every inch a diplomat.
‘I thought it might be you,’ Slattery said.
Horrocks eyed him coldly. ‘Anyone would think I wasn’t welcome,’ he said.
‘On balance, you’re not.’
‘Good.’ Horrocks was undisturbed. ‘I’ll sit down and join you.’
He ordered a brandy and sat opposite Slattery, sipping it.
‘Are you having me watched?’ Slattery demanded.
Horrocks stared at him blankly.
‘Who was Gomez García?’
‘Who?’
‘Old boy who played the fiddle.’
‘Oh, that chap!’
‘Who was he? One of your bloody agents?’
‘Oh, yes, he was one of my chaps. Much more to him than met the eye and he could get around a lot with that fiddle. Very useful. Like many others. When you add all the little bits together it makes a very interesting whole.’
‘Well, he won’t be supplying you with any more.’
‘Why not?’
‘He’s dead. He was killed at Torreón. Acting the bloody fool, pretending to be a torero.’
‘It was a habit of his.’ Horrocks lit a cigarette languidly. ‘Pity.’
Slattery stared at him. ‘You’re a cold-blooded sod,’ he said bitterly.
Horrocks shrugged. ‘Certainly not an emotional Irish romantic.’
‘Was he watching me?’
‘He kept an eye on things.’
‘Is Atty one of your bloody spies, too?’
Horrocks smiled placidly. ‘Perhaps he ought to be. He’s got a lot of sense and he doesn’t get into a state like you.’ He sipped his brandy, completely unmoved by Slattery’s anger. ‘The American president’s in trouble,’ he pointed out unexpectedly.
‘You sound delighted.’
‘Not really. But when Woodrow Wilson’s in trouble, Britain’s in trouble, too.’
‘There speaks the patriot.’
Horrocks sniffed. ‘I’m not a bloody patriot!’ He made it sound like an insult. ‘I leave that sort of thing to the boys just out of school. They’re the ones who’ll rush to the colours with cries of “Honour” and “Duty”, and posture in front of the flag with their heads bandaged and their eyes ablaze when the war comes.’
‘Oh, Christ!’ Slattery sighed. ‘That bloody war!’
Horrocks looked offended. ‘It’s nearer now than it was a week ago,’ he said. ‘There’s trouble in the Balkans and now the Americans have become involved with the Mexicans in Veracruz. Their navy was short of petrol for its picket boats or whatever they’re called and they sent a whaler ashore to organise supplies. It was arrested by one of Huerta’s officers.’
‘Oh, splendid. Just the thing to delight the Americans.’
Horrocks lifted an eyebrow. ‘It’s since been released,’ he said, sounding almost as if someone were being careless and letting slip something that could make a splendid incident. Then he smiled. ‘However, the American admiral’s one of these General Custer types and he’s demanding an apology and a twenty-one-gun salute to the Stars and Stripes.’
‘How can a country demand a salute to its bloody flag from a government it refuses to acknowledge? Is it serious?’
‘Of course,’ Horrocks was light-hearted. ‘There’s talk of war.’
‘And you’re stirring it up?’
‘Oh, dear me, no! We don’t want war between the States and Mexico. You know we don’t. I’ve explained often enough why not. Looks very nasty, though. Especially as we’ve had reports that the German arms ships I told you about are on their way. The first of them, the Ypiranga, is due within a week or so.’
Eight
Eventually Horrocks took his leave and Slattery sat brooding over the remains of his meal. What Horrocks had told him bore out what he had always thought – that Mexico was nothing more than a pawn in the manoeuvrings of the Great Powers, and that the civil war that was destroying her was a boon to their ambitions. Wondering how much of what was going on in Mexico and had been going on now for three years was the result of foreign machinations, suddenly he found he was beginning to think Horrocks’ way. He often had in the past but now it seemed to be forming into a strong core of certainty.
When he returned to the house in the Avenida Versailles, Atty was just leaving. His had a smug look on his face, like a cat that had been at the cream. Jesús had gone out.
‘He’s growin’ up, that kid,’ Atty observed. ‘He’s noticin’ the girls.’
Pilar was worried, because she had had a long telegram the day before to say that Magdalena was due in Mexico City in two or three days time. Her last performances before going to the States were due to take place at Iguala, and the Zapatistas had just taken the town of Chilpancingo close by, and were running riot and burning everything in sight.
Deciding he might as well return to his hotel, Slattery had barely reached the set of rooms he’d taken when the bell rang. Opening it, he found himself face to face with a hotel porter and behind him, smiling, Amaryllis. Her arms were full of maps and guide books and she was wearing the sort of clothes only a wealthy woman could afford. She looked cool, blonde and expertly sure of herself.
She gestured at the porter. ‘Give him a tip, old Paddy,’ she said. She beamed at the man with the suitcases and gestured at Slattery. ‘Mio marido, she said, her voice rising in the manner of all English people with an indifferent command of any language other than their own. ‘My husband. Found him at last!’
The porter beamed back at her, obviously as much under her spell as everybody else who met her, and backed out. As the door closed, she tossed down the maps and her handbag. ‘Try not to look as if you’ve been hit on the head with a coal hammer,’ she said. ‘I’ve just been to Chapultepec. Doesn’t compare with Versailles or Fontainebleau. Even seemed a bit on the grubby side.’ She smiled. ‘Kind of you to invite me in.’
He grinned. ‘I hadn’t noticed that I did.’
She gave him the smile that had got her into his bed in London. ‘I think I arrived just in time,’ she observed. ‘I heard you were going to disappear into the blue again.’
‘Who told you that?’
‘Old friend of mine. Sholto Horrocks. He said you’ve got a woman here. I went to her house looking for you. The door was opened by a man with a West Country accent so thick you could cut it with a knife. Who’s he? Her husband?’
Slattery grinned. ‘My aide de camp, I suppose you’d call him. Atty Purkiss. He’s smitten by the housekeeper. They seem to spend a lot of time getting into dark corners.’
‘This woman of yours? Do you share her with Sholto? He’s a great one for sharing.’ She smiled at him cheerfully. ‘Who is she, some little nut-brown Indian thing, all Mexican meekness and humility?’
Slattery grinned. ‘As a matter of fact, she’s five-foot-eight, German-American and a famous singer, and she has no humility whatsoever.’
Amaryllis was staring round her. ‘Come to think of it I found the place a bit Gothic,’ she commented. ‘Germanic, I expect. Always a bit stodgy, the Huns.’ She gestured. ‘They’re growing very strident in Europe these days. It’s becoming very difficult over there.’ Here it was again, the war, cropping up like Horrocks every time anybody opened their mouth. ‘It’s not exactly easy over here, of course. Are you going to marry her?’
Slattery shrugged. ‘She decided not. Says there’s too much difference between the Germans and the English.’
Amaryllis pulled a face. ‘She’s probably very wise. It could be pretty awkward if there were a war. Do you love her?’
Slattery smiled. ‘Wouldn’t make much difference if I did. She doesn’t love me.’
‘Told you so, has she?’
/>
‘Not in so many words, but it seemed clear enough.’
‘Hard luck. Well, if she’s turned you down she can hardly object to me grabbing you, can she? It’s months since I saw you. One grows lonely and’ – she smiled archly – ‘I’m very warm-hearted. Where’s the bedroom?’
Slattery laughed. ‘You don’t waste time, Amaryllis.’
‘If there’s going to be a war, perhaps there isn’t a lot of it left. Lead the way.’
She beamed at him and began to chirrup a jingle she knew.
‘Never jeer, never mock
The little girl who’s on the knock.
Many a lowly curate’s wife
Has found it adds a spice to life.’
She was quite shameless and was throwing her clothes across the room even before he managed to close the door. For a second, nagged by a feeling of guilt, he thought of Magdalena, then he rejected it at once. She didn’t want him and she wasn’t the sort to change her views in a hurry.
Amaryllis’ figure was as rich as ever and in the warmth of a Mexico City evening she was far from unwilling to provide him with a view of it. As she approached him, she was reaching with her lips for his mouth and in the same movement with long cool fingers for his shirt.
‘It’s been a long time, Paddy boy,’ she said softly. ‘One gets out of practice’ As she put her arms around him, she began to nuzzle at his ear. ‘I haven’t enjoyed you being so far away. It’s very boring. It gets you down.’ She gave a little giggle. ‘Perhaps that’s not quite the mot juste, because you certainly haven’t been getting me down a lot lately.’
Clinging to him, she backed to the bed and they fell across it. She gave a little squeal of laughter as Slattery banged his head on the bed post, then she flung the pillows aside and squirmed underneath him.
‘Oh, Paddy,’ she whispered. ‘It’s almost like old times!’
As they resurfaced, she studied the room then looked at him across the pillow.
‘Is she married?’
‘Who?’
‘This singer of yours.’
‘She’s not my singer. Not any more.’
‘Perhaps she should be. No hope?’
‘Looks like it.’
‘Pity.’ She tapped him on the chest then traced a line between her breasts. ‘Does she go in for the same sort of thing we go in for?’
‘No.’
‘I bet you’ve tried.’
‘No.’
‘What a waste of a splendid piece of man!’ Her fingers were tracing a light path across his stomach. ‘There’s such a lot of you and I do enjoy you.’
She sighed. ‘You ought to come home, Paddy. I’m not staying here. The hotels are all right, though the food’s awful and I think there aren’t going to be any grandees in Mexico to write about before long. They’re all bolting to the States. I think I’ll go to New York instead. That’s where the money is and American millionaires would love to see themselves written about in the same terms as European aristocrats. They’d buy thousands of copies.’ She gave him a warm smile. ‘Why not come with me? Forget General Villa. I hear he’s nothing but a common murderer, anyway. Tear up your contract.’
‘There is no contract.’
‘Then just forget it. Come home.’
‘I suspect Horrocks doesn’t want me to.’
‘Oh!’ She looked startled. ‘Why not?’
‘He has a job for me, he says.’
‘Well, everyone has to have a hobby.’
‘It wouldn’t be a hobby.’
She sighed again. ‘I don’t really mind you persisting in this silly habit of yours of wanting to fight everybody in sight, of course.’
‘I’ve stopped fighting. These days I just talk.’
She was silent for a long time. ‘Well, you know,’ she said eventually. ‘I have a lot of time for Sholto Horrocks, but there are plenty of things you could do in England. If this war they’re all talking about comes, surely the War Office could use you.’
‘It’s trying to use me already. Here. That’s what Horrocks is after.’
‘Why?’ she demanded. ‘A revolution among a lot of little brown men has nothing to do with you.’
‘I’ve found it has a lot to do with me. And for your information, with Sholto Horrocks, too. He’s even managed to convince me it also has a lot to do with England.’
‘Curiously, Lord Reah said the same thing to me. I’ve been seeing a lot of him lately. He’s big and strong like you and makes a good substitute for my old Fitzpaddy boy.’
Slattery smiled. ‘Let’s get down to brass tacks, Amaryllis. Do you love me or something?’
There was a momentary hesitation before she replied. ‘No.’ she said. ‘But I could marry you.’
He grinned. ‘Shotgun weddings never work out.’
She climbed from the bed, reaching for her clothes. ‘Perhaps I’d better push off,’ she said. ‘Sholto Horrocks said I could stay with him.’
Slattery laughed. ‘I bet he did.’
‘And James Reah. He’s in Zocatlán.’
‘Look out for him. He might try to get into your bed.’
She grinned at him, the old shameless grin that gave her so much character. ‘He’s been,’ she said cheerfully. She made a final appeal. ‘Wouldn’t consider joining me in London, would you? You’d be a knockout with the literary set.’
He gave her a quiet smile. ‘They wouldn’t touch me with a bargepole.’
She touched his cheek. ‘You’ve changed, old Paddy. You know that? You’re quieter than you used to be.’
He had changed. He knew he had. ‘Perhaps I’ve grown up, Amaryllis,’ he said. ‘It was about time.’
She eyed him shrewdly. ‘Well, I used to enjoy you stamping round the bedroom but, you know, in a way, I think I like you better this way. Is it this girl?’
He shrugged. ‘Perhaps it’s Mexico. Perhaps it’s the knowledge that a lot of what’s happened here is our making. Ours and the Germans’ and the Americans’. We all want something out of it and it pays us to keep it going. So take care in Zocatlán, Amaryllis. It’s Zapata country and international agreements don’t mean much in Mexico these days.’ He kissed her on the cheek. ‘But perhaps you’ll be better off than going with me.’
‘Why?’ her eyes widened. ‘Where are you going?’
He smiled. ‘Same direction,’ he said. ‘But I’m going to see Zapata.’
Nine
Chilpancingo lay in a valley on the slopes of the Sierra Madre del Sur. Though it had little to recommend it, it was an ideal base for Zapata because it was close to the mountain regions into which he liked to retreat.
The train ran to Cuernavaca, the capital of Morelos, which was as far as Huerta’s control ran. It had a shabby look these days and Slattery was reminded sadly of the day he had spent there with Magdalena. Somehow, something seemed to have gone out of the world without her.
Leaving the train there, he reached Yautapec by horse to find it full of Zapatistas. Nobody questioned him but when he started making enquiries, he found himself being followed. Stopping, he explained to his pursuers what he wanted. At once, hats came off and there were promises to contact him, and the following day, a man in cotton trousers and cowhide sandals was waiting for him in the street.
‘Your honour.’
Round the next corner, three men were standing in the doorway. They were dressed in charro costume and armed with revolvers and rifles.
‘We shoot traitors and spies here,’ one said.
‘I’m not a spy. I come from General Villa.’
They conferred for a moment then jerked their heads. ‘Follow, señor.’
A motor car was standing down the road and they drove in it to the outskirts of the town where horses were waiting. The road soon became rough and they seemed to travel interminably. At one point they transferred to a light railway and rode for an hour in a battered carriage with the windows shot out. Then, at a wayside station surrounded by heavy foliage, they transferr
ed to an American Dodge and clattered along a dusty road, at the end of which more horses waited.
Chilpancingo was full of armed men. They were smaller than the men of the north and lacked the northerners’ brashness, as if their oppression had lasted longer. They wasted nothing on uniforms and wore huge straw hats with white cotton trousers with purple, pink or green socks pulled up over them as if they were about to go cycling. Their rifles were of every shape and size and behind their smiles was a hint of the cruelty for which the south was notorious. Among them were battalions of young boys, even of women. Clad in looted finery, they looked more terrifying than the men.
They eyed Slattery curiously, impressed by his size and the colour of his hair. More soldiers waited in the doorways, clutching their palm-leaf hats in their hands, and in one of the great audience rooms of the governor’s palace a crowd of them were grouped round a table. Most of them had a bottle or a glass in their hands, the air was foul with smoke and the heavy smell of sweat, and some of them were clearly drunk.
Zapata was organising the removal of the booty he and his men had captured when the city fell. Unlike Villa, who always looked badly dressed and dusty in his store suit, he was neat and clean in a charro costume of black, edged with decorative lace, the short jacket showing a spotless shirt. On his head he wore the huge sombrero that was the symbol of his loyalties. Unlike Villa, who was willing to adapt to American ways and use American know-how, he had set his face against change. Morelos and the south were his and he preferred them to remain as they always had been.