So Far From God

by John Harris

  ‘You can stay the night if you wish,’ she said.

  ‘I think not, Consuela.’

  She touched his arm. ‘I mean it. I want you to stay. I get lonely.’

  He gently prised her fingers from his wrist. ‘I think I’d better go.’

  Her face showed a little spasm of unhappiness and her voice became quieter.

  ‘You know what I am these days, Slattery?’ she asked suddenly. ‘I’m a tart. A whore. I sleep with people and they give me presents. I’ve got no pride any more.’ She was silent for a while. ‘You know why I went to Gordonsboro? Because I was having a baby. I told them it was Loyce’s. But it was Fausto’s, and I have to have money to pay for him. He’s up there now, being looked after.’ She drew a deep breath like a sigh. ‘If Fausto doesn’t keep his promise to me I don’t know what I’ll do. I’ve got no money.’

  ‘Where is Fausto now?’

  ‘Querétaro. On business. German business, I guess.’

  ‘Querétaro?’ Horrocks said. ‘Kloss is at Querétaro? How do you know?’

  Slattery explained and Horrocks frowned. ‘Well, I suppose it makes sense, because Obregón’s at Querétaro and he’s got a group of German officers with him who’ve just come from the fighting in France. Villa’s at Irapuato and Carranza’s determined to make an end of him. But it’s in Britain’s interest to have him around a little longer, so you’d better get up there. You’ve got influence with him. See he doesn’t make a fool of himself.’

  On his journey north, Slattery passed Villa’s artillery struggling up from El Ebano in a welter of dust and sweat to bring the guns he needed to his aid. ‘Tell him to wait,’ the artillery commander begged. ‘We’re coming as fast as we can.’

  Also near El Ebano Villa’s old compadre, Tomás Urbina, was loitering with his brigade. ‘I need more time,’ he insisted, but to Slattery he had the look of a man who was in no hurry.

  Slattery arrived far too late. Obregón was well dug in at a place called Celaya and Slattery found Villa already about to launch his attack and not prepared to listen to reason. He had a tremendous gift for inspiring his men but he was a headlong fighter and against Obregón’s cool ability he could bring nothing but impulsiveness. And the hatred he bore for Obregón was making him reckless so that he was approaching the battle as if it were a personal gunfight.

  ‘Sure,’ he agreed. ‘We shall get hurt a bit. Battles were never won with kisses.’

  ‘Wait, Don Pancho,’ Slattery urged.

  The heavy head moved. ‘I can’t wait.’

  ‘Obregón has German officers who know how to use machine guns and barbed wire and artillery.’

  ‘I know how to use artillery.’

  ‘Don Pancho, you haven’t got any. It’s three days away.’

  ‘Tómas Urbina will bring guns.’

  ‘Urbina will never arrive on time. For the love of God, wait!’

  Villa’s amber eyes blazed and his gun came out. ‘I always swore I’d shoot you for your interfering, inglés. Now would be a good time.’

  ‘Put it away, Panchito,’ Slattery said calmly. ‘You won’t shoot me because you know my advice is good and because you know I’m one of the few people in Mexico who’s never tried to betray you.’

  Villa glared, his eyes glowing yellow and angry, but the gun was lowered. ‘The battle goes on,’ he said slowly.

  A curious fatality seemed to brood over him. It wasn’t the old Villa speaking, full of vitality and ideas. He seemed tired and disillusioned. ‘This is the last campaign,’ he said. ‘I want peace to farm my land and educate my children. After I’ve beaten Obregón. I shall retire.’

  ‘Panchito,’ Slattery said earnestly, ‘you won’t beat Obregón. Not with the methods you’re using. The British army’s been throwing men against German barbed wire and machine guns in Europe ever since the war started. They never succeed in breaking through. Neither will you.’

  ‘It’s too late,’ Villa said heavily. ‘I’ve given the signal.’

  That evening as the first shell burst in the outer defences of Celaya, there was nothing else to do but leave Atty to watch and drive back to Querétaro to telegraph Horrocks of his failure. Under the sinking sun, clouds of smoke were already rolling across the battlefield.

  Atty had found them a hotel but the Germans had found it, too, and as Slattery arrived there was a shout of triumph from the dining-room. One of the American correspondents appeared, frowning.

  ‘The Krauts,’ he said. ‘Just heard that their Zeppelins have bombed London.’

  Atty brought news of the battle. ‘Villa’s beaten,’ he growled. ‘He was stopped by the barbed wire and machine guns just like in France. He’s done. Kaput. Finito.’

  The Germans were beaming when they entered the dining-room that evening and were shouting for bottles of German Sekt. Fausto Graf was among them, in a uniform that owed more to Prussia than to Mexico.

  ‘Halloa, Englander,’ he said when he saw Slattery. ‘So your friend Villa is finished. As England will be before long. Our Zeppelins are reducing London to ashes, and our submarines are making a scrap heap of the British merchant fleet. Meanwhile, the British army, like Villa’s, destroys itself by hurling itself against our lines.’

  ‘You, Fausto,’ Slattery said, ‘are beginning to believe your own propaganda.’

  But there was little to cheer them. Waiting outside Querétaro, they saw sullen-faced men, dusty and blood-splashed, struggling away from the battlefield. A few rode on horses or in buggies but most were on foot, with here and there a desperately wounded officer in a carriage. A son carried his dying father on his back, another man his dead son. Among them was Monserrat, the only member of the Holy Trinity still with Villa. He had been searching for Urbina.

  ‘He betrayed us,’ he said bitterly. ‘He never intended coming. He took a million-dollar payroll and bolted.’

  His eyes red with weariness, his clothes stained with the blood of his men, Villa bumped into Slattery at San Luís la Paz as he struggled to get his trains away. There were tears in his eyes.

  ‘Damn them!’ He choked on his words. ‘They’ve whipped me, inglés. And I would rather have been beaten by a Chinaman than by Obregón!’

  Five

  With captured Villistas being despatched by machine guns in the bullring at Celaya, Slattery received a message to proceed to New York.

  ‘Somethin’s up,’ Atty said in a doom-laden voice.

  All had not gone Obregón’s way at Celaya. He had been struck by a shell splinter which had torn off his right arm, but he was recovering rapidly, and news had arrived that Villa had now lost Guadalajara and looked very much as if he were about to lose more of his strongholds.

  With his defeat, his army had broken up and, as Slattery crossed the border to El Paso, the country was beginning to descend once more into anarchy, with soldiers-turned-bandits terrorising lonely farmers, crops and cattle stolen, and smallpox and typhus everywhere. As he climbed aboard the train north he saw Fausto Graf on the station. With America neutral in the war in Europe, it was possible for sympathisers of the warring factions to enter her territory without question and at Kansas City he saw him leave the train and disappear down the platform carrying a suitcase.

  New York hadn’t changed much. If anything, it had a greater air of bustle and prosperity than ever, as though the conflict in Europe was putting money into the pockets of Americans of all classes. There seemed to be more motor cars on the streets, more goods in the shops, more lights in the theatres, and there was an atmosphere of excitement, as though everybody in the place had become aware of its importance.

  Horrocks was waiting with a taxi. ‘You’ve been brought up here for a week or two,’ he said as they were driven from the station to the hotel where a suite had been booked for Slattery, ‘for good diplomatic reasons. The Germans are becoming too bloody aggressive and, on instructions from London to slow ’em down, we’re working with an American state agent called Midwinter who’s overseeing everyth
ing they get up to. The President might believe in peace and goodwill to all men but, fortunately for us, there are a few who trust the Germans less than he does; and Midwinter’s got the job of watchin’ ’em. You’re here because you know a few of those involved.’

  ‘What about Graf?’ Slattery asked. ‘He’s north of the border. He was on the same train as I was. He left it at Kansas City.’

  Horrocks frowned. ‘Interesting,’ he observed. ‘What’s he up to? He only has to take a train to St Louis from Kansas City and he can go either to Washington or come here to New York.’

  ‘Is Kloss running the show here?’

  Horrocks shook his head. ‘No. It’s not Kloss. It’s a new chap called Franz von Rintelen and German sympathisers are crawling out of the woodwork in dozens. Among them our old friend, Huerta.’

  ‘He’s back! Already?’

  ‘With his eye firmly fixed on Mexico.’ Horrocks began to feel for his cigarette case, talking as he fished inside his jacket. ‘The Germans are behind him, of course. A comeback for Huerta would be like a red rag to a bull to President Wilson. He’d charge head-down into a worse mess than Veracruz. Who do you reckon would support him?’

  ‘Villa wouldn’t.’

  Horrocks waved a dismissive hand. ‘Villa’s finished.’

  ‘Don’t you believe it. Panchito will always have a few surprises up his sleeve. But he’d never back Huerta.’

  ‘Carranza?’

  ‘If he thought he could use him to gain power and then ditch him afterwards. Huerta might agree for the same reasons – if he could ditch Carranza.’

  ‘Zapata?’

  ‘He supports nobody.’

  ‘Obregón?’

  ‘He says all Mexican presidents are thieves, but that now he’s got only one hand he couldn’t steal as much as the others. People think he’s just being funny but it’s significant. He might back Huerta to put himself in power. If anybody’s ready to support him, it’s Orozco. He’s anxious to get back among the payrolls.’

  Horrocks was silent for a moment. ‘Like a lot of honest men,’ he went on eventually, ‘President Wilson expects everyone else to be honest, too, and with Villa, Zapata, Obregón et al, he’s as lost as a parson in a knocking shop. Because every damn faction down there has its own set of supporters up here, all trying to put on pressure, and the place’s packed with people with German relations.’

  Horrocks paused to wave away smoke. ‘With Huerta shoved back into the mess, the Americans would be so fully occupied at home they’d not be much help to us in Britain. Wilson, of course, would like both sides in Europe to kiss and make up, but that’s no good because it would leave Northern France still occupied and there’d be nothing to satisfy the French but Wilson’s prayers.’

  He drew on his cigarette for a time in silence, staring into the distance as the taxi manoeuvred in and out of the traffic. ‘We know everything the Huns are doing, of course.’

  ‘How, for Christ’s sake? We’re not mind readers.’

  ‘Nearly,’ Horrocks said blandly. ‘Somebody had the bright idea the minute the war began of cutting the German transatlantic cables so that all their messages now have to be sent by the only way open to ’em – wireless. And to wireless, of course, anybody can listen. So we set up listening stations and when intercepts started pouring in we roped in people to decode ’em because we’ve come into possession of their three main code books.’

  ‘Do the Americans know all this?’

  Horrocks looked shocked. ‘Hardly likely to tell them, are we?’

  ‘Don’t they tell us things?’

  ‘Oh, yes. They’re very trusting.’

  ‘Seems a bit one-sided.’

  ‘That’s the way departments like ours work.’

  Horrocks arrived early the following morning to pick up Slattery. He was using the same cab, Slattery noticed, and instead of taking a direct route, it seemed to thread its way back and forth among the busy streets, moving past the Flatiron, Woolworth and Singer buildings as if trying to throw off a pursuer.

  ‘Are we trying to dodge someone?’ Slattery asked.

  Horrocks lit a cigarette without bothering to offer his case. ‘We’re always trying to dodge someone,’ he admitted. ‘This is one of our taxis. We have a few.’

  They stopped outside a small block of offices near the docks. In a third-floor room Horrocks introduced Slattery to a lean, fair-haired, lantern-jawed man chewing the stub of a dead cigar.

  ‘Gus Midwinter,’ he said. ‘Here from Washington.’

  Midwinter’s grip was hard and he stared at Slattery with eyes that were as blue as cornflowers. He was keeping a sharp eye on the official German attachés in New York, he said. It wasn’t difficult because they all used the German Club and held their conferences in the Manhattan Hotel.

  ‘With their German-American Bund,’ Horrocks explained, ‘they think they’re winning the war here. But we have Czecho-Slovaks and Austro-Hungarians who had to flee from Austria who’re now naturalised Americans and speak German. One of ’em’s maid to the German ambassador’s wife, and there are four in the Austrian Consulate. Some are waiters, some work in German clubs and firms. They supplied the names of every German reservist trying to reach Europe and we picked the lot up as soon as the ships they were in entered waters under our control.’

  ‘This country’s too goddam divided,’ Midwinter growled. Horrocks lit another of his expensive cigarettes and placed it carefully in the amber holder. ‘Eastern seaboard sympathetic to us,’ he explained to Slattery. ‘Western seaboard completely indifferent. Midwest solidly behind Germany. They have German breweries there, German restaurants, German traditions, German songs.’

  Midwinter scowled and tossed a sheet of paper to the table. It was a report on the German agent, Von Rintelen. He was known to have entered the country on a Swiss passport and was presenting himself as the director of an import-export firm.

  ‘Speaks excellent English,’ Horrocks said. ‘Lived here for years as representative of one of Germany’s biggest banking organisations.’

  ‘He’s known to have half a million dollars available,’ Midwinter added darkly. ‘To organise strikes and slowdowns among longshoremen and munitions workers. And he’s a clever bastard, too. He even persuaded some damnfool Russian into letting him provide supplies for the Russian army. But they never arrive. The ships catch fire. The lighters capsize. Have the Germans found some weapon that can penetrate a ship’s hull without making a hole?’ He tossed a report down. ‘Take a look at that. Phoebus. Tramp carrying arms for Russia. Cargo suddenly bursts into flames. Captain can’t explain it. No explosion. Nothing to cause spontaneous combustion. It wasn’t a submarine.’

  He bit the end off a cigar with a savage gesture and stuck it in the corner of his mouth. ‘At least we scared off one of Rintelen’s contacts. Guy called Bunze. Sent freighters to sea loaded with coal. But somewhere en route they happened to meet up with German raiders who helped themselves to the coal’.

  He pushed a photograph across the table. ‘That’s Rintelen. Taken with one of these new snap cameras outside their Consulate.’

  The picture was blown up, grainy and blurred, and showed a group of men talking on the steps. Slattery grinned.

  ‘I know him,’ he said. ‘I met him in Mexico. He was calling himself Von Raschstadt in those days. I know the other chap, too. The little one in the boater. His name’s Scheele.’

  Midwinter nodded. ‘Runs a drugstore in Brooklyn. He’s a chemist.’

  ‘More than that, I think.’ Slattery explained how he had met Scheele in Nogales and Midwinter was alert at once.

  ‘What kind of secret weapon?’ he demanded.

  ‘Lead tube. Size of a cigar. Hot enough to ignite wood or coal.’

  ‘Or explosives!’ Midwinter slapped his hand down on the desk. ‘Jesus, just the thing to introduce into a cargo of ammunition! And half the sonsabitches working the waterfront here are German or Irish.’ He grinned at Horrocks. ‘You Brits c
ertainly made a lot of enemies.’

  ‘Burden of Empire,’ Horrocks murmured.

  ‘One of those things set to go off in four or five days, and you’ve got a ship on fire in the middle of the ocean with nobody guilty. Suppose they’ve put one in the Lusitania.’

  The words produced a silence because the 32,000-ton Cunarder was the largest transatlantic liner still in service and was still regularly carrying Americans to Europe.

  ‘Where is she now?’ Slattery asked.

  ‘She must be approaching the west coast of Ireland.’

  ‘The Admiralty regard the west coast of Ireland as of no strategic importance,’ Horrocks pointed out.

  ‘It is,’ Midwinter snapped, ‘if they sink ships there! Have you seen her supplementary manifests?’

  ‘Have you?’

  Midwinter grinned. ‘I’m not supposed to, but I have. They include cases of shrapnel and cartridges from Remington Small Arms. Enough to be an excuse to have a go at her. You can bet Rintelen knows about ’em.’ He glanced at Slattery. ‘You know friend Huerta. What about the guys who supported him? You know them, too?’

  ‘The whole boiling of ’em.’

  Midwinter lit a large black cigar that made Horrocks move to the other side of the room. ‘The shooting south of the Rio Grande makes a lot more noise in New York than the shooting in Europe,’ Midwinter went on. ‘And, if one of the factions down there sold out to Huerta, there are plenty willing to rally round.’ Suddenly he broke into a smile which was youthful and cherubic and entirely altered his face. ‘Unfortunately, there’s one thing they ain’t got – neither Rintelen nor Huerta or any of their supporters – and that’s security. They’re bein’ watched night and day. By me. By Sholto here. And now by you. Also by Department of Justice agents, Carrancista agents, Villa agents, Obregón agents. There are so many of the bastards, they’re fallin’ over each other.’