A Broken Land rtw-2

by Jack Ludlow

  ‘Would that run to names?’

  ‘Only if my patron sanctions it, but added to that I will put out enquiries in Sweden and various contacts in South America.’ Drouhin gave a thin smile then. ‘Some of whom you know. But those who supply government to government are not numerous and are scrutinising very hard the End User Certificates, so even if you used a country like Argentina or Uruguay you would have difficulty in explaining the quantity you require.’

  ‘And one sniff of Spain?’

  ‘Exactly. In some sense it is a pity that Mexico backed the Republican side so quickly — they would have been perfect.’

  The servant reappeared with the news that the master was awake and eager to see his visitor. Admonished not to overtire him, Cal was shown into a large bedroom, lit only by what sunshine came through slatted blinds, with Sir Basil propped up on pillows. Even in the gloom, Cal could see his skin was translucent and he could hear his somewhat laboured breathing. Not without a sense of drama himself, he guessed he was witnessing the end of an era.

  ‘My good friend, come and sit close by the bed so I do not have to do more than whisper.’

  As soon as he obliged, he explained to the old man what he had just told his private secretary. The response was the same, followed by a bout of coughing which had Cal grasping his skeletal hand, surprised at the strength still evident in the grip.

  ‘You must tell me why you have become involved in this.’

  There was no gilding it, he gave it to Sir Basil as it was, well aware that he too would not be sympathetic to anarchists and the like; luckily he had a visceral hatred of communists and through husky breath he rehearsed some of the crimes of the Soviets in much the same manner as Cal already knew, but with more accuracy, given his sources, his conclusion that unpalatable as it was to support far-left socialists, such criminals as existed in Moscow should be stopped.

  ‘But how?’ Cal asked. ‘Drouhin was not encouraging.’

  ‘Many times in my life I have been told that this and that was impossible, only to find a way, and I think now there must be a route to solving this.’ The old man coughed again, gripping even tighter Cal’s hand. ‘You have no idea how it cheers me you have come, Callum — you do not mind me calling you that?’

  ‘I was not aware you knew it to be my name.’

  The frail chest heaved as he laughed. ‘Now you are being disingenuous, for the only other possibility is that you are foolish and I know that not to be true. So, you must leave this with me. You have given me a project and to find a solution will fill my last days on this earth.’

  ‘Sir,’ Cal protested, only to be tutted into silence.

  ‘You will go back to Barcelona?’

  ‘I will, to tell them what is possible, or in this case, unlikely to be so.’

  ‘Then it is also possible you will not see me again, and before you protest once more, death comes to us all, and if you mourn there are many who will not. They will hope that Satan, having got me into his clutches, is making me pay for the crimes and sins I am accused of.’ Another hacking laugh followed as it took several seconds for him to get his breath. ‘Not a few of which I am proud to have committed.’

  For all he had protested, Cal had seen too much death in his time to be in any other mind than that the old man was right; it could not be long, even if he had, which he would, the best medical care going.

  ‘You know, Callum, I will not apologise if I do meet my maker. I will say to him, as I have often said to my accusers, it takes two to make a bargain. If you wish to call it a sin to sell weapons of death, then is it not also a sin to buy them and use them, which I never did?’

  ‘You may find, when you get to the Pearly Gates, he’s looking for some Maxim guns to keep his angels in line.’

  A bony finger went up. ‘A good point, but I shall make him pay a high price if he does.’

  The head went back onto the pillows, he was tiring, and Cal made the noises to leave, but the old man was not finished.

  ‘I am not sorry to be leaving now, for it is going to be bad, the future, Callum, very bad. In my lifetime the ways we have found to kill our fellow humans have increased so much, until we had slaughter on an industrial scale in the Great War. But I fear it will be worse than even that. There is an evil abroad I do not think was on this earth when I first walked upon it.’ The last grip was the hardest. ‘Stalin and Hitler are a different breed of monster.’

  ‘Mussolini?’

  ‘Is a fat fool running a bankrupt nation of soldiers who do not want to fight, and who can blame them? For all his boasting he is as nothing — but the others, take care, my young friend, not to be consumed by them and their schemes. Now, ask Drouhin to come and see me.’

  * * *

  The arrangement was that whatever was found out would be delivered to the Ritz Hotel in Barcelona with the coded name, Mr Maxim. Cal did not enquire as to how it would be sent; he trusted both the old man and his assistant to secure the secrecy of the communication. As Drouhin imparted this to him he could tell by his tone that he was wondering if the named address would still be in Republican hands. Cal did not bother to suggest anything different — if it was not, then what was delivered would be redundant.

  After a night alone in Monte Carlo, where he ate well and visited the casino, he was glad of two things. First, that he did not lose much at baccarat; second, that he managed to avoid the looks of the women who sought to catch his eye, not one of whom was younger than fifty years and a good many of whom, even under pancake make-up, were a good deal older. Anyway, there were enough glossily attired and barbered young men around to drool over them and their money.

  The next morning, the mere delivery of his newspaper was enough to galvanise him; he was done here in any case but there would be no leisurely return to Barcelona. The screaming headline in Le Temps told the whole of France that one of the Spanish Nationalist columns had reached and actually breached the outskirts of the capital. Franco was about to launch an all-out assault on Madrid.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  There was no time to wait for a smuggler’s boat — the arrangement had been a loose one and might mean waiting several days or even a week. Cal sent a cable to Florencia at CNT headquarters, bought a car in Marseilles and made straight for the main eastern crossing of the Franco-Spanish border at Le Perthus, where he found a town in some ways like those Wild West frontier settlements so beloved of American film-makers, the only thing missing being ten-gallon hats and shoot-outs.

  Thanks to the war, the place was booming, bursting at the seams with those seeking to profit from Spain’s misery, the road to the border post lined with endless overstocked shops, and where there was a gap traders had set up stalls overcharging for everything, especially gasoline. Somewhere among them he knew there would be those tasked to get fighters over the border, if necessary by taking them through the surrounding high Pyrenees on foot.

  He had less trouble than he suspected; international communists and Republican sympathisers did not, it seemed, arrive on four wheels, but on foot, though the car was searched to ensure it was not carrying contraband. Besides, he had a British passport and was assumed to be just one of those mad Englishmen so beloved of European caricaturists; if he wanted to go into a war zone and get himself killed, why should a French customs officer stop him?

  What news he had garnered from the newspapers indicated that the battles to the west and south of Madrid were bloody and favoured the Nationalists, with the Republicans launching furious counter-attacks only to have them broken up by air and artillery attacks. The French press reported aerial battles as well as those on the ground, and high casualties on both sides.

  This did raise the question of the wisdom of his actions — might it not be better to wait until he saw which way the battle went? But then there was Florencia — if the city was lost he would take her out of the country, regardless of any protests; if Madrid fell so would the Republic, and someone like her, taken by the Nationalists, would
suffer more than just a summary execution.

  When he got to Barcelona, it was to find a woman even more fired up than she had been when he departed, sure that Madrid would hold and even more determined that the political fight should be carried to the communists; there was even talk of the anarchists, pressed by their more pragmatic syndicalist allies, joining the National government on the grounds that they suffered from being outside a leadership in which the communists were exercising influence.

  The first thing to do was get travel papers from the Catalan government and that took an age, given there was a long queue at the Generalitat of people needing the same thing. The time taken, nearly a whole day, had to be accepted — it was going to be too dangerous to travel anywhere in Spain without documentation; there were too many armed men out in the country just itching to shoot anyone they suspected of not being for the Republic.

  The next morning Cal, dressed once more for fighting, was back on the road, Florencia by his side, speeding towards Madrid, where Andreu Nin had gone to seek allies and to plead with the government for the funds Cal Jardine might need. Juan Luis Laporta had gone back to the Saragossa Front.

  There was no doubt many were fleeing the city, already subjected to air attack, and it was not surprising to find that in the streaming refugee column there were poor people from the provinces to the west pushing carts or leading donkeys carrying everything they possessed, fighting for road space with those wealthy enough to afford motor transport, as well as armaments and truck convoys seeking to go in the opposite direction. Progress was slow and a night spent sleeping in the car was necessary.

  The city, when they reached it, had a strange air — sandbags in the streets, signs for air raid shelters posted over the entrances to the metro, armed men, rifles slung barrel down, on street corners, who, to Cal’s mind, would have been more use at the front — yet still a bustle that went with its station as the nation’s main metropolis, though many an eye was cast skywards, this being the first European capital city to face aerial bombing.

  It was still the seat of government, with the ministries working flat-out, full of the functionaries necessary to support the work of those and the parliament, diplomats who had yet to abandon the capital and, of course, those men from the worldwide press covering the front line.

  Many hotels had been taken over by workers’ organisations as well as the extra official bodies needed to fight a war, and even with wealthy clients scarce, getting accommodation was difficult. Luckily they got a room in the Hotel Florida, set aside for the foreign press; with its Edwardian luxury, it seemed to be something that might be taking place on another planet.

  After lunch, Florencia wanted to sleep; not being Spanish, Cal went to the bar, which was quite busy and noisier than the numbers would indicate, making for a quiet corner well away from the hubbub of the raucous conversation of the journalists, which ebbed and flowed as they came and went.

  ‘You know, they say there is no such thing as a bad penny, but looking at you, Callum Jardine, well, I ain’t so sure that’s true.’

  Alverson’s deep, slow, West Coast drawl was instantly recognisable, so smiling, Cal put down his whisky and turned to face him. Dressed in a slightly crumpled pale linen suit, his panama hat in his hand and a small camera over his shoulder, Cal’s first thought was that he had not changed, but then why should he, it being only months since they had last parted?

  ‘Hey, Tyler, you drinking?’ a basso profundo American voice called from the other end of the bar, a big fellow with thick black hair and a heavy moustache.

  ‘I just met an old friend, Ernie, be with you later.’

  The American’s eyes turned back to Cal and looked over his clothing, his now slightly battered leather blouson, scuffed twill trousers and sturdy boots, which was of the kind that, prior to the present conflict, would have got him stopped at the front door of a place like the Florida Hotel. They then dropped to the belt at Cal’s waist and the very obvious holster.

  ‘Since I see you’re packing a gun, I can guess your presence in Madrid is not purely social.’

  ‘I know yours won’t be.’

  ‘I’m a reporter, Cal, it’s my job to be where the trouble is.’

  ‘Right now I’m told that’s on the other side of the river.’

  ‘I’ll leave the front line to those crazy photographers.’

  Cal indicated the knot of his fellow reporters at the other end of the bar. ‘Same go for them?’

  ‘Some, not all.’

  ‘Drink?’

  ‘Bourbon.’

  Cal signalled to the barman and ordered that and another whisky for himself, while Tyler Alverson’s head rotated slightly to acknowledge their surroundings, all dark wood, leather and comfort, with a white-coated barman fronting gleaming glasses and bottles.

  ‘You staying here, Cal?’

  ‘The fellow at reception was happy to see us, not too many people are checking in right now.’

  ‘Us?’

  ‘Florencia.’ Cal grinned. ‘My Spanish interpreter.’

  That got a raised and amused eyebrow. ‘Interprets dreams, does she, brother?’

  ‘Disrupts them, more like. Right now she’s having her siesta but I’m sure she’ll be down in a bit and that will cause you to have dreams, Tyler.’

  ‘A looker is she?’

  ‘And some!’ Cal nodded to a set of leather banquettes. ‘Let’s sit, shall we?’

  Comfortably accommodated, though slightly too close to the loud journalistic banter, Alverson examined his companion with a languid eye. That and the habitual half smile, if anything, made Cal more guarded, he being well aware that the American possessed a razor-sharp mind and a manner that invited unwitting disclosure.

  ‘So, brother, are you goin’ to fill me in on what you’ve been up to since our last little adventure?’

  ‘You first, Tyler.’

  There was calculation in that; given his reasons for being in Madrid, he was not sure whether to be open or keep matters to himself. Tyler Alverson was close to a friend — they had shared much danger in each other’s company — but he was a newspaperman first and foremost, and there was no knowing where disclosure would lead. Thankfully, he seemed happy to oblige.

  ‘What’s to tell? When we parted company in Aden I went back home, told my Abyssinian stories in great depth and waited for the nation to rise up in disgust at the horror of Italian atrocities there. Sad to say, I’m still waiting.’

  ‘London’s no better. My people seem more interested in keeping Mussolini happy than the gassing of the African natives.’

  ‘Then this little brouhaha blew up and the agency asked me to cover it.’

  Cal Jardine had first met the American in Somaliland when in the process of seeking to smuggle guns into Ethiopia. Keen to get to a battle zone barred to journalists, Alverson had hitched a ride with him and over the weeks that followed there had grown a degree of mutual respect. Only months past, it seemed like years, but Cal was happy to indulge in a bit of reminiscence about dodging not only Italian bullets, but also clouds of air-delivered poison gas, until inevitably the conversation moved on to where they were now.

  ‘So, come clean, are you involved in this war too, Cal?’

  ‘Might be.’

  The pistol holster got another meaningful look. ‘I’m not sure you’ll like it much here.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘I know you and the way you like to do things, but you’ll find yourself dealing with a bunch of military misfits as well as a whole heap of Russian so-called advisors.’

  The look Cal gave was meant to imply this was news to him. ‘So-called?’

  ‘From what I can see they are running the show, with the Spanish commanders acting as nothing but a fig leaf. Not that it’s admitted, of course, but a guy I spoke to a bit lower down the command structure says the locals can’t get a tank or a plane to move without Ivan’s say-so.’

  ‘That doesn’t sound good,’ Cal replied, his face d
ecidedly bland.

  Right then the other American, who had called to Tyler, raised his voice to finish off a particularly noisy anecdote to do with the price of a whore, which gave Cal an excuse to seek to change the subject.

  ‘Seems quite a character, your friend.’

  ‘That’s Ernie Hemingway.’

  ‘The Hemingway?’

  ‘Yep, and he’s not a friend, but a rival, reporting for the New York Times and a total pain in the ass, but he does love to be where the bullets fly. Never mind Ernie, are you goin’ to tell me how you come to be in Spain?’

  ‘Maybe I love the climate and the food.’ Alverson’s eyes were not languid now, they had a distinct glint; with his hound’s nose he was beginning to smell something. ‘I was in Barcelona the day the balloon went up and sort of stayed. Helping hand, you know.’

  ‘See much?’

  ‘More than I bargained for, Tyler, like the fight for the Parque Barracks and the main telephone exchange.’

  ‘Care to tell me the story?’

  ‘It’s old hat, months ago now.’

  Alverson eased out a notebook, though Cal noticed he took care to keep it on his lap, hidden from the knot of fellow reporters. ‘Never turn down a first-hand account from a trusted source. You have no idea how much bullshit we hacks get fed in our honest endeavours.’

  Loud laughter came with the finish of the tale, which seemed to involve Hemingway in chastising some Spanish pimp with fists he was now waving around; it sounded remarkably like boasting to Cal.

  ‘Seems you can dish it out as well.’

  ‘I take it you were in Barcelona because of this dame.’

  ‘Not really, I had a brief to look out for the British athletes attending the People’s Olympiad and needed an interpreter. The anarchists supplied one and she just happened to be irresistible, so I stayed a bit longer than I should.’

  ‘You will forgive me if I say the People’s Olympiad and anarchists do not sound like “your cup of tea”.’ The last three words were delivered in a faux snooty accent.