A Broken Land rtw-2

by Jack Ludlow

  ‘I’ve got hidden depths and they’re good boys. A lot of them volunteered when the trouble started. A few of them stayed and are still fighting.’

  ‘Tell me more.’

  Willing to talk about them, he needed to keep Monty Redfern out of it; the last thing he would want was to be identified in a newspaper, especially an American one, given he was always trying to get from the wealthy Jews of New York donations to help his and their co-religionists out of Nazi Germany. Vince was different; Alverson knew him from Ethiopia, so explaining his presence presented no problem.

  ‘He brought over some of his young boxers but he’s gone home now.’

  ‘So,’ Alverson said, sitting forward and over his notebook. ‘Tell me what you two witnessed.’

  The pencil raced as Cal talked, with Alverson posing apposite questions to get a picture of what Cal and Vince had both seen and participated in, the Olympians as well.

  ‘That makes a good story. Plucky Brits taking on the forces of evil.’

  Naturally, the name of Juan Luis Laporta was mentioned more than once and it was clear Alverson found him interesting too, so he built the man up a bit to keep the talk going and promised an introduction.

  ‘So what happened after you and Vince saved Barcelona?’

  ‘Aragon happened.’

  That story ended with the disappointment of being stuck in front of Saragossa, the command problems and infighting not helped by the ineffectiveness of the militias and the deviousness of people like Drecker, which had inevitable led to the break up of his unit. Alverson related what he had witnessed and already investigated, written up and cabled back to his agency. In essence, Madrid was as confused as anywhere else, just more so, the fight for control more vicious given the city’s strategic importance.

  ‘The communists are the best equipped and organised here too.’

  ‘And the most miserable bunch of shits I have ever met, Drecker especially.’

  Alverson laughed. ‘Marx banned smiling as well as capitalism.’

  ‘What’s the latest on this front?’

  ‘It’s not going well for your side.’

  ‘Not our side, Tyler?’

  ‘Regardless of where my natural sympathies lie, Cal, it’s my job to send my editor all the news fit to print, without bias, which is damned hard ’cause every bastard I talk to tells me lies.’

  ‘Do your bosses have a reporter on the Nationalist side?’

  ‘Naturally, everybody does, and before you ask, that guy Franco is not telling him any more truths than Largo Caballero is telling people like me.’

  ‘You met the prime minister?’

  ‘Power of the press, brother.’

  ‘What’s he like?’

  The way Alverson paused for a second told Cal he had asked that question too eagerly. Largo Caballero held the purse strings and was, according to Florencia, one of the people he might be required to meet.

  ‘He’s pretty smart, a politician to his toes, who wants help from the USA.’ He nodded towards those at the bar. ‘And talking to me and other Americans he hopes will aid that. It won’t, any more than talking to the London Times or Le Temps will get anything from London or Paris.’

  It was time for Cal to change the subject again and that comment of Alverson’s gave him an outlet. ‘That Anthony Eden sounds like a real slippery bastard.’

  ‘Unlike Fatso and Adolf.’

  Cal lifted his glass. ‘To hell with the lot of them.’

  ‘Amen,’ Alverson said, downing his drink. ‘Another?’

  ‘My shout.’

  ‘Hey, brother,’ Tyler said, raising his empty glass to the barman, ‘I’m on expenses.’

  ‘So no chance of aid for the Republic from the democracies?’

  ‘Can’t see it.’

  Cal steered the conversation on to that subject. With total cynicism the British government — worried about upsetting Mussolini and Hitler — had made pious noises about non-intervention in what they called a purely national dispute, ignoring the obvious evidence of what those same dictators were up to, plumping instead for an international discussion forum called the Non-Intervention Committee while refusing arms to both sides — in effect, given Franco was getting everything he needed, denying the Republic vital support.

  The French, fearful of acting on their own, as well as under pressure from their own right-wing zealots, having offered to supply arms to Madrid and sending a few obsolete planes, had supinely withdrawn that after political protests and street demonstrations and the lack of British support, while the USA was staying strictly neutral.

  ‘Yep, thanks to our so-called democracies Franco could be sitting in this bar in a week.’

  ‘It won’t be pretty if he does.’

  ‘And some.’

  That provided another diversion; you could not have a conversation about the conflict without talking about the killing taking place, and often being boasted about in some kind of Spanish love of blood and death in a heated propaganda war in which it was increasingly hard to tell the truth from the exaggerations.

  It was bad in the cities, but there was little doubt in areas where the peasantry had risen up — long the victims of rapacious landlord power — death and destruction were particularly acute, with manor houses torched and their owners and families butchered. The priests who had supported them were victims too, often locked inside burning churches with those of their flock considered class enemies, while the Nationalists claimed nuns were being raped and mutilated all over the country, stories vehemently denied by the Republican press.

  Yet it was hard to believe even a ferocious, long-downtrodden and exploited peasantry and angry workers could outdo the forces of reaction who, if reports were true, were killing on an industrial scale, while allowing their Foreign Legion troops a free hand in how they terrorised the places they captured, leading to mass rapes and summary executions. It was said that the Nationalist commander who took Badajoz had ordered shot a couple of thousand people before he headed for Madrid.

  ‘Holy Shamolly.’

  That emphatic and utterly incomprehensible outburst, given they were discussing murder and mayhem, made Cal Jardine spin round. He had failed to notice that the babble at the bar had seriously diminished; all eyes were on their banquette.

  ‘Querido.’

  Tyler Alverson did not quite whistle, but judging by the look he gave Florencia as both men stood he might as well have. She was dressed in close-fitting jodhpurs and riding boots, while her leather coat was folded over her arm so that the silk shirt she had on showed her figure to perfection, and she was returning the look, waiting for an introduction, which was quickly supplied.

  ‘Tyler, you sly old dog,’ Hemingway hooted.

  Alverson called back. ‘You can’t have all the ladies, Ernie, stick to Martha.’

  A glass was raised and Hemingway was not looking at Alverson, but then neither was anyone else in a group which, with his size and bulk, he dominated, his response another call. ‘When the cat’s away …’

  ‘Cal tells me you’re an anarchist?’ Alverson said, his attention back on Florencia, with a look that implied disbelief.

  ‘Si.’

  ‘Tell me, honey, how do I join?’

  There is a fine line between flattering someone and patronising them, added to which there was Florencia’s ability to see a slight where there was none intended and she had a temperament to match. Seeing her eyes narrow, Cal had to intervene quickly.

  ‘Tyler helped me get guns into Ethiopia.’ That gave her pause. ‘You should read some of his reports on Italian atrocities. He hates Mussolini.’

  As a way of saying ‘he’s one of us’ it was perfect and the look on her face changed from impending anger to a dazzling smile. Quite out of character, because he was not the type for gallantry, Tyler leant over, lifted her hand and kissed it, then smiled.

  ‘I would be happy to read them to you.’

  ‘As bedtime stories?’ Cal interjected, not w
ithout irony.

  ‘Can I buy you guys dinner later?’

  ‘We’ll see,’ was the reply from Callum Jardine.

  The look on Tyler Alverson’s face then was a curious one, almost wolfish. ‘We’re bound to run into each other; after all, I’m staying in this joint too.’

  ‘I’m sure we will.’

  ‘And then, Callum Jardine, you can tell what it is you are being so secretive about.’

  Cal tried bluff. ‘Who says I am being secretive?’

  Tyler Alverson tapped his nose. ‘This old buddy of mine, and it’s never wrong.’

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Prime Minister Largo Caballero was not a man who could be called upon in secret; in the atmosphere prevailing inside his government, which, with much manoeuvring and abandonment of principle the anarchists were preparing to join, suspicion was the watchword. Trust no one, watch everyone and keep a keen nose twitching for betrayal, so arrangements had been made to meet him away from the parliament building, El Congreso de los Diputados.

  But first Cal had to be introduced to the politician who would represent the CNT-FAI, Juan Garcia Oliver, a man about the same age and, according to Florencia, as much of a long-time firebrand as Laporta, with whom he had planned and carried out assassinations. He looked very much less of a fighter, being slim and handsome, with a high forehead, though he shared a countenance not much given to smiling.

  He certainly did not favour the foreigner with one, and though it was clear that he and Andreu Nin, now a full member of the Catalan regional government, had already agreed a common position, it was also obvious, from the looks thrown in his direction, that Garcia Oliver questioned the need for Cal to be present. Nin had to take him aside and engage in a whispered discussion to put his mind at rest.

  That over, the quartet — it included Florencia — proceeded to their destination. The meeting took place at the home of a trusted political ally of Caballero, a house in a quiet cul-de-sac where Cal came face-to-face with a man whom he knew from the reports he had boned up on had, as much as any other, inflamed the politics of elections during the Republic.

  A fiery orator in the tradition of men obliged by internal competition to ratchet up the rhetoric of blood-filled gutters should his opponents get back into power, it was Caballero who had threatened mayhem should the parties of the centre and right triumph in the last elections, he who had possibly created in the generals, now fighting, the feeling that Spain was about to sink into anarchy.

  Yet for someone supposed to be a demagogue, Largo Caballero looked remarkably ordinary, more like a career bureaucrat than a budding Lenin: silver-haired, well barbered, bland-faced and very polite, with a calm manner of speaking much at odds with the passionate arguments to which he was obliged to listen.

  Cal could only be partly involved; his improved Spanish was insufficient to follow more than the drift of what was a circumlocutory conversation between the male trio, in which little would be openly stated, this not aided by the loathing each had for the other, while Florencia was too intent on what was being said to do much translating.

  It was more by watching her face that he followed the drift of the conversation, which appeared to be positive, indicated more by half-smiles and semi-nods from Caballero than any outright declaration. The meeting broke up with handshakes, and only when they were away from the house, in the open, did Florencia fully enlighten him.

  ‘Caballero agrees that the possibilities should be investigated.’

  ‘No more than that?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Money,’ Cal said as a weary reminder.

  She nodded to include Nin and Oliver and, preparatory to telling him, she first advised them as to what she was about to say, before reverting to Englsih.

  ‘The POUM have agreed to provide funds from their party coffers to begin the investigation in to making a purchase of arms, though apart from Andreu they have no knowledge of you. Likewise, Garcia Oliver and Juan Luis will be the only anarchists who know of your identity and purpose.’

  The use of the names had both men looking at him keenly.

  ‘No one else must know. Caballero dare not be found undermining his cabinet, for if he is it will fall apart, nor can he seek to apportion what is needed for purchase until matters are close to a conclusion, since he will have to sneak the payment past the communists, but he is sure it can be shipped, as and when needed, at a few days’ notice.’

  ‘That will not do, Florencia.’ Unfazed by her flash of anger, picked up by the two men, Cal continued, ‘The money has to be there before the deal is done. It is a transfer that has to be simultaneous. This is a business in which there is no such thing as trust.’

  That was followed by a rapid burst of explanation. Nin, who responded after a brief word with Oliver, which was followed by a handshake and his departure, was thankfully more calm and measured than her.

  ‘Andreu says one step at a time,’ Florencia said, with none of the tone in which it had been imparted to her.

  ‘I gathered that.’

  They were now near the main boulevard, and worried about being observed in Nin’s company, Cal had a look around. Tyler Alverson was easy to spot, mainly because he was making no attempt to disguise himself or hide; he was, after all, dressed in a near-white suit. Cheekily, the American touched the rim of his panama, then immediately spun round and departed.

  Annoying as it was, there being nothing he could do to change that Cal concentrated on finalising the arrangements to transfer funds into the account that he had opened with Monty Redfern’s bank draft, which was obviously a speculative amount and he was careful to ensure there could be more if needed.

  There was no way of knowing if and what Drouhin would send him and what would be required to be expended, so he was obliged to play safe and request a hefty sum of money that made Nin think hard before agreeing, with the caveat that approval for such a large amount would have to be sought from his committee.

  That engendered a discussion of keeping the information secure; if infiltration was a communist tactic, Cal insisted, it would be naive to assume that spies had not penetrated both the POUM and the CNT. That was when it ceased to be a dialogue and became a row, Nin and Florencia displeased with the notion that their close comrades would betray them.

  Agreement was reached eventually that the money would be earmarked for foreign propaganda purposes — no mention would be made of armaments to anyone who did not already know of the plans — and finally Cal and Florencia parted company and made their way back to the Florida Hotel as night began to fall. Tyler Alverson was in the lobby.

  ‘Bit early to eat, Cal,’ he boomed, ‘but just the time for the first drink of the evening.’

  The American was too shrewd to enquire what Cal was up to while Florencia was present, instead he kept the conversation genial and general about the places he had been and the things he had seen — and often wished he had not — in the trouble spots of the world. A natural topic was his and Cal’s shared adventure in Abyssinia; the one subject he tried to stay off was the present civil war.

  If he was aware that Cal was watching him the way a tabby cat eyes a mouse, and he had to be, Tyler Alverson ignored it, moving on to talk about President Roosevelt and the proposed Second New Deal, the ’36 election just having been decided, only referring to what was happening in Madrid in his explanation of why America would not support the Republic with weapons and credits.

  ‘I don’t know if Franco and his guys figured on this, but they kicked off right in the middle of an election campaign and nobody could have predicted that the Democrats would win by a landslide. Roosevelt had to promise to stay out of European affairs to get the votes he needed.’

  ‘But now?’ Florencia asked, her face eager. ‘Perhaps he will help now.’

  ‘Honey,’ Alverson intoned, that alone enough to dampen any enthusiasm, ‘I don’t think you know how bad things are in the USA. If you ain’t got your own house in order, you can’t go gett
ing involved in saving the abode of anyone else. I think we will be sorry one day, and a lot of other folk do too, but them and I don’t run things.’ He looked at his watch. ‘Is it time for dinner yet? I can’t wait till ten, when you guys eat.’

  Florencia stood. ‘I will go and change.’

  ‘Nice dame,’ Alverson said as she walked away, his eyes not the only ones following her. ‘And I mean as a person too.’

  ‘She has her moments.’

  ‘I bet.’

  ‘You know, I don’t take to being tailed.’

  ‘Who says me seeing you was not just a coincidence?’

  ‘I do.’

  ‘So, I followed you. I figured you were up to something and it’s my job to find out stuff like that.’

  ‘You could have just asked.’

  Alverson produced a lazy grin. ‘And you would do what you are about to do now, tell me to mind my own business.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘So let’s see what my nose tells me. You are caught in Spain because you are tied up with Florencia which, I have to admit, is a damn good reason. Maybe because of her, but more likely for all the right reasons, you get involved in a couple of shoot-outs-’

  ‘They were a bit more than that.’

  ‘Battles, then — but you’re not battling now, Cal, you are visiting a discreet location in the company of a couple of guys called Andreu Nin and Garcia Oliver, who, I hear, is being touted to join the government.’

  ‘You’re so sure you know their identities?’

  ‘Cal, it’s my job to know. I have a photograph of every serious player on both sides in my suitcase.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘Now, when I first met you, what were you doing?’ There was no need to answer. ‘And what does the Republic need right now?’

  ‘A bit tenuous, Tyler.’

  ‘Is it, Cal? You’re a gunrunner and they need weapons, and my guess is that they worry about depending on Stalin for everything. I know the guys I’ve met in Madrid don’t like taking orders from the Russians, just as I know how much those communist bastards like giving them out.’