Wide Is the Gate

by Sinclair, Upton;

  The bullets had come straight down through the roof of the car and there were three neat round holes overhead. One of the missiles had penetrated the bundles of linen—alas, for those lovely tablecloths and napkins! The punctures in the roof would make a lot of trouble in case of rain, so Lanny got out some tire-tape and climbed up and patched them carefully while the roof was dry. “Poor old Comendador!” he exclaimed. “If only it were possible to fix his twelve wounds so easily!”

  “How do you figure twelve?” asked the other.

  “We rolled the canvas twice, and that means four punctures for each bullet.”

  “Will it mean the picture is ruined entirely?”

  “They do wonderful jobs of repairing; but of course I’ll have to tell the buyer, and it will probably knock off half the price.” He thought for a moment and added: “That is, unless somebody wants a souvenir of the very newest European war.”

  21

  HAZARD OF THE DIE

  I

  Saturday, the eighteenth of July, the second day of the Spanish Civil War, and two travelers ensconced in the Palace Hotel in the ancient town of Lerida sat over orange juice and coffee, eggs and rolls, discussing a decision which might affect the whole future of their lives. At the moment they had every comfort; breakfast served in their rooms and all Spain at their command. But how long would this last? The garrison housed in the Castillo upon the hill had not yet moved. When it did, would it be to the Right or Left? No one in the hotel could guess—or, at any rate, they wouldn’t tell strangers. At any moment the garrison might receive orders from Madrid—say, to move out and put down the rebels at Saragossa; then it would depend upon what the officers thought, or what the troops thought—they might begin shooting one another, as in other cities. In any case they would be wanting cars, and an especially fine one standing in a hotel garage would be an object of acute interest.

  All right then; finish your breakfast in a hurry and get out of town. But in what direction? Northeastward ran a road up the valley of the Segre River and into the Pyrenees; a beautiful trip, crossing into France at Puigcerda—Raoul knew it well, having made his escape by that route in his youth. That was the route of speed and safety, for the towns on the way were small, the troops would be few, and the rebels not especially active in this province. The other road ran east to Barcelona, a hundred and twenty miles; and that way lay adventure, that way history was being decided, perhaps at this very hour. Lanny Budd, a mature man with important affairs on his hands, really had no right to be thinking about such things; but he was, and he said: “Let’s hear the news.”

  They paid their bill, got into the car, and crossed the Rio Segre by a bridge constructed on ancient Roman foundations—so well had that practical people done their work. They drove slowly, while Raoul twirled the dials, getting both sides of the fast-spreading conflict. No doubt now that there was real fighting, and it was touch and go in many places; you could believe whichever side made you happy. The rebels apparently held Cadiz and Malaga. General Queipo de Llano had seized Seveille for them, but fighting was going on. The Moors were at La Linea, the border town between Spain and Gibraltar. In Madrid and Barcelona the government was arming the workers.

  One important item: both these great cities contended that their military aviation had remained loyal. “That is Major de Cisneros, Constancia’s husband!” exclaimed Raoul. Planes had been sent to bomb Ceuta and Melilla in Morocco, so announced Radio Madrid. Radio Barcelona proudly told how the chief of their aviation force had bombed the rebel garrisons in Saragossa and Huesca, and informed these traitors that they would get more of the same sort day after day. The announcer didn’t know and therefore couldn’t mention that the attacking plane had scored three direct hits upon a Comendador of the Spanish Order of the Golden Fleece, dead more than a hundred years!

  Some of what you heard was news but more of it was propaganda: denunciations of the enemy, incitement to hatred and calls to action against him. Raoul sat with hands clenched tightly and that peculiar quivering of the nostrils which indicated intense excitement in him. The union labor radio in Madrid read an editorial appearing in El Socialista, calling upon all workers to enlist in the defense of the government and to begin strikes in industries wherever the rebels got control. “Lanny, this is the real thing!” exclaimed the school director. “This will decide the future of Spain for our lifetimes.”

  “That and perhaps longer,” was the reply.

  II

  A little more than a mile outside Lerida they came to the fork in the road, where they had to decide their own future. Puigcerda and safety, or Barcelona and nobody could guess what! The car drew up by the side of the road until they should have made up their minds.

  “Lanny,” said Raoul, “do you suppose you could get to France by yourself?”

  “Why, yes,” he replied, surprised. “You are thinking of staying?”

  “I should feel that I was running away from duty if I went out now.”

  “You mean to fight?”

  “I am a Spaniard, and I ought to put myself at the service of the government and do whatever they tell me. I don’t know that I’d be much good as a soldier, but I have an education and I could help the workers to understand what this crisis means to them.”

  “What would we do about the school, Raoul?”

  “You’d find someone to carry it on. Of course it may be that this will all be over in a few days; but I ought to stay until I make sure.”

  “And your wife?”

  “She will want to join me if I stay. She has learned some Spanish and could serve as a nurse. All sorts of people will be coming from France to help.”

  “All right,” said Lanny; “if that’s the right thing for you, I’ve no complaint.”

  “I could accompany you to the border—”

  “No, that would be foolish. I’ll be there by tonight, if I decide to go. Do you think I ought to stay and help, too?”

  “Would you be willing?” It was Raoul’s turn to be surprised.

  “I’ve thought about it. I could make a pretty good sharpshooter, you know.”

  “But could you stand the hard life?”

  “Who knows what he can stand until he has to?”

  They talked it over from various angles, and Raoul’s verdict was: “You could do a hundred times as much outside, Lanny. Go and see Longuet and tell him the story. See Blum and try to persuade him to send us help. Tell Rick about it and let him write some articles. Maybe you can get your father to sell us a few of his planes. No, we have thousands of fellows who can learn to hit a target, but nobody can do the special things that you can.”

  That was always the way in Lanny’s life. Every time he had a heroic impulse somebody told him to go and attend a tea-party, or have lunch with a statesman, or tell a story to a journalist! Always things which had to be done in the Crillon or the Adlon or the Dorchester, in somebody’s town house or country mansion, or traveling de luxe by steamer or motorcar. Never anything that involved discomfort or danger—unless, of course, it happened, purely by accident, that the chief of the Air Force of the semi-autonomous government of Catalonia flew over him and sent three bullets through the top of his car, one of them within an inch of his shoulder!

  “Where would you enlist, Raoul?” asked the victim of too good fortune. His friend replied that he would go to Barcelona; he couldn’t very well get back to Madrid, with the towns in between in the hands of the rebels. “All right,” said Lanny. “It’s Barcelona for both of us,”—and he started the car down the right-hand fork of the road.

  “You’re taking a risk,” warned Kabul. “You know, even the government may take your car, if the need happens to be great enough.”

  “If it’s that great, I’ll give it to them.”

  “Then how will you get home?”

  “I suppose trains will still be running to the border; and once I get into France; there’ll be cars enough for sale.”

  Raoul got a new vision of what it
meant to belong to the privileged classes. He knew this very fine car must have cost nearly a hundred thousand francs; yet Lanny proposed to toss it away as if it had been an old coat to a beggar. “And what about the Comendador?”

  “Oh, well,” smiled Lanny, “seeing that he’s badly wounded, I suppose he can expect special treatment. I’ll wrap him up, and maybe they’ll let me ride with him in the baggage car!”

  III

  It was no simple matter crossing the ancient principality of Cataluna in time of civil war. They were stopped a dozen times before they reached their destination; always by partisans of the government, suspicious of anybody in an expensive car, and taking no chances of letting enemy intriguers or spies get into their territory. More than once the patrols insisted upon lifting the big roll of canvas, to make certain that it didn’t contain a machine gun or other lethal weapon. They didn’t always understand Raoul’s polished Castilian, for they spoke the harsh Catalan; it was Lanny who recognized some of the words, for their language resembles Provencal. The older peasants wore the berretina, a long cap like a stocking, of bright-red color which now had acquired a new significance. On these windswept hills grew cork trees and olives, and wherever there was a sheltered spot men toiled from dawn to dark to “make bread out of stones,” as they phrased it.

  Wherever there were industries, the workers had taken charge of the highways, protecting their own government without asking anybody’s permission. Among these were always some who spoke Spanish, and when they learned that the travelers had left Madrid only two days ago, they wanted to know about conditions in the capital and along the road. When Raoul had made sure that the government forces were in control all the way to Barcelona, he told about their adventure in Saragossa and exhibited the wounds of the Comendador in proof. When the tannery workers guarding the road into Igualada discovered that the strangers had a radio on board, they clamored for news, and Raoul dialed Barcelona for them. When they heard with their own ears the voice of their President Companys, announcing that the Moors at La Linea were slaughtering hundreds of innocent people in cold blood, they resolved to march at once to the capital with such arms as they could collect. Some of them were puzzled to learn that while the Senores ricos could hear Barcelona they couldn’t answer back; they solemnly commissioned the pair that when they got to Barcelona they were to inform El Presidente that reinforcements would be on the march.

  Through a winding gorge the travelers descended to the valley of the River Llobregat, alongside the strange sawtoothed mountains known as Montserrat. Here is a famous monastery, built on the site of one of those ancient miracles which so frequently happened to wooden images of the Virgin; being carried through these wild and fantastic mountains, escaping from the Moors, this one had refused to go any farther, so here was a shrine, and great numbers of hermitages, also, hotels and lodging-houses for hundreds of pilgrims who came every day to the place. The two visitors had no eyes and no thoughts for religious art or architecture in this crisis; they kept on the highway, watching for military barriers and sentries who might be disposed to shoot first and inquire afterward.

  Over the radio, the rebels admitted fighting in Seville, but asserted that they were gaining everywhere in the south, and that troopships were landing an army at Cadiz. General Mola was consolidating his forces in the north for an immediate march on Madrid. In short, the movement for “liberation” had succeeded, and General Franco warned that punishment would be meted out not merely to all who resisted but to all who tried to remain neutral. On the other hand Radio Madrid hailed an enlistment of the people’s militia and called upon workers and peasants everywhere to organize and fight with whatever arms they could get. “The Frente Popular has now become an army,” proclaimed the announcer. He declared that the Navy was loyal to the government and that the cruiser Cervantes was bombarding Cadiz. The government held the Basque coast all the way to the French border; so, once more: “Who’s afraid of the big bad wolf?”

  IV

  It would have been too bad to take this long journey, run all these risks, and then lose the car to the rebels at the last moment. They questioned people on the way and collected much information, the only trouble being that it was so full of contradictions. The rebels were all over the city of Barcelona. Did they have the Citadel? It was rumored so. And where were the barracks of the revolting regiments? These, too, appeared to be in many places. It transpired that the nearer you got to a civil war, the less you knew about what was happening. Try the radio again; but Barcelona broadcasting was mostly given up to denunciation of the enemies’ crimes and calls for all able-bodied men to join the armed forces. Apparently the Catalan government didn’t want the rest of the country to know that the rebels held any part of their capital.

  Lanny and Raoul had been told that the rebels had seized the suburb of Peralbes, which is on the higher land to the west, near the Royal Golf Club and the Royal Palace. That seemed a likely neighborhood for Fascists to be in, so the travelers considered making a detour and coming in by the Hipodromo, near the shore. But that would bring them past the Fortress of Montjuich, which seemed most likely to be in the enemies’ hands. They decided to split the difference and enter by a main boulevard, the Calle de las Cortes Catalanas, which offered the advantage that they could see far ahead and if they came upon anything suspicious could dodge into a side street in a hurry.

  Very soon they came to a barricade, with armed workers on guard and a red flag above it. That looked like home, and Raoul leaned out of the car window, waved his handkerchief, and called: “Amigos!” as they drove up to the wall of paving-stones. Raoul got out and introduced himself, mentioning that for many years he had been director of the Escuela de los. Trabajadores del Midi. There was magic in that long word meaning laborers. So, in the Midi, as in Catalonia, the laborers had schools of their own! Young fellows with trade-union cards lifted their clenched right fists to say that they were Communists, and others lifted both hands and clasped them over their heads to say that they were anarchists.

  A heavy truck which made part of the barricade was pushed aside and the car ordered through. The olive-skinned volunteer soldiers, stripped to their undershirts in the hot sun and having bands tied about their foreheads to keep the sweat out of their eyes, made Lanny think he was back in the French Revolution, as portrayed by the painter David. Quite evidently these revolutionists couldn’t get their minds adjusted to the idea of being addressed as “companeros” by the occupants of such an aristocratic conveyance; they asked politely if they might lift the strange-looking large object and make sure that it contained nothing contraband. After they had done so, they shook hands With Raoul and told him that he was welcome; they plied him with questions as to what he had seen on the way, and in return told him what they knew. A rebel regiment was preparing to attack from the suburbs in the southwest, also an artillery regiment; another infantry regiment had been shut up in its barracks by its officers, and the men were trying to make up their minds what to do. Real fighting might break out at any moment.

  V

  Lanny had had a chance to observe Adolf Hitler’s abortive Beerhall Putsch some thirteen years ago and had got the impression that a revolution consists of a great many men hurrying this way and that on the streets. Now he discovered the same thing in Barcelona. Small groups, in uniform or out, marched in one direction and others marched in the opposite direction. Cars and trucks rolled by, making a lot of noise at crossings, as if their owners were trying to express their state of excitement. There was much singing, in which passers-by joined, and this had a great effect upon Raoul, who had been teaching Socialist songs for years and now discovered that his voice had traveled a couple of hundred miles along this Mediterranean shore.

  He and Lanny talked things over and decided that they had better stop at separate hotels, now that Raoul was enlisted for a war. It wouldn’t be easy to convince rabid Marxists that an American playboy was one of them; and anyhow, Lanny didn’t want to convince them. The
city was bound to be full of spies, Italian and German as well as Nationalist, to say nothing of American newspaper men who might find it a picturesque item that a son of Budd-Erling was lending moral and perhaps military support to the Red government of Catalonia. No, Lanny would go to the Ritz, as on the previous visit, and have his bags and his Comendador carried to his suite, his car deposited safely in the garage; meanwhile Raoul would visit Marxist headquarters and see what the comrades had for him to do.

  Having washed up and refreshed himself with a cold drink, Lanny decided to go for a stroll. The sun was going down, and the Ramblas now were crowded with people out to see the sights. Saturday made it a holiday, and war made it a double holiday; everybody wore a red ribbon or rosette, everybody was ready to sing at the least provocation, and nobody was afraid of the Franco wolf. Mostly they were workers, for the rich were afraid, and those who had not fled were hiding in their homes. None of the men wore hats, because that was a bourgeois custom; Lanny, who seldom wore a hat, was in fashion here. He knew how to start a conversation with any sort of man or woman, and by now had picked up quite a lot of Spanish, easy because he knew French and Italian. When he gave the password americano, the workers wanted to shake hands with him and talk about their wonderful baby, now five months old—the semi-autonomous government of Catalonia, headed by a small and very lively lawyer named Luis Companys.

  It was in accord with Lanny’s philosophy that masses of the people should turn out into the streets to celebrate their semi-autonomy. Nor was his pleasure utterly destroyed when he came back to the hotel and was told that men wearing red brassards had presented themselves at the garage and seized all the cars for the moving of troops. Not so many cars, it appeared, because most of the guests of this luxurious place had already made their escape. Los oficiales—so the badly scared hotel clerk called the requisitioners—had left a receipt, with the assurance that the owner would be paid a proper rental. Lanny, who from boyhood had been talking about the expropriation of the expropriators, was now getting a dose of it, and could imagine the smiles with which his semi-Fascist friends and relatives would greet the news of his troubles! Even the linen tablecloths and napkins were gone—but these from the leisure-class point of view were worthless because of the holes in them.