The Last Goodnight

by Howard Blum

  The British embassy and its staff, along with other foreign diplomatic legations, had moved for safety into the Continental Hotel. Civil guards were posted at the entrance, as much to keep guests in as to keep San Sebastian’s populace out; the dining room windows had already been boarded up so that hungry outsiders wouldn’t see the privileged lodgers eating as if there wasn’t a war going on.

  Inside the Continental, another sort of madness reigned. Day and night the lobby was crowded with a rambunctious assortment of exotic types: dark-suited diplomats, foraging journalists, wheelers and dealers from a half dozen or so countries, self-appointed Republican staff officers in their new brown uniforms, stern Comintern agents, and always a gaggle of brightly painted whores with eager smiles. The bar served drinks and rumors around the clock, and the communal fear was that the liquor would run out before the stories.

  Sir Henry Chilton, the imperious British ambassador who blatantly sided with the Nationalists, was quite annoyed by the inconveniences he and his staff had to endure. He sent dispatches to the Foreign Office grumbling about the bullets “potting” at the hotel windows, about the “men, unshaven and short of sleep, but fired with enthusiasm for their cause, issuing orders,” about “loud voiced individuals all armed with revolver, shot gun or rifle.”

  Then abruptly his dispatches stopped. The phone and telegraph lines to the Continental Hotel were down. There was no way to get a message in or out of the city. San Sebastian was cut off from the outside world.

  NOT QUITE THIRTY MILES AWAY, in Biarritz, France, Betty had settled into what might as well have been not just another country but another world. Sunbathers lolled on the warm sands of the Grand Plage. Diners in straw hats, blazers, and white pants sat on the Palace Hotel terrace picking at icy towers of fruits de mer and sipping flutes of chilled champagne as they gazed at a tranquil bright blue sea. When the sun set, men in evening clothes accompanied by bejeweled ladies in long gowns, many of them wealthy Nationalists who had shrewdly managed to get out of Spain, gathered round the roulette tables at the casino. The wheel spun round and round, and night after night the gamblers placed their bets, took their risks.

  This was Betty’s life too. And she was miserable. Two placid weeks, and she was ready to explode. The days were too easy, too straightforward. She needed something larger; she needed the liberation that came from inhabiting several lives at the same chaotic time.

  Like the patrons of the casino, Betty was also a gambler. The games of chance offered in Biarritz, however, were too tame for her. A war raged across the border, and every wild voice inside her head was shouting that she had to be a part of it. She had to chuck away this comfort, this phony freedom. She needed authentic thrills, important risks. She resolved to go back to Spain, place her bet, and let the wheel spin.

  But before she could leave, Arthur beat her to it. A cable from the Foreign Office arrived at their rented seaside villa. By Whitehall’s customary understated standards, it was a full-blown distress signal.

  The ambassador and all his staff, for all practical purposes, had vanished. No one in London knew if they were alive or dead. Pack was to go at once to war-torn San Sebastian and find out.

  I WILL BE BACK THIS evening, Arthur promised Betty. It shouldn’t be more than a four-hour trip; San Sebastian was on the other side of the Bidasoa River, a short drive over the Santiago Bridge. He’d pay his respects to Sir Henry, then turn around and head back. A quick cable to soothe the Foreign Office, and then they could go off to dinner.

  When Arthur didn’t return by midnight, Betty began to worry. When he still hadn’t appeared by the next afternoon, she made a plan. The idea, or at least some version of it, had been building inside her even before Arthur vanished, and now she had the excuse she needed. She had rescued a lover. The least she could do, she decided, was save her husband too.

  At dawn the next morning, Betty woke the nanny and told her to watch Denise until she returned. Then with Eusabio, the young chauffeur, she launched her mission. As they headed out of town, the last of the night’s revelers making their woozy way home and the sea sparkling in the first light, Betty suddenly ordered, “Stop the car.” Without a word of explanation, she jumped out and strode purposefully to the tall flagpole in front of a grand seaside hotel. She studied it intently, then hurried up the hotel’s broad front steps.

  Moments later she returned to the flagpole with a frock-coated deskman and a bellboy in a reddish uniform and a cap that resembled an upside down teacup. Eusabio watched as Betty handed the man in the silly coat a handful of francs, and the boy in the silly hat lowered the Union Jack. It cost Betty some more francs, but the bellboy, with some difficulty, managed to fix the flag to the car’s bonnet. The Union Jack’s resplendent authority would make the rebels pause before they opened fire on the car, Betty told herself. Unless, she realized in the next uneasy moment, it just gave their marksmen a better target.

  They had not driven much farther before Betty once again ordered Eusabio to halt. She had made another operational decision: two flags were better than one.

  She went into the first hotel that caught her eye, this time emerging with several red cloth napkins. Quickly she attached a red flag of sorts, a banner she hoped would be viewed with sympathy by the Marxist factions in the Republican forces, to the vehicle’s antenna. With two flags flying—symbols in their way of the bifurcated allegiances that warred continually in Betty’s soul—they headed to the border.

  They approached the Santiago Bridge, their trepidation mounting. The murky waters of the Bidasoa River seemed a harbinger of the tumult that lay ahead. On high alert, they crossed into Spain.

  They hadn’t gotten far before they were stopped. The Republican militiamen guards at the border town of Irun were not impressed by either of the flags.

  Rebel Fascists firing across the Bidasoa River, at people retreating from occupied Irun to seek sanctuary in France, in 1936.

  AP Photo

  With deadpan calm, Betty explained that she was on her way to San Sebastian. The disclosure only added to the guards’ uneasiness. It seemed strange that anyone would want to go to a city about to be overrun by Nationalist troops.

  “Get out of the car,” one of the soldiers ordered. He pointed his shotgun at her chest to make sure she obeyed. “You must go to the commandancia.”

  “What about my car?” Betty demanded, hoping she sounded confident, all haughty and indignant.

  “Requisitioned,” he replied tersely.

  Two scruffy men carrying submachine guns positioned themselves like bookends on either side of her. Betty smiled at one, and then the other, flashing her hundred-watt charm. Neither of the soldiers noticed; their eyes looked straight ahead, flat and vacant.

  “They will take you,” the man with the shotgun said.

  “What about my driver?” Betty tried. “I won’t go without him.”

  “Don’t worry about your driver.”

  One of the soldiers nudged her in the ribs with the barrel of his machine gun, and she started walking.

  “YOUR PAPERS,” THE COMMANDANT DEMANDED.

  His hair was greasy and uncombed. He had not shaved for days. A bandolier loaded with bullets stretched across his dirty shirt.

  Betty gave him her passport and the identity card the Spanish government issued to all accredited diplomats and their families.

  He glanced at each of the documents quickly, as if they were irrelevant. Contemptuously, he tossed them onto the wooden table in front of him.

  Strutting across the room, a king in his tiny kingdom, he found an opened bottle of brandy. He lifted it to his lips, and took a long swig. When he was done, he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

  He looked closely at Betty, inspecting her, focusing on every curve. She had endured that sort of scrutiny from men before. Sometimes she didn’t mind. Now it frightened her.

  The commandant took another long swallow of brandy. Suddenly he slammed the bottle down hard on the table. In the
small, windowless room the noise sounded like a gunshot.

  “These papers are forged!” the commandant shouted. “You are a Fascist spy. Franco is your boss.”

  He called for a militiaman.

  “Abajo! Take her downstairs.”

  Chapter 17

  THE SMELL IN THE BASEMENT was overpowering, a fetid, nearly suffocating mix of cigarette smoke, sweat, and fear. Soldiers filled the room, many drunk, many half naked because of the heat. Captured in yesterday’s fighting, they expected to be executed soon; they would have done the same if they had been the victors.

  Suddenly alert, the prisoners watched as a tall blond Anglo in a tight-fitting dress was led down to join them. They were living out their last moments, and now they had company.

  Betty took a seat at the very edge of a long bench. Three men were seated at the other end. She slouched, but even as she did, she knew it was futile: it was impossible to hide. The three prisoners started inching up the bench.

  “Guard!” she called. “I must speak to the commandant. This is a mistake. I’m the wife of a British diplomat.”

  The guard ignored her.

  Betty could feel the bench shaking as the men slid toward her. From the opposite side of the airless room, a cluster of prisoners began shuffling forward. They were furtive, taking their time, waiting to see if the guard would stop them.

  “Guard!” Betty yelled again. She tried not to sound desperate, but she knew she was not fooling anyone.

  As she looked up, she saw that the guard was speaking to someone. At first she thought he was a prisoner; his clothes were grimy and disheveled. But she realized that he could not be: the guard listened with respectful concentration. Betty decided she must catch this man’s attention.

  She fixed her green eyes on him, and at the same time she silently prayed to any saint whose name she could remember. Give me this one gift and I’ll never ask for anything again, she remembered promising.

  A moment later he was sitting next to her.

  “Señora?” he asked helpfully. Betty noticed that the three men had quickly returned to the far end of the bench. The other prisoners had also retreated.

  “How kind. I knew you would come and help me,” Betty began, and then paused to offer him a smile shining with the full force of her gratitude. It was a wonderful performance, the culmination of years of practice, and she let it linger.

  At last she continued. “You know, you can see, it is all a mistake that I am here. I came over from France, not Spain, and my baby is there. You must get us back to her.

  “You will,” she insisted, as if her wish was as good as a command.

  The man stared at Betty, both puzzled and entranced. Who was this woman? he seemed to be wondering. What was she doing here? And why did she think she could give him orders?

  Yet in the next moment, he must have decided that the answers did not matter. And that he had never seen anyone so dazzling.

  “But of course, señora. It is all a mistake.”

  Saying that he would go speak with the commandant, he rose, offered a small bow, and went off.

  Betty waited. Minutes passed like years.

  And then she was back in her car, Eusabio was at the wheel, and her savior was waving good-bye. “Buen vijae, señora!” he yelled.

  Eusabio put his foot down hard on the accelerator. “Faster!” Betty ordered. At any moment the commandant’s mind could change, and the bullets could start flying.

  In half an hour she was back in Biarritz. One stiff drink later she was on the phone to the Foreign Office. Get me the duty officer, she demanded, as confidently as if she’d been a fieldman filing flash messages to London Station all her operational life.

  A Mr. Greene listened without comment to her report: Spain had dissolved into total anarchy. No British citizen, whether diplomat or traveler, was safe. The navy had to send warships to San Sebastian to evacuate the embassy staff at once. Any delay could prove disastrous. Lives were at risk.

  When she had finished, Mr. Greene politely thanked her for the information and promised he would pass it along to the proper authorities.

  “Tonight!” Betty insisted vehemently.

  Mr. Green broke the connection without saying another word.

  That night the Admiralty dispatched the HMS Verity and Veteran. The ships’ orders were to proceed to the port of San Sebastian with all deliberate speed and welcome all British citizens on board. Still, it could be as long as four days, possibly even five if there was rough weather, before the vessels arrived.

  EARLY THE NEXT MORNING BETTY returned to Spain. A shaky but loyal Eusabio was at the wheel as the car crossed the Santiago Bridge, flying the same two flags. As an added precaution, he had loaded the trunk with a half dozen cans of petrol; the Republican government had requisitioned all the country’s fuel supplies, and he wanted to make sure that if they were lucky enough to survive, they’d have enough gas to get back to the safety of France.

  Why had Betty, the previous day’s harrowing adventure still fresh in her mind, decided to return? No one forced her. No one had even asked her. She had made a promise to rescue her husband, but it was only to herself. And it was a little too late in their marriage, or her life for that matter, to pontificate about the sanctity of her word. Why put herself at risk—she’d been fortunate she hadn’t been shot or raped or both in Irun—when there was no compelling reason to return? Why venture once again into an out-of-control situation where she’d be at the mercy of a bunch of unruly, heavily armed thugs?

  Looking back, with the enlightenment culled from a wartime packed with daring missions, Betty decided the answer was quite simple: she wanted to. She wanted to because in that one perilous day she’d been more alive than ever before in her complicated life. After making her telephone report to the disembodied Mr. Greene, Betty had felt the gratifying glow of accomplishment, of a job well done. When she drove back into Spain, it wasn’t as if she had a choice. She wasn’t doing it for Arthur. Or England. Or love. It was, she explained to Hyde, because at last she knew how she wanted to live.

  But this knowledge came to her only decades later. That morning Betty had other burning concerns: her car was once again stopped at the Irun crossing.

  The same ragtag clique of guards stood at the gate, but this time they greeted Betty like an old and slightly crazy friend, the Anglo who insisted on driving toward the fighting. Betty laughed along with them; her itinerary was irrational. When their leader, abruptly grave and officious, announced she must once again see the commandancia, she stopped laughing.

  As Betty walked slowly to the headquarters building, she had a vision of the leering commander swigging his brandy, and then in the next instant she could see herself in “that awful hole” filled with desperate men. When she made up her mind to return, she had persuaded herself that this trip wouldn’t be like the previous one. Now she prepared herself for the likelihood that it would be much worse. Her uncertain courage would be tested, and she made a silent vow to keep her mounting fear locked inside. She would not succumb until the pain and humiliation were beyond her endurance.

  Her stomach dropped with a sudden, sickening rapidity when she was led into the familiar tight, dark office. She expected to see her tormentor standing behind the wooden table, welcoming her with his malicious sneer.

  But another officer was seated at the table, and when Betty entered, he stood politely. His hair was combed, his uniform clean. There were no threats, no insinuations. Instead, he spoke with genuine solicitude.

  “Turn back,” he pleaded. “There is heavy fighting all along the road to San Sebastian. You could get caught in the crossfire. Perhaps ambushed. The soldiers on both sides are not too particular about who they slaughter.”

  Betty thanked him for his concern, but she had not come this far to retreat. She was determined to reach the city, to find her husband.

  The commander considered. Finally he threw up his hands in exasperation. “If your mind is made up, I will no
t stop you,” he said.

  With mournful resignation, he wrote a salvo-conducto for Betty and Eusabio. “You get stopped, a safe conduct pass might help. Or it might not. But don’t expect a piece of paper to deflect any bullets,” he warned. As a further and more practical precaution, he assigned two armed militiamen to accompany them on the journey.

  Minutes later, Betty was back on the road to San Sebastian.

  WHAT WAS THE MOST TERRIFYING part of the trip? Driving full-speed, Eusabio’s foot flat on the accelerator, Betty hunched low in the front seat, as the car raced through a whistling volley of bullets? The sudden artillery fire, shells exploding, the road in an instant pockmarked with craters, the car shaking from the impact of each barrage? Hiding behind a rock, clinging to it, the ground trembling beneath her, waiting for the shelling to stop? Realizing that the trunk was loaded with cans of gasoline, and one stray bullet could ignite an inferno? Perhaps it was not knowing what waited around the next curve, wondering what was coming, and always expecting the worst.

  The twenty-two mile drive to San Sebastian stretched on forever.

  At last the car stopped in front of the Hotel Continental. Betty tried to compose herself; there had been moments on the road when she’d been convinced she was staring death—cruel, impassive, and inevitable—in its grim face. She was still shaking, and telling herself she’d been very lucky was only a small comfort.

  She sat silently, hoping her nerves would settle. Finally she gave Eusabio a handful of bills. “Get yourself a stiff whisky. The militiamen, too. You earned it.”

  But Betty had to complete her mission.

  The lobby was crowded, a nearly solid wall of apprehensive, loudly jabbering people. Betty pushed her way forward. When she reached the center of the lobby, she saw Arthur.

  I did it! she silently shouted, tingling with excitement, proud of what she had done.