by Howard Blum
“And after you have conveyed to him clearly that you are not acting for our government,” Leche continued when he’d finally pulled away from her embrace, “you may tell him that the British chargé d’affaires knows about your visit and the reason for it, and that he heartily approves.”
LUNCH WAS OCTOPUS arroz a la valenciana washed down by frosty glasses of vodka. Once the general learned that Leche had agreed to help, he ordered another round to celebrate. “To success,” he toasted. “To success,” Betty echoed.
“I’ll drive you round to Prieto’s and wait while you do your stuff,” the general offered. “Just watch your step. He’s a pretty tough guy, this Prieto, but nothing like some of those Reds. Everything will be all right. You’ll see.”
After the long, lazy lunch, Fuqua drove Betty back to the chancery. As soon as the car pulled up, events seemed to prove his confidence justified. A secretary hurried over with a message that gave another boost to Betty’s already soaring spirits: “His Excellency wants you to know that your appointment is for two thirty tomorrow.”
“Hell’s bells,” the general exulted. “That’s what I call liaison work!”
She hurried up the stairs to thank Leche, heading straight to the minister’s private office. He was seated at his desk, poring over some papers, but he looked up sharply when Betty bounded in. She knew at once that something was terribly wrong.
“Here, read this,” he said rigidly, rising from his seat and handing her a telegram. When she saw that it was from the embassy in Hendaye and marked “Most Urgent,” her stomach dropped precipitously. Yet she forced herself to read on:
FOLLOWING FOR LECHE PERSONAL FROM AMBASSADOR REPORT ON WHEREABOUTS OF MRS PACK WIFE OF COMMERCIAL SECRETRARY BELIEVED TO HAVE VISITED MADRID STOP ARRANGE FOR HER IMMEDIATE REPEAT IMMEDIATE RETURN BY NEXT AVAILABLE DESTROYER.
She did not know what to say. There was no way she would go back to France until she had seen Carlos. The ambassador could insist, he could demand that she return immediately repeat immediately. But she would not leave Spain until she had completed her mission.
But what would Leche do? Without his help, she’d be unable to see Prieto. If he obeyed orders and summoned the chancery guards to escort her to a destroyer, she’d be powerless to resist. She’d be sailing back to France by the morning.
“We’ll have to send off a reply,” Leche said, puncturing the silence.
“Stall on it,” said Betty. It was the only strategy she could come up with.
Leche, though, had another. “There is only one answer and it’s quite simple. You are staying here with me and that’s all there is to it. So you must decide about your feelings for me.”
Betty had already decided. Leche was an interlude, not a commitment. But this was not the moment to make that clear. All her instincts told her to be vague, to steer clear of both promises and ultimatums. She needed the minister on her side for just a while longer. She had to see Carlos. After she completed her mission, there would be time to tell Leche that she was returning to France and her husband and child.
“Say I’m in no danger and return is delayed on account of shortage of destroyer space,” she suggested.
Leche considered. He could press the issue with Betty, but if he did, he sensed that she would turn him down. She’d walk off and leave him forever. And that would be unbearable.
“I’ll cable the ambassador that there’s no destroyer available,” he agreed.
But even as he wrote the telegram designed to win her a reprieve, Betty understood that her departure was inevitable. She just wondered if Leche realized that too.
THE NEXT MORNING, JUST HOURS before her appointment with Prieto, there was a sudden change of plans. Leche wanted Betty to believe that the idea was his, but years later, and wiser with their passing, she would realize the instructions had come from the Secret Intelligence Service in London. No doubt he’d cabled the spymasters about her meeting with the foreign minister. If circumstances allowed, they must have decided, why shouldn’t the Service come along for the ride too? By return flash cable Leche received his marching orders. And as if on a sudden whim of his own, he shared the request with Betty.
As Betty sat in his office, waiting for the general to arrive, Leche extracted a sheet of paper from the safe near his desk: a single-column typewritten list of the seventeen aviators being held in the same Republican prison as Sartorius.
“If Prieto seems favorable about Carlos,” he said as he handed the thin sheet to Betty, “you can mention these people too. Otherwise forget about them. I trust your judgment.”
Betty, however, soon found herself doubting not only her judgment but everything else about her mission. Parked with the general in the shadow of the hulking gilded palacio requisitioned as Ministry of National Defense headquarters, she suddenly felt that the challenge she faced was insurmountable. She had gotten her willful way with a doting assortment of fun-loving upper-class men, a string of diplomats, aristocrats, and playboys. But what flirtatious tricks could she try on a sullen, pure-hearted Marxist? Prieto, a no-nonsense true believer, would be immune to her playful charm. And then what would happen to Carlos? Perhaps her appeal would backfire. Once she mentioned her lover’s name, Prieto, infuriated by her presumption, would make certain Carlos was never released.
“I’d rather face a firing squad then go in there,” she said, sitting riveted to the car seat.
“If that’s the way you feel,” barked the general, finding his battle-cry voice, “you’d better be afraid of my kicking you out of the car. Anyway it’s time to go now. Get the hell in there!”
And so Betty charged forward. She went through a gauntlet of suspicious secretaries and militiamen, having her credentials checked and studiously rechecked. Finally an officer in an elaborate uniform appeared to escort her up a long, winding staircase. He pointed to a closed double door at the top of the landing. The foreign minister is expecting you, he announced; and in the next instant, as if by some sorcerer’s trick, he had vanished.
Betty walked into a vast, dark space. From out of its depths a small voice called out, “Prieto.” For a bewildered moment Betty thought she was being greeted in some obscure foreign tongue; but then a short, chubby man approached with his hand extended, and she realized that the minister believed his name alone was sufficient welcome.
Graciously, he directed Betty to a plush chair. As if deeply weary, he collapsed into the armchair opposite it. “How can I be of assistance, señora?”
Betty looked at him carefully. She’d been foolish, she decided, to have been so anxious. Prieto was a fat, bald, tired man in a rumpled suit. If she could get a priest to consider abandoning his calling for her, she could cast a spell on this beleaguered official, with his double chin.
In a steady, firm voice, she announced that she had come to ask for the release of Carlos Sartorius. She made sure to focus all the glow in her bewitching smile and her sparkling eyes on the minister.
“Excuse me, señora,” Prieto replied. “Why are you so interested in this case?”
Betty weighed her response. Her instincts told her that Carlos’s fate could depend on her answer. Every ploy she had previously tried in the course of her long quest had failed. Now she decided to rely on the only one that remained—the truth.
“For two reasons, señor el ministero,” she began. “The first is because I love this man. The second is that through loving him I know all about him. And I know that he has never done anything against the Spanish government. He does not deserve to be in prison.”
The minister looked down at the floor, his head sinking into his hands. It was the posture of a man who was bored, or tired, or perhaps both. Betty had been earnest, she had been sincere—and, she felt, her plea had failed.
As if rousing himself from a much-needed sleep, Prieto finally raised his head and looked up once again at the woman seated opposite him.
“I am very grateful to you for coming to see me,” said the minister. “There are m
any things that are not brought to my attention.”
With great effort, he pulled himself up from his chair. He rose in slow stages, like a man who had been awkwardly bent and had to take care as he straightened himself. “Is there anything else?” he asked once he was standing.
Betty had no idea of how the meeting had gone. Prieto was a puzzle. But the one thing she knew for sure was that she’d never get another chance. She reached into her purse and handed the minister the typewritten list with the seventeen names.
“These men are prisoners, too,” she said. “Like Señor Sartorius, they have been wrongly imprisoned.”
Prieto took the list and his eyes traveled over it with attention.
“Señora,” he said, “you will understand that I can do nothing arbitrary. But I promise you that I will examine these cases carefully.” Then a thin, coy smile broke through the mask of his face, and for Betty it was like the light of a thousand suns. “I think I can tell you to have good hope of their release!”
For a moment Betty was speechless. His encouraging words had taken her completely by surprise. Was her long battle nearly over? Could it have been this simple? Filled with an overwhelming joy, she somehow managed to put her gratitude into words.
The minister was escorting her to the door when, ever solicitous, he asked, “You are certain there is nothing else?”
Betty did not want to overplay her hand. She did not want to do anything that would jeopardize the release of Carlos and the other airmen. She did not want to discover the limits of Prieto’s tolerance. But at the same time, she could not help herself.
“Yes, there is,” she blurted out. “May I see the man I love and give him some hope too?”
With a mystifying silence, Prieto returned to his desk. He began writing. Betty wondered if she had finally overstepped the undefined bounds. Perhaps he’d decided he had put up with enough of her requests, and, at last angered, was preparing an order for her arrest.
He wrote quickly and then looked up at Betty. “You will need this,” he said, and finished by signing his name with a flourish at the bottom of the page. He handed the sheet to Betty.
It was a pass allowing Señora Pack to enter the military prison to visit with inmate Carlos Sartorius.
“You may meet with him,” said the minister. “Indeed, you should.”
WHEN BETTY WAS A YOUNG girl, her father had served as the commandant of a marine prison in Maine. Over the years the memory of that dark fortress had remained vivid in her mind. It still made her shudder. It was a frightful place, and she could not imagine a more lonely and horrifying fate than to be locked inside its thick walls. Then she saw the prison on the Barcelona Road.
On a flat, treeless highway, the only structure on a desolate plain that stretched to the horizon, the military prison stood like an ominous intruder. It was a boxy red brick building, stark and ugly.
The general’s car drove under a smoldering orange late-afternoon sky toward the front gate as Betty’s hopes gave way to despair. How could Carlos have survived inside this place? What had he endured? What price must he have paid? The prospect of seeing her handsome lover broken, reduced to something small and groveling, left her shaking. For a terrible moment she wondered if coming to the prison, her entire quest in fact, had been a mistake.
But then she was out of the car, striding confidently to the massive iron door. She waved the minister’s pass about, and it proved as effective as any magician’s wand—sentries snapped to attention, doors were unbolted and thrown open, and with great ceremony she was led into an empty room. Two chairs were brought in. Knees crossed, she sat in one of them and waited. And prayed.
Carlos walked slowly into the room.
For a moment Betty couldn’t move. She just stared at him, overwhelmed.
Suddenly she was on her feet and rushing into his arms. He held her and she held him, and for a long while they were locked in this tight embrace. She wanted to say something, but couldn’t find the words. Then she realized she was crying. And so was he.
At last Betty pulled away. “Let me see how you look,” she said.
She had expected to find a different man, and indeed, Carlos was pale, thin, and had grown a long, unruly beard. But he still smiled like the mischevious lover with whom she had spent so many sweet afternoons in the Madrid penthouse. During the course of her long search she’d cherished the image of the man she first encountered on a tennis court at a Washington country club, and now, despite everything, the bearded, unkempt prisoner in his gray uniform caused the same flutter in her heart.
They talked and talked, though afterward Betty could not remember a word that had passed between them. All the time her mind was silently racing, shouting louder than their conversation: He’s alive! Soon he will be free! I did it!
Then a guard appeared: their allotted hour was over.
“I believe that fate is with us,” Carlos told her as they held one another in a farewell embrace. “It won’t be long before I am free and we are together again.”
The guard approached, and Betty pulled herself away. She was weeping violently. She did not try to speak.
As she was led into the corridor, she heard the door behind her slam with a heavy, echoing bang. Carlos was calling to her, “Adios! Adios! We shall meet soon.”
His words grew fainter as she headed down the long walkway toward the main gate.
Betty did not call back to him. There was nothing more to say. She understood the firm boundaries that held her life, however passionate at any random moment, in place. She had done what she had set out to do, and now her time with Carlos was over.
“I WON’T LET YOU GO,” said Leche.
“I have to go,” Betty insisted.
In this newspaper article from 1965, Betty details how she rescued her lover, Spanish air force officer Carlos Sartorius, from a military prison.
Churchill Archives Centre, Churchill Archives Centre Miscellaneous Holdings, MISC 86 / ©Mirrorpix
Sixteen days had passed since her visit to Carlos, and each day she woke convinced that the day had come for her to return home. She had accomplished her mission. She had a husband and a daughter waiting in France. There was no reason to remain in Spain. And yet she had lingered. Leche was an enjoyable companion. They would walk hand in hand on the moonlit beach to the room they shared, and spend the nights in one another’s arms.
But today she knew it was the end. She was neither surprised nor disconcerted. Her resolve was firm. She had seen a British destroyer lying off the port, and at that moment she made up her mind: she’d be on board when it steamed off.
“I don’t know whether there will be room for you,” Leche tried.
“Then I will stay on deck with the refugees,” Betty said, unflinching.
Resigned, Leche drove her to the port. “Please,” he begged as he helped her into the narrow launch that would take her to the naval ship. All Betty offered him was a soft kiss on the lips.
It was a short trip through a calm blue sea to the destroyer. Betty stood tall in the open launch the entire way, looking straight at the big gray warship. She did not look back, she did not turn to wave a last good-bye to Leche. There was no longer any point.
Chapter 23
BETTY ARRIVED IN FRANCE ONLY to learn that Arthur was in trouble. Her loose-tongued husband had exceeded his brief, the Foreign Office had decided. He had behaved in a manner unsuitable for a representative of His Majesty’s government.
“It has unfortunately come to our ears,” a perturbed George Mountsey, the head of the Foreign Office, had cabled Sir Henry Chilton, the British ambassador to Spain, “that Pack . . . has created the impression both in official and unofficial circles that his attitude over the Spanish conflict is strongly biased in favor of the Franco regime. . . .
“It is obviously more prudent of any representative of HMG to be cautious in this respect. Unfortunately, I don’t think Pack has been cautious.”
Mountsey’s critique banged huff
ily on for an exhausting thirteen pages. With each new reiteration of Arthur’s transgressions, his rage appeared to build. Finally, as if throwing up his hands in disgust, he grumbled that the only solution was to shuffle Pack off to another post, to a country where there were “no live internal political issues to distract him.”
To his credit, the ambassador did his best to defend Arthur. “It is a great pity that Pack who knows the ropes and everyone should be transferred,” Sir Henry complained to Whitehall. But the Foreign Office remained adamant: Pack must leave Spain.
In the meantime, all Arthur could do was wait, a convicted felon before a hanging judge, as the Foreign Office mulled his sentence. Given Mountsey’s raw anger, he was certain he’d be sent off to some remote, and no doubt entirely irrelevant, corner of the globe.
Betty took the news with a sigh of relief. It wasn’t her madcap dash into Spain to rescue her lover that had torpedoed Arthur’s career. Nor had her public carryings-on with Leche brought her husband down. Arthur, in fact, had put that embarrassing matter to rest in a stiff conversation shortly after their reunion in Saint-Jean-de-Luz. If Betty would never mention Leche’s name again, neither would he. It was an agreement Betty readily endorsed; Leche, she had already decided, was out of her life. She was not eager to leave her beloved Spain, but at the same time she took comfort in the fact that despite Arthur’s many proclamations that her antics would be his ruin, she was not in fact responsible for his comeuppance.
Or was she? Looking back, Betty came to realize that she had a larger role in her husband’s supposed fall from diplomatic grace than anyone—herself included—had realized at the naïve time. She now understood that Arthur’s public and conspicuously forceful upbraiding was a bit of smoke, as they called it in her new trade.
On confidential instructions from the Secret Intelligence Service, Whitehall had obediently strung out a paper trail to justify Arthur’s abrupt departure from Spain in the middle of a civil war. The purpose of this deception, however, was not to get Arthur out of the country. It was the cover story that would allow a valuable MI6 asset to take up her new post. The spymasters had been not only impressed with how Betty got her way with Prieto, they’d been stunned. There had been no reason, neither political nor practical, for the minister to have cooperated. Yet he had. If she could charm that dour, doctrinaire old stick-in-the-mud, the feeling on Broadway was, there was no telling what else she might accomplish.