by Betty Burton
If Eve Anders had once mistaken Richard for David Hatton, there was no longer any chance of that. The eventual loss of half a hand had been bad enough, but the lack of any news of the woman he loved had left him distraught and on the verge of breakdown.
‘Then I shan’t see you again, Will.’
‘I’m Ken, remember?’
‘Oh, yeah, you lost your toes and I lost my digits.’ He gave a parody of a grin and his eyes filled with tears. Richard Hatton had chosen to forget that Ken Wilmott’s toes had been saved and that he was ready to return to the fighting.
‘Have you heard whether your brother is coming here?’
‘The orderly said that he had phoned. He’ll try, you can count on Davey to get here if…’
‘Remember me to him. Tell him thanks again for the pictures. Sorry to miss him but, you know… Try to keep in touch, old son. Take care of yourself, and you’ll soon be on the plane back to London.’ The reply came out, almost hissing with rage. ‘I don’t want to go to bloody London. I want to go where you’re going. Who needs more than one and a half hands to massacre the bastards? I’ll use my bloody teeth if I have to. I’m doing everything they tell me. I’m eating now.’
‘That’s good, Rich. Wasn’t ever any good, you not eating. I’ll have to go, mate.’
‘Where are you going?’
‘Training camp. Going to do the thing properly. Just a couple of weeks, then I’ll be an officer worth having, I hope.’
‘You’re one now, chaps like yourself are what this country wants, not bloody public school arty types like me. Spain’s got more arty foreigners than it knows what to do with. Not Davey, not my brother, he’s doing fine work for the cause.’
‘He’s a decent bloke, I got on all right with him. He married?’
‘No, never long enough in one place for that. He’s always been the one for the gentle sex, could always elbow me out of the running, a bit love ’em and leave ’em. Now the tables are turned, poor old Davey.’ Although he knew that his sister was in the area and he would have liked to see her again, Ken Wilmott wanted to get back. ‘Give your brother my best. I’ll have to get going, Rich. Sorry to leave you like this, but, you know…’ He shook the undamaged hand.
‘Here’s my grandmother’s London address. If you hear anything, anything at all, let her know. I know I’ve been a pain in the arse to you, Captain…’
‘Don’t go upsetting yourself again, Rich, you aren’t a pain in the arse. I knew a girl myself – she’s active in POUM, so I see how you feel about these fearless girls.’
‘She might be pregnant.’
‘I know, and like I said, if I can get even a scrap of news from outside that might help, I’ll send it directly to your gran. I’ll put this in my wallet – not much else in there. I’ll say so long, then.’
On his way back to collect his things, he looked at the scrawled card. Lady Margaret Gore-Hatton. Well, well. You met all sorts. First time he’d come across a bloke who had a double-barrel Lady Margaret for a gran. Not the sort of thing Ray would understand, he wouldn’t go much on hob-nobbing with the Thems of this world. Ray would say that there must be something at the back of it, people like that were the natural enemy of the workers. Ray had never got to grips with proper socialist thinking, he had always been a straight up and down Labour trades unionist. It was clear as crystal to Ray. Them and Us. He’d never believe that some of the Thems could see further than the end of their noses and might see that Marx knew a thing or two. And what about the Falangists – there’s a lot of workers joined them. What about them, Ray? That’s the influence of the Church, he’d say.
Would he? He was putting words into Ray’s mouth and he no longer knew his brother. The mail service wasn’t good at the best of times, and was getting worse. Getting married and starting a family changed a chap, and with a wife like Bar Barney, Ray might easily soften up a bit. Bar was a really nice girl. What did she think of Lu? Eve! Christ, I shan’t ever get used to calling her Eve. Those two have been pretty close since they were kids, lived in one another’s pockets when they were together. Never saw two such opposites, except for one thing: they both had a rod of iron up their backs. It was ages since he had seen Bar, but she wasn’t the sort to change, she had been her own self from the start. Ray was going up the Southern Railway ladder now. There were times when he really missed his brother, but not enough to want to go back to England and the old life. Bugger that for a lark!
Thank the Lord he was back on his own again. Only himself and his mates, his comrades. He believed in the Spanish cause more than he had ever expected to at first. He needed the democrats to win, he belonged here. He had felt it as soon as he had seen the bare rocky landscape, the vineyards and olive groves. He had felt it again when he met Mariella in Barcelona on May the eighth, his birthday. It had been his first experience of all the different political factions, all dedicated to the cause of free Spain, all fighting almost as fiercely against one another as they were fighting together to save the Republic.
Mariella Redondo was a girl with a rifle. By the time the Assault Guards were sent in to settle the warring factions, he had become as close to the Redondo family as though he had known them all his life. Both parents, all four sons and Mariella were members of POUM, the reddest of the reds, the dissident reds who were against Stalin. The whole family had had a hand in the communal destruction of the images of the Catholic Church, the symbols of centuries of repression. The family had seemed to glow with pride as they had recalled that day of a symbolic breaking with the past, with the Church and the monarchy. He had envied them their family feeling. He wanted to be one of them.
* * *
When Ken Wilmott had finished his officers’ course, he was trained to take charge of a company of 150 men of the British Battalion who would back up the Republican army on the Teruel front. He had special duties and a pass that gave him access to many sectors along the fighting front, but with the pass went the danger of a bullet in the head if captured while carrying it.
* * *
David Hatton was shocked when he saw his brother. The injury was pretty awful, but with a bit of practice, as he encouragingly told Rich, he would be able to resume his career. He wouldn’t be fit to fight, but there were other ways of supporting the cause. ‘No reason why the two of us shouldn’t resume our old H + H partnership. We could make some bloody good documentary films, like the American travel films but we’d leave off the rose-tinted lens, not have any fades into the sunset. Hard-hitting stuff, like we always wanted. Studs Terkel on the silver screen.’
His brother’s apathy was worrying, as were his easy tears and obvious depression. They had had a cousin like that. The family called it shellshock, the physicians treated him for a nervous disorder. In the end he had thrown himself off a cliff in Devon. Now he really feared that his brother might do something like that. Twins they might be, but David had always thought that Rich had more of the Gore in him than he himself had.
Seated in garden chairs at a little table on a first-floor glass-enclosed balcony used as a recreation room by the recuperating soldiers, David Hatton was trying to rouse his brother’s interest in some rough prints he had brought along. He happened to glance up just in time to see the driver of a big camouflaged truck climb in and drive it away. A woman. Louise!
Richard looked distressed and anxious. ‘What’s up? Don’t go, Davey.’
‘I’m not going, Rich, but I think I caught sight of somebody I know.’ Too late. She would be a mile down the road before he reached the ground floor. It was her. The hair, he’d never forgotten her beautiful hair. How many women truck-drivers were there in Spain? ‘It’s OK, Rich, I can probably find out later. Somebody in the admin here will know.’
‘Who was it?’
‘A truck-driver.’
‘An Australian chap?’
David Hatton hesitated. ‘No. A woman driver actually.’
Richard Hatton looked perplexed. They had always tuned in to one an
other’s emotions, less so now that they were apart and were older, but they were still sensitive to one another when they were together. ‘Is she the one you’ve been looking for?’
‘I think so. She is in Spain, I know that much. Here,’ he took a photo from a folder, ‘remember this pic of the brigader and the Madrileño militia girls? Small world; seems that he’s her brother.’
Richard looked steadily at the picture, not really feeling up to getting too deeply involved in his brother’s complex life. ‘I know him, his name’s Ken.’
‘How come?’
Richard recalled the matey exchanges he had had with the down-to-earth captain who didn’t mind corpses. Not likely that Davey knew much about all that. ‘Ken Wilmott, captain with the Attlee Brigade – the Fifteenth. He’s been here until recently. They saved my life, the captain and your will-o’-the-wisp lady. She drove me from the first-aid station through a big blizzard in her truck, with Wilmott holding me together in the back.’
‘He’s been injured?’
‘Frost-bite. Matter of fact, I gave him a pair of Mag’s footlet things.’
‘So that was her I just saw?’
‘Probably. She’s been wangling her runs so that she can visit her brother. Only thing is, I thought you said that your lady’s name was Louise.’
‘It is, was, it was the name I knew her by.’
‘Louise Wilmott?’ Richard knew very well that this was not her name now.
‘I only knew Louise Vera, nothing else. But on my last trip to England…’ He didn’t really want to tell Richard the whole story.
‘She’s called Eve Anders.’
‘I know.’
‘And her brother is Captain Wilmott.’
‘So it would seem.’
Richard paused, waiting for a response from his brother, but none came. ‘Bit of a can of worms then, old chap?’
‘Not at all. It’s all quite simple really.’
‘Good.’ The dope he’d been given to help quell the pain of his injuries also helped to deaden his distress over Maite. Its effectiveness was beginning to wear off, and there was always that time between shots when he came face to face with the reality of his physical and mental state. Even so, he just had to say something to Davey, his idealistic and romantic brother, who had naive notions that things somehow came right if you believed they would. Going in different directions they might be, they were still Hatton + Hatton, still twins. He hoped that Davey could be spared some of the heartbreak he himself was experiencing. ‘But I have to put my five eggs in, Davey. Don’t build up your hopes. If she had wanted you to find her, she knows where you hang out in London.’
‘I’m not building anything.’
‘You are, I saw it just now.’
This visit was not going as David had hoped; nothing to do with Richard was going as David had hoped. He could see that his brother was terribly ill and should go home as soon as it could be arranged, but Richard refused to leave Spain until he knew that the woman he loved was safe. And David had brought no news of Maite Manias. It was going to be hard to have to admit this, when he still had the image of the golden head ducking into the cab of the truck. Sorry, Rich, found my woman, couldn’t find yours.
A spasm of pain caught Richard unawares, making him grunt spontaneously. David got quickly to his feet. ‘What is it, Rich? Pain bad? Shall I call somebody?’
‘Just find my fags tin, Davey, do me a roll-up, will you?’
As David opened the lid he recognized the aroma. ‘Hang it all, Rich, you aren’t smoking this stuff.’
‘What stuff? Oh, you mean good old hedgerow blend.’
‘Hemp. Rots the brain and numbs the mind.’
‘Eases the mind, numbs the pain.’
‘You need medication, not stupefying. They’re smoking this stuff in the trenches; men are facing machine-guns, doped out.’
‘How bloody else can men face machine-guns? Stone cold sober? Heroically? If you don’t want to soil your hands, then give it here.’
‘It goes against the grain, Rich.’
‘Don’t be such a bloody prig. As soon as I get out of this place I shall simply chuck it.’
‘That’s what Lavinia Courtals said, what squiffy people always say.’
‘I’m not squiffy, it isn’t like cocaine and that sort of thing. It acts like a double whisky. If you can get me a couple of bottles of Scotch then I won’t need to smoke the herbal.’
‘You need to?’
Richard Hatton lit up the crackling, aromatic little cigarette and closed his eyes as he inhaled. ‘Yes, little brother. I need to. It dulls the pain, and I don’t mean just this.’ He held up his bandaged hand. ‘So. Did you get to see the French tart?’
‘I saw Malou, yes, and a fellow who knows what’s going on on both sides of the war.’
‘Cero?’
‘You know him?’
‘Diplomat without a country, ambassador extraordinaire. Or is it that he runs with the hare and the hounds?’
‘He’s one of us, Rich.’
‘OK, if you say so. So what’s the bad news?’
‘All that they know is that Maite Mamas’ work is banned, and that she is no longer in Rosal. My guess is that she’s making for London.’
‘But Malou didn’t think so?’
‘She didn’t know. She thinks she’s well in with all the top brass – the generals and the bishops – she got her audience with the Pope. I think she thought that was really one up.’
Richard drew deeply on the failing cigarette. ‘What’s to do then, Davey? Don’t want to go back home, no good here, nothing on the horizon.’
‘Oh, come on, Rich, there’s a hell of a lot on the horizon. There are a million stories to be told about the persecution of Spanish artists.’
‘Then you’ll have to tell them, old son. So why don’t you clear off now and go after that lovely lorry-driver. Get her into bed, but don’t make her fucking pregnant. Pregnant women revolutionaries are too hard to handle. They get raped before they stick bayonets into their bellies.’
‘Stop that kind of talk, Richard! If you don’t know about propaganda and the lies of war, then nobody does. She’s not dead. You have to stop thinking that she is.’
‘Dead I could handle.’ He forced himself to look his brother in the eye. ‘Now be a good lad, Davey, and bugger off. I’m grateful for you coming all this way, but I find it too damned hard to be civil to anyone.’
David looked at his wreck of a brother. How could he leave him like this? How could he stay? ‘Would you see a psychiatric doctor, Rich? Just to help you through until you hear from Maite.’ Richard shrugged. ‘I’ll talk to somebody downstairs. You can’t be the only one down in the dumps.’
‘For Christ’s sake, David! Call it a spade. I’m going out of my fucking mind.’
David Hatton collected his pictures and pushed the tin of herbals across the table. ‘Have one, Rich. I’ll send you down some Scotch, absolute promise.’ Clasping his brother’s good hand, he said, ‘I’ll be back, Rich, old son. I feel sure that Maite’s OK.’
Richard nodded and put a light to another of his pain-killers.
* * *
When David Hatton reached Madrid, there was a letter awaiting him, postmarked Paris and date-stamped only two days previously. ‘The little red ladybird has flown to Southampton. I’ve kept my side of the bargain. Does honour prevail in the realms of the unwashed where you now wallow, my love? MF.’ Typical of the drama with which Malou always did like to surround herself. She saw it all as some kind of show. He had seen her once with Oswald Mosley when he was haranguing a crowd of workers outside a factory. She was got up in jodhpurs and black leather straps, her pale blonde hair cascading over one eye which was covered with a black patch. What the hell kind of a figure she thought she cut was anyone’s guess.
Malou French’s intelligence came too late. Richard Hatton’s body, his wrists hacked open with broken glass, was discovered in one of the most beautiful areas of the
millionaires’ erstwhile playground.
* * *
Soon after Ken Wilmott got back, the British Battalion was assigned to defend the town of Belchite, a return to an old battleground for the newly trained captain. Among his 150 men there were hardly any faces that he recognized. Some had come with recent batches of volunteers, others from the remnants of other companies. The only familiar face was that of Jock Duncan who had also been at Teruel where they had briefly shared the protection of the same machine-gun.
‘Ah heerd ye lost a foot, Kenneth man, but ah see you didnae.’
‘Good to see you, Jock, you’re not in my company, more’s the pity.’
‘No, but we’re all dogs’ dinners companies these days.’
‘What do you reckon, then? Is the rumour right that they’ve got all this great concentration of tanks?’
‘Aye, and artillery and infantry to follow through behind the tanks. And air support.’
‘Ah, well, no trouble to us then, Jock.’
Having come to terms with the knowledge that, outgunned and outnumbered, they were bound to retreat, Ken Wilmott felt peculiarly at ease. If he died here, then he would have died for something worthwhile. Not that he had any intention of dying, for he still held faint hope that when the fighting was over, he would return to Barcelona. He did not think beyond that.
‘Did you ever get news from yon POUM lassie you were telling about?’
‘Not yet.’
‘Ah never did fathom what all that was about, working man fighting working man. Assassinations and betrayals. You’d never think the reds had the fascists to go for if they were spoiling for a fight.’
‘The POUMers wanted Stalin off their backs, and the Chinese weren’t having any. Did you ever know why the Soviets are called Chinese by the Spanish?’
‘No, but I dare say it’s an insult so that they can have another shoot-up with one another. Why, man, I heard that upwards of a thousand were killed in Barcelona’s May troubles. Whisht, Kenneth man, my big mouth never thinks before it opens itself.’