by James Philip
Some had called Philip De L’Isle’s ‘border policy’ appeasement; personally, he had always regarded a new war as being, sooner or later, inevitable but had inherited a mandate requiring him to do nothing to risk provoking ‘Spanish aggression in the South West’.
Besides, drastic reductions in manning and equipment levels, and the consequent budgetary savings arising from his policy had been universally welcomed throughout New England, not least on the East Coast, many of whose legislatures were filled with people who did not see why they ought to be paying to ‘defend the Border’, some two thousand miles away, in the first place.
West Texas, Sequoyah, the highlands of the Colorado Valley, and the barely mapped parcels of designated Indian Country scattered in a disorderly patchwork all across the South West into the foothills of the Sierra Madre and the Rocky Mountains, were after all, foreign countries, deserts and wildernesses to most of the citizens of the First Thirteen. So, the establishment of notional de-militarized zones either side of the border and the draw-down of colonial forces had been welcomed practically everywhere, except in the still relatively sparsely populated South West. Inevitably, with the influx of settlers and industry to the borderlands that had been beginning to change; nevertheless, it remained a fact that less than five percent of all New Englanders lived within two hundred and fifty miles of the border with Nuevo Granada.
The Borderlands of the South West remained country of which most New Englanders new little and sadly, cared less…
Moreover, even if De L’Isle had wanted to substantially alter the military balance in the region his hands were tied by what he, as a military man, well understood to be ‘the facts on the ground’.
The problem was that while many colonies had been persuaded to call up the majority of their reservists to spring camps, aircraft had been taken out of mothballs and one of the four mechanised infantry divisions stationed in the British Isles – the 52nd Highlanders – had been warned to embark for New England in the coming days, there was no magic wand that Philip De L’Isle or his military advisors could wave to remedy overnight the ‘peacetime’ status of the forces down on the Border.
They were where they were…
The policy mandated from London had been one of watchful vigilance; so, the avoidance of unnecessary incidents and provocations had been the guiding order of the day while the men in the Old Country tried to work out what to do about the ‘Spanish Problem’.
The mission to Madrid was supposed to have been a fig leaf behind which preparations might be made and which hopefully, would gain a little more time to resolve the conundrum of whether or not there was any such thing any more as the ‘Empire of New Spain’. The assumption had been – complacently, in De L’Isle and Matthew Harrison’s opinions – was that the Spanish provinces ringing the Caribbean and dominating the central Americas were so many disarticulated, uncoordinated entities incapable of acting in concert to bring their truly massive combined military clout, and latent economic power to bear against their northern neighbour and or to challenge British imperial hegemony over North America.
Which was all very well if one ignored the five-ton rogue African bull Elephant in the ‘room’ of global realpolitik, the German Empire. Frustrated by the British Empire’s command of practically all the international trade routes, Germany had been investing heavily in Spain’s colonies in both the East and the West Indies, and attempting, with varying degrees of success to increase its influence in Africa, Latin America and the Far East, at the same time modernising and increasing the size, capabilities and reach of the Deutsches Heer (the Imperial Army), the Kaiserliche Marine (the Imperial Navy) and the Deutsche Luftstreitkräfte (the German Air Force). At the same time the Abwehr, the combined military intelligence service of the three arms of the forces, and the Foreign Intelligence Service controlled by the Wilhelmstrasse, the German Foreign Office, had also massively extended their tentacles in the last decade.
Nowadays, everything that happened in Old Spain and elsewhere needed to be viewed through the prism of a thus far militarily peaceful, yet otherwise hostile and antagonistic German strategy which could only be designed to erode British global hegemony.
There were those who accused British ministers of appeasement; of criminal inaction in the face of German intimidation. Whatever his critics in New England accused him of, De L’Isle was not a man in that camp.
In any event, he recognised that his view of the ‘big picture’ was restricted, which was just as well because he had quite enough on his plate already. He planned to carry on working within the policy framework handed down to him by his principals in the Foreign and Colonial Office in Whitehall.
Historically, whatever one thought of the state of Old Spain sandwiched between long-time British ally Portugal to the west and the Mediterranean – a Royal Navy ‘pond’ – to the east, with British occupied France to its north, separated from the Americas by an ocean ruled by Britannia, and with every passing year that little bit more impoverished in comparison with its own colonies and all the other major European powers, it was assumed that the King-Emperor in Madrid at least exerted a restraining hand on the ambitions of his most unruly ‘subjects’ abroad. It was taken as read that Ferdinand was not about to become a meek vassal to the Kaiser’s Germany, no matter how much treasure in the form of military, economic and straightforward humanitarian aid the Germans dispersed in the distant colonies.
This ‘foundation’ presumption was pretty much an article of faith in the corridors of the FCO whose wise denizens argued, persuasively, that if Spanish colonies unwisely fomented war with British Imperial interests then inevitably, the old country back on the Iberian Peninsula would ‘get it in the neck’ from just about every quarter, regardless of what happened elsewhere in the subsequent conflagration. Therefore, the wise men in Whitehall prognosticated, it was in nobody’s interest in Madrid to play that particular game.
Therefore, the Peace of Paris remained inviolate.
For the moment, at least.
This had seemed a safe basis for the ongoing conduct of international affairs, given that there was no intelligence that the government in Madrid had, for example, even attempted to build an atomic bomb and it was generally assumed that not even the Kaiser would contemplate handing over any of the dreadful things to the Spanish in the Americas or the Pacific.
The rationale was reasonable; unfortunately, it pre-supposed that other first, second and third rank powers would view the ‘Spanish Problem’ through the same prism as the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. Such an assumption had suited successive recent governments much in the fashion of turning a blind eye to a signal one does not wish to receive.
Right now, Philip De L’Isle and Matthew Harrison were confronting a developing situation which might, very easily, turn into the sort of nightmare they had discussed, many times in recent years and tried, and repeatedly failed to get Whitehall to take seriously.
“All the lines to Madrid have gone down,” the Governor reported tersely. “Just before it happened there were several reports of troop movements and heavy gunfire. Other big cities appear to have gone off ‘the grid’ in the last few hours.”
“Could it be a coup?” Harrison mused, thinking aloud. In a moment he clicked his thoughts into gear. “Henrietta and Melody Danson are not in Madrid at present. My information is that they were the guests of the Duke of Medina Sidonia out in the country somewhere. They weren’t due back at the Embassy until the coming weekend at the earliest.”
De L’Isle breathed a sigh of heartfelt relief.
“That’s something,” he said grimly.
“Do you want me back in Philadelphia?”
“Yes, that would be for the best.”
“If it is a coup of some kind going on in Spain that might not be the worst thing,” the Governor’s spy master remarked, uncharacteristically surprised by the trend of recent world events.
“Why not?”
“The current regime is scle
rotic and ineffective, unable to enforce its writ abroad and incompetent at home. If, say, the Army or a Navy or an Air Force faction was to take charge a few heads might get knocked together…”
The Governor of New England gently disagreed.
“What if the Inquisition or one of the opposing Royal factions takes over and wages a reign of terror against its enemies?”
“Yes,” Matthew Harrison conceded, “there is that!”
One thing Philip De L’Isle had always agreed about with his old friend, Sir George Walpole, the eminent historian reluctantly turned politician who had ruled the FCO for most of the last decade, was that ‘Old Spain’ was best understood within a frame of reference based on a Byzantine, rather than a contemporary model of governance.
Basically, there was no telling what might emerge from a coup in Madrid, whoever was responsible, or whomsoever eventually ended up wielding the levers of power in the Royal Alcázar, the El Escorial or in Aranjuez.
There was a knock at the door.
“Admiral Lord Collingwood is here, My Lord.”
“I’ll let you go about your business, Matthew,” the Governor of New England decided, “the C-in-C of the Atlantic Fleet has just arrived at Government House.”
Chapter 9
Saturday 18th March
Hacienda de los Conquistadores, Chinchón
Henrietta De L’Isle thought she was dreaming even after she blinked awake in the cool darkness of the spring mountain morning. Melody’s breath fell on her cheek, the women’s hair was crazily tangled, strands of her lover’s burning red mane and her own, girlishly long auburn locks seemingly intertwined like their warm, relaxed limbs.
Was that fireworks in the distance?
Henrietta imagined she heard movement in the corridor outside the bedroom, and distantly, doors opening as she sleepily nuzzled Melody’s brow with her nose and mouth, sucking in the scent of her, luxuriating in the tingling pleasure of it as it suffused her whole being.
Melody had finally opened her heart to her; allowed her into her secret world and that had made moving on from the events of last weekend if not painless, then easier and in some ways made them the sisters Henrietta had always hoped they might one day become. She had known from the outset that there were no fairy tales, especially not involving two princesses – conventional wisdom being that there had to be a prince in the deal somewhere along the line – and perversely, it had probably not helped that initially, she had been both infatuated and a little in awe of Melody, who had had no real idea exactly how much Henrietta had set her on a pedestal.
Melody had been a heroine to her and ought to have been to all other young women with aspirations to be the best that they could possibly be in a man’s world!
Well, to those of her sisters who cared a fig for an Empire in which the contributions of women were valued…
Ha…
That was a joke!
What use was female suffrage in societies which refused to even acknowledge women’s suffering or gumption? Let alone ‘valued’ it in most places where the map was painted Imperial Pink!
Anyway, sisters like Melody were very special, outriders who had by dint of sheer will power, and in her case a native intelligence which allowed her to run rings around most men, achieving firsts or near firsts in two separate careers.
She had been called to the Virginia Bar at just twenty-four years of age, practiced criminal law as a Colonial Prosecutor for two well-publicised and middlingly controversial years and without warning, applied for and gained admittance to the Colonial Police Academy at Boston, emerging top of the intake in 1967 and been subsequently inducted into the pilot ‘fast track’ program of the New York Constabulary, a short-lived initiative abandoned by the current Governor of the Colony. Nevertheless, she had still become the youngest Detective Inspector in New England at the age of thirty-two, albeit hitting the glass ceiling thereafter, her brilliant career idiotically becalmed by a Constabulary which had come to regard her as an embarrassment, something of an inadvertent celebrity in some liberal Manhattan-Long Island circles.
Back in the British Isles where clever, ambitious women routinely infiltrated the ‘old boys’ club’, and one by one the professions were opening their doors on the basis of merit, not exclusively on gender, birth or wealth or colour, reading about how Melody was ‘bucking the trend’ in New England had been an inspiration to an untold number of young women like Henrietta.
It was pure happenstance that Henrietta had not met, or contrived to ‘bump into’ her personal exemplar-heroine until last year. She could honestly say – cross her heart and hope to die if she fibbed – that had the Colonial Security Service not passed Melody’s file to her father when a high-profile detective-auditor familiar with but not obviously beholden to any of the political factions within the New York Constabulary, had been required to quickly, efficiently ‘look into the case against the Fieldings’ – she might never have got to know the woman she now loved too, and sometimes, a little beyond reason.
Henrietta had been unashamedly fascinated with Melody on first sight. Love had come along a little later, although thinking about it, very fast on the heels of infatuation. Melody had only caught up with her later but then for all Henrietta’s experience at Government House and the privileges of her upbringing – in private she called the King ‘Uncle Bertie’ and the Queen ‘Aunt Eleanor’, after all – she had not understood how gauche and frankly, a tad shallow, or how over-protected she had been until she had been around Melody for a while.
Not that Melody had ever belaboured the point. All things considered she had let Henrietta down very, very gently. As for the ‘Alonso incident’, Henrietta would have forgiven her lover even faster had not Melody steadfastly refused to concede that she had anything to be forgiven for, or in fact, that she had actually done anything wrong. However, moving on, it was as if having learned the important lesson – that sometimes one simply could not account for one’s feelings and physiological drives – that they could finally both be genuinely ‘grown up’ about their commitment one to the other.
‘Sometimes I like it sweet,’ Melody had quirked self-deprecatingly, ‘mostly, actually, but sometimes, very occasionally, I like it sour…’ She had added: ‘You’re the sweet side of that, just so you know.’
Henrietta shrugged closer to her partner; Melody stirred but did not awaken, half sighing, half moaning as she lay, loose-limbed in the nest of blankets blissfully unaware of the sudden commotion somewhere within the big house.
“What…” The older woman muttered.
Instantly, Henrietta was electrically awake, alert without knowing why and for a moment paralysing alarm coursed through her veins.
Melody propped herself on an unsteady elbow.
There was a hammering at the door.
Quickly followed by the dazzle of a torch and the loom of one, then another person entering the bed chamber.
“Forgive me, My Ladies,” a man apologised with urgent, perfunctory gruffness.
The women recognised the voice of Don Rafael, the senior Arm’s Man that Alonso, Duke of Medina Sidonia had left behind in Chinchón to chaperone and to safeguard his guests.
The Spaniard was a man in his late fifties, a life-long family retainer with whom Alonso invariably conversed with quiet, patrician respect. The man had served Alonso’s father for half his life and although Henrietta had not been introduced to him, or had the occasion to speak with him in Philadelphia, he had never been far from Alonso’s side, bodyguard and she had since learned, now and then, his wise counsellor.
The Hacienda’s middle-aged housekeeper had accompanied the man into the bed chamber.
“Time is short,” Don Rafael declared in a tone which brooked no dissent.
“Put on these clothes!” His companion ordered. “Forget about your toilet and your hair. Just get dressed. Now!”
Don Rafael may or may not have turned his back as the woman threw back the blankets revealing Melody and Henr
ietta’s shocked pale nakedness. However, because he was a gentleman, he had turned the torch away.
Henrietta began to protest.
“What is happening?” She demanded.
“Do what they say, sweetheart,” Melody snapped, pushing her out of the bed ahead of her.
That was when Henrietta belatedly realised that there was a sharp tang of immediate peril in the air and that both Don Rafael and the housekeeper were on the tightest of tight reins.
The women began to pull on the shifts and dresses pressed into their arms; plain linen, ungainly, heavy, coarse woollen ankle-length robes – that stank of the earth - like those worn by peasant women out in the country.
Boots clunked onto the floor.
“They won’t fit you but put them on anyway,” the housekeeper pleaded desperately as if time had already run out. “Quickly! Quickly!”
Henrietta dumped herself down on the side of the bed next to Melody as they frantically did as they were ordered to do, pulling on the horrible, stiff boots, and glimpsing the flash of steel in the reflected light of the torch.
Don Rafael had unsheathed the Castilian steel of his old-fashioned ceremonial sword.
“What is going on, Don Rafael?” Melody asked calmly, her voice barely a whisper.
Henrietta, who was so rattled, so caught up in the moment, that she had not thought to utter a word since her previous panicky complaint, froze. The ‘fireworks’ had got a lot louder in the last minute or so and seemed to be much closer. Belatedly, she worked out that what she was actually hearing was gunfire interspersed with the crack of grenades.
“We must leave,” the man replied abruptly.
“What about our…” Henrietta began, the words dying in her throat as the house seemed to flinch beneath her feet.
There was the faint stench of smoke.
A clamour in the street below.
And a long, magazine-emptying burst of automatic gunfire.
“Forget your jewellery and trinkets, girl!” The housekeeper spat, grabbing Henrietta’s arm and dragging her to the door.