Текст книги "A Broken Land"

Автор книги: Ludlow Jack

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Текущая страница: 15 (всего у книги 21 страниц)

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Caballero’s stupid radio announcement of both the forthcoming assault and the intended response had made the road situation ten times worse; anyone who had hung on in the hope that things would improve was on the road, as well as a suspicious number of armed men of fighting age who seemed to be more concerned with directing traffic out of the city than helping in the forthcoming battle.

It took three days to get to Barcelona and when he arrived he found the lower parts of the Ritz had been turned into some kind of workers’ canteen, which made the juxtaposition of those who ran the hotel with the stream of armed and hungry men who used the dining room a sight to see. The reception was still functioning as it had previously, as were most of the upper floors, and he had no trouble in either retrieving his luggage or getting a room.

As soon as he picked up a newspaper, it was obvious the Nationalist attack had pressed even further from the western suburbs towards the centre of Madrid, which made him worry – something to which he was not generally prone. He had been troubled during the Great War about a Zeppelin bomb dropping on his wife, but that had been a long time ago and as a proportion of risk it was small. Likewise he always carried concerns about any men he commanded, with the caveat that they were soldiers and knew the risks of combat.

Florencia was different; she would be in the anarchist front line wherever that was, and she was part of a force that lacked both the weapons and the knowledge to take on those they were fighting. Would the Russians support the anarchists? They might if the whole Madrid position was threatened but he would not put it past the communists to sacrifice their political rivals in the same way Manfred Decker had done to Laporta’s men on the borders of Aragón.

He had to put that aside, for gnawing on his concerns for her would serve no purpose, yet he found himself praying to any God that would listen to keep her safe, and he made a call to her family home, where at least he could converse with her mother and father, both naturally worried, to reassure them she was safe, even if he was far from certain he was right.

There was no news from Monaco, hardly surprising given the limited time since his return, which meant he would have to endure an agonising wait while events unfolded to the west. Having told the reception desk prior to leaving for Madrid that anything for Mr Maxim was for him, he did consider having a word with the concierge – a fellow accustomed to meeting the requests, however strange, of the hotel guests – to forward anything so addressed to the Florida Hotel.

That had to be put aside, given he could not risk it being sent on to a Madrid under what amounted to a siege. Quite apart from the difficulties of delivery, he had no idea if any kind of postal censorship was in place, nor of the nature of what he was going to receive, but he had to find out what was going on and he was not prepared to just rely on the Republican press.

His lifeline became the expensive radio he bought and sneaked into the hotel, as well as a map and the telephone. With his own set, albeit he kept the sound level low, he was able to listen to both sides as well as the BBC Empire Service. Their reporting of Spain was slim but it was good on the international ramifications, which amounted, it seemed, to who could outfib whom.

With the Spanish stations it was necessary to listen to repeat bulletins to make sure he was hearing it right, and naturally the news from the capital was mixed, being tinged with the needs of propaganda, but with difficult filtering it seemed there were limited gains for the insurgents.

But it was not all one-sided; cheering news came of dogfights over the city as Russian fighters, put up for the first time, surprised the Italian and German bombers – now dropping high explosives, not leaflets – though the figures for what they were reported to have shot down were not to be taken literally, and surely such biplanes had faced opposition from the faster Italian Fiats; certainly the Nationalists claimed so.

But, of course, there was a high degree of boasting on both sides – the Nationalists insisted they would celebrate some national saint’s day in Madrid, but that looked unlikely. The militias claimed they were more than a match for the Army of Africa and that was not possible. Exaggerated casualty figures he would expect as the norm and he made no suppositions on his map until he was sure of the truth. Yet what he saw was plain: the Republic was losing ground, even if there had been no collapse.

It came as a shock to hear that Caballero and his government had abandoned Madrid and fled to Valencia, a junta being appointed to defend the city, with names he had never heard of, and that made little impression as to them being good or bad appointments. Difficult as it was, the telephone brought some clarity, as he was able to have brief and shouted conversations with Alverson, who retired after each day’s fighting to the Florida Hotel.

As far as the American knew, over a crackly line, Florencia was alive. ‘But they are being beaten back time after time, Cal. Those poor bastards out there are fighting tanks with nothing but rifles and petrol bombs.’

‘What the hell is that?’

‘Something our kids learnt from the Moroccan Regulares. You fill a bottle with petrol, jam in a rag that soaks up enough to be flammable, and when a tank comes along you light the cloth and throw it, that is if a machine gun has not cut you down in the process. Damned effective, though, if you can hit your target.’

‘Do you know where Florencia is?’

‘On the western edge of the Casa de Campo the last time I saw her. Now I’ve got to go, there’s a queue for this phone line.’

‘I’ll try to call you tomorrow. Good luck.’

Cal went back to the maps; the Casa de Campo was an old royal hunting ground as big as Richmond Park, forming a buffer for the city as well as a lung, but being open country it would be hard to defend and, he suddenly realised, a place as dangerous for Alverson as it would be for any militia defender.

He was also wondering at the tactics. The desire to hold ground was understandable, especially since the main working-class district lay to the west of the River Manzanares right in the path of the Nationalists, and therefore the place where the majority of those defending the capital lived; they would not want to give up their homes.

Yet the way to beat Franco was to bleed him – it took not great genius to work out he only had a finite number of regular colonial troops, backed by his highly effective Moroccan levies, and over open parkland like the Casa de Campo trained soldiers had to have the advantage, never mind that they also had superior weaponry; they would impose losses rather than suffer them.

Ground could be as much of a trap as a symbol, especially if you possessed limited firepower, thus it made sound tactical sense to draw your enemy into concentrating on an objective you could defend, like a bridge, with the added bonus that it could be blown if it looked like being lost.

That might force an attempt at a boat crossing, which, if undertaken against entrenched opposition on the far bank, was bound to result in heavy casualties, and, in the first place, did the Nationalists have the necessary craft to transport fighting troops over water with enough equipment to give battle?

Endless speculation can drive you mad, but it was unavoidable given he had nothing else to do, apart from eat, have an occasional drink, and, with his black and red CNT armband once more on his arm, pound the streets of Barcelona, walking past other luxury hotels that had been turned into political headquarters, or down the wide tree-lined boulevards past knots of armed men.

Surprisingly, the message from Drouhin, when it came, was verbal; he had expected it to be in writing, yet there was sense in the method when he considered it – anything committed to paper could be read by eyes other than those you knew you could trust. When the phone rang in his room the desk told him that there was a gentleman to see him, and Cal went down to the lobby to find, waiting, being passed by streams of scruffy workers, what could only be described as a dandy.

A gentleman of advanced years and slim build, he was clad in beautifully cut clothes, set off by a yellow silk waistcoat, a four-in-hand tie, and spats over highly polished shoes, while in his gloved hand was a silver-topped malacca cane. He had a narrow, high-boned face and a set of grey, waxed and well-tended moustaches over a trimmed goatee beard. It came as no surprise to Cal Jardine when he addressed him in French.

‘Monsieur Maxim?’ As soon as Cal nodded, the man rose, his fine nose twitching as if picking up an untoward smell. ‘I cannot believe it is safe to talk in this place.’

‘Then we shall walk, monsieur.’

The elderly dandy nodded and looked Cal up and down, sniffed disapprovingly at his clothing – he was in blouson and twills – picked up the homburg hat which lay on the seat beside him and placed it with some care on his head. The cane then flicked towards the now unmanned door and he waited till Cal moved, following in his wake.

Out on the street, the malacca cane was elegantly used, its ferrule striking a steady tattoo as they made their way along busy pavements and streets rendered noisy by passing traffic. He said nothing until they were out onto the wide plaza where, separated from road noise and able to ensure he was not overheard, he passed on what he had been sent to impart.

To a man not easy to shock, what he said was startling, so much so that Cal could not believe he was telling the truth as relayed to him by Drouhin – had there been some leak? Could this dandy really be saying to him that the best place to buy what was needed was from Nazi Germany?

They traversed the plaza three times with much repetition, so that the unnamed dandy was sure Monsieur Maxim had all the names and contact details memorised – not easy, as one, a German-speaking Greek, went by the name of Manousos Constantou-Georgiadis. He owned an Athens company whose main shareholder was Rheinmetall-Borsig, and that German enterprise, which made armaments, was controlled by none other than the deputy Führer, Hermann Göring.

‘The old gentleman of Monaco assures you that should you contact the Greek gentleman and make known what it is you need, he will take the matter to Göring, where he is sure you will receive a positive response, though he also advises the price you will be charged will be painful.’

‘He did not propose any alternative?’

‘Only some countries who might seek to take your money and avoid delivery.’

‘And the Germans will not?’ Cal asked, making no attempt to disguise the irony.

‘Greed will ensure they do not. Now, if you are clear in the details I have given you, I will depart.’

Cal said goodbye to the old fellow, wondering if he should pinch himself, yet there was one task he had to carry out very quickly. In a code only he would understand he had to get down on paper the details he had been given before they slipped entirely from his mind. He would need to get to Valencia and see if he could convince the people with whom he was dealing that this was on the up and not some fiddle.

But before that he was determined to go to Madrid and find Florencia.

Miles away it was clear much of the city was ablaze, or had been; Madrid was covered in a blanket of smoke, with black plumes rising from places still on fire and, closer, the crump of artillery shells registered faintly for the first time, along with that strange feeling of the air around you moving. The only blessing was that the jams had ceased; everyone who was going had gone and what little traffic there was flowed freely in one direction: towards the battle.

He was stopped on the outskirts by militiamen checking his papers, with deep suspicion very evident, which did not surprise him; one of the things he had heard on the radio was an early claim from General Mola, who was in command of the assault on the capital, that, as well as the four columns which had advanced on Madrid, he had what he called a ‘fifth column’ inside the city, creating a scare in which innocents risked being shot as suspected spies.

Once in the city the noise of battle was constant, and as well as the whining sound of shells coming in, then the boom of them exploding, there was the distant rattle of gunnery, volley fire from small arms and the occasional staccato sound of a machine gun.

Planes were in the air, but not many, and they were mostly Russian biplanes on patrol, but he had passed several bombed buildings and one street closed off, in which a downed Italian bomber lay wrecked and twisted. He could feel on his tongue the dust that permeated everything in an urban battle area and see in the faces of those he drove past that etched look of fear which comes from not knowing if the next bullet, shell or bomb is meant for you.

With lots of time to think there was one thing Cal Jardine knew: if he was about to get involved in the fighting – very likely, given Florencia – he did not want to be part of anything structured, a member of a militia or some International Brigade. All he wanted was to find out where the anarchist forces were fighting, which was where she would be, and get alongside her.

That way he might be able to keep her alive, for try as he had, he could think of no way to detach her from her cause; she had grown up with it and it had formed a large part of her life. In his heart he knew that as long as the battle went on she would want to be in the thick of it, and by extension, so would he. Buying arms, even if he doubted it was truly possible, could wait till the fate of Madrid was decided.

With darkness falling he made straight for the Hotel Florida on the very good grounds that she might well be using it as a base. Besides that, if she was not, the war reporters would know as much about what was going on as anyone, and he trusted Tyler Alverson, as he had already, to keep tabs on her location if he could.

Not that it was easy: he kept getting stopped at checkpoints and his papers were getting tattered from being so often examined. As well as that, many of the streets were being used as sheep and cattle pens and those he suspected owned the animals had set up shelters in which to live. By the time he got to the hotel it was clear, by the diminishing noise level, that, as darkness fell, the fighting was slacking off.

The room, when he got to it, was empty, with no evidence that she had been back since he left, and that was a worry, yet he had to avoid the temptation to just go looking. With his limited Spanish and obvious foreignness, even if he did have papers, he was safer at the Florida until he knew what was going on. Albeit under a fine layer of dust and a skeleton staff, the hotel was still functioning, but there was scant evidence of any of the reporters.

Yet there was food in the kitchens, no doubt bought from the streets he had passed through, and, of course, wine in the cellars. He treated himself to some Castilian lamb and a good bottle from the best Spanish region and bodega he knew, a Vega Sicilia Unico from Ribera del Duero. If he was going to get involved in this war it would be a long time before he would get anything as good.

He was in the bar when the first of the reporters began to troop back in from a day of observation, which got him many a dusty look from grimy hacks who were both hungry and thirsty, one of whom was Tyler Alverson who, grubby as he was, shouted for a beer and flopped down on a chair next to Cal.

‘Don’t ask till I’ve had a drink.’

‘Bad?’

Alverson just shook his head and picked up the cold beer, drinking deeply, paused for one breath, then emptied the glass. Cal immediately ordered another.

‘The Foreign Legion took the San Fernando Bridge this morning and got into the University district, though by Christ it cost them plenty.’

‘Worth it,’ Cal replied, his heart sinking; he was wondering how, when the commanders must have known the river bridges had to be held whatever the cost, they had allowed one to be lost. ‘Florencia?’

‘She’s some dame,’ Alverson added. ‘A dinamitera.’

‘We had those in Barcelona.’

‘She throws a mean grenade.’

‘I need to get to her, Tyler. Is she still in the Casa de Campo?’

‘The bit they still hold, which ain’t going to be much. That’s the other place the Regulares attacked. I’ll take you there in the morning.’

‘Not now?’

Alverson shook his head as though the suggestion was absurd. ‘You don’t go far after dark, and certainly not towards the front. There are too many trigger-happy guys out there just itching to shoot at anything that moves.’ He looked at Jardine keenly. ‘You haven’t heard about the Model Prison?’

‘No. I’ve been out of touch with news, on the road.’

‘This one won’t be on the radio, unless the Nationalists get hold of it. Some of our finest went to the Model Prison, evacuated the inmates to some place further east and massacred them as potential spies. They say there are hundreds of bodies in a mass grave.’

‘How could they be spies when they were in prison?’

‘Blame that stupid bastard Mola, him and his goddam fifth column.’ Alverson called for another beer. ‘He’s got everybody looking at everybody else like they’re traitors.’

‘He has to have some friends in the city.’

‘They’ve either gone or are in hiding. I gotta eat something. You?’

‘Been there, but I’ll join you and you can bring me up to date.’

What Cal Jardine heard was a sorry tale; the militias were suffering badly and, as he suspected, tanks, artillery and heavy weapons were often not committed, though Alverson insisted it was because of scarcity more than politics.

‘No, brother, the soldiers and airmen are doing their best. The politics are here in the city centre and it runs right to the top. Caballero tried to get the POUM into his government after the anarchists joined, but the Soviet ambassador vetoed that idea, no doubt on orders from Moscow. If Joe Stalin hates anything it’s a Trotskyite, so it was no POUM or no more weapons.’

Talking as he ate, it did not get any better; the communists had taken over security, the Civil Guard had been purged and the Assault Guard sent to Valencia, while suspected opponents were being rounded up by NKVD-led patrols. Yet in amongst the gloom, Alverson had positives, not least the way the madrileños had responded to the threat to their city.

‘Every hand was put to the pump, Cal – women and kids carrying rocks for barricades, men digging trenches, not a factory that did not have its own militia unit. The pity is they do not have enough weapons, and then only small arms. But they don’t hold back, they attack even when they know they can’t win.’

‘That I have seen before.’

‘I don’t know whether to pity them or just admire them.’

‘Can they hold, Tyler?’

‘I’m no military man, Cal, but unless they get reinforcements I think it might be time to light out.’

‘Not without Florencia.’

‘That struck, eh? I wish you luck, brother.’ Just then there was a bellow, another American voice shouting for food and drink, which brought one unnecessary word from Alverson. ‘Ernie.’ Surprisingly he waved Hemingway over, then reacted to the look he got from his companion. ‘He might be a pain in the ass but he’s one hell of a reporter. Ask him if they can hold.’

The man’s dark hair and moustache seemed full of the same kind of dust that lay everywhere, and when he sat down it was clear he was weary, and there was silence until he had a tall glass in front of him, whisky of some kind mixed with water, which he drank from deeply. Then he nodded to Cal.

‘You came back? Not many doin’ that.’

‘Not many stayed either, Ernie.’

‘Nope. As soon as the shit started flying most of our brave colleagues upped and left for safer climes, afraid of taking a dying, I reckon.’

‘And you’re not?’

‘I’ve faced my demons in Italy in ’18.’

‘And,’ Tyler Alverson said, with heavy emphasis, ‘you have been trying to get yourself killed ever since.’

‘Charmed life, Tyler.’

‘Cal wants to know if the place will hold.’

Hemingway sat forward then, in a way so forceful a lesser man might have felt threatened.

‘If it does not, there won’t be many of Franco’s boys still standing. These madrileños will fight for every stone. I have never met folk so fearless. It’s like they welcome death.’

There was a look in the American’s eye then, and it was remarkably like envy. Draining his glass, he hauled himself to his feet, waved a big hand, and left.

Cal Jardine was about to ask Hemingway why someone so successful was here in a war zone, but it died in his throat – it was a question he could have posed to himself. But the subject did surface later as they had a drink in a nearby bar called Chicote’s, where what journos were left in Madrid went to do what they did everywhere in the world, get plastered.

Big Ernie was a topic of conversation it was hard to avoid, so telling was his presence, and, it had to be admitted, there was a degree of envy for his success and reputation, though not from Tyler Alverson. He had come to Spain as soon as the war began with his latest woman and not his wife, another reporter called Martha, who was filing for Collier’s Weekly, though by all accounts it was a pretty stormy relationship in which they competed more than cooperated.

‘So where is she, this Martha?’ Cal asked, as the press corps started singing a filthy drinking song that would see one of them having to down something disgusting as a forfeit.

‘Time to go, Cal, this can only get worse. And Martha – covering somewhere else, which is what she does after every screaming match.’