Loud laughter came with the finish of the tale, which seemed to involve Hemingway in chastising some Spanish pimp with fists he was now waving around; it sounded remarkably like boasting to Cal.
‘Seems you can dish it out as well.’
‘I take it you were in Barcelona because of this dame.’
‘Not really, I had a brief to look out for the British athletes attending the People’s Olympiad and needed an interpreter. The anarchists supplied one and she just happened to be irresistible, so I stayed a bit longer than I should.’
‘You will forgive me if I say the People’s Olympiad and anarchists do not sound like “your cup of tea”.’ The last three words were delivered in a faux snooty accent.
‘I’ve got hidden depths and they’re good boys. A lot of them volunteered when the trouble started. A few of them stayed and are still fighting.’
‘Tell me more.’
Willing to talk about them, he needed to keep Monty Redfern out of it; the last thing he would want was to be identified in a newspaper, especially an American one, given he was always trying to get from the wealthy Jews of New York donations to help his and their co-religionists out of Nazi Germany. Vince was different; Alverson knew him from Ethiopia, so explaining his presence presented no problem.
‘He brought over some of his young boxers but he’s gone home now.’
‘So,’ Alverson said, sitting forward and over his notebook. ‘Tell me what you two witnessed.’
The pencil raced as Cal talked, with Alverson posing apposite questions to get a picture of what Cal and Vince had both seen and participated in, the Olympians as well.
‘That makes a good story. Plucky Brits taking on the forces of evil.’
Naturally, the name of Juan Luis Laporta was mentioned more than once and it was clear Alverson found him interesting too, so he built the man up a bit to keep the talk going and promised an introduction.
‘So what happened after you and Vince saved Barcelona?’
‘Aragon happened.’
That story ended with the disappointment of being stuck in front of Saragossa, the command problems and infighting not helped by the ineffectiveness of the militias and the deviousness of people like Drecker, which had inevitable led to the break up of his unit. Alverson related what he had witnessed and already investigated, written up and cabled back to his agency. In essence, Madrid was as confused as anywhere else, just more so, the fight for control more vicious given the city’s strategic importance.
‘The communists are the best equipped and organised here too.’
‘And the most miserable bunch of shits I have ever met, Drecker especially.’
Alverson laughed. ‘Marx banned smiling as well as capitalism.’
‘What’s the latest on this front?’
‘It’s not going well for your side.’
‘Not our side, Tyler?’
‘Regardless of where my natural sympathies lie, Cal, it’s my job to send my editor all the news fit to print, without bias, which is damned hard ’cause every bastard I talk to tells me lies.’
‘Do your bosses have a reporter on the Nationalist side?’
‘Naturally, everybody does, and before you ask, that guy Franco is not telling him any more truths than Largo Caballero is telling people like me.’
‘You met the prime minister?’
‘Power of the press, brother.’
‘What’s he like?’
The way Alverson paused for a second told Cal he had asked that question too eagerly. Largo Caballero held the purse strings and was, according to Florencia, one of the people he might be required to meet.
‘He’s pretty smart, a politician to his toes, who wants help from the USA.’ He nodded towards those at the bar. ‘And talking to me and other Americans he hopes will aid that. It won’t, any more than talking to the London Times or Le Temps will get anything from London or Paris.’
It was time for Cal to change the subject again and that comment of Alverson’s gave him an outlet. ‘That Anthony Eden sounds like a real slippery bastard.’
‘Unlike Fatso and Adolf.’
Cal lifted his glass. ‘To hell with the lot of them.’
‘Amen,’ Alverson said, downing his drink. ‘Another?’
‘My shout.’
‘Hey, brother,’ Tyler said, raising his empty glass to the barman, ‘I’m on expenses.’
‘So no chance of aid for the Republic from the democracies?’
‘Can’t see it.’
Cal steered the conversation on to that subject. With total cynicism the British government — worried about upsetting Mussolini and Hitler — had made pious noises about non-intervention in what they called a purely national dispute, ignoring the obvious evidence of what those same dictators were up to, plumping instead for an international discussion forum called the Non-Intervention Committee while refusing arms to both sides — in effect, given Franco was getting everything he needed, denying the Republic vital support.
The French, fearful of acting on their own, as well as under pressure from their own right-wing zealots, having offered to supply arms to Madrid and sending a few obsolete planes, had supinely withdrawn that after political protests and street demonstrations and the lack of British support, while the USA was staying strictly neutral.
‘Yep, thanks to our so-called democracies Franco could be sitting in this bar in a week.’
‘It won’t be pretty if he does.’
‘And some.’
That provided another diversion; you could not have a conversation about the conflict without talking about the killing taking place, and often being boasted about in some kind of Spanish love of blood and death in a heated propaganda war in which it was increasingly hard to tell the truth from the exaggerations.
It was bad in the cities, but there was little doubt in areas where the peasantry had risen up — long the victims of rapacious landlord power — death and destruction were particularly acute, with manor houses torched and their owners and families butchered. The priests who had supported them were victims too, often locked inside burning churches with those of their flock considered class enemies, while the Nationalists claimed nuns were being raped and mutilated all over the country, stories vehemently denied by the Republican press.
Yet it was hard to believe even a ferocious, long-downtrodden and exploited peasantry and angry workers could outdo the forces of reaction who, if reports were true, were killing on an industrial scale, while allowing their Foreign Legion troops a free hand in how they terrorised the places they captured, leading to mass rapes and summary executions. It was said that the Nationalist commander who took Badajoz had ordered shot a couple of thousand people before he headed for Madrid.
‘Holy Shamolly.’
That emphatic and utterly incomprehensible outburst, given they were discussing murder and mayhem, made Cal Jardine spin round. He had failed to notice that the babble at the bar had seriously diminished; all eyes were on their banquette.
‘Querido.’
Tyler Alverson did not quite whistle, but judging by the look he gave Florencia as both men stood he might as well have. She was dressed in close-fitting jodhpurs and riding boots, while her leather coat was folded over her arm so that the silk shirt she had on showed her figure to perfection, and she was returning the look, waiting for an introduction, which was quickly supplied.
‘Tyler, you sly old dog,’ Hemingway hooted.
Alverson called back. ‘You can’t have all the ladies, Ernie, stick to Martha.’
A glass was raised and Hemingway was not looking at Alverson, but then neither was anyone else in a group which, with his size and bulk, he dominated, his response another call. ‘When the cat’s away …’
‘Cal tells me you’re an anarchist?’ Alverson said, his attention back on Florencia, with a look that implied disbelief.
‘Si.’
‘Tell me, honey, how do I join?’
There is a fine line between flattering someone and patronising them, added to which there was Florencia’s ability to see a slight where there was none intended and she had a temperament to match. Seeing her eyes narrow, Cal had to intervene quickly.