The decision that he was dealing with a possible bully was quickly arrived at and there was only one way to counter that: make it known right away that you are up for a scrap. The mutual stare, still in place, lasted only a few more seconds. Then Hemingway laughed, a booming sound that filled the room and turned heads.
‘Maybe, Mr Thomas, we’ll have a drink sometime.’
‘If you wish.’
‘Hey there,’ Alverson cried, looking towards the door to the lobby. ‘Here comes the lovely Florencia, and at a run.’
Cal could see her hair was still tousled from sleep and what clothes she was wearing had been flung on; whatever it was she was coming to say had to be important and he stood to go and meet her halfway, only to be given the news with a shout.
‘The Nationalist pigs will attack Madrid in two days.’
That got Alverson and Hemingway to their feet as well, but it was Tyler who spoke. ‘How do you know?’
‘Some comrades have found the plans in an Italian tank,’ she answered, breathlessly, grabbing a roll from the bowl on the table. ‘I must go to the front.’
‘You can’t print that, Tyler, it will tell Franco his plans are no longer secret.’
The American looked at the other occupants, all of whom were staring at Florencia, now munching away. ‘Can’t see why not, brother, it’s not much of a secret.’
That was when it became easy to tell the journalists from the rest of the hotel guests: they were the ones running off to the phones, and it had to be said that Hemingway, hung-over as he was, led the pack and showed that elbows made good weapons.
In the end, it was not a scoop, it was common knowledge; Largo Caballero came on the radio to announce to the world the impending attack, and worse, as far as Cal Jardine was concerned, he told the enemy just how and where they were going to be repulsed, naming by number and strength the newly formed brigades that had been cobbled together in an attempt to impose some order on the militias who still constituted the majority of fighters.
Trying to calm an excited Florencia, he knew he had to go back to Barcelona, first to arrange to see if any package had arrived for Mr Maxim, and suggested she come with him, an offer that she would not accept, but she was not about to say goodbye to Callum Jardine without a proper parting, albeit a very quick one; the situation did not allow for languorous carnality.
They found Tyler Alverson in the hotel lobby, camera over his shoulder and dressed in the kind of garments that suggested, despite his protestations, he was going to look for a story where the bullets flew. The look he gave Cal when he said he had to make a quick trip to Barcelona, while Florencia was staying in Madrid, was one designed to take the rise out of him.
‘Don’t you worry, Cal, I will take care of your gal.’
‘That’s what worries me, Tyler.’
In truth, it was not the American who worried him but Florencia herself; she thought herself immune from harm and she would, regardless of what he said, want to be in the forefront of the fighting, doing battle alongside her comrades, many of whom, as he had seen in Barcelona, were like her, young women. He had tried to lecture her upstairs about taking care and she had responded with her customary dismissals and a confidence not in the least dented by what she had experienced up till now.
‘We will beat them into the dust, querido!’
It had been impossible not to laugh, and there was no derision in it either. She just looked so damned beautiful in her fighting overalls, with the heavy pistol at her hip; blonde hair, golden olive skin, dark-brown eyes and that smile to melt his heart. If he had ever wondered why he was proposing to do what he was about to try and achieve, standing before him was the answer.
He paid for the room for another week, then departed to the sound of air raid sirens and the citizens rushing for the shelters, which was followed by a snowstorm of leaflets which filled the sky. He only had to open a window to catch one and his schoolboy Latin aided him in reading the warning message to the people of Madrid, telling them to surrender or the Nationalist aviators would wipe them off the face of the earth.
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 Aragon.
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.