‘What?’ Cal enquired, before snapping at Florencia to calm down, which she did as Laporta talked; his tone was enough to tell her that the matter was serious.
‘He has told me we need to secure the whole region through which we have passed, not just the road to Saragossa, and he listed a whole number of places I have never heard of that we have failed to occupy and cleanse of fascists. Clearly he had a map which tells him this, but one fact is obvious: he has been so busy taking other areas he has not yet reached Lérida, this while our friends are being executed by the hundred further west.’
‘But you all agreed back in Barcelona that taking back Saragossa is vital—’
‘My friend,’ Laporta interrupted, ‘Villabova is not of the CNT or FAI. He is a soldier and I am not, something of which he was keen to remind me.’
‘But I am.’
‘Yes, you are, so I now ask you, as a soldier, what should I do?’
Cal pointed to a sulking Florencia and said, ‘I think you best tell her what you have just told me.’
The explanation did nothing to lessen her fury but it did redirect it and the name Villabova, mixed with a few choice insults, was the result. It served the purpose, giving Cal time to think and to reflect that Laporta was, at last, open about the need for military advice. He was, of course, not in the presence of his lieutenants, so it might be a one-off.
‘What is happening elsewhere in the Peninsula?’
The list that followed took some getting hold of, but thankfully every time Laporta included Florencia, Cal had time to absorb it, well aware, and the anarchist had added the caveat, that much of what he said was less than hard, incontestable fact; the situation was still fluid, the only certainty being that in the territory they controlled, the fascists were not only shooting people by the hundreds, they were boasting about it on the radio, especially one of the senior generals in Seville, who was daily listing the details of his operation to cleanse ‘sacred Spain’ of the disease of socialism.
Enough ships had stayed loyal to their officers to get the first elements of the Army of Africa, especially their heavy equipment, over the Straits to the mainland, and they were being shielded from Republican destroyers by two German pocket battleships, while the man who had taken command in Morocco, General Franco, lacking enough vessels to move his men in time, had sent a message to Rome and Berlin requesting aircraft to provide transport.
‘Have they agreed?’ Cal asked.
‘No one knows yet. Our government have appealed for aid to London and Paris.’
Cal was tempted to tell Laporta not to hold his breath on that one; if Peter Lanchester was right, the British government would want to stay well out of it. Paris, with a Popular Front government of its own, could be more sympathetic to the Republic, and so was a better bet. There was good news from Valencia, the vital port for agricultural exports and thus the flow of much needed currency: it had been saved, while the leader of the revolt, that serial rebel General Sanjurjo, had died in a plane crash.
‘So who will take over?’
Laporta shrugged. ‘Let us hope they all kill each other trying.’
Confused as it was, it became apparent to Cal, as Juan Luis talked, that the population centres, the bigger cities, seemed to be the key; it was those the insurgent generals were seeking to take and it had to be a strategy designed to suit their purpose, so it was axiomatic that the best course of action was to deny them their aim.
Great swathes of land did not matter to them because they had seen clearly a fact still obscure to the likes of Villabova: this was not conventional warfare, in which one army manoeuvred to defeat another and took ground; it was a series of disjointed regional actions in which the Republic was reacting to events, not imposing its will.
The army knew they could occupy the hinterland once they had control of the provincial centres, and one of those was Saragossa. Whatever happened elsewhere, and that could have no bearing on the present conversation, Laporta should continue to head for his objective; this Villabova character was dead wrong.
‘Do we know the level of the enemy forces in Saragossa?’
‘Madrid say it is being held by disloyal army units, with a force of Carlists on the way from Navarre to help them hold it.’
Fired by religion, which was what bound them to both the cause of the generals and, historically, that of Don Carlos, a junior member of the monarchical House of Bourbon, the Carlists would be as fanatical as the Falange. The people of Navarre had fought two full and bloody wars against the Spanish government, and launched several insurrections that had lasted over forty years. Whatever else they were militarily, they were not quitters.
‘Then the best thing you can do is get there as quickly as possible, that is, before they do.’
‘Disobey him?’
‘Has he ordered you to stop and consolidate?’
‘No.’
‘Then I have given you my advice. You can also demand that Villabova support you.’
Laporta got up from the desk, came round, and embraced Cal. That was acceptable; the great smacking kiss on the cheek was not and the Spaniard was forcibly pushed away, Cal sitting down to avoid repetition.
‘But for the love of God, before we move any further, get hold of some maps.’
While they continued talking, neither had noticed that Florencia had edged towards the door – she had heard a voice they had not – opening it a fraction and putting her ear to the crack. After a few moments, she waved an impatient hand at Cal and gestured that he should come to join her; his lifted eyebrows and glance at Laporta only made her cross, so he nodded to Juan Luis and slipped out of his chair. Invited to put his ear to the door, he could hear what he thought was Manfred Drecker’s voice, but it was incomprehensible.
‘Querido,’ Florencia whispered, pushing the door till the crack disappeared. ‘That bastard Drecker is on the phone to one of his slimy friends and he is telling him how he and his communists took the town by crossing the canal downstream and attacking it from the rear.’
‘What?’
That got him a finger to her lips and the door was opened a crack again, ear to it, her face screwed up, but Cal had heard enough. He grabbed the handle and pulled it open, seeing Drecker with his back to him talking on the phone, fag in the air, his voice emphatic and before him some kind of map-like drawing, obviously so engrossed he had not heard. Florencia had come to join him and then Laporta appeared in the open doorway, and now it was Cal’s turn to call for silence.
It could only have been the feeling of eyes on his back that made the communist turn round, the look he gave the trio one of unadulterated loathing. Quickly he spoke into the phone, Cal surmised to say he would call back, then slowly put it down, picking up and folding the paper he had laid on the table.
‘Herr Drecker, can I ask you what that call was about?’
‘Why would it be any of your business, Herr Jardine?’
‘Florencia tells me that you are claiming to have undertaken the task carried out by the men I led, that you are in fact claiming to have taken the town.’
If it was true, and Cal thought it very much so – for why would Florencia lie? – Drecker seemed unabashed. ‘I am engaged, Herr Jardine, in the very necessary task of giving the people the news of the victory of the forces of the left over the fascists.’
‘My victory,’ Cal snapped, then jerked his head, ‘as well as that of Juan Luis, his men and mine. From what I saw of your men on the way here, they do not look as if they have been fighting at all.’
‘They were held in reserve.’
‘Far enough back, I suppose, not to even get dust on their boots, while others died.’
‘That is of no importance. What is important is that the people read that the forces opposing the general and their lackeys have gained an important success.’