Hand In Glove Part 55

and Anarchists all putting their feuds first and the fight against Fascism second. Food started to run short around the same time. Franco's noose began to tighten round Catalonia's neck. A cold winter and blanket bombing finished the job.

"That is how my mother said it was and the history books tell the same story. When the army rose, the working cla.s.ses of Barcelona united to defend themselves-and to change society. But they succeeded in neither. Germany and Italy were funding and equipping the Nationalists. To combat them, the Republican government had to seek help from Russia. And Russia's price was the suppression of revolutionary socialism. The Anarchists were one of the groups they moved against. So, my father ended by fighting for a different cause from the one he had volunteered to defend.

"I knew nothing of any of this. My recollections of Barcelona are a jumble of hooting cars and waving flags, whining bombs and derelict buildings, food queues and rats and ragged clothes and my hands going blue with the cold of the last winter we spent there. My father came to see us just before Christmas. By then he had been transferred to the remnants of the British Battalion of the International Brigade. I cried all night when he went back to the army. And so did my mother. We never saw him again. News came in March that he had been captured and probably killed during the retreat from Teruel. It was the sort of news a lot of wives and daughters were receiving. The whole Republic was in retreat. And it was not only at the front that people were dying.

The Italians began bombing Barcelona in February of 1938. I remember the sheer terror of those raids, of seeing dead bodies lying on the pavement, of witnessing what no nine-year-old girl should ever have to. It was the beginning of the end. But the end was a long time coming. And, meanwhile, a strange thing happened. My mother received a letter. From a woman in England she had never heard of."

"From Beatrix?"

"Yes. From Beatrix. It arrived about two months after the news about my father, although it was only much later that I was told what was in it. Beatrix wrote to say her brother had served with my father and in his last letter to her before dying had asked her to find out whether his old comrade was still alive."

"Which is exactly what Tristram did ask her to do-in the only one of his letters to Beatrix I've read, sent from Tarragona in mid-March 1938." Charlotte frowned. "But hold on. How did Beatrix know your address?"

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"She said Tristram had told her."

"No, no," Charlotte objected. "He didn't. It wasn't mentioned in his letter."

"It was in the doc.u.ment accompanying the letter. As you will see." Isabel Va.s.soir smiled. "Let me finish my story. Then you will understand how all the pieces fit together. My mother wrote back to Beatrix, telling her my father was almost certainly dead. She expected to hear no more. But Beatrix wrote again, offering her sympathy-and her help, if we needed it. Well, we certainly needed it. Catalonia was cut off from the rest of the Republic by then and slowly being strangled to death. But what could an Englishwoman we had never met do for us? My mother did not reply. She told me later she could not see the point of such correspondence. And I suspect also she did not want to be reminded of my father. So, she let the matter drop.

"In the autumn, my grandfather died, worn out by the struggle for survival. Then, just after Christmas, the Nationalists launched their final offensive against Catalonia. By the middle of January, 1939, they were within reach of Barcelona. The bombing intensified and panic began to spread. Anybody linked with the Republican cause would be in peril of their life under the Fascists. Franco's ruthlessness was legendary.

So, the only thought was how to escape. As the widow of a known Anarchist, my mother had to get away. France had opened its border to refugees and people began streaming north towards it. We joined them, my mother, my grandmother and I, pushing our few belongings in a hand-cart. The journey must have been a torment for them, though for me it was a merciful chaos of trudging along muddy roads, of running for shelter from German fighter planes, of waking in the cart caked with snow while my mother and grandmother strained at the shafts.

"When we reached France, we were put in a crowded camp with no shelter. It was, in fact, the clearing centre at Le Boulou, but n.o.body had any idea then where we were or where we were going. After a few days, we were taken to a camp for women and children north of Perpignan, where there was food and shelter, although not enough of either. My grandmother fell ill and there were times when my mother said we should have stayed in Barcelona. She could see no end to the squalor and harshness of life in the camp. Then, in her desperation, she remembered Beatrix's offer. She wrote a letter to her, asking her to help us in any way she could. She persuaded a Red Cross representative to send it on. She did not know if it would reach Beatrix, of course, nor whether she would respond even if it did."

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"But it did reach her?"

"Yes. And she responded, though too late to save my grandmother, who died just before Easter. A few weeks later, Beatrix arrived at the camp and took us away."

"Just like that?"

"For my mother it was a prayer answered, for me like dreaming of paradise and waking to find I was there already. A tall and smartly dressed Englishwoman took my hand and put me in a chauffeur-driven car and, suddenly, after three months of confinement behind barbed-wire fences, we were driving away, through the barrier and down the lanes thick and bright with the leaves and flowers of spring.

I cried and laughed and stared and could not believe it was happening. But it was."

Into Charlotte's mind came what Uncle Jack had said concerning Beatrix's whereabouts in the spring of 1939. "She'd been to the French Riviera-or it could have been the Swiss Alps-or it could have been both-for a good couple of months." She knew now it had been neither. Isabel Va.s.soir was right. All the pieces were beginning to fit together.

"How Beatrix arranged our release I do not know. But I imagine the authorities were grateful to anybody who was prepared to take a couple of refugees off their hands and a.s.sume responsibility for them. And that is what she did. She rented an apartment for us in Perpignan and bought us food and clothes. She stayed with us for a month while we regained our strength, doing all the cooking and washing until my mother was fit enough to take over. She was our saviour. She was my fairy G.o.dmother. She paid for my mother to take French lessons and helped her find work as a seamstress with various drapers in the city. She put us back on our feet and made it possible for us to live again. We owed her everything. It was one of the reasons why I was anxious to learn English at school: so that I could tell her in her own language how grateful I would always be."

Another beneficiary of Beatrix's generosity had emerged from her hidden past and sat now smiling faintly at Charlotte across a French drawing room. Beatrix had rescued Vicente Ortiz's only surviving relatives from the aftermath of a war. She had done what n.o.body could have expected her to do. And she had done it in secret.

"Did she tell you about Frank Griffith?" Charlotte asked after a moment's thought. "Did she tell you how your father sacrificed himself to save Frank?"

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"Yes. And she also told us she did not know where Frank was. She said she had lost touch with him. So, even if my mother wanted to contact him, there was no-"

"But that wasn't true!"

"Exactly. Beatrix helped us, but she also lied to us. Or perhaps I should say she did not trust us with everything she knew. But, then, who did she trust with everything?"

"n.o.body," Charlotte replied. "But . . . Why? Why all the secrecy?"

"When you read what she sent me, Charlotte, you will understand. She gave no hint of its existence during my mother's life. She remained our friend and advisor. She sent money to pay for my education. When I married Henri, she was generous to him too, putting up some of the capital he needed to open a confiserie in Perpignan. And she helped again later when we moved to Paris. So, you see, we owed her far more than an occasional box of chocolates could repay. But they were all she would accept."

"What did she send you?" Charlotte heard the note of impatience in her voice, but was helpless to restrain it.

"A doc.u.ment my father had given to her brother. In the accompanying letter, Beatrix said it would be sent to me by a friend in the event of her death. She also implored me not to contact her family.

She said she had held the doc.u.ment back for so long because she was afraid it would re-open old wounds for my mother and because she felt sure it was better for us not to know what it contained."

"And what did it contain?"

"See for yourself. The original is in Catalan, but Tristram translated it into English. I will fetch both versions now and let you read the translation. It is time, I think. High time."

Madame Va.s.soir rose and walked quietly from the room, patting Charlotte on the shoulder as she pa.s.sed. The door clicked shut behind her and Charlotte listened intently to the ticking of the clock and the rhythmic snoring of the bloodhound. It would not be long now. A fragment of the damp Paris night-a portion of heavy-curtained solitude-stood alone between her and the truth. When the door reopened, Beatrix's last secret would be hers.

CHAPTER.

SIX.

Iam Vicente Timoteo Ortiz, a native of Catalonia: Once I would have said I was also a proponent of the ideals of anarcho-syndicalism. But I am no longer sure enough of anything to embrace a political philosophy when the threat of death is close at hand.

I am writing this at a small farm near Alfambra, about twenty kilometres north of Teruel, the capital of Lower Aragon. I am billeted here with the other members of a platoon of the British Battalion of the Fifteenth International Brigade. It is early January, 1938, and we expect to be called up any day to partic.i.p.ate in the battle for Teruel which is going on to the south of us. I have a presentiment that it will be the last battle of this war for me, the last of too many. Teruel is a cold sad place. To attempt its capture in the middle of winter is madness. But perhaps its capture is not the objective. Some say the government hopes, by attacking it, to force Franco into an armistice. If so, it hopes in vain. Franco will accept nothing but surrender. And then he will execute those who have surrendered.

I have wondered for more than a year whether to tell this story. I have hesitated and delayed, always with good reason. Two weeks ago, when my wife lay in my arms for what may have been the last time, I nearly told her. But I held back. And now I am glad I did. She should be spared the danger of knowing what I know. So should any Spaniard. It is why I am writing this now. Because only a foreigner can decide rationally what to do with such information. And among the foreigners whose ranks I now fight in there is at least one I think I can trust to do that.

All my life I have known no quarter would be given by those who seek to suppress the working cla.s.s of this country. I became an anarchist because I believed only violence would enable us to throw off our shackles. I was born in Barcelona in 1905 and grew to manhood under the governership of General Martinez Anido, who would pay a bounty to any pistolero who killed an anarchist but would arrest any anarchist who defended himself and then have him shot while trying to escape. I remember the fate of Salvador Segui and the midnight H A N D I N G L O V E.

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knock of the Somaten. I remember the machine-gunning of strikers in the Calle de Mercaders and the burning alive of the besieged anarchists in Casas Viejas. And I remember also Bueneventura Durruti and Francisco Ascaso. I salute their memory. I applaud their deeds. I mourn for no archbishop. I yearn for no king. Yet the black-and-red flag will not be my shroud. At the end I will call for no priest of this country's church. But neither will I cry "Viva la Anarquia!" for I would choke on the words.

It is less than two years since I heard the factory hooters sound across Barcelona on a Sunday morning and knew the military rising had begun, but 19 July 1936 seems now like a date from pre-history.

For I believed then. I was a man whose faith was still alive. I swapped my CNT card for a rifle and joined the a.s.sault in the Plaa de Catalunya. I was one of those who danced and sang in the streets when the military surrendered. And I was a member of the Durruti column when it marched out to capture Saragossa and spread the revolution throughout Aragon. But Saragossa was never to fall. Nor was the revolution to take root. Ahead lay only death and disillusionment.

I see now there was only one hope for us in this war. It was at the very beginning, when we should have attacked society, not Franco's army. We should have altered Spain out of his reach. We should have swept away the Church and every other prop of feudalism. We should have imposed the revolution as we went. Instead, we tried to fight a military campaign on Franco's terms. We dug in and organized. We flouted our own principles because we thought victory was worth any number of compromises. But we were wrong. We could only have won by refusing to compromise. We could only have achieved what we wanted by insisting upon it from the outset.

The acceptance of Russian aid was the key to our defeat. It seems perverse to say so, does it not? Hitler and Mussolini were equipping Franco with men, guns and planes. Was it not therefore logical to seek help from Stalin when n.o.body else would come to our aid? My answer is no. It only seemed logical. For Stalin is as big an enemy of the working cla.s.s as Franco. I see that now, as do others. Too late, of course.

Always too late.

I have another more personal reason for cursing the day Russia intervened in Spain. It became known in early October, 1936, that Stalin had agreed to send arms to the Republic. Enough tanks, ar-moured cars, artillery, fighter planes and bombers, together with the personnel to use them, for us to overwhelm Franco. Or so we hoped. I 336 R O B E R T G O D D A R D.

was as grateful as everybody else. I will not pretend I saw then what it would lead to. The arms were to arrive at Cartagena on the Murcian coast and the Russians were to set up bases in the vicinity. A great deal of unloading and transporting was bound to be involved. As an experienced driver and mechanic, I was asked to join the Republican reception force in Cartagena. I went gladly. I went not knowing what would happen to me there.

We were kept busy at Cartagena, I and my friend from Barcelona who had come with me, Pedro Molano. After the equipment had arrived, we and the other driving crews would ferry it out by lorry to the Russian bases at Archena and Alcantarilla. The only interruption to the routine was when we helped move a trainload of boxed cargo from the railyard to a large well-guarded cave just outside the city. We were not told what the cargo was. There was an air of secrecy about its arrival and its ultimate destination. One suggestion was that it contained the art treasures of the Prado, sent from Madrid for safe-keeping. I did not believe it. But I would not have believed the truth either.

Pedro and I were billeted with a butcher's family in Cartagena.

We drank at a nearby bar most evenings and exchanged the rumours we had heard about how the war was going. One night we fell in with an Andalusian anarchist called Jaime Bilotra. He was a big bluff ami-able fellow who saw things just as we did-or claimed to. What he was doing in Cartagena he did not say, until we had met him several times and counted him as a friend. Then he asked us to take a walk with him down by the docks, so he could talk without being overheard. We went. There seemed no harm in it.

Bilotra told us he was working undercover for the FAI, the mili-tant federation of anarchist groups. An informant in the Finance Ministry in Madrid, Luis Cardozo, had warned the FAI of a plan to ship the entire national gold reserve to Russia to prevent the Fascists laying hands on it in the event of them capturing the city and to cover the cost of present and future arms supplies. This was the secret cargo we had handled. Cardozo was among the civil servants who had accompanied it to Cartagena in order to supervise its shipment to Russia, which was now imminent.

We were horrified. We had a.s.sumed Stalin had offered to help the Republic for ideological reasons, but it appeared he was no different from any other arms dealer. He was worse in some ways, since, as Bilotra pointed out, once the gold was in his hands, he would be able H A N D I N G L O V E.

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to dictate policy to the Republican government. And he was no friend of anarchism. That was certain. Already, in the militarization of the CNT militias, his brand of communism was beginning to make itself felt. Eventually, anarchism would be crushed. That too was certain.

What could we do? Nothing, it seemed to us. But Bilotra had a scheme. True, if the government insisted on such folly, we were helpless to prevent it. Yet we could divert a small proportion of the gold-which would still const.i.tute a considerable treasury-and send it to Barcelona, for the FAI to spend on independently equipping the militias. Pedro and I would drive one of the lorries when the gold was moved from its present location to the docks for loading. Cardozo could simply omit our lorry-loads from the official count. We would then be free to deliver them to a large lock-up garage Bilotra had rented for the purpose. They could be moved later to a safer place before being transported to Barcelona. The question was: would we do it? Without us, Bilotra was powerless to prevent the surrender of Spain's most valuable a.s.set: something approaching two billion pesetas in gold bullion. With us, some of it might be saved to take the anarchist struggle forward. He needed our reply within twenty-four hours. We could not seek the approval or opinion of anybody else without imperilling both Bilotra and Cardozo. He was trusting us to do what we knew was right. He was placing the future of anarchism in our hands.

We agreed. It sounds absurdly nave as I write these words, but neither Pedro nor I doubted Bilotra's honesty. In those early months of the war, there was an innocence in the hearts of those who fought for the revolution that made one forget greed and corruption. Moreover, what he had said made sense. We could not turn our backs on such an opportunity to aid our cause. And secrecy clearly was imperative. So, without hesitation, we agreed to play our part.

The following night, Bilotra brought Cardozo to meet us. He was a nervous young man, a civil servant to his fingertips. But he professed to be as sincere an anarchist as us and he was prepared to take just as many risks. We visited the lock-up garage and discussed what we would do in more detail. Cardozo said the gold was to be moved in the course of three successive nights prior to shipment on 25 October.

We would probably make three or four trips per night, but he suggested we should risk diverting no more than one lorry-load each night. Bilotra pressed for more, but Cardozo insisted this was as much as he could safely lose on paper. So, it was agreed.

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The scheme worked perfectly. With Cartagena blacked out in case of bombing, there was n.o.body to see us divert to the lock-up with one lorry-load per night. It was much closer to the storage cave than the docks and we spent the time saved on the journey unloading the boxes with Bilotra's a.s.sistance. In the end, about 150 boxes were crammed into the garage.

The Russian steamers sailed for Odessa on Sunday 25 October.

Pedro and I watched them go, two of very few people in Cartagena who knew what they contained. The despatch of the gold to Russia seemed to us then-and still seems to me now-like criminal lunacy.

But the common citizenry of Spain is accustomed to such conduct on the part of its governments. It is one of the reasons why we have torn each other apart in a civil war. And it is one of the reasons why we will lose whatever the outcome.

The lorry crews were given forty-eight hours' leave at the conclusion of the operation, leaving Pedro and me free to a.s.sist Bilotra in the next stage of his plan. He had hired a heavy lorry from a nearby quarry, large enough to hold half the cache of boxes, and had located a suitable hiding-place in the mountains about fifty kilometres north-west of Cartagena. It was, in fact, a long abandoned copper mine, ac-cessible from a rough but pa.s.sable track. We transported half the gold there the night following the departure of the Russian steamers and half the next night. The loading and unloading was back-breaking work but, between us, we managed it. Bilotra navigated during the journeys. In the dark, Pedro and I had only the vaguest idea of where we were. On the second night, Bilotra brought some dynamite along, which he used to set off a small explosion, caving in the entrance to the mine. It would ensure, he said, that the gold would be safe until we arranged its collection.

Halfway back to Cartagena, in the early hours of Tuesday 27 October, Bilotra asked us to stop the lorry and pull off the road. We were in the middle of nowhere. I a.s.sumed he wanted to relieve himself and complied without really thinking. Then he pulled a gun on us and told us to climb out. His demeanour had changed completely.

It was obvious he had deceived us all along. And it was equally obvious, when he led us away from the lorry, that he meant to kill us. We demanded to know why, but he did not reply. Then, as if he wanted to goad us before the end, he said: "The gold will go to Franco."

Anger at the thought of that drove out our fear. We made a rush at him. He fired and Pedro fell. But, before he could fire again, I H A N D I N G L O V E.

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wrenched the gun from his grasp. Pedro was dead and I would have killed Bilotra instantly if it had not been for the realization that only he knew where the gold was. In his pocket, he had a map he had drawn, showing its exact location. I made him hand it over. Then he said something which amazed and appalled me. "I lied about Franco.

Cardozo thinks the gold is destined for the Fascists, but it isn't. They know nothing about it. n.o.body does, except the Nationalist officer Cardozo is in contact with, Colonel Delgado. He sent me here to procure what I could for our personal use, after the war is over. But I'm not unreasonable. You could share in the wealth too, Vicente. We've hidden something like thirty million pesetas in gold bullion in that mine. Only you and I know where it is. I'm due to meet Cardozo at nine o'clock tomorrow night. Why don't we put a bullet through his head and hope one of your lot puts one through Delgado's before this madness is over? Then you and I can live like kings. We can win while everybody else loses. What do you say, Vicente?"

What did I say? Nothing. There was nothing to say, when my friend lay dead beside me and our foolish attempt to aid the anarchist cause amounted only to blood and betrayal and bribery. I shot Bilotra where he stood. I put a bullet through his head. And then I tried to think. If I went to the authorities, it would turn out badly for me. The FAI knew nothing about it and would probably disown me, while the government would want to prevent the Russians learning they had been tricked out of some of the gold. I would be an embarra.s.sment to everybody. And from there it is a short step to being denounced as a traitor and dealt with accordingly. No, it was vital my part in the affair should not become known. Indeed, it was vital the affair itself should not become known.

I took the map and the gun and I walked away, leaving Pedro and Bilotra dead beside the lorry. There was nothing I could do for Pedro without risking discovery. And there was nothing I wanted to do for Bilotra.

I reached Cartagena around dawn. When I reported for duty that morning at the end of forty-eight hours' leave, I told my superiors Pedro was missing. They were not greatly interested, expecting he would show up before the day was out. Otherwise, he would be posted as a deserter. How long it would be before the lorry was found and the bodies beside it identified-if they were identified-I did not know.

But I had to see Cardozo before that happened. Bilotra had said he was to meet him at nine p.m. and I guessed they had agreed to use the 340 R O B E R T G O D D A R D.

same rendezvous as before. I was right. Cardozo was waiting there when I arrived.

When I told him what had happened, he refused to believe me. I could understand why. The turn of events was as disastrous for him as it was for me. I had to threaten to shoot him before he agreed to tell me the truth. He was a Carlist sympathizer of traditional views who hated everything the Republic stood for. He had been pa.s.sing information to his contact in Burgos, Colonel Marcelino Delgado, since the outbreak of the Civil War. Delgado had instructed him to help Bilotra in any way he could. This he had done. Bilotra had suggested they pose as anarchists in order to persuade Pedro and me to come in with them. Cardozo admitted playing his part in duping us, but he was incredulous at the thought that he too had been duped. He simply could not bring himself to believe it.

I should have shot him there and then. The secret would have been safe and so would I. But I was no longer angry. I did not despise him as I had despised Bilotra. In a strange way, I felt sorry for him. He believed in his version of Spain as much as I believed in mine. He had acted according to his principles just as I had. And even now he could not accept that we had both been deceived, that our faith in the opposing ideals we stood for had been betrayed.

I hesitated. I lowered the gun. He saw then he had a chance and he took it. He ran and I let him go. Fool that I was, I let him live. I regretted it almost instantly. I still regret it now, though sometimes I am glad I did not add his murder to Bilotra's execution.

Next morning, I was questioned about Pedro's disappearance.

When I asked why they were suddenly so interested, they said there had been a coincidental disappearance of a civil servant who was visiting the area with a delegation from the Ministry of Finance. It was Cardozo. He had decided to flee. But where to? Burgos was my guess, either to denounce Delgado, or, if he still thought I was lying, to report what had happened to him. Whichever was the case, as the possessor of Bilotra's map and the only living soul who knew where the gold was hidden, I was perilously placed. I could not inform the Republican authorities without being arrested-and probably shot-as a traitor. If I were captured by the Nationalists and my ident.i.ty became known, the same fate would await me, albeit after the location of the gold had been tortured out of me. I was caught between two grindstones and knew instinctively there was no way to escape.

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heard the government had been re-formed to include anarchist representatives, with Catalonia's own Garcia Oliver as Minister of Justice. It was a total contradiction of everything we anarchists thought we stood for, a fatal dilution of our revolutionary principles. And it blasted any slim chance I had of convincing the FAI I had acted in their best interests. My fate was sealed.

For the moment, however, I could still hope to avoid it. The Nationalists launched their a.s.sault on Madrid in early November and I was recalled to the Durruti column, which was standing by in Aragon to help defend the city. Enquiries into the disappearances of a civil servant and an anarchist lorry-driver's mate in Cartagena were soon overtaken by more momentous events. Whether Pedro's body was ever found and given a decent burial I do not know. I hope so. As for Bilotra, I hope the flies consumed what the rats left of him.

Madrid did not fall. I am proud of what we and my fellow anarchists did to save it, even at the cost of our commander's life. But I am not proud of the squabbling feuding chaos into which the anarchist movement descended during the following winter. I am glad Durruti did not live to see that. I only regret now I could not have died with him and been spared the confirmation of all my worst fears.

I have neither the time nor the heart to describe the insidious way in which Russia, working through its puppet, the PSUC, moved to suppress the revolution we thought the events of July 1936 had set in motion. The most dismal aspect of the affair was the failure of the CNT to ally itself with the only independent communist group, the POUM. Instead, they were at loggerheads with them throughout the spring of 1937. Even when both groups took to the streets of Barcelona in early May, the CNT still held itself aloof. United and concerted action was the only way to preserve the revolution. But of that the CNT was incapable. I was stationed with what was left of the Durruti column at Barbastro. Many of us favoured marching into Barcelona and confronting the forces of reaction. But Garcia Oliver forbade it and Ricardo Sanz, our commanding officer, complied. We stayed where we were. The POUM was crushed. And later, in Stalin's good time, the CNT was neutralized.

The failure of anarchism as an instrument of revolution was the end for me. I went to Sanz and told him I could no longer fight under its banner. He offered me a transfer to the International Brigades, where reinforcements were badly needed. I accepted. And so, since June 1937, I have served not with my fellow Catalans but with foreigners who 342 R O B E R T G O D D A R D.

volunteered to defend Spanish socialism without knowing what a sham and a fraud it has become. I have made some good friends among these British lovers of liberty. I propose to entrust this account to one of them when I judge the moment is right. He is Tristram Abberley, the poet, and I hope he will be able to use his public reputation to ensure the truth about what happened in Cartagena in October 1936 becomes widely known.

I do not expect to find out whether he succeeds. I do not expect, indeed, to survive the battle for Teruel. I have been lucky too long. Now I sense my luck has run out. Perhaps I should say I know it has. I have heard about Colonel Marcelino Delgado on several occasions in this war. He is reputed to be a brutal and merciless opponent. He is among the commanders of the Nationalist forces engaged at Teruel. I have avoided him till now. But no longer. At Teruel, our paths are destined to cross.