A Broken Land

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

‘I’m not sure I can do what you want.’ Cal said that while aiming a jaundiced look at Florencia, who was too prone to putting him forward for things, albeit he knew it was his own fault for telling her too much about his past. ‘And I certainly could not do it without money, and lot’s of it.’

‘And if you had money?’ asked Florencia.

‘Let me explain to you about what you have to do to buy weapons.’

Cal had to pause then for a knock at the door, which he opened to find a waiter and a trolley with food for everyone, as well as beers and bottles of wine, a sight so redolent of peacetime it was hard to think there was a war going on, that there were armed men on every Barcelona corner and he went nowhere himself without his pistol. Having wheeled the trolley in, the waiter began to lay things out until Florencia, rudely, told him to leave it and depart.

‘He’s only doing his job,’ Cal said as the door shut behind him.

‘No man should be a lackey to another,’ she snapped.

‘I’ll remember that when we’re in bed.’

She began to go red, until she recalled that the other two men present did not understand English. Florencia then proceeded to deny her own words by doing for the trio of menfolk the task the waiter had been about to carry out, setting the plates, distributing food and pouring wine and beer, translating as Cal talked; her mother would have been proud of her.

‘First you have to find somebody willing to sell, and that is not easy. Then, if it’s a government, you need from them an End User Certificate to say where the weapons are going and to what purpose they will be put.’

He had to pause and explain that further, which took time with Florencia translating. Then there was the fact that the certificate could, in some circumstances, be circumvented by bribery. Some countries were more interested in the money than any morality. By all means kill your own citizens, even fight people we call allies, as long as we get the gold and they do not find out.

‘And when you buy on what is a black market, the price reflects that, to the tune of maybe paying a high premium on the normal cost.’

Seeing he was making the Spaniards glum, he apologised, but he also knew there was no point in gilding the lily; they had to know it was a murky world and a dirty game, and it was also one in which it was very easy to become the victim of what you were seeking to buy if anything went wrong.

Andreu Nin began to talk, Cal listening with concentration as Florencia turned his words into English. Not the histrionic type, he spoke carefully and dispassionately, which accorded with his schoolmasterly appearance and donnish manner, a round, rather inexpressive face, serious glasses and black curly hair, using an unlit pipe to make his points.

Basically, and Juan Luis Laporta nodded along in agreement, he outlined the fact that they must do something to check the communists before they became too strong. Cal, thinking he was exaggerating the perceived threat, was treated to more background about Spanish and Catalan politics than he cared to hear, but what it came down to he already knew: it was a bear pit.

The POUM was adamant the Workers’ Party was, only a few months into the struggle, weakening while the communists were getting stronger and that, if it continued, portended disaster. To prove that led Nin into a long aside regarding the crimes of Josef Stalin and the Comintern — not least the four million reckoned to have died in the Ukrainian famine — with, of course, much reference to the purity of his brand of Marxism. Yet for all his seeming paranoia, he did know how his enemies worked.

They would manoeuvre behind the scenes, steering clear of taking positions, because by doing so they could avoid blame for mistakes while openly criticising and diminishing their more politically active rivals. Yet at the same time they would continue to gather into their hands the levers of power, for example the control of weapons supply and military advice, the keys to the pursuance of the conflict.

Already, on the Madrid Front, no weapons could be committed without their approval; fighter planes would not fly and tanks would not be sent into battle because the pilots were Soviets, and so were the armoured-unit commanders, and they would obey an order only when it came from one of their own generals.

In the purely political sphere the communists were bringing in their secret police — Nin was certain a squad of the Soviet Secret Police, the NKVD, had arrived with the first shipment of weapons. Not one of the leaders, of whatever nationality, Spanish and Catalan included, did anything without a direct order from the Communist International in Moscow.

The Comintern took its instructions directly from Stalin, and those who were actual members and deeply experienced in political subversion were already present: the likes of Marty, who was not the only leading French communist to have come from Paris. Palmiro Togliatti, known to be the Comintern representative for all Spain, was already present from his Italian exile.

Stalin would want to control everything in Spain as he had in Russia — he could not brook dissent, Nin insisted, referring to the show trials in which he was disposing of his old comrades who might be rivals. The Comintern was committed to worldwide revolution, the enforcement of a system based on lies and a bullet for rebellion, real or imagined. Once they had enough influence, they would set out to undermine their political enemies in Spain too.

This they would do one by one, targeting the leaders of the other factions, until they had them so cornered as to be able to safely eliminate them, and if it could not be achieved by devious process they would resort to assassination. They had a willingness to kill outside Soviet borders, if necessary using foreign surrogates.

‘In Barcelona,’ Nin continued, ‘first it will be the POUM, for we are weaker than the CNT, but they will suffer too and I will tell you how. If you want to eat, if you want a good weapon, if you want to fight, they will say join the communists. Then, once they have begun to eliminate us, it will be known to all, so they will say join us, or you might be the next victim. First control, then power, and finally terror.’

‘Only with our own supply of weapons can we prevent this,’ Laporta said, having been silent for a longer time than Cal had ever known him to be; for all their political differences, he clearly respected Andreu Nin. ‘Without that we will be powerless.’

‘I come back to my point about money,’ Cal said to him in French.

‘And I, my friend, say to you that we will find whatever funds you need.’

‘Where?’

‘Not all of the gold has gone to Moscow. The government must be persuaded to give us the use of what is left.’

It took no great imagination to guess at the mayhem that would cause and it was hard to believe it could be done secretly; the communists were bound to find out.

‘Juan Luis, you cannot beat the Nationalists if you are openly fighting each other in government.’

‘You did not like the notion of a fascist Spain, my friend.’

‘No, I did not.’

‘Would you prefer a Stalinist one?’ asked Laporta, doing an immediate translation for the POUM leader.

Even if the answer was a heartfelt negative, the question was not one to reply to in haste. In his time, mostly in situations of some comfort and detachment from reality, Cal had met too many people who looked at the Soviet Union with blinkered stupidity. For all the opaque nature of the world in which he had moved over many years, there was a clarity about certain areas that never reached the ears of those outside it, and one of those was the truth about life in Stalinist Russia.

The people who lived on its borders had no illusions, those who had escaped its clutches even less, all the way back to the White Russians who had fled in 1917. Many of both types, forced onto the margins of society by their exile and required to exist in clandestine trades, nevertheless had contacts inside the communist state. One voice spouting outright condemnation could be put down to personal prejudice; a chorus as loud as that which had assailed his ears spoke the truth: if anything, Soviet Russia was worse than Nazi Germany.

‘All I can do is put out some feelers,’ he said, after a long pause.

‘Will you do that, querido?’

‘Not tonight, I need some rest.’

The expression on Florencia’s face then told Cal Jardine that was a forlorn hope.

The cable he sent to Monaco the next morning had to be extremely circumspect; Cal could mention no names, not even his own, and for a location he used his room number. But it was coded in such a way that it would have taken more than a cryptographer to unravel it, given it was between two people who knew each other enough to reference things known only to them. It also went to a nominated address and box number in which the recipient was not named.

The reply he received came within a day and not from the principal to whom it had been sent, albeit Cal was assured he was aware of the contents of both the message and the reply. It had been sent by his private secretary, whom Cal Jardine had met before, this referenced by the date of that meeting without using his name.

Drouhin told him that his master was unwell, and given he was about to celebrate his birthday — no number was used but Cal reckoned he would be eighty-seven — that was a concern. However, should his old friend care to visit, he would seek to find out beforehand where the kind of consignment hinted at could be both located and purchased, though the market was at the moment very difficult.

His suggestion that Florencia should accompany him — Monte Carlo being an enticing place to visit and one which would be made even better in her company — was turned down flat. How could she leave Spain in the midst of what was a fight to the death with the fascist pigs, now intent on taking the capital? There was a question about whether he should leave; the news that came in over the next days was alarming, but rationally, what could he, one man, do? Best to act as requested and go.

The problem did exist of getting across the French border and he worried about the land route, even though Juan Luis assured him the crossing was controlled by the CNT — with the communists complaining about their fighters being blocked from crossing into Spain. That was still a place where the communists were bound to have a presence, and how comprehensive that could be he did not know; they might well check the names on every passport by bribing the French border guards, just to ensure they knew who was coming and going.

The look in the anarchist’s eye that implied he was taking caution too far he declined to respond to — it was his habit to always overdo safety where possible — but there was another consideration: going out would be easy, the French would be lax about that, coming back would not. Besides, the land route was long and would involve several changes of train once in France.

The solution was a boat, one of the many abandoned in the harbour by the owners who had fled Barcelona and scooted to the Nationalist side of the divide. They had not been left to rust but had provided an opportunity for the kind of men who may well have made their living smuggling before the war in less salubrious craft — he did not enquire.

All Cal needed to do was to get to a landfall close to Marseilles, and without any details as to who he was and why, with people who had already paid the necessary douceurs to the overburdened French customs men to be allowed to trade — not a problem on a long coastline dotted with tiny fishing ports near-impossible to police. These were places that had been involved in smuggling ever since tariffs were invented, close to a city in which he had spent some of his formative years, and known to be the crime capital of France.

Once there, it was a simple train journey to his destination, much of it spent in the dining car.

His first impression of Monaco was that it was beginning to recover some of its gloss, which, like the whole of the Riviera, had been knocked by the Great Depression. At one time the winter watering hole of the British upper crust and American millionaires, they had found their pounds and dollars, of which they had less to disburse, insufficient to spend several months avoiding the weather back home, gambling merrily away at the casino.

The man he had come to see had saved that establishment from bankruptcy and it was possible he still owned it, though he never went there or gambled at the tables. No one knew for certain; Sir Basil Zaharoff’s dealings were always clouded in secrecy whatever activity he engaged in.

Drouhin’s face was grave as he came to greet Cal, nodding to the rather burly servant who had stood by him that it was safe to depart; in the house of a man who, for all that he was long retired, had dealt in arms for decades and was known by the soubriquet of ‘The Merchant of Death’, while searching a visitor for the means to assassinate the owner would not do, no one was trusted to be left alone.

‘Monsieur Jardine.’ Cal shook his hand; he did not really know the man, having met him only briefly on a previous visit, but he knew that Sir Basil trusted him absolutely, so he could do so too. ‘My patron is sleeping at the moment, but if you will, we can take a drink on the terrace and you can outline your needs to me.’

‘How ill is he?’

‘It is serious, monsieur,’ Drouhin replied, his face sad, his eyes quickly turning lachrymose, while he rather embarrassingly crossed himself; that, however, told Cal Jardine that whatever assailed the old man was likely to be terminal. ‘He is still lucid when awake and has particularly made a point of his desire to see you.’

‘I’m grateful.’

‘My patron has a high regard for you, monsieur,’ Drouhin replied, as they exited onto a terrace with a magnificent view of the harbour, with Cal wondering why that should be. ‘He is most anxious that, if we can assist you, we should.’

There were courtesies to get out of the way while they waited for a servant to bring a tray of coffee — how was your journey, the weather, etc, which, contrary to the British view, is an international obsession, not just one on which Albion is fixated. Once the coffee was served and the manservant gone, it was time for affaires. Little explanation was required given from where he had come.

It was immediately obvious, though, in Drouhin’s expression, that his view of what was possible tended to the pessimistic, not that his visitor was surprised. The general sentiment amongst those who might be able to provide a supply of weapons — and for what was required they would need to be governments — was unlikely to be sympathetic to the cause of the Republicans in Spain, and even if they were, such states bordered on and were fearful of the major dictators.

Belgium clung to its neutrality in desperation, to avoid a repeat of 1914, Holland was not a major manufacturer, though well disposed to the Republic, while Czechoslovakia, by many miles the place with the required levels of production and quality of arms, would show extreme caution with Hitler’s Germany on its western border.

‘Has Poland rearmed?’

‘Not as much as it should and, as you must know, monsieur, they have a military government, so would incline more towards the Spanish Nationalists than the Republicans. There are, we are informed, people in certain sections of the Ministry of War in Warsaw who are open to bribery, so it may be an avenue to pursue.’

As information this was touched with gold; even inactive for years, Sir Basil Zaharoff had maintained a private intelligence network that would have shamed most national governments — he called it ‘keeping his hand in’, but really it was a game the old man played because he could afford it, having amassed a vast fortune, said to be the largest in Europe, over many decades of trading arms, making investments and buying and selling businesses.

He also traded on the romance of his nickname; many was the minor functionary in a state enterprise who did not require a cash payment for small amounts of information, people who were content to know in their own hearts, and possibly to let on with a nod and a wink to their friends or mistresses, that they were a friend of such a man. When all these snippets were added together, what looked pretty innocuous in isolation gave the old spider at the centre of the web a comprehensive picture.

‘Would that run to names?’

‘Only if my patron sanctions it, but added to that I will put out enquiries in Sweden and various contacts in South America.’ Drouhin gave a thin smile then. ‘Some of whom you know. But those who supply government to government are not numerous and are scrutinising very hard the End User Certificates, so even if you used a country like Argentina or Uruguay you would have difficulty in explaining the quantity you require.’

‘And one sniff of Spain?’

‘Exactly. In some sense it is a pity that Mexico backed the Republican side so quickly — they would have been perfect.’

The servant reappeared with the news that the master was awake and eager to see his visitor. Admonished not to overtire him, Cal was shown into a large bedroom, lit only by what sunshine came through slatted blinds, with Sir Basil propped up on pillows. Even in the gloom, Cal could see his skin was translucent and he could hear his somewhat laboured breathing. Not without a sense of drama himself, he guessed he was witnessing the end of an era.

‘My good friend, come and sit close by the bed so I do not have to do more than whisper.’

As soon as he obliged, he explained to the old man what he had just told his private secretary. The response was the same, followed by a bout of coughing which had Cal grasping his skeletal hand, surprised at the strength still evident in the grip.

‘You must tell me why you have become involved in this.’

There was no gilding it, he gave it to Sir Basil as it was, well aware that he too would not be sympathetic to anarchists and the like; luckily he had a visceral hatred of communists and through husky breath he rehearsed some of the crimes of the Soviets in much the same manner as Cal already knew, but with more accuracy, given his sources, his conclusion that unpalatable as it was to support far-left socialists, such criminals as existed in Moscow should be stopped.

‘But how?’ Cal asked. ‘Drouhin was not encouraging.’

‘Many times in my life I have been told that this and that was impossible, only to find a way, and I think now there must be a route to solving this.’ The old man coughed again, gripping even tighter Cal’s hand. ‘You have no idea how it cheers me you have come, Callum — you do not mind me calling you that?’

‘I was not aware you knew it to be my name.’

The frail chest heaved as he laughed. ‘Now you are being disingenuous, for the only other possibility is that you are foolish and I know that not to be true. So, you must leave this with me. You have given me a project and to find a solution will fill my last days on this earth.’

‘Sir,’ Cal protested, only to be tutted into silence.

‘You will go back to Barcelona?’

‘I will, to tell them what is possible, or in this case, unlikely to be so.’

‘Then it is also possible you will not see me again, and before you protest once more, death comes to us all, and if you mourn there are many who will not. They will hope that Satan, having got me into his clutches, is making me pay for the crimes and sins I am accused of.’ Another hacking laugh followed as it took several seconds for him to get his breath. ‘Not a few of which I am proud to have committed.’

For all he had protested, Cal had seen too much death in his time to be in any other mind than that the old man was right; it could not be long, even if he had, which he would, the best medical care going.

‘You know, Callum, I will not apologise if I do meet my maker. I will say to him, as I have often said to my accusers, it takes two to make a bargain. If you wish to call it a sin to sell weapons of death, then is it not also a sin to buy them and use them, which I never did?’

‘You may find, when you get to the Pearly Gates, he’s looking for some Maxim guns to keep his angels in line.’

A bony finger went up. ‘A good point, but I shall make him pay a high price if he does.’

The head went back onto the pillows, he was tiring, and Cal made the noises to leave, but the old man was not finished.

‘I am not sorry to be leaving now, for it is going to be bad, the future, Callum, very bad. In my lifetime the ways we have found to kill our fellow humans have increased so much, until we had slaughter on an industrial scale in the Great War. But I fear it will be worse than even that. There is an evil abroad I do not think was on this earth when I first walked upon it.’ The last grip was the hardest. ‘Stalin and Hitler are a different breed of monster.’

‘Mussolini?’

‘Is a fat fool running a bankrupt nation of soldiers who do not want to fight, and who can blame them? For all his boasting he is as nothing — but the others, take care, my young friend, not to be consumed by them and their schemes. Now, ask Drouhin to come and see me.’

* * *

The arrangement was that whatever was found out would be delivered to the Ritz Hotel in Barcelona with the coded name, Mr Maxim. Cal did not enquire as to how it would be sent; he trusted both the old man and his assistant to secure the secrecy of the communication. As Drouhin imparted this to him he could tell by his tone that he was wondering if the named address would still be in Republican hands. Cal did not bother to suggest anything different — if it was not, then what was delivered would be redundant.

After a night alone in Monte Carlo, where he ate well and visited the casino, he was glad of two things. First, that he did not lose much at baccarat; second, that he managed to avoid the looks of the women who sought to catch his eye, not one of whom was younger than fifty years and a good many of whom, even under pancake make-up, were a good deal older. Anyway, there were enough glossily attired and barbered young men around to drool over them and their money.

The next morning, the mere delivery of his newspaper was enough to galvanise him; he was done here in any case but there would be no leisurely return to Barcelona. The screaming headline in Le Temps told the whole of France that one of the Spanish Nationalist columns had reached and actually breached the outskirts of the capital. Franco was about to launch an all-out assault on Madrid.