The Guardian of Secrets and Her Deathly Pact

by Jana Petken

  Back in the bedroom, Lucia put the tray down, put the cup to her grandmother’s lips, and asked her to continue.

  “A wonderful thing happened,” María told her after a while. “Isn’t it strange, dear, how wonderful things happen just when you are at your lowest? They lift your spirits just enough to keep you going on into another day. I’m rambling on again, aren’t I? What I wanted to tell you was that I received a letter from my mother in November 1937, telling me that your great-uncle Miguel had finally gotten in touch with them. Of course, at the time, he didn’t know where the family was, so initially he wrote to my cousin, John Stein, hoping that he could relay his letter to our parents who were, of course, still at Merrill Farm.”

  “What did your brother Miguel say in his letter?”

  María closed her eyes. “What did he say …? Oh, yes, I remember now. But wait … Before that, there is more.”

  Chapter 75

  London, 1937

  “So, Mother, how was Ernesto the last time you saw him?” John Stein asked.

  Marie Osborne wiped the cream from her top lip with her napkin and put down her fork. She sat at her favourite corner table in the Carlton Hotel, taking afternoon tea and enjoying the usual variety of background musicians who made her visits there so special. She pondered John’s question whilst listening to a particularly lovely harpist who graced the Carlton with her presence once a week. She had seen Ernesto only that weekend and had thought, like Celia, that he was looking better and sounding more like his old self. The doctor was pleased with his progress but had warned them, of course, that tuberculosis was a disease that could flare up again and kill even the strongest of men.

  “I’m no judge of these things, dear,” she told John. “But I do believe he’s improving and quite stable at the moment. He’s very upset, of course, about the news coming out of Spain. In fact, I think his feeling of helplessness will kill him before the illness does.”

  John nodded. “I can understand how he feels. I read the latest reports about Spain myself and spoke to some friends of mine over at the club just this morning. I’ll go and see Ernesto this week.”

  “That’s good, darling. I’ll come with you. Tell me, what’s our worthless government saying now? Still don’t want to know anything about the Spanish conflict, I suppose,” Marie said, not amused in the slightest at the way her government was handling the entire Spanish situation.

  “The republicans have lost more ground,” John told her. “There was a bloodbath over there this summer, and of course they all tried to keep it a secret. But you know politics. Leaks always get out eventually.”

  “My God, I’m worried sick about Pedro and Miguel.”

  “We all are, and we should be, for the League of Nations are still trying to justify the policy of non-intervention by claiming that the policy is actually helping to stop the flow of foreign fighters.”

  “And what’s Eden saying?”

  “He realises that there are some breaches in the agreement, but he is not willing to say much more than that.”

  “Well, the Germans and Italians must love us British,” Marie said angrily. “We’re allowing them to do anything they damned well please!”

  They sat in a comfortable silence, listening to the harpist strum over the voices of afternoon tea-goers. Marie watched John out of the corner of her eye and was sure that he had something on his mind. He always cocked his head at an angle when he was in deep thought. She remembered that as a boy at college, he would sit like that whilst studying for an examination. He was a man who always remained calm in a storm and who always found the answers in his own good time. She smiled to herself. She knew her son so well, and she was convinced that he would speak at any moment, telling her that he had a problem.

  “Mother, there’s something I need to tell you,” John said right on cue. “It’s about Pedro.”

  “Dear God!” Marie’s handkerchief flew to her mouth, and her hand gripped her throat. “Don’t tell me. Please … not Pedro?”

  “Mother, no, Pedro’s fine!” John told her, angry with himself for scaring her. “I’m sorry for throwing it at you like that. Pedro is all right, I promise you.”

  “Then what is it?” Marie asked him, summoning a waiter to ask for brandy.

  John wondered where to begin. He’d been wondering the same thing for at least half an hour, and he still didn’t know where to start.

  “I received a letter from Pedro a few weeks ago, and it was delivered in the strangest way.”

  “Really?” Marie said.

  “Yes. Now, I want you to sit back and listen to what I’m about to tell you, and I don’t want you to get how you get … Promise?”

  She nodded her head, and John continued. “The letter arrived inside a sealed envelope, which was inside a letter to Celia. The envelope containing my letter was marked ‘Private, for Uncle John’. Thank God Celia had the good sense not to open it.”

  “No, of course she wouldn’t,” Marie said, shocked at the very notion that Celia would do such a thing. “What did the letter say?”

  “Mother …”

  “Sorry. Go on.”

  John smiled and handed an envelope to her. “Here. Read it yourself.”

  Dearest Uncle,

  I pray that you will receive this letter intact. I am with Joseph Dobbs here on the battlefield. He is blackmailing me and is using the name of Harry Miller. He mentions a man called Roderick Smyth Burton. Said he would kill the family! Do you know this Burton man? Need information soonest. Write to María through Spanish Medical Aid, not to me. Too dangerous. No time to say more; letter being smuggled out. It’s imperative that Mother not find out about this.

  Pedro

  Chapter 76

  For the second time since the beginning of the war, Pedro wondered if he was fighting for the right side or if there was a right side. The communists seemed to have obliterated their cause for their own ends and had become more like dictators than comrades-in-arms. He’d watched his fellow soldiers being shot before his eyes and had helped to bury them. Their crimes were read out before they were killed:

  “This man took two days leave without permission.”

  “This man dared to question our glorious cause.”

  “This man insulted his superior officer.”

  The list of fabricated charges seemed to go on and on, until Pedro wondered if it might not be easier to cut out his own tongue rather than say a word that might insult communist sensibilities. He was also war-weary and had not been given leave for almost a year. He found it increasingly difficult to understand the politics of the military leadership, and his heart and mind rebelled against the dictatorial and fanatical hold that it had on him and the courageous men he fought with. He began writing letters, only to rip them up, knowing that he was neither saying nor meaning what he really felt. It was difficult to write blandly, without heart and soul, but to put his real thoughts down on paper was impossible, as total strangers read and censored all letters. His battalion had been cut off from the main force. Leave had been cancelled again, as it was becoming increasingly apparent that the nationalists were gaining the upper hand and that the republican government were panicking under the strain of external and internal fighting.

  In September, his unit came under heavy fire. This was not unusual, for the nationalists dominated the skies and German planes dropped their bombs on them on a daily basis. The attacks had become a daily routine, but the speed at which his battalion disintegrated before his very eyes was both puzzling and frightening, as no reinforcements were being sent in to plug the gaps. Because of this, Pedro and the remains of his battalion found themselves surrounded, unable to move backwards or forwards in a quagmire of enemy fire.

  Joseph Dobbs lay in a shallow ditch surrounded by pampas grass, flicking the ants off his body one by one. He touched a spot on his leg and winced with pain. The brandy had run out days ago, and apart from the gut cramps, the nagging ache that surrounded his scarred shin now stun
g like the touch of a red hot poker. He held his leg in the air by one hand and massaged the spot that hurt the most with the other. He grunted and groaned, licked his chapped lips, put his leg back on the ground, stretched it out, and then wiped his eyes. He had always been a patient man, he thought, crawling deeper into the pampas grass, but if he had to put up with the situation he found himself in a minute longer, then he would shoot himself and be done with it all.

  He was crying like a fucking baby. He couldn’t stop crying. He’d come to Spain to kill four people, four lousy people, and he hadn’t even managed to do that yet. Instead, he’d been eaten alive by insects, had beaten death too many times to count now, couldn’t get a drink from anywhere, and he was growing weaker by the minute from bloodsucking insects, bad food, putrid water, and urinating burning piss.

  He stopped crying, blew his nose on his shirtsleeve, and looked up at the sky. He told himself reluctantly that he couldn’t give up now. He’d thought so many times lately about killing his son, making his way to the border somehow, and just writing off the money, but he’d come too far. He had stayed in the dusty plains and flea-infested swamps in a war that had taken its toll on his body and mind. His bad leg was numb and dragged behind him like a fucking nuisance from which he couldn’t detach himself. It was like a spare bloody part that didn’t go with the rest of him. He’d been bitten by mosquitoes all summer, and that had left his skin pockmarked from the top of his big toe right up to his fucking head. His face looked like a bloody giant moon crater!

  He scratched his balding head and pulled at a strand of hair infested with lice. He couldn’t take any more of this. This was not what was supposed to happen. He was expected to fight now, no matter how hard he’d tried to convince his communist masters that he was a cripple. He’d been ordered to leave his truck and his cushy job and get to the front lines to die like a bloody animal in a slaughterhouse. The fucking communists had taken everyone’s passport, but he’d been clever and had never declared that he even had one.

  He undid his boot and took out the old ripped piece of paper in its plastic cover. The faded photograph of Harry Miller, taken in 1913, stared back at him, with his dark neatly cut hair and beard and handsome face that had driven women wild. He managed to smile. Even Celia Merrill had found him irresistible in his heyday. She had never seen him as Harry Miller, though; she would always remember him as the golden-haired man that he was in his youth. She would probably still want him even now, he believed, for she had loved him to the point of insanity … She’d leave that fucking Spaniard in a minute if she thought she’d get him back!

  He refolded the photograph four times. It was so fragile now that only the plastic cover held it together, that and his sock. If the communists found him with it, he’d be a dead man. The Russians were off their heads, and the Spaniards were going that way too. Part of his problem was that he couldn’t get away from the Russian spies that kept a watchful eye on supply trucks and soldiers alike. Trying to run away now would be a stupid idea, for being caught meant being shot. He’d seen it happen with his own eyes to some poor sods who’d just wanted to go home.

  He sat up and looked around him through the pampas grass. Trucks and tanks sat in a neat line, ready for the next assault or retreat. There were about 150 men left out of about 2,000. They were dotted about the area in shallow trenches and were in moods that Joseph could only describe as much the same as his own. Some of the men slept and some kept watch, but none were talking, singing, or even bothering to cook anymore. They would probably all die in the next round of fire anyway.

  He crawled into the shade of a tree and leaned against its trunk. He saw Pedro lying down within twenty yards of his position with his hat covering his face and jacket underneath his head. He watched him for a short while, swallowing his hatred and thinking about the wasted time and disappointments he had been forced to endure since meeting his son. Months had passed, still with no sign of Celia’s reply to the letter, and he doubted that he’d ever see it now. Few letters were getting through, and even when they did, the fucking communist bastards were reading every word.

  He sighed and lit a cigarette. The letter didn’t matter anymore; the money was the most important thing, he decided. The deposit had probably been made by now, and the money could be sitting in the French bank at this moment, just waiting for him to collect it, for Celia was sure to have sent it the moment she saw the namby-pamby words written by her precious son.

  He covered himself with his inadequate blanket to keep some of the mosquitoes at bay, and blowing smoke rings with a cigarette into the damp September dawn, he nodded his head again. Come what may, he was leaving, money or no money. He’d take his chances alone now. Celia Merrill had put him into this hellhole, and she’d damn well get him out of it with the money waiting for him in Paris. He wasn’t going to waste another day of his life on his rotten son. He would get rid of him today … probably use his knife on him.

  They’d be getting them up soon, he thought, checking his old pocket watch. He’d be the one to dish out the lukewarm brown water they called coffee, and he’d be the idiot to go down the line sticking bullets in the men’s pockets. There used to be truckloads of bullets, he thought in disgust, but now they were lucky if they got more than a couple of rounds each. He wouldn’t be sticking around for the fireworks, though, for when the fight began, he’d make a run for it. He’d come to the end of the line. He’d rather be shot by the communists than spend another agonising day in the fucking Spanish Civil War! he decided

  He looked across the short distance that separated him from his son, and his lip curled in anticipation. The boy slept like a fucking baby, with not a care in the world.

  “Time’s up, son,” he spat in a whisper.

  Obviously, his son would have to die before he left the camp. He threw off his other boot. He had thought that maybe they, he and Peter, could become friends. He had even looked deep inside himself for any fatherly instincts that might have been lurking there. But there were none, and the boy meant nothing to him. He wasn’t like him, after all, and he’d outlived his usefulness.

  The half-empty trenches of Pedro’s beleaguered unit came under another heavy attack early in the morning. Some of the men ran back behind the lines, using any escape route they could find, whilst others dropped like flies in a futile attempt to hold the enemy at bay. Pedro reloaded his weapon and wiped the sweat from his eyes. He was going to die today. They would all die today. There was no way he could see any of them getting out of this one alive.

  Joseph crawled through the republican trenches with bullets in a helmet, stopping every so often to catch his breath. His face thunderous and feverish eyes wide with fear searched out Pedro’s position. He wiped his brow and shivered in the hot sun. He felt dizzy, and his ears rang so loudly that he thought they were going to explode. He kept thinking, through the deafening noise in his head, that he’d been stupid to stay another night, but he wasn’t leaving until he’d killed Peter. He looked around him again. They were surrounded and getting slaughtered. There was probably no way out now; he had left it too late.

  His anger mounted when he saw Pedro. It was the boy’s fault. He’d stayed because of him, he thought, lying on his belly and praying that a ricocheting bullet didn’t hit him. He moved again, curling his body below the top of the trench line, holding his unfired gun close to his chest and still praying to Lady Luck as he went. The firing stopped, and he cautiously stuck his head out of a breach in the trench wall.

  “What are they doing? Why have they stopped?” he shouted at Pedro when he had reached his position.

  Pedro turned and threw a dismissive look over his shoulder. “They’re probably deciding how and when to finish us off. I guess you won’t be getting that money after all,” he said in a tone that caused Joseph’s face to burn red and swell with anger.

  “Then it won’t just be us that’s dying; it’ll be your family too!” Joseph shot back. “If my mate Roddy doesn’t hear from me soo
n, your whole family are going to cop it. How does that make you feel? Not so smart-mouthed now, are you? Snotty-nosed bastard!”

  Pedro smiled at Joseph, turned his back on him again, and faced the enemy’s lines. “We are going to die today, you and me,” he said casually, his back to Joseph. “We’re going to die, but my family will be just fine.”

  “No, they won’t be. Roddy …”

  “Roddy won’t hurt my family because your Roderick Smyth Burton died in the Great War twenty-one years ago … I did a little digging myself, Dobbs. My uncle John told me everything in his letter to me.”

  “What? What the hell are you on about?”

  Pedro turned again to face Joseph and laughed with an exaggerated expression of victory. “I wrote to my uncle. You see, the envelope I gave you for my mother was switched, and the one you kindly posted, although addressed to my mother, contained another envelope inside, for John Stein’s eyes only.”

  “Switched … how?”

  “I had a duplicate letter in my bag and switched it with the one you read when I went for Jim McGrath’s letter. Is the pin dropping now?”

  Joseph fumbled with his words, unable to comprehend. “But my money …”

  “There is no money. There never was … Don’t get me wrong, Dobbs. I did write to my mother, but there was no mention of any money or of Harry Miller or Joseph Dobbs, or whatever name you’ve been known by. I just told her I was fine, healthy, and that I loved her – everything and anything I could think of to keep her happy. My mother still believes you died in nineteen thirteen, and that’s the way it’s going to stay. Did you really think I’d put her through any more suffering at your filthy hands?”

  “You’re a fucking bastard …,” Joseph hissed.