The Golden Spaniard

by Dennis Wheatley

  “What do you wish done with him, then?”

  “Employ him on non-combatant work. You must have secret hospitals where your people wounded in the street-fighting are being tended.”

  “It shall be as you wish; but what about the girl? The little fool ought to be slapped for having returned here after her father had sent her out of the country. She may find herself compelled to mend a lot of broken hearts she won’t care about at all if she stays on here, and I’ve more urgent things to do than plan the escape of love-lorn maidens.”

  “Would it be possible to get her into one of the Embassies?” Richard hazarded. “I remember her saying that her aunt was an Englishwoman.”

  “That’s an excellent idea,” agreed the Duke.

  “Good. You’d better do that, if you can, before you start for Valmojado. If you can’t, bring her back here.” Lucretia took some papers from a drawer. “These are C.N.T. Party cards, one each for you, with permits to carry arms, and one for her—all in false names, of course. You’ll need them to get through the barriers. Don Palacio will remain here. Naturally you will not mention my existence to either of them.” She pressed a buzzer on her desk.

  The man in the beret answered the summons and she said to him, “Matters are arranged, Fernandez. These two will take the girl, but the man’s to be sent to N. 17 as a helper with instructions that he’s not to be allowed to leave the building.”

  Richard shook Lucretia’s hand but the Duke kissed it and begged her most earnestly to get a little sleep. She smiled a promise to him as they left her. Fernandez led them along the passage to the sliding panel and through the old woman’s bedroom again, The spring lock on her door snapped-to behind them and they walked downstairs.

  Doña Favorita and Don Palacio were still sitting among the unusually sharp-eyed collection of roughs who appeared to be the habitués of the place. Fernandez beckoned to the couple and led all four of his charges into a small private room where the Duke explained the situation to the two lovers.

  The Catholic Deputy was most loath to give his parole not to fight beside his friends, but de Richleau insisted on his doing so and at last he gave way. The lovers were then left alone together for a few minutes but Fernandez said he had much to do and with many apologies cut short their unhappy parting.

  Doña Favorita did her best to dry her tears and set off with Richard and de Richleau.

  They avoided the main streets as far as possible but, even so, they had to produce their C.N.T. cards at several barricades before they were allowed through. Now they had more leisure to observe the state of things about them they saw that the Revolution had already made its mark on Madrid. All but the poorest shops were closed and shuttered, some had been looted, here and there broken windows showed in the upper storeys where the bullets of the street-fighters had been aimed at people shooting down from the houses. They passed the still-smouldering ashes of four churches and once they had to make a detour to avoid a blazing convent. Trams, buses, lorries, cars had all disappeared except such as had been overturned to form part of the barricades or were now only twisted heaps of scrap-iron from having been burnt by the mobs.

  Every few hundred yards they passed more sinister signs of the many conflicts which had taken place while they were safe in their bedroom at the Palace Hotel; crumpled heaps that only a few hours before had been human beings with convictions, passions, hopes. Most of the bodies lay alone where they had fallen, but in one place there was a horrible mound of about fifteen and from their tonsured skulls it could be seen that they were priests who had been massacred. One rigid hand protruded from the pile still clutching a crucifix. Farther along a fat old woman with the haughty beak of an aristocrat hung dangling from a lamp-post; her face was purple and her eyes protruded like those of a Pekinese; the shreds of a beautiful lace mantilla still fell about her shoulders.

  The Duke and Richard hurried on, shielding Doña Favorita, who was between them, from as many of these horrible sights as possible. In the Calle Fernando el Santo, where the British and numerous other Embassies are situated, there was little movement. Like many of the streets they had traversed it struck them as sinisterly quiet, but they noticed the first police they had seen since the outbreak; little groups of them were gathered on the pavement before each foreign-owned building.

  “You’d better handle this, Richard,” said the Duke. “I don’t want to go inside if I can help it. I might be recognised. Ask for Cherry Beddenham; he’s one of the secretaries. At least, he was en poste here last time I heard from him.”

  After a casual glance the police took no notice of them and Richard walked up to the Embassy door. It was open and a fat man was sitting on a chair just inside. Richard made to cross the threshold but the man put out a hand to stop him and asked:

  “You British?”

  “Yes.”

  “Resident in Madrid?”

  “No, visitor.”

  “What d’you want?”

  “To see Mr. Cherry Beddenham.”

  “He’s not here.”

  “I want to see the Ambassador, then.”

  “Sorry, you’re out of luck. Sir Henry Chiltern and all his staff were at their usual summer quarters in Hendaye when the riots began. None of them has turned up yet.”

  “Who’s in charge here, then?”

  “We are,” said the fat man amiably.

  “And who is we?” Richard smiled back.

  “Committee of British Residents in Madrid. There was nobody but a porter in this place when the trouble started and he said he had no authority to let us in. Well, it’s our Embassy, isn’t it—so with the Vice-Consul’s help we took possession. What do we pay taxes for, I say, if we can’t claim protection when these excitable foreigners start cutting each other’s silly throats?”

  “Quite right,” said Richard. “I’d have done just the same if I’d been in your place; but, of course, you’re willing to let other people in.”

  “If they’ve British passports, yes. If not, no.”

  “This is rather a special case. A Spanish General’s daughter with an English aunt.”

  “Nothing doing,” said the fat man promptly.

  “Oh, come on,” Richard pleaded. “You must stretch a point at a time like this. God knows what may happen to the poor girl if you won’t give her shelter.”

  “Sorry. British passports only. That’s the decision of the Committee; and in any case we’re chock-full of people already.”

  “Look here, I’ve got a British passport so I could insist on coming in if I liked, but I’m quite prepared to stay outside if you’ll take this girl in my place.”

  “Come in or stay out, just as you like. It’s all the same to me, old chap. But we can’t take her unless she’s got a British passport. Put yourself in our shoes. See those policemen there. The Government’s giving us a fair deal. Those chaps have orders to fire on any mob that tries to rush the Embassy, but that’s only on the understanding we play fair and refuse to shelter anyone except our own nationals.”

  “Can’t you take her on as some sort of servant?” Richard suggested. “Members of Embassy and Legation Staffs are entitled to protection whatever their nationality.”

  “You’re telling me,” the fat man laughed. “We might’ve this time yesterday but not today. We’ve all been doing what we can in that Line already. I’ve got six myself including a Condesa as a cook and a Marquis as a chauffeur for a car that was pinched off me early Sunday morning.”

  “I see,” said Richard miserably, but at that moment he caught the eye of a small, slight, fair-haired young man who had just come up behind the fat fellow and heard the last part of the conversation. Richard distinctly saw the young man wink as he he edged past them and went out into the street.

  Richard thought the reason for that wink well worth finding out so he said good-bye to the fat man and followed the fair one down the road, turning after him round the next corner.

  The slim youth had pulled up just out of sight
of the police.

  As Richard came up he said, “Who’re you trying to wangle into the Embassy?”

  Richard replied without hesitation, “Doña Favorita de los Passos-Inclán.”

  “The General’s daughter?”

  “Yes. She has an English aunt.”

  “I’m afraid that’s not good enough. We’re having to be very careful now.”

  “Are you on the Committee?” Richard asked, noticing that the fair young man was a good bit older than he looked at first sight.

  “No. My name’s Arthur Talbot and I’m British but I only arrived in time to get taken on as office-boy. Still, I think I can tell you the best thing to do.”

  “I’d be awfully grateful.…” Richard began.

  “D’you know the Finnish Legation?”

  “No.”

  “Well, you can’t mistake it because it’s on the other corner opposite the British Embassy. Behind it, facing on the Calle de Monte Esquinza, are the British Commercial Attache’s offices. All the Finns are out of Madrid just like the rest of the Diplomatic Corps during the summer heats. The chap in charge is a Spaniard, and a pretty rotten one at that, but he’s taking refugees in at three thousand pesetas a head. If you’ve got the money you’ll probably be able to get the lady in there.”

  “Thanks a thousand times for the tip.” Richard shook Mr. Talbot’s hand and hurried back to the Duke.

  De Richleau was strolling slowly down the street with Doña Favorita. He immediately approved Richard’s plan for buying their pretty young protégée an asylum in the Finnish Legation and they turned back towards the building.

  The matter was arranged without difficulty. The sleek Spaniard who was making quick money out of his compatriots’ fear of death promptly registered Doña Favorita as his tenth scullery-maid, on the money being paid over, and waved her into the hall. It was already crowded with people in the most varied states of attire; some fully dressed, others in sable coats and nightdresses just as they had fled from their homes. They looked bored and miserable and eyed their new companion with disfavour; realising that she would be one more mouth to feed from the Legation’s slender stock of provisions.

  Somewhat to the embarrassment of Richard and the Duke, Doña Favorita kissed them both as they turned to take their departure; then burst into tears again before burying her head in her hands and rushing blindly into the mob of people who were sitting on the broad stairs as though at some fantastically grim party.

  “Well, that’s that,” said the Duke when they were outside once more. “I’m very glad we managed to park her safely. Fascinating, though, how women of a similar class can be such poles apart, isn’t it? Favorita’s an attractive little thing but she’s not fit to clean the shoes of Lucretia-José.”

  Richard nodded. “I suppose our Golden Spaniard is rather remarkable.”

  “You suppose!” echoed de Richleau. “She’s extraordinarily beautiful. The shell of a Madonna with the fire of a Vesuvius underneath. She represents all that is best in Spain. Everything that’s worth fighting for here or anywhere else in the world.”

  “Quite,” agreed Richard hastily. “Quite,” while to himself he thought, ‘By Jove, he has got it badly.’

  Turning out of the Castellana to avoid the barricades again they began to search for a place where they could get something to eat. They had had nothing since the rolls and dried figs that Simon had brought them that morning. Dusk was falling as they entered a small patisserie which had the letters U.H.P. scrawled in whitewash across its window and underneath the legend, ‘Welcome to all Friends of the People’. There, they rested for a little while they consumed four large cups of strong coffee, half a stale seed-cake and some fancy biscuits.

  When they left the patisserie to commence their weary tramp right across Madrid to its western side, night had come. The street lamps remained unlit but the glow from the burning buildings reddened the sky above the stricken city. The number of people in the streets was rapidly increasing; having slept through the day after the previous night’s excesses the rats were coming out of their holes to recommence their work of destruction.

  As has proved the case with every proletarian revolution the Liberals, the dreamers and idealists who had sown the seed with their innumerable writings and wordy rhetoric, were now left high and dry without a vestige of power with which to put a check upon the thing they had started. The better elements among the Socialist leaders were too busy organising resistance to the Military Revolt to endeavour to control the mobs that roamed the streets, and the patrols of armed Marxists, who had taken the place of the police, were indifferent or approved their depredations.

  The deliberate creation of a ‘State of Terror’ among the bourgeois is one of the sacred articles in the code by which the Reds of all nations have been taught to secure their rule. Lenin practised it in Russia, Sun-yat-Sen practised it in China, and Bela Kun practised it in Hungary. Trotsky caused more people to murdered under the same article of faith in one year than the Romans martyred in their arenas during the whole thousand years of their history.

  The pavements were still hot from the long day of blazing sunshine, the air was stifling and the hooligans, male and female, only wore a minimum of garments. Led by criminal and sadistic lunatics, who for once were able to glut their revolting secret appetites without fear of being called to account, thousands of normally decent workpeople—their better instincts drowned in looted alcohol—ran laughing and cursing about the airless half-lit streets. What did it matter that the red blood of life flowed in the gutters, that young girls were being violated until they died of exhaustion, and that strong men, fiendishly castrated, screamed like women in childbirth? It was only the putting into practice of the doctrine by which the mobs had been taught they would achieve riches and contentment.

  Richard and de Richleau made the best going that they could although they were called on innumerable times to show their papers and shout aloud their adherence to the ‘Sovereignty of the People’. In nearly every street through which they passed some fresh horror was being enacted. Shots rang out every few moments and occasionally the explosions of a hand-grenade as it was flung into some rich man’s premises or the depot of a reactionary organisation. Cafés were being broken into, the chairs and tables overturned and the liquor looted. Two-thirds of the people in the streets were rolling drunk. In one place some wild-eyed women were openly giving themselves to their men on the pavements; in another a group of nuns were calling on the Virgin to pardon their aggressors until the very moment their petrol-soaked garments were set on fire.

  A dozen times de Richleau had to haul Richard back from an insane attempt to rescue one of the scores of victims. The faces of both of them were white and wet with perspiration from forehead to chin They were filled with an utter horror and despair that humanity could become so bestial. If they could have called down fire from Heaven to blast these frenzied creatures, dead to all but evil, they would have done it. Not from hate but dispassionately; just as Torquemada sent his victims to the stake in the times of the Inquisition. These leering, drink-sodden wretches were heretics but not just heretics who denied certain postulates of a religious creed; heretics who denied Light and Life itself. Since they were blind and chained in Darkness it was better for them that they should be destroyed and freed.

  Only de Richleau’s iron control enabled him to bring Richard and himself through those dark ways where Satan, for a night, had extended his realm to earth. He joked with the Comrades at the barriers, spat upon the crucifix when required and raised his clenched fist in salute to the new Masters of Madrid.

  Once they had crossed the Manzanares things were quieter; at last they reached the Calle Alva and found the garage. They gave the password ‘Buenos Aires’ to the man who answered their four rings and with few words he handed over to them a Citroen which had seen much service. It had the Anarchist initials C.N.T. painted on its bonnet and a special, stamped form pasted on its windscreen which, the man said, wo
uld carry them safely through the barricades in the suburbs. Seeing that Richard was half-fainting from nervous exhaustion the Duke took the wheel and they set off for Valmojado.

  They had not gone a hundred yards before Richard choked and suddenly burst into tears. He had always thought of himself as rather a tough fellow and he certainly had not cried since he had left his ‘prep.’ school but the sights he had seen that night had completely unmanned him.

  “Steady on, old chap—steady on,” said the Duke. “We’re out of it now and you won’t be called on to witness any more horrors—tonight at all events.”

  “I know,” Richard burst out. “But it’s early yet and they’ll be at it for hours to come. It’s still going on and we can’t stop it. Did—did you see what they were doing to that little boy—the fiends! And he couldn’t have been more than nine.”

  “Yes. I was very nearly sick. But try not to think of it any more.”

  “I can’t help it! And the horror of it is it’s all really happening. It’s not a nightmare. It’s true, true!

  “I only wish some people in England could be here to see it,” de Richleau growled. “Any number of them who’re looked on as responsible leaders of opinion simply won’t face facts. They pretend to themselves that such things don’t really occur in revolutions and just carry on airing their pet theories without the least regard to the hornet’s nest they’re stirring up. It’s a pity some of our irresponsible clergy aren’t loose in the streets of Madrid tonight. If they ever got home they might spend a little more time looking into the pretty hopeless state of their own affairs instead of mixing themselves up in politics.”

  Richard had got himself in hand again by the time they arrived at the first barricade in Carabanchel-bajo. They were allowed to drive through after an examination of their passes and a very decent Militiaman accompanied them on their running board to see them through the others.

  They spoke little for the rest of the run to Valmojado but when they approached the town they saw a red glow over its eastern extremity.