Thing to Love

by Geoffrey Household

  CHAPTER XVI

  [January 23–24]

  “I WISH THIS MAP had more relation to reality, Salvador.”

  “My General?”

  “It looks like the Western Desert.”

  “The effect of our long-range columns?”

  “The effect of your dashing and somewhat poetical symbols, Salvador. This threat to Twentieth Cavalry’s right — if it has a right — is merely sixty thousand liters of petrol being guarded by the force which should be the threat.”

  “We’ve got them this time.”

  “Whatever we have can’t escape as an organized body. But it has cost all our first-line troops just to put into action Colonel Chaves and a small fast column of all arms. I hope to God it’s worth it. Meanwhile there’s little to stop the enemy attacking Advanced Headquarters if he wants to.”

  “He’d be lucky to get away with so much as his pants.”

  “He would. But in exchange for them, he’d have impressed it on us again that we had better be strong everywhere, or else.”

  The map? The map ignored the existence of man until one put down on it a tiny concentration of men and vehicles. A soldier’s nightmare. You couldn’t be ingenious with geography. There wasn’t any until a track, a bridge, a focus for thought was made.

  For six hours between eleven and five all initiative died. A man would fight to save his life or if the enemy were visible and approachable. Otherwise the objectlessness of any movement in the humid heat made too overwhelming an impression. The distance of the plains shimmered under the fireball of the sun, measureless, yet with indistinct horizontal lines which suggested limits; they might be a palm wood at five miles or a belt of high grass at one. Cattle might be jeeps or trucks or Avellana’s horsemen. The silence of the heat was absolute except by the rivers, the streams, the patches of drying marsh. There the racket and the weaving clouds of egret and flamingo maddened ear and eye to such a point of enervation that the unit commander looking for a crossing of what hadn’t been there when the map was made and probably wouldn’t be there the year after next waved his arms before his face as if trying to curse away some new exasperation of insects.

  Miro himself had come up nearly to the borders of Los Venados with a small, very powerful armored patrol. Advanced HQ was a hundred miles to the south. Far beyond that was Hermosillo, itself two hundred miles from San Vicente. The material effort necessary to support himself and Chaves out in the green desert was immense, and still there had been no sign of the enemy but dead horses and an abandoned gun. Yet the information received through Vidal’s sources of intelligence and dubiously confirmed by the hopelessly amateur air reconnaissance suggested that at last there was something of importance at which to strike. Avellana seemed to be forming a permanent camp beyond the reach of Fifth Division, and had every right to think it beyond their reach.

  “The bridging convoy has passed Q4, my General, and should be up in an hour. Vidal’s American is driving up with them,” added Salvador.

  “What sort of man is he?”

  “When I met him it was not a moment when I liked anybody very much.”

  “How did Juan treat him?”

  “Romantic Latin America.”

  “He fell for it?”

  “He took it as it came — as a pleasant interlude. I got the impression that he was weighing us all up and only one thing counted.”

  “What?”

  “His own country.”

  “Well, of course.”

  “But he doesn’t look like it.”

  “So much the better for his country.”

  “But, my General, they insist on thinking that what is best for them must be best for us.”

  “So it is — for the moment.”

  Miro opened his private file and reread the President’s letter. It was typically indefinite, reflecting not distrust but indecision. The last paragraph at any rate was clear:

  Don Andrés MacKinlay is anxious to hear your exact needs from your own lips and I am very ready that he should so long as you understand — and you do, my dear Miro — that it may be politically unwise to supply them openly. In his capacity as a war correspondent you may trust him. What he writes for public consumption is not, however, of the first importance. It is his personal report to his employers which could in certain circumstances be decisive for us all.

  “Salvador, do you suppose that gentlemen of the C.I.A. do or do not approve of wine with their meals?”

  “Does he belong to Operations Branch or Intelligence?”

  “I have no idea whether they follow General Staff organization or not. Why?”

  “Operations are inclined to think that the demon rum detracts from efficiency. Intelligence, however, have to be quick off the mark. I suggest, my General, that we do not appear too Spartan. The last of the white Chilean is on the ice, and if we sit on the ground there is some shade under the canes along the river.”

  “Lay it on with the mess, then, Salvador. He shall interview me after lunch and not before.”

  Andrew MacKinlay turned out to be the easiest of social creatures, and his slightly puzzled, boyish look was certainly disarming. One could not say it was put on; he eagerly wished to understand. But Miro’s long experience of picking men made him sensitive to another quality: a fierce integrity. A ruthlessness, if one liked to call it so. To deflect him from his purpose once he had made up his mind would be a stern task. Whichever he actually was, the Lord meant this man for Operations rather than Intelligence. Miro was very glad that he had chosen to meet MacKinlay over a cordial picnic before committing himself to cross-examination.

  After lunch Miro took him over to the lean-to shelter, double-thatched with reed, outside his command vehicle, and settled him in a camp chair with coffee and a cigar.

  “Now, Don Andrés, I am at your complete disposition. President Vidal tells me I need have no secrets from you. But as I am not quite sure what it is you want from me that you cannot get from him perhaps we had better start by formal question and answer.”

  “What I cannot get from him . . .” Andrew MacKinlay repeated. “Well, there’s plenty, Captain General. A personal question to start with, if I may put it?”

  Miro smiled his acceptance.

  “I am told by everyone who knows you that your stand in favor of constitutional action is just as simple and honest as it appears. You are a soldier and therefore you obey. Is there any more to it than that?”

  “I have no ambition,” said Miro shortly.

  “That wasn’t what I meant. Let me put it another way. If President Vidal had been an able, cruel crook like that Dictator Orduñez fifty years ago, you wouldn’t have supported him. So obviously it isn’t wholly a question of obedience. Am I clear?”

  “Yes. Well, I can answer that without lecturing you on the virtues of Vidalismo,” Miro replied with more geniality than he felt. “Here is an example. After the Battle of Cruzada an inordinate amount of my time was taken up by the accountants of the Ministry of Defense. They had no trouble in transferring captured material to Fifth Division’s establishment. But what about material destroyed? How do you put a civil war through the books? Don Andrés, I’ll be lucky if my pay is not surcharged with the replacement value of two of Third Division’s batteries. Comic! But it means that a financial undersecretary in Guayanas is as much of a pest as in any other civilized country.

  “That is Vidalismo. He has built well. I may not always agree with the social policy of the regime, but it has never done anything to justify disloyalty.”

  “What about corruption?”

  “We have made great progress there too,” Miro answered drily, “from our own standard to a clean, efficient North American standard.”

  He was delighted to watch that shot boring through the armor plate of the pleasant, modest manner. Evidently MacKinlay was unused to irony. God only knew what he was up to with his line of questioning — presumably satisfying himself that Fifth Division and its commander were not likely to cha
nge sides.

  “Captain General, I want to be able to defend you against all attacks. Avellana has played up the disaster in the Quebradas Pass very successfully. What have you to say about it?”

  “Cavalrymen are inexperienced at running railways, Don Andrés. And in war one always has astonishing strokes of luck — of bad luck as well.”

  The frank, blue eyes in the face of command and the brown eyes of untroubled innocence met each other without comment in complete understanding.

  “And the other atrocity story of the Escala de los Ingleses?”

  “It’s a damned lie which wouldn’t take in anybody except some sanctimonious schoolteacher who wanted to believe it!” said Miro hotly. “It’s a foul trick to attack my officers who can’t be expected to have grown the thick skins of generals and politicians. I’m not going to give you any handout at all. I shall introduce you to Basilio Ferrer and let you form your own judgment. He’s a shy, strange man, so you may not get all the story. But if after meeting him you can imagine him deliberately chasing unarmed men with tanks you have a better imagination than I.”

  “I see why the Division likes to serve under you, my General.”

  “Do you? Out here? Well, it’s more than I do. Now it’s my turn for a question. You said you want to be able to defend me. Why?”

  “Well, that’s easy to answer. Because it is essential that the free world should see you as you are. Avellana told us that he would accept help wherever he could get it.”

  “From Russia? I don’t see how he can get more than diplomatic support. What he meant primarily was money, arms and volunteers from sister Latin-American states. You have been calling Avellana a Communist for some time now, but the Russians themselves have never claimed him. And they ought to know. When Avellana tells us that wealth does not mean happiness and that we must preserve the traditional simplicity of our life, its customs, its unique and courteous social relationships, then he is talking exactly like Dr. Salazar. When he says that the interests of the peons and workers are being sacrificed to the profits of the middle class, he is a Marxist. But very heretical. He doesn’t want to regiment agriculture to feed the industrial worker. For Avellana industry can go to the devil. He wants a contented, property-owning, self-sufficient peasantry, and only after that is he willing to take off industrially.”

  “That’s it in a nutshell, Captain General. But how much of it does he believe and how much does he want us to believe?”

  “The first duty of a commander, Don Andrés, is to understand the real political objectives of the enemy — and of his own allies.”

  “Well, ours is peace.”

  “On your own terms, yes.”

  “What other kind of peace is worth having?”

  It was MacKinlay’s ease that was so dangerous. Like that of any cultured Englishman or Frenchman, it sprang from absolute, unconscious faith in the value of his civilization and its right to dominate. An unpleasantly familiar point of view. Yet it made him much easier to deal with.

  “Don Andrés, forgive me if I am too blunt. We are both soldiers even if you hold no military rank. We think in terms of power. It is your duty to present this issue to the United States’ public as Democracy versus Communism, and it is no business of mine if you choose to see it that way yourself. The one thing you want to be sure of is that your opponent does not gain any sort of foothold in Guayanas. There is no risk of that so long as you don’t provoke it.”

  “I’d say that neither you nor President Vidal take the position seriously enough. If we supplied you with volunteers to fly your aircraft — Spanish-speaking and in your uniform — you could find and wipe out Valdés’s famous horsemen in a week.”

  “In a month. I know it. But Don Gregorio has already refused. He does not want them to be heard shooting off their mouths in Lérida and San Vicente. And even if they were discreet, the news would get out.”

  “What else do you need urgently?”

  “What you can’t give me — men.”

  “Won’t any of your prisoners come over to Vidal?”

  “Some. I can’t officer them. They are useful as drivers and labor in the back areas. But I dare not use fighting formations from Third or Fourth Divisions unless I have one of my own alongside to stiffen them. And that doesn’t help.”

  “Are you sure that you can win?”

  “Yes, in the end. But it will take longer than I thought.”

  “What would you think of free elections under United Nations supervision?”

  “When the President’s Palace was built there was not a single civilized man north of Mexico,” said Miro casually. “We are no more likely than yourselves to allow our elections to be supervised by the United Nations. I can imagine that observers from Argentina or Brazil might possibly be acceptable.”

  “I’ll remember that. It would be clear proof to the world that the people want Vidal.”

  “On the contrary, a perfectly free election would return Avellana.”

  “That just isn’t possible!” MacKinlay exclaimed. “All San Vicente is convinced Vidal would be elected!”

  “San Vicente is hypnotized by easy money — and, for the moment, by military success.”

  “But, Captain General, this is a Catholic country! How can it give a majority to Communists?”

  “I’ll give you two reasons. Poverty and curiosity.”

  “Would a coalition in the Chamber do any good?”

  “Not till we have fought it out. And that must be done. For better or worse, government must be by the people, not the armed forces.”

  “You know that Spaniard, Captain Salinas?”

  “Very well.”

  “He told me that Lincoln would have understood you. That was when he and Juan de Fonsagrada and that young A.D.C. of yours were all giving me hell at the same time.”

  Miro laughed.

  “Paco Salinas’s values are nobody else’s, Don Andrés. I don’t share Lincoln’s opinion of democracy. If you have to force a nineteenth-century people into twentieth-century economics, you mustn’t stop to ask them if they like it. Don Gregorio has put up as good a facade as he dared. So, I think, would Avellana. We’re not so horrified by nationalization of land as you seem to be.”

  “I can see we’ll never agree there, Captain General. And don’t think I’m blindly prejudiced. I started off by believing that you and Vidal had bought whatever was coming to you. Your father-in-law switched my opinion right round. I’ve always wondered why he did, since he supports Avellana.”

  “His friendship for me and his great love of his daughter may have counted. But Juan’s policies are beyond us all.”

  “They say he is providing drugs and medical supplies to the Avellanistas, but I don’t see how he gets them there.”

  “His trucks have so far managed to avoid my patrols. Wounds rot up here. Have you ever watched gangrene run through a field hospital?”

  “No, thank God!”

  “Well, I have. And I wouldn’t wish it on even Pedro Valdés.”

  “But his trucks might be carrying anything.”

  “I have Juan’s word of honor, Don Andrés.”

  He noticed that the American looked doubtful. Well, after all, he only knew Juan as a politician.

  “They couldn’t slip something over on him?”

  “Avellana wouldn’t try once Juan had given his word. Valdés might. But Juan’s people would find him out at once and report it. How are you getting back?”

  “Drive. Time’s short, and I’m not going in convoy this time.”

  “Very well. You’ll be perfectly safe as far as Advanced Headquarters. When you get there, ask Colonel Nicuesa to provide you with an escort on to Hermosillo.”

  “Hermosillo? So far behind the lines?” MacKinlay asked in surprise.

  “There are no lines. Valdés can raid north and even south of Hermosillo if he wants to. If he chooses to play Lawrence of Arabia with the railway I don’t much care. He can’t interrupt the road traffic wi
thout being shot to pieces. Oh, and I will send a signal to Basilio Ferrer. He’s at Hermosillo in person, and here and everywhere” — Miro waved a hand to the steel bridge which had just been dropped into position — “in action.”

  The force crossed. MacKinlay’s car and the empty trucks headed back to Advanced Headquarters, forming a second ribbon of raw sienna alongside the former track, which was beginning to wear. Over the river, rolling across the grass to the northeast, was the half-moon of jeeps and troop carriers, followed by a battery of self-propelled 88-mm. guns and a troop of the invaluable Saracens.

  His preferred war of movement, Miro thought ironically, but nightmare movement. He had all the transport, material and ammunition that the distances allowed him to use, and no men. He was employing the armor for static defense. All wrong, but extremely economical. That released a force of six thousand men for active operations. Pedro Valdés had more than four times that number, but most of them were poor devils on half-starved horses, doomed if they attempted a concentration of any size and able to vanish into the landscape only so long as they were too few to do any damage.

  The easy advance continued till five in the evening, when the forward patrols brought back bad news. Where there should have been a mere stream — and that suspected rather than sure — a long belt of marsh cut off Miro’s column from the position he wanted it to be in, when Chaves struck from the blue at that mysterious camp of Avellanistas. To go round to the east might compromise the whole operation; they would be too close to the enemy, and sound carried far in the stillness of the evening. To the west, across a chain of shallow lagoons, there was certainly a passage to be found — but not in the hour of daylight which remained.

  A disappointment. Yet it could have been worse, for the marsh also confined the enemy’s escape route to a much narrower belt of country than would otherwise have been open. Miro decided to stay where he was and deploy the guns and the Saracens under cover of a belt of palms. Whatever got away from Chaves was bound to come under fire, and with luck the range would be close.