by John Harris
‘Get him to take you through Irving,’ Midwinter suggested. ‘Tell him you’ve heard there’s a good view. We’ll have a man on the road just outside the town. He’ll know what to do.’
They were standing among the trees outside Irving as Scheele’s motor appeared. Amaryllis was wearing a pink outfit and an enormous confection of pink flowers, feathers, fruit and ribbons on her head. Scheele’s vehicle was a Model T Ford and it was vibrating heavily.
‘Poor Amaryllis,’ Slattery grinned. ‘What she’s done for England!’
Parked by the roadside was a big Dodge and, beside it, smoking a cigarette, was a man with a large moustache, a cream homburg, a red tie and a carnation. As the Ford approached, they saw Amaryllis lean forward to study him then, as she sailed past, she turned suddenly and slammed her umbrella down over Scheele’s head. His boater was crushed and, as the car swerved and came to a stop in the middle of the road, she started screaming and waving her arms. Scheele, the pink ribbon of his hat round his neck, was screaming back at her.
‘Liebchen! Meine liebe Freund! What is the matter?’
Amaryllis was shrieking wildly. ‘I’m going to report it! I’m going to report it to the police!’
The man by the parked Dodge stepped forward. ‘I am the police, Miss,’ he said. ‘Can I help?’
Amaryllis dabbed a handkerchief to her eyes and set up a wail. ‘This man is trying to seduce me,’ she howled.
The man in the homburg was alongside the Ford now. ‘That sort of thing’s against the law, Miss,’ he said. ‘I’d better run him in.’ He turned to the bewildered Scheele. ‘I’m going to arrest you, bud, on the grounds this young lady’s just reported.’
‘But this iss ridiculous,’ Scheele yelled. ‘This lady iss my friend!’
The man in the homburg produced a notebook. ‘You got anything to say, bud?’
‘Iss a misunderstandink. A dreadful mistake.’
As they were arguing, another car appeared, driven by a man in a brown derby, who announced that he was also a policeman.
‘Right,’ the man in the homburg said. ‘Just keep an eye on this guy. I’m going to take him in for assaulting this young lady. Park your flivver and ride shotgun.’
A week later Midwinter announced that Scheele had disappeared.
‘Atty says he’s turned up in Mexico City,’ Slattery reported. ‘He’s waiting for the first conflagration.’
For her services to the war effort, Slattery dined Amaryllis in the best restaurant in New York. ‘We’ll also buy you a new umbrella,’ he promised.
‘Don’t bother,’ she smiled. ‘I shall have it photographed and use it when I write my memoirs.’
He studied her affectionately. There was something about her. Courage. Intelligence. A brazen style of humour. She would always attract him by her common sense and her love of life. Was it always going to be like this? Suddenly he realised he was growing too old for promiscuity. He needed to settle down.
‘Marry me, Amaryllis.’
She looked up startled, then she laughed. ‘The answer’s no, of course, old Paddy, because you’d never have asked me if Magdalena hadn’t chucked you. Besides, there’s another thing. Reah’s promoted to Washington. So I’m going to marry him. I decided it was time to settle down, too, before what I get up to begins to show in my face, as it’s bound to eventually. I’ve been wondering for a long time how to break it to you.’
Slattery stared at her in amazement. ‘Good God, Amaryllis,’ he said, ‘I’m startled! But pleased for you. Reah’s not a bad chap.’
She shrugged. ‘He’s got a lot of money and I need a lot of money. But I’ll try to be faithful, because Reah’s rather a nice man and he talks of children. Of course, if I have sons and someone tells them their mother was a whore, that’s something they’ll have to put up with, because I’ve certainly been no prude. But if anyone dares to call them little bastards, even if only in fun, they’ll have to answer to me because that’s one thing they won’t be. Lady Reah, though! Can you imagine it, old Paddy? It ought to sell a lot of books.’
Slattery laughed out loud. Conscienceless and brisk, she was telling him it was over between them for good. She had finished with the old life and put on the new in her usual breezy fashion, and he had a suspicion that Lord Reah was getting better than he deserved. It would be God help him if he strayed, because if Amaryllis gave her mind to it, she would be the most straitlaced woman in Europe.
She was watching him intently. ‘You should go back to Magdalena,’ she said quietly. ‘She’s what you need and she’s going to need you eventually.’
He made no comment and she went on earnestly. ‘I went to see her the other night. She was good.’
‘Better than that, I think.’
‘The audience was certainly with her. It’s a gift she has. I went backstage. I told her I hoped the show would continue to be a success. On the other hand–’
‘On the other hand, what?’
She kissed his cheek. ‘Do you see a lot of musicals, Paddy?’
‘Not as many as you, I imagine.’
‘Exactly. Well, she’s good, Paddy. But she’s not good enough. I’ve seen many shows and I’ve met many singers. Patti. Melba. Caruso. I’ve talked to them, written about them. She’s not got what they’ve got. She’s beautiful and talented and captures the audience. But something’s missing, old Paddy. That lot are selfish and self-centred and as tough as Old Nick’s nag nails. She isn’t, and she’ll break her heart first.’
Part Five
One
Slattery had still continued to half-hope to hear from Magdalena, but she had made no move, and two days later he bumped into Jesús on Broadway. He had grown tall and handsome and was feeling pleased with himself.
‘I am now part of Doña Magdalena’s family,’ he said. ‘I have her name. It’s all official. I think eventually I shall go into the theatre, too. I don’t fancy the stage, but in California they are making moving pictures and want young men–’
‘Jesús’ – Slattery stopped him dead – ‘how is it with Doña Magdalena?’
Jesús pulled a face. ‘I have tried to talk to her about you, sir. I think something dreadful has happened. There was a time when I thought – when I hoped–’
Slattery put a hand on the boy’s shoulder. ‘There was a time when I hoped, too, Jesús.’
The following morning New Yorkers woke to a new scandal as they learned the contents of the briefcase Midwinter had picked up on the Elevated. The government had rejected the papers on the grounds that the plots were little more than fantasy, but the New York World had seized on them with glee. It was only a small victory, but it made the Germans look ridiculous and was something to chalk up against Berlin, and Horrocks was just wondering how they might celebrate when Midwinter arrived.
‘The goddam government’s gone crazy,’ he exploded as he threw down his hat. ‘It’s switched its policy! I’ve just heard! They’ve decided to recognise Carranza as President of Mexico!’
They stared at him, shocked. The White House had been saying for weeks that it was impossible to deal with the vain, obstreperous and hostile Carranza. Now they were throwing all their weight behind him and, with Carranza secure and known to be under the influence of the Germans, there were unlimited opportunities for trouble.
‘For God’s sake,’ Horrocks snapped at Slattery in a fury of frustration. ‘Get down to Mexico City! I don’t know what the hell you’re doing up here, anyway! You should be looking after the shop!’
Arriving in Mexico City in a rush, Slattery found Atty running the office remarkably efficiently and well established with Pilar, the housekeeper, in the servants’ quarters of Magdalena’s house. He disturbed him more than a little with the information that when Magdalena took up residence once more he would probably be considered persona non grata.
‘You mean, you blew it?’ Atty said.
He had news. One more of their enemies had vanished from the scene. Orozco had been shot dead
by a sheriff’s posse in Texas. But Turner, the printer, was in an agitated state again. Since Villa had pitched headlong to defeat and Wilson had reversed his policy to back Don Venus, he was expecting Carranza to return to the capital and declare all the money he had printed as valueless and refuse to pay for it.
‘This is no way to earn a living,’ he complained. ‘Villa was only a blown-up bandit, anyway.’
Blown-up or not, there was still plenty of spite left in him and Slattery heard he’d been seen heading north for a final showdown. He had trapped a Carrancista general at Agua Prieta on the border and was reported to be crossing the Sierra Madre towards him. Because of snow, most of his army couldn’t keep up, but reports indicated that he was still powerful enough with a little luck to win an unexpected victory and re-establish himself in the north.
‘I’ve heard different,’ Atty said. ‘He’s lost Fierro. Got hisself drowned in the Laguna de Guzmán. He was wearing a money-belt loaded with gold and his horse fell. But Villa’s still dancing up and down the border like a terrier looking for someone to bite. Fausto Graf’s behind him, telling him his only hope now is to force an American invasion that would rally the Mexes behind him again.’
‘Where did you get all this?’
‘A cousin of Pilar’s. Villa still wants to sweep old Don Venus under the carpet and this is the way he thinks he’ll do it. And that suits Unser Fausto fine. I heard he was up near Agua Prieta, too. I reckon we ought to go and see what’s happening.’
By the time they reached Nogales, Villa had emerged from the mountains. His march had been brutal and he had only a scarecrow band to push across the desert, but refugees were already arriving in the town which still contained remnants of the Spanish families he had driven north in 1913, all praying for his defeat and final descent into hell.
They had put the Studebaker on a flat car at El Paso but it had refused to start and they were still trying to acquire horses when the news came in of Villa’s final defeat. He had done all he could to avoid annoying the Americans and had even lined up his artillery so that the ‘overs’ wouldn’t fall across the border; but, throwing everything behind his new friend, President Wilson had permitted Carranza’s reinforcements to be transported by train across American soil north of the Rio Grande, and in a desperate night attack, the Villistas had found themselves suddenly illuminated by searchlights which had showed them up starkly against electrified barbed wire entanglements for the massed machine guns and artillery to slaughter. The retreat had become a rout and eventually a ghastly ghost march through the clouds back over the mountains.
There were no slopes in the world more naked than the Sonora sierras. Even in summer they were foodless, waterless and often without a blade of grass and, with the snow covering every pass, the retreat was a nightmare for the ill-clad, blinded, exhausted men. Toiling horses had sunk exhausted and starving men had stripped their bones for food and used their hides as a bloody covering for their shivering bodies. The only discipline left in the ragged army was among the Dorados.
Slattery saw them emerge, men with the staring fish eyes of the exhausted, stubbly faces blackened with frostbite, eye sockets rimmed with gun grease against snow blindness, their feet, encased in rags, shuffling in mechanical rhythm. He was standing by the trail as they passed and Villa rode past him, unseeing, his face blank, his features bleak and hard as iron.
Villa was finished and he had now vanished again with the few survivors, his force annihilated, the garrisons of his once powerful strongholds crumbling, his generals seeking surrender terms, Villa himself swearing revenge on the gringos who had caused his defeat.
The reporters, hard-faced men who had seen every kind of villainy in Mexico, were stunned less by the finality of the defeat than by their own country’s treachery.
‘They say American soldiers were working those searchlights,’ they told Slattery.
The situation in Mexico remained chaotic, with armies moving like mass migrations. Their leaders had failed to see Carranza with his long white beard as the guardian of their heaven, and his rallying calls were being ignored. Though Villa’s defeat had left him safe, his power was already draining away.
The German-owned newspapers that came down from New York were still full of Magdalena, and there were pictures of her visiting interned German sailors in hospitals, talking to reporters, sitting on the Hudson ferry showing far more leg than Slattery imagined she would like. In all of them she was not referred to as Mexican or American but always as German. Fausto Graf’s friends had been very busy.
Christmas came and went and the signs once again seemed to be that America was edging towards war with Germany. Then, just after the New Year, news came in that a band of Villistas had waylaid a train at Santa Ysabel in the State of Chihuahua and, lining up seventeen American mining engineers who happened to be aboard, had stripped and shot them.
The roar of fury that went up across the border could be heard even in Mexico City and once more Mexicans looked nervously at each other as the bogey of invasion reappeared. Inevitably a telegram arrived from Horrocks for Slattery.
‘Meet me El Paso. Canadian among dead. British businesses along border demand representation.’
Two
The citizens of El Paso were looking for Mexicans with guns in their fists and hatred in their eyes. There had already been lynchings and the Mexican residents were cowering in their homes. The family of the murdered Canadian had arrived to collect his body and were furiously demanding revenge.
Horrocks, who had arrived from New York, was in a towering rage. ‘The bloody town’s been put under martial law,’ he snapped, ‘and there’s a volunteer posse a thousand strong threatening to rush the border and take it out in Ciudad Juárez. You know what the Texans are like. They’re going on about murder and pillage and American women being outraged about fates worse than death and the sacred honour of the State. Their congressmen and senators are all blowing the “Charge”. German agents are behind it, of course.’
‘And Wilson?’
‘Still saying he won’t go to war with Mexico. Let’s hope he continues, because that’s just what Germany wants.’
As Horrocks vanished north again, Slattery stared at Atty. ‘Where’s Villa?’ he asked.
‘He was at Parral.’
‘How do you know?’
‘Pilar has a brother there. He says Santa Ysabel was nothing to do with him, but he’s spoiling for a fight after that business with the searchlights. There are Germans with him and Pilar’s brother says he has his eye on an American border station.’
‘He must be mad.’
‘Not if he catches ’em when they’re looking the other way. Pilar’s brother said he left two days ago and headed up the main railway line towards El Paso.’
‘He’d never attack El Paso.’
Nobody was talking but it was obvious something was in the wind. That evening Atty reappeared, a little drunk, to confirm what he’d said. ‘Pilar’s brother says I’m right,’ he pointed out. ‘A feller he knows called Favela and several others bumped into a gang of Villistas and the Villistas hanged one of ’em and shot two. Favela got away and managed to follow ’em and he saw ’em heading towards Columbus.’
Columbus was a small straggling place seared by the sun and in danger of being buried by drifting sand. It had neither electricity nor telephone and was entirely dependent on the telegraph and the railroad. They arrived at midnight, just as a train pulled in filled with half-drunken soldiers returning from leave among the delights of El Paso.
‘Some guys have got the German bogey on the brain,’ a burly top sergeant told them. ‘This is a quiet stretch and has been for the last five years.’
Nobody had ever heard of Fausto Graf and, tired and dispirited, for a while they sat in the hired car, smoking.
‘Fancy a beer?’ Atty said.
He fished among the luggage and produced two bottles. ‘Cold,’ he said. ‘I bought ’em in El Paso and shoved some ice in with �
��em.’
They sat on the board walk, dusty and exhausted, with thirsts like camels. Not far away, in the dim light of the guardroom of the American base, they could see the officer of the day inspecting the guard.
‘I think we’d better knock up the hotel and find a room,’ Slattery said. ‘There’s no sign of Villa here.’
They had just lifted the bottles to their mouths when they heard the sound of horses’ hooves. They came abruptly out of the silence as though the animals had approached at a walk and been kicked from a standstill to a full gallop. As the thunder increased Atty carefully placed his bottle on the boardwalk and fished under his jacket to produce a vast revolver.
‘Boss,’ he said quietly, ‘I reckon this is Villa.’
As they started running, they heard high-pitched yells of ‘Qué viva Villa!’ and ‘Mueran los gringos!’, then round the corner and down the street from the western end of the town poured a river of horsemen in vast sombreros. A soldier shouted and there was a shot and the soldier staggered backwards.
The officer of the day appeared with a pistol in his hand. As he did so, a Mexican emerged from the shadows and fired at him. The officer’s hat flew off but he shot the Mexican and began to sprint across the parade ground to the guardhouse. Already a heavy fire was coming from the darkness, but the horsemen seemed to have vanished as quickly as they had appeared, filtering between the buildings.
Atty had found a place outside a store where barrels were stacked on the sidewalk. As they crouched down, he passed Slattery his revolver and fished out another from under his arm.
‘Where the hell do you hide them?’ Slattery asked.
‘Never without ’em. One each side. Keep me evenly balanced.’
Bullets were whacking into the woodwork of the store and they heard women screaming inside as the windows fell in. The Mexicans appeared to be everywhere and there seemed remarkably little retaliation. Somewhere in the darkness they could hear a soldier swearing and never repeating himself, as he complained that the rifles were locked up and that the officer with the key wasn’t available.
