Eldorado Network

by Derek Robinson

  When he got back, three days later, he had seen so many corpses that death was as familiar as daylight.

  He found the correspondents in the hotel bar. They were delighted to see him because there was a powerful rumor that a small harmless Basque town had been knocked to bits by bombers, and for some reason there was a most satisfactory international uproar.

  “It’s nowhere special,” Townsend said. “Just some half-assed little dump.”

  “The story is true,” Luis announced, “I myself was there only yesterday. Much destruction, many dead.”

  “Who done it?” Barker asked.

  “Oh, the bombers of the Legion Condor, without doubt. There are many witnesses.”

  “Right! That’s what we heard.”

  Townsend clinked the ice in his glass. “Any idea why the krauts picked this particular place?”

  “For the arms factory, presumably.”

  “Arms factory!” Dru rubbed his hands. “It’s a goddam munitions dump! What did I tell you? Did they hit it?”

  “No. Every day for four days the Legion Condor bombed the town but every day it missed the arms factory.”

  “Pity,” muttered Dru.

  “On the third day they machine-gunned two nuns,” Luis offered. “And on the fourth day several horses—”

  “Wait a minute, wait a minute,” Townsend interrupted. “The way I heard it, they only bombed this place but the once.” He spread a map on the bar, “We ought to get up there now and check it out. See, it’s not all that far and—”

  “Pardon,” Luis announced firmly. “That is the wrong town.”

  “Guernica,” Townsend said.

  “No! Durango.” Luis tapped another town, fifteen miles to the south of Guernica. “Durango has been bombed. Not Guernica. Durango.” He smiled reassuringly.

  “When?” asked Barker.

  Luis shrugged. “A week ago, two weeks.”

  “Sorry, Luis. Guernica just got it.” Dru told him. “The dust hasn’t settled, and already Berlin denies that the Condor Legion had anything to do with it, so it must be good and juicy.”

  “Oh.” Luis felt defeated. “So you are not interested in Durango?”

  “It’s not Guernica,” Townsend pointed out.

  “It’s just as big,” Luis said, “and Durango got bombed four times. Two hundred civilians killed.”

  “Forget it, Luis,” Dru told him amiably. “Right now it’s Guernica or nothing. Durango’s dead.”

  “Well,” Luis said, “I can’t argue with that.”

  Chapter 8

  From a nearby hillside, Guernica did not look as if it had been bombed. It looked as if someone had just decided to build a ten-lane highway across Spain, and Guernica was where they had begun. A broad strip of demolition trampled through the town, its edges as ragged as torn newspaper. The savaging of Guernica looked (from a distance) less like a military assault than a bureaucratic blunder.

  The correspondents got back in the car and Luis drove them down the hill.

  A close sight of the havoc was not much more harrowing than the distant view. But what took the correspondents by surprise was the smell. The harsh fumes of explosives and incendiaries mingled with the sad aromas of a hundred fires—charred mattresses, scorched paintwork, burned clothing, ruined food—to form a miserable, inescapable stench which made the sunshine seem stupid.

  “God damn it,” Townsend said, sniffing. “Someone forgot to empty the ashtrays.”

  Nobody laughed. Even Luis wished that Townsend had not spoken.

  They split up and went off to make separate inspections of the town. The Nationalist forces had occupied it but Luis knew better than to waste time asking questions of Mola’s men. Instead he found the priest.

  This was a short and stocky man, aged about fifty, whose face was rigid with a determination not to reveal the shock which still flickered behind his eyes. He was in the crypt underneath his gutted church; it was being used as an emergency mortuary. His parishioners lay all around him in ragged rows.

  Yes, he told Luis, he had seen the bombing. He had seen the airplanes.

  What sort of planes?

  German, of course. The markings on the wings had been unmistakable. One flew so low that he had taken a photograph of it.

  Were people expecting the raid?

  The priest shrugged. The town was full of soldiers. They had fallen back from Durango. Everyone knew what had happened there …

  But was there anything worth destroying in Guernica?

  Obviously there was the arms factory, the Astra-Unceta arms factory. Think of all the pistols and rifles and machine-guns made there!

  And did the bombers damage this factory?

  No. Anyone can go and see. The buildings are intact.

  How many soldiers were killed?

  Not many. The soldiers knew about bombing. But the refugees …

  There were many refugees in Guernica?

  Thousands.

  Where are they now?

  Look around you.

  Luis talked to more townspeople as he picked his way between the craters and the collapsed buildings: a barman, a nurse, a garage mechanic. By the time he got back to the car he had a clear picture of what had happened to Guernica.

  The correspondents were sitting under a tree, drinking wine mixed with lemonade.

  “Don’t tell me,” Dru said to Luis. “The Stukas did it. Right? The krauts flattened Guernica with their Stukas as a coldblooded experiment in divebombing, period. Am I right?”

  “How did you know that?” Luis made himself comfortable on the ground.

  “Bilbao Radio’s been yelling and screaming all morning, and Franco’s people monitor the bulletins. I just got a full briefing from them, and I’ll tell you something else: Guernica never saw a Stuka in its life!” Dru pulled out a magazine and displayed its cover: a picture of a Stuka, gull-winged and wheel-spatted, tipping sideways into a dive. “I must’ve shown this to fifty people today. Not one of them recognized it. Not one.”

  “Proves nothing.” Townsend yawned and stretched. “You’re getting the shit bombed out of you, you don’t hang around and rubberneck.”

  “Could it perhaps have been a different type of German bomber?” Luis suggested.

  “No,” Dru said firmly, “but it could have been a different kind of Republican bomber. The two-legged kind.”

  “My God, Jean-Pierre,” Barker said, “when you’re smug you’re intolerable.”

  “The Republican army dynamited Guernica and set it on fire when they retreated through it,” Dru declared. “Then they turned round and blamed everything on the mythical Stukas. Simple as that.” Dru’s hands depressed an imaginary plunger. “Ba-room! Guernica’s a great big propaganda news swindle, and I’m gonna blow the racket sky-high.”

  “I expect it was done by the miners of Asturia,” Luis said.

  “You see?” Dru turned to Barker and Townsend in triumph. “Luis knows all about it. How d’you spell that name, Luis? As-what?”

  Luis told him. “It is a big mining area. Very tough. The miners are expert with dynamite. The Republican army is full of them. They fight with dynamite.”

  “You’re a genius,” Dru said. “He’s a genius,” he told the others.

  “Get that in writing,” Townsend advised Luis.

  “Okay, okay.” Dru lay back and relaxed. “You make the wisecracks and I’ll make the news, and we’ll see who makes more money.”

  That was unanswerable, and the others sat in silence for a moment. Behind them, Guernica smoked listlessly. A distant shout was followed by a grumbling rumble as, somewhere, a ruined wall was pulled down.

  “I can’t honestly believe the Nazi air force did all this,” Barker said. “Look at the shape of the damage: it’s all too precise, too tidy. And it’s what didn’t get blown up that’s most interesting. The railway station, the bridge, the arms factory. Things that Franco’s people would prefer to capture intact … I wonder if …”

  L
uis thought hard about what Barker might be thinking.

  Townsend shaded his eyes and squinted at the ruins. “I wish to hell they’d dig out some unexploded bombs made in Düssel-dorf,” he muttered.

  “Señor Barker,” Luis remarked cautiously, “perhaps the explosions were made by men of Franco’s army, agents of Mola … Saboteurs, or …”

  “Infiltrators,” Barker said.

  It was a new word to Luis. He tried it and liked it. “Infiltrators … who made chaos …”

  “Spread panic,” Barker said. “Disrupted communications. Yes, indeed.”

  “Perhaps,” Luis went on, more confidently, “they even pretended that they were Republican soldiers with orders to … you know …”

  “Bogus miners!” Barker exclaimed. “Of course! Franco’s infiltrators pretend to be Republican soldiers, they blow up the town, then Franco simply waits for the Republicans to blame him for it, and he trots out his ready-made answer.”

  “Which is half-true,” Luis added.

  “Is it?” said Barker. “Yes, in a sense, I suppose it is.” He sighed. “Funny thing about working for newspapers: you always get two sides to every story.”

  “I covered lots of two-sided stories in Chicago,” Townsend said. “Guys found in speakeasies with a dozen bullets in the back. Turned out to be suicide. I tell you, working as a crime reporter in Chicago teaches a man humility. Also modesty and courtesy.”

  “Why is that chap so very interested in our car?” Barker asked. They suddenly became alert, and stared. A Nationalist officer was walking around the car, his hands clasped behind him, his head tipped to one side. “If he decides to requisition the bloody thing, we’re in queer street,” Barker said.

  Luis jumped up and made for the car. Halfway there, he suddenly realized why the officer was interested in the car, especially its numberplate, and his lungs jumped to a little gasp. His legs kept walking forward, but each pace felt uncertain, as if his feet suspected a hidden trapdoor ahead.

  The officer saw him coming, and straightened up. He was in his forties, broadshouldered, with serious gray eyes, a square jaw, and a forehead ribbed like corduroy. He was eating a sweet, and he held it between his front teeth for a moment while he studied Luis. He looked very calm and very fit.

  “Is something wrong with the car?” Luis asked.

  “Is it your car?”

  “No.”

  “Then why do you ask?”

  “I was requested to keep an eye on it, that’s all.”

  “Ah.” A fly buzzed annoyingly in front of the officer’s face; he caught it with one swift snatch, and held it. “And who requested you?”

  “If there is nothing wrong with the car,” Luis said, amazed at his own daring, “then it does not matter.”

  The officer slightly widened his eyes. The fly droned in his fist. “You are Luis Cabrillo,” he stated.

  “No,” Luis said. “But if you want him, I know where he is.”

  “Where is that?”

  “I shall have to show you.”

  The officer opened his fist. The fly charged away and banged into the side window of the car. It fell to the ground, buzzing weakly. The officer trod on it and followed Luis.

  They walked into Guernica. Luis had no idea where they were going except that it must be away from the correspondents, and he had to keep walking purposefully, because if the officer decided to search him and found that he really was Luis Cabrillo, they would shoot him inside ten minutes. That was how it was on both sides. Republican and Nationalist: whenever they captured a place, they always shot people. He strode on, making it seem that he knew exactly where he was going.

  Guernica was never a big town and the bombing had made it smaller. Luis soon reached the center. If he kept going they would rapidly end up in the bare countryside. He stopped at a corner and stared around, as if searching for a landmark in the ruins. The only thing he recognized was the gutted church, so that was where they went.

  The idea came to him as they were going down the steps to the crypt, and it came with such force that his head jerked and he almost stumbled. It was such an easy, obvious idea that he was ashamed for not thinking of it much earlier. He stood aside to let the officer look across the morgue. “I forgot to ask,” Luis said. “Is there a reward?”

  “Just find him,” the officer said. He looked bored and disappointed now. As they walked between the rows of bodies, he unwrapped another sweet and held it between his teeth while he balled the wrapper with his fingertips and flicked it away.

  Luis found what he was looking for at the end of the second row: the severely mutilated corpse of a slim young man. The head was in a bad way, and one arm had come off. “Voilà,” he said.

  The officer nodded gently and thought about it. “And that’s Luis Cabrillo,” he said.

  “Well, it isn’t the king of England.”

  The officer walked to the other end of the corpse and put on a pair of hornrim spectacles. “How do you know that this is he?” He took off the spectacles and waved them at the meaningless face. “In the circumstances.”

  “I recognize the hands,” Luis said. “If I am right there should be a distinctive scar just about …” He stooped, paused, looked up. “With your permission?”

  The officer nodded. Luis exposed the torso. It was a mess of dried blood and torn skin. “Never mind,” Luis said, turning his back on the officer and stooping again, “perhaps there is something in the pockets …”

  “Leave it!” the officer snapped. Luis stood back, quickly and respectfully. The officer straddled the body and searched it. In a side pocket he found a Madrid hotel bill made out in the name Luis Cabrillo. He read it, and grunted. “Fetch two soldiers. Also a stretcher. Any two soldiers,” he said as Luis opened his mouth.

  Luis shrugged and turned away. “And that is my reward,” he muttered loudly and rebelliously. He slouched out of the crypt, and sprinted all the way to the car. The correspondents were waiting. “Who was that?” Barker asked. “Just a soldier,” Luis said. “Looking for a friend.” Two hours later they were back in Burgos.

  Chapter 9

  That evening, they all went to eat in a bar-restaurant just outside the town.

  “Hey, Luis,” said Townsend, while they were waiting for their food. “Did you know that Guernica got bombed on market-day?”

  “There was no market that day,” Luis said. “The country people were afraid of an attack and so they stayed at home.”

  Townsend frowned. “For God’s sake,” Barker complained, “how many damn bodies d’you need?”

  “It’s not just a question of bodies,” Townsend snapped. “It’s a question of innocence. You know—market-day, smiling peasants streaming into town with their fresh country produce, when bang! Out of the blue, without warning, the sinister hail of death. It’s twice the story with market-day.”

  “Print it, Milt,” Dru urged. “You like it, you use it. The bigger you build up your bombing, the louder my dynamite’s going to be. Hello! What’s this?”

  A large party of young men was tramping into the restaurant from the bar. They were in civilian clothes which looked as if they had all been bought in the same department store. Many were blond; all looked fit and strong and tanned. One of them said: “Ich möchte einen grossen Wiener Schnitzel, jar?”

  “Asturian coal-miners,” Barker said.

  “Now’s your big chance, Jean-Pierre,” Townsend told Dru. “Get over there and grab yourself a few eyewitnesses.”

  Dru merely smiled.

  The young Germans settled down around a circular table. Their legs were too long and they kept scuffing and kicking each other, which led to laughter and denunciations and insults. Somebody rocked the table, somebody retaliated. Half the cutlery fell on the floor. A couple of drinks got spilled. Much laughter.

  “They’re like undergraduates on Boat-Race night,” Barker observed. “Hard to believe they …” He shrugged.

  “One of us should get up and go over and as
k them about it,” Townsend said. “I can’t go. My German is lousy and anyway I’m too hungry to move.”

  “They’d never talk to an Englishman,” said Barker.

  Dru ate some bread and looked at the flies circling the lighting fixture.

  “Would you like me to speak to them?” Luis asked.

  It had been a long day, full of travel and questions and typing and then arguments with the military censors, and now that the stories were filed everyone was weary. The German table was boisterous and already slightly drunk.

  “Don’t waste your time,” Dru said.

  “They must be from the airfield. Maybe some are pilots.”

  “You won’t get anything out of those guys, Luis.”

  That was a challenge; or perhaps Dru was afraid of what those guys might say. Luis stood up and walked over to the German table.

  He waited until the nearest man had stopped talking; bowed, smiled, and said: “Excuse me … Does one of you gentlemen speak English?”

  “English …” The man turned in his chair and looked up. His elbow was on the table, his jaw propped against his hand. He examined Luis closely. Luis was struck by the untroubled self-assurance in his clear gray eyes. The man was only a few years older than himself yet he seemed enormously more competent. He must surely be a pilot.

  The German spoke a few words in German, and all his friends laughed.

  Luis, still smiling, glanced across the table. Another German made a remark, obviously referring to Luis, and everyone laughed again. After that the comments came from all sides, until the table was rocking with laughter. Luis stood like a dummy, not smiling any more, and felt his anger building like steam in a kettle. It was not their making fun that enraged him; it was the fact that he did not understand them and they knew this and they did not give a bloody damn. Eventually one of them, bigger and more red-faced than the rest, lurched to his feet, marched up to Luis, and stamped his boots in a mock-flamenco beat. He gave Luis a patronizing pat on the cheek and shouted “Olé!” His friends roared.