Jack Ludlow: A Broken Land

‘Revolution!’ she hissed.

‘I need to see what is going on, to find out if any of those I am responsible for are in danger.’

All he got in reply was a clenched fist, furiously shaken, which made her breasts bounce as well, rendering slightly absurd what she said. ‘We must fight.’

‘Not like that,’ Cal replied, already in the act of putting on a shirt. He picked up the dress she had worn the night before and threw it to her. ‘Not unless you’re planning to shag them into surrender.’

Catching the dress, Florencia’s face showed deep confusion, which Cal knew had nothing to do with his words, one of which she probably had not fully understood. Normally keen to expand her English, especially slang, she was too preoccupied now for such trifles. This was an occasion for which she had been waiting all her adult life and now it had come she had only a red silk dress he had bought her, suitable for the expensive restaurant in which they had dined the night before, but hardly fitting to either support or put down an armed uprising.

‘Give me a shirt and some trousers.’

‘What?’

The red dress was cast aside and he was spat at. ‘I cannot take part in our revolution in this.’

‘Florencia, it is the generals who have revolted, not the workers.’

‘You’re sure?’ she demanded, not without a degree of suspicion, evident in her narrowed dark-brown eyes.

Having kept from her both the contents of Peter Lanchester’s telegram, and his prior warning, Cal was slightly embarrassed. ‘Switch on the radio and see if there’s any news.’

All that was playing on the local station was soothing music, yet oddly, for such a fiery woman, it seemed to calm her down, so that the repeated request was softly spoken. ‘A shirt, please, Cal; I cannot go out into the streets to defend the city in a red silk dress.’

Already wearing the only grey shirt he possessed, the one he threw her was blue, striped and collarless, and the trousers that followed were beige, lightweight, linen and miles too big. It was an attribute to her innate sense of style that by the time she was dressed, shirt over the now rolled-up trousers, the whole fastened at the waist by a leather belt, the only thing which looked incongruous was her shoes. He had on a leather blouson she had helped him buy in a street market and they tussled over the beret that went with it. She won, leaving Cal with his fedora.

The last thing gathered was a wad of pesetas, part of Monty Redfern’s contribution to the overheads, which he carried around as mad money in case the people he was funding needed anything — the unspent rest was in his money belt in the Ritz Hotel safe, a sum he kept separate from his own money. Not a man too struck by conscience, Cal was nevertheless disinclined to put the cost of his personal pleasure at the door of such a good friend, like wining and dining a beautiful woman or overstaying his time in Barcelona in a luxury hotel. The wad he stuffed into the inside pocket of his blouson, adding his own wallet.

‘You have to come with me, Florencia. I have to see what I can do for the athletes and I might struggle to get to them.’

He nearly laughed at the reply, it being so serious in its delivery. ‘It is my duty to come with you, querido . The organising committee of the Olympiad would never forgive me if I did not help you.’

Anxious groups of people, mostly Spanish and all upper-middle class, filled the lobby, probably wondering if coming on holiday or on business to the Catalan capital, at this particular time of year, had been a good idea, with the concomitant problem of how they were now going to get home.

The last place to be when the boulevard outside was full of angry workers and bullets were flying was in a hotel like the Ritz; the top hostelry in the city, it screamed luxury, and it was telling that the liveried doorman had taken refuge inside the glass doors, abandoning his customary exterior post. Cal and Florencia pushed past, getting from him, as well as the nearby concierge, a look of disdain at their clothing.

Out of the hotel and in amongst the crowds it was not only hard going, it was also impossible to get any clear news of what was happening; Florencia translated every rumour imparted to her, not one of which bore any relation to those that had gone before. Then there was the incongruity of the loudspeakers, attached to the trees that shaded the wide avenues, playing that same utterly inappropriate light music they had heard in the room.

That was backed up by the sound of shouted slogans and the singing of revolutionary songs that required no translation, creating an almost carnival atmosphere, though added to that was the sound of breaking glass as shop windows were smashed by the less politically committed who took advantage of the mayhem to loot.

Every worker in Barcelona, as well as their wives, girlfriends and daughters, seemed to be on the streets, and the way some of the well-dressed people were being harangued and harassed made Cal Jardine glad he had dressed in his leather blouson, which even if new, was still not the garb of a wealthy man.

Some of the demonstrators were armed with rifles, but that had been the case from the day Cal arrived in a country that had seemed like a tinderbox waiting for a spark. Thanks to Florencia and her local knowledge — she was Barcelona born and bred — they could use side streets, avoiding the crowded boulevards, taking alleys and cross streets to get down to the area bordering the docks, where Vince and his party were staying.

He found his one-time sergeant outside the hostel and not alone; his boys were there too — half a dozen boxers from his gym, who still, after a couple of weeks, where they were not bright red and peeling, looked pallid and underfed in a country where everyone was deeply tanned. Vince was not; with his Italian blood he had quickly gone a deep-brown colour.

There were a number of the other athletes there too, more bronzed given they trained outdoors, about fifty in number, though they were accommodated elsewhere. He recognised swimmers and runners, a long- and a high-jumper, as well as athletes of the other field events, every one of them looking very determined. With few exceptions — a couple were from universities — they were young working-class men, many funded by their trade unions, some who had come off their own bat or through Labour Party sponsors, looking forward to an opening ceremony that was supposed to take place the next day.

As soon as he saw him, Vince detached himself and came to quietly converse, cutting out Florencia in the process, which got his back an angry glare from a woman easily rendered jealous.

‘Any idea what’s goin’ on, guv?’

‘I was hoping you would tell me.’

Though a Londoner, Vince, who spoke Italian, understood a great deal of what was being said around him in Spanish. Cal spoke some, but not enough, and that was especially true when the locals spoke quickly, as they habitually did.

‘If I’ve got it right the poxy generals have started an uprising.’

Vince being the one person he had told of the news from London, there was not much he could say. ‘I told you it was possible, I just didn’t think it would be this quick.’

‘The bastards might have waited till we had the games.’

‘I’ve never met a patient general, Vince, have you?’

‘Never met a general at all an’ I don’t want to. Like as not, I’d shoot the bastard, ’cause all they ever do is get folk like me killed.’

Jardine grinned; Vince, with a few exceptions, loathed officers, whatever their rank, though his respect for the few he admired, and Cal had been one, was total. He had been a damn good soldier, if one too often in trouble with his superiors, resulting in a seesaw as far as rank was concerned; sergeant to private and back again like a jack-in-the-box.