Jack Ludlow: A Broken Land

The syringe, already loaded with morphine, went into his backside and was emptied; it was not enough to kill him, but he would not be groaning if he came round. The blanket to cover his inert body was taken from the front seat.

Driving out of Madrid on the Valencia road proved easier than driving in from Barcelona. He was leaving the front line, and anyway, the checkpoints were less scrupulous in checking on a war correspondent, while the darkness concealed the comatose Drecker. Cal had to summon up all his reserves of calmness in a situation of real peril, but he had faced death enough times to smile a lot and trade pleasantries.

To do what he wanted to do he had to get clear of Madrid, and the risk of going through checkpoints just had to be faced, but tired men on a dark night reduced the chances of discovery. It also kept them alive, given, as well as the Walther PP, he had a machine pistol on the floor by his feet with a magazine clipped in, and he was ready to use it. If it came to the crunch and he could not get clear, Drecker and he would die within seconds of each other.

Out past those checkpoints he drove through Vaciamadrid and on in darkness to the next real junction at Villarejo de Salvanes, then took a left turn, heading for where, as far as he knew, lay the Nationalist front lines.

In open country, once dawn came, he stopped, topped up the car with petrol, ate the food he had brought from the Hotel Florida, then, sure the road was empty, uncovered Drecker so he could get a gag on him before putting the blanket back on top. As soon as the local bus went past him — he waved to the passengers — he got back in and followed it.

The front, away from the actual battle zones, was fluid and, with the limited resources on both sides, it was a case of roadside pickets rather than anything solid; there was no way they could afford the men to render it anything other than porous. The small town of Belmonte de Tajo was close by, and with his press credentials and less-than-perfect Spanish, he was taken for what he was, a foreign pressman in search of a background story.

In asking people how they were coping with the privations of war, he found that the actual demarcation line was no more than a kilometre down the road going west, and if those to whom he had spoken were surprised that he headed that way instead of the way he had come, well that was his business. The road he ended up on was a track, but his compass told him it was going in the right direction and a muffled groan from the rear indicated his prisoner had begun to stir. Time to talk to him.

‘My first thought was just to put a bullet in your head.’ Looking up from the floor, Drecker’s eyes showed his confusion; Cal’s voice was utterly without passion. ‘But that would not have really given justice to Florencia, which is what you are going to pay for — her life, and my unhappiness at the loss. I have to tell you also, the notion of what I am about to do was inspired by a fellow countryman of yours.’

From inside his jacket Cal produced a large envelope.

‘Inside here, in Spanish, is your name, rank and a description of your duties. I have taken your Communist Party membership card and wallet from your pocket. It also implies that you have information about the future plans of the Republican forces, which of course you do not. When they ask you for that information, you will deny that you have any and they will not believe you.’

The look had changed as had Cal’s voice. ‘They will kill you eventually, Drecker, for they are no more gentle than you have been to others, but not before they have done to you what you have inflicted on so many people, and when you are screaming in pain, I want you to think of this.’

Cal took the photograph of Florencia out of his pocket and held it before the terrified German’s eyes. ‘There’s an expression we British use, it’s called “poetic justice”.’

He had to get off the track into the fields; there would be a Republican outpost somewhere and it was pure luck as he drove that he saw the two men that manned the gimcrack blockhouse waving to him to stop, while not far from where they were based stood the Nationalist equivalent, in this case a not very high watchtower.

Given they were defending the line, they were more proactive; whoever manned it loosed off a couple of shots at his car, more as a warning than an attempt to kill him. As soon as he was level with the watchtower he stopped, placed the things he needed as signs, got out and ducked behind the car, opening the back door.

‘Goodbye, Drecker, enjoy your visit to the other half of Spain.’

Keeping the car between him and the Nationalists, he headed away, and sure he was beyond range, turned to regain the Republican area, coming round to the little blockhouse in a wide arc with fulsome apologies for being a stupid foreigner. He was with the two militiamen when the Nationalists finally and gingerly approached the abandoned car.

What they saw first was what Cal had left on top of the dashboard: a black cap, with a very prominent red star facing right forward, and standing beside that a card, bearing the crest of the Partido Comunista de Espana .

It was not long before one of them was running back to the watchtower, where there had to be a field telephone. Eventually one of them tried the engine, and when it fired it was driven well into the Nationalist zone. With many gestures that there was nothing they could do, the two Republican militiamen watched as the owner of the lost car, having accepted what had happened, began to walk back to the town, only using the finger to the finger-to-the-head gesture that he was mad when his back was to them.

From then on it was buses back to Madrid, where he met Tyler Alverson in the bar of the Hotel Florida and, to the sound of shelling and the rattle of gunfire, he told him the story he so badly wanted to hear.

‘What now, brother?’

‘Home.’