Winter in Madrid Read online

  ‘Franco’s cautious,’ Harry ventured. ‘A lot of people think he could have won the Civil War earlier if he’d been bolder.’

  Jebb grunted. ‘I hope you’re right. Sir Samuel Hoare’s gone out there as ambassador to try and keep them out of the war.’

  ‘I heard.’

  ‘Their economy’s in ruins, as you say. That weakness is our trump card, because the Royal Navy can still control what goes in and out.’

  ‘The blockade.’

  ‘Fortunately the Americans aren’t challenging it. We’re letting in just enough oil to keep Spain going, a bit less actually. And they’ve had another bad harvest. They’re trying to import wheat and raise loans abroad to pay for it. Our reports say people are collapsing from hunger in the Barcelona factories.’

  ‘It sounds as bad as during the Civil War.’ Harry shook his head. ‘What they’ve been through.’

  ‘There are all sorts of rumours coming out of Spain now. Franco’s exploring any number of schemes to gain economic self-sufficiency, some of them pretty crackpot. Last year an Austrian scientist claimed to have found a way of manufacturing synthetic oil from plant extracts and got money out of him to develop it. It was all a fraud, of course.’ Jebb gave his bark of a laugh again. ‘Then they claimed to have found huge gold reserves down at Badajoz. Another mare’s nest. But now we hear they really have found gold deposits, in the sierras not far from Madrid. There’s a geologist with South African experience working for them, one Alberto Otero. And they’re keeping it quiet, which makes us more inclined to think there’s something in it. The boffins say that geologically it’s a possibility.’

  ‘And that would make Spain less dependent on us?’

  ‘They’ve no gold reserves to back the currency. Stalin made the Republic send the gold reserve to Moscow during the Civil War. And kept it, of course. That makes buying anything on the open market very difficult for them. At the moment they’re trying to get export credits from us and the Yanks.’

  ‘So if the rumours are true – they’d be less dependent on us?’

  ‘Exactly. And therefore more inclined to enter the war. Anything could tip the balance.’

  ‘We’re trying to perform a high-wire act out there,’ Miss Maxse added. ‘How much of a stick to wave, how many carrots to offer. How much wheat to allow through, how much oil.’

  Jebb nodded. ‘The point is, Brett, the man who introduced Otero to the regime was Sandy Forsyth.’

  ‘He’s in Spain?’ Harry’s eyes widened.

  ‘Yes. I don’t know if you saw the adverts in the newspapers a couple of years ago, tours of the Civil War battlefields?’

  ‘I remember. The Nationalists ran the tours for English people. A propaganda stunt.’

  ‘Somehow Forsyth got involved. Went to Spain as a tour guide. Franco’s people paid him quite well. Then he stayed on, got involved in various business schemes, some of them pretty shady I would imagine. He’s a clever businessman apparently, of the flashy sort.’ Jebb’s mouth crinkled with distaste, then he stared keenly at Harry. ‘He has some important contacts now.’

  Harry took a deep breath. ‘May I ask how you know all this?

  Jebb shrugged. ‘Sneaky beakies working out of our embassy. They pay minor functionaries for information. Madrid’s full of spies. But no one’s got near Forsyth himself. We’ve no agents in the Falange and it’s the Falangist faction in the government that Forsyth’s with. And word is he’s clever, likely to smell a rat if a stranger appeared and started asking questions.’

  ‘Yes.’ Harry nodded. ‘Sandy’s clever.’

  ‘But if you were to turn up in Madrid,’ Miss Maxse said. ‘As a translator attached to the embassy say, and run across him in a cafe? The way people do. Renew an old friendship.’

  ‘We want you to find out what he’s doing,’ Jebb said bluntly. ‘Perhaps get him on our side.’

  So that was it. They wanted him to spy on Sandy, like Mr Taylor had all those years ago at Rookwood. Harry looked out of the window at the blue sky, where the barrage balloons floated like huge grey whales.

  ‘How’d you feel about that?’ Miss Maxse’s voice was gentle.

  ‘Sandy Forsyth working with the Falange.’ Harry shook his head. ‘It’s not as if he needed to make money – his father’s a bishop.’

  ‘Sometimes it’s the excitement as much as the politics, Harry. Sometimes the two go together.’

  ‘Yes.’ He remembered Sandy coming breathless into the study from one of his forbidden betting trips, opening his hand to show a five-pound note, white and crinkled. ‘Look what I got from a nice gee-gee.’

  ‘Working with the Falange,’ Harry said reflectively. ‘I suppose he was always a black sheep, but sometimes – a man can do something against the rules and get a bad name and that can make him worse.’

  ‘We’ve nothing against black sheep,’ Jebb said. ‘Black sheep can make the best agents.’ He laughed knowingly. Another memory of Sandy returned to Harry: staring angrily across the study table, his voice a bitter whisper. ‘You see what they’re like, how they control us, what they do if we try to break away.’

  ‘I think you’re someone who likes to play the game,’ Miss Maxse said. ‘That’s what we expected. But we can’t win this war playing a straight bat.’ She shook her head sadly, the short curls bobbing. ‘Not against this enemy. It means killing, you know that already, and it means deception too, I’m afraid.’ She smiled apologetically.

  Harry felt opposing emotions churn inside him, panic beginning to stir. The thought of going back to Spain both excited and appalled him. He had heard things were very bad from the Spanish exiles at Cambridge. In the newsreels he had seen Franco addressing ecstatic crowds who responded with Fascist salutes, but behind that, they said, was a world of denunciations and midnight arrests. And Sandy Forsyth in the middle of it all? He looked at the photo again. ‘I’m not sure,’ he said slowly. ‘I mean, I’m not sure I could carry it off.’

  ‘We’d give you training,’ Jebb said. ‘Bit of a crash course because the powers that be want an answer to this one ASAP.’ He looked at Harry. ‘People at the highest level.’

  Part of Harry wanted to retreat now, go back to Surrey, forget it all. But he had spent the last three months fighting that panicky urge to hide.

  ‘What sort of training?’ he asked. ‘I’m not sure I’d be any good at deception.’

  ‘It’s easier than you think,’ Miss Maxse replied. ‘If you believe in the cause you’re lying for. And you would be lying, deceiving, let’s not mince words. But we’d teach you all the black arts.’

  Harry bit his lip. There was silence in the room for a long moment.

  Miss Maxse said, ‘We wouldn’t expect you just to go in cold.’

  ‘All right,’ he said at length. ‘Perhaps I could bring Sandy round. I can’t believe he’s a Fascist.’

  ‘The hard part will be early on,’ Jebb said. ‘Working your way into his confidence. That’s when it’ll feel strange, difficult, and that’s when you’ll most need to pass it off.’

  ‘Yes. Sandy’s got the sort of mind that can see round corners.’

  ‘So we gather.’ Miss Maxse turned to Jebb. He hesitated a moment, then nodded.

  ‘Good,’ Miss Maxse said briskly.

  ‘We’ll need to move quickly,’ Jebb said. ‘Make some arrangements, put things in place for you. You’ll need to be vetted properly, of course. Are you staying up tonight?’

  ‘Yes, I’m going to my cousin’s.’

  He looked at Harry sharply again. ‘No ties here, apart from your family?’

  ‘No.’ He shook his head.

  Jebb took out a little notebook. ‘Number?’ Harry gave it to him.

  ‘Someone will ring you tomorrow. Don’t go out, please.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  They rose from their chairs. Miss Maxse shook Harry’s hand warmly. ‘Thank you, Harry,’ she said.

  Jebb gave Harry a tight little smile. ‘Be ready for the siren ton
ight. We’re expecting more raids.’ He threw the twisted paperclip into a wastepaper basket.

  ‘Dear me,’ Miss Maxse said. ‘That was government property. You are a squanderbug, Roger.’ She smiled at Harry again, a smile of dismissal. ‘We’re grateful, Harry. This could be very important.’

  Outside the lounge Harry paused a moment. A sad heavy feeling settled on his stomach. Black arts: what the hell did that mean? The term made him shudder. He realized that half consciously he was listening, as Sandy used to do at masters’ doors, his good ear turned towards the door to catch what Jebb and Miss Maxse might be saying. But he could hear nothing. He turned to find the receptionist had appeared, his steps unheard on the dusty carpet. Harry smiled nervously and allowed himself to be led outside. Was he falling already into the habits of a – what? Sneak, spy, betrayer?

  Chapter Two

  THE JOURNEY TO Will’s house normally lasted under an hour, but today it took half the afternoon, the tube continually stopping and starting. In the underground stations little knots of people sat on the platforms, huddled together, whey-faced. Harry had heard some of the bombed-out east-enders had taken up residence in the tubes.

  He thought of spying on Sandy Forsyth and a sick, incredulous feeling lurched through him. He scanned the pale tired faces of his fellow passengers. He supposed any one of them might be a spy – what could you tell from people’s looks? The photo kept coming back to his mind: Sandy’s confident smile, the Clark Gable moustache. The train lurched slowly on through the tunnels.

  IT HAD BEEN Rookwood that gave Harry his identity. His father, a barrister, had been blown to pieces on the Somme when Harry was six years old, and his mother had died in the influenza epidemic the winter the First War – as people were starting to call the last war – ended. Harry still had their wedding photograph and often looked at it. His father, standing outside the church in a morning suit, looked very like him: dark and solid and dependable-looking. His arm was round Harry’s mother, who was fair like Cousin Will, curly tresses falling round her shoulders under a wide-brimmed Edwardian hat. They were smiling happily into the camera. The picture had been taken in bright sunlight and was slightly overexposed, making haloes of light around their figures. Harry had little memory of them; like the world of the photograph they were a vanished dream.

  After his mother died, Harry had gone to live with Uncle James, his father’s elder brother, a professional army officer wounded in the first battles of 1914. It had been a stomach wound, nothing you could see, but Uncle James’s innards troubled him constantly. His discomfort worsened an already peppery disposition and was a constant source of worry to Aunt Emily, his nervous, anxious wife. When Harry came to their house in the pretty Surrey village they were only in their forties, but they seemed much older already, like a pair of anxious, fussy pensioners.

  They were kind to him, but Harry had always felt unwanted. They were childless and never seemed quite to know what to do with him. Uncle James would clap him on the shoulder, almost knocking him over, and ask heartily what he was playing at today, while his aunt worried endlessly about what he should eat.

  Occasionally he went to stay with Aunt Jenny, his mother’s sister and Will’s mother. She had been devoted to his mother and found it difficult to be reminded of her, although she showered him, guiltily perhaps, with food parcels and postal orders when he went to school.

  As a child Harry had been taught by a tutor, a retired teacher his uncle knew. He spent much of his free time roaming the lanes and woods around the village. There he met the local boys, sons of farmers and farriers, but though he played cowboys and Indians and hunted rabbits with them he was always apart: Harry the Toff. ‘Say “awful”, Harry,’ they would goad him. ‘Or-ful, or-ful.’

  One summer day when Harry came home from the fields, Uncle James called him into his study. He was just twelve. There was another man there, standing by the window, the sun directly behind him so that at first he was just a tall shadow framed by dust motes. ‘I’d like you to meet Mr Taylor,’ Uncle James said. ‘He teaches at my old school. My alma mater. That’s the Latin right, eh?’ And to Harry’s surprise he laughed nervously, like a child.

  The man moved forward and took Harry’s hand in a firm grip. He was tall and thin and wore a dark suit. Black hair receded from a widow’s peak on his high forehead and keen grey eyes studied him from behind a pair of pince-nez.

  ‘How do you do, Harry.’ The voice was sharp. ‘You’re a bit of a ragamuffin, aren’t you?’

  ‘He’s been running a little wild,’ Uncle James said apologetically.

  ‘We’ll soon tidy you up if you come to Rookwood. Would you like to go to Public School, Harry?’

  ‘I don’t know, sir.’

  ‘Your tutor’s report is good. Do you like rugger?’

  ‘I’ve never played, sir. I play football with the boys in the village.’

  ‘Rugger’s much better. A gentleman’s game.’

  ‘Rookwood was your father’s old school as well as mine,’ Uncle James said.

  Harry looked up. ‘Father’s?’

  ‘Yes. Your pater, as they say at Rookwood.’

  ‘Do you know what pater means, Harry?’ Mr Taylor asked.

  ‘It’s Latin for father, sir.’

  ‘Very good.’ Mr Taylor smiled. ‘The boy might just do, Brett.’

  He asked more questions. He was friendly enough but had an air of authority, of expecting obedience, which made Harry cautious. After a while he was sent from the room while Mr Taylor talked with his uncle. When Uncle James called him back Mr Taylor had gone. His uncle asked him to sit down and looked at him seriously, stroking his greying moustache.

  ‘Your aunt and I think it’s time you went away to school, Harry. Better than staying here with a couple of old fogeys like us. And you should be mixing with boys from your own class, not the village lads.’

  Harry had no idea what a Public School was like. Into his head came a picture of a big building full of light, bright like the light in his parents’ photograph, welcoming him.

  ‘What do you think, Harry, would you like to go?’

  ‘Yes, Uncle. Yes, I would.’

  WILL LIVED IN a quiet street of mock-Tudor villas. A new air-raid shelter, a long low concrete building, stood incongruously by the grass verge.

  His cousin was home already and answered the doorbell. He had changed into a brightly patterned jumper and beamed at Harry through his glasses.

  ‘Hello, Harry! Made it all right, then?’

  ‘Fine, thanks.’ Harry clasped his hand. ‘How are you, Will?’

  ‘Oh, bearing up, like everyone. How are the old ears?’

  ‘Just about back to normal. A bit deaf on one side.’

  Will led Harry into the hall. A tall, thin woman with mousy hair and a long disapproving face came out of the kitchen, drying her hands on a tea towel.

  ‘Muriel.’ Harry made himself smile warmly. ‘How are you?’

  ‘Oh, struggling on. I won’t shake hands, I’ve been cooking. I thought we might skip high tea, go straight on to dinner.’

  ‘We’ve got a nice steak for dinner, though. Got an arrangement with the butcher. Now, come on up, you’ll want a wash.’

  Harry had stayed in the back bedroom before. There was a big double bed and little ornaments on doilies on the dressing table. ‘I’ll leave you to it,’ Will said. ‘Have a wash, then come down.’

  Harry washed his face at the little sink, studying it in the mirror as he dried himself. He was putting on weight, his stocky frame starting to become fat through recent lack of exercise, the square jaw rounding out. People told him it was an attractive face, though he always thought the regular features under his curly brown hair a little too broad to be handsome. There were new lines around the eyes these days. He tried to make his face as expressionless as he could. Would Sandy be able to read his thoughts behind such a mask? It had been the done thing at school to hide your feelings – you showed them only through a set
mouth, a raised eyebrow. People looked for little signs. Now he must learn to show nothing, or untrue things. He lay on the bed, remembering school and Sandy Forsyth.

  HARRY HAD LOVED the school from the start. Set in an eighteenth-century mansion deep in the Sussex countryside, Rookwood had originally been founded by a group of London businessmen trading overseas to educate the sons of their ships’ officers. The House names reflected its naval past: Raleigh and Drake and Hawkins. Now the sons of civil servants and minor aristocrats went there, with a leavening of scholarship boys funded by bequests.

  The school and its orderly routines had given Harry a sense of belonging and purpose. The discipline could be harsh but he had no desire to break the rules and seldom got lines, let alone the cane. He did well in most classes, especially French and Latin – languages came easily to him. He enjoyed games too, rugger and especially cricket with its measured pace; in his last year he had been captain of the junior team.

  Sometimes he would walk on his own round Big Hall, where the photos of each year’s sixth forms hung. He would stand looking at the photograph for 1902, where his father’s boyish face stared out from a double row of stiffly posed prefects in tasselled caps. Then he would turn to the tablet behind the stage to the Great War fallen, the names picked out in gold. Seeing his father’s name there as well set tears pricking in his eyes, quickly brushed away lest someone see.

  The year Sandy Forsyth came, in 1925, Harry entered the fourth form. Although the boys still slept in a big communal dormitory, they had had studies since the previous year, two or three each to a little room with antiquated armchairs and scarred tables. Harry’s friends were mostly the quieter, more serious boys, and he had been glad to share a study with Bernie Piper, one of the scholarship boys. Piper came in as he was unpacking.

  ‘ ’Ello, Brett,’ he said. ‘I see I’ve got to put up wiv the smell of your socks for the next year.’ Bernie’s father was an East End grocer and he had spoken broad cockney when he arrived at Rookwood. It had gradually mutated into the upper-class drawl of the others, but the London twang always reasserted itself for a while when he came back from the hols.