Thing to Love (26 page)

Sixth Division rear guard certainly did not stand and die. Under the sudden pressure they cleared out quickly, taking their wounded
with them. In an hour Chaves himself was looking down over the trees to the Pacific. There were few prisoners. They only knew that their orders were to retire downhill by marked paths and to avoid losses.

Miro was more puzzled than ever, and near to losing his temper with the folly of the invisible. His mind had no contact at all with this ridiculous elected command which didn't know the rules, ancient or modern. Did it intend to do its standing and dying in a defensive box without communications? And if it did, why the devil should Pedro Valdés think the position would ever be assaulted when starvation would do the job more thoroughly? Or had he been reading too much of guerrillas in Asian forests, and was now hoping to create a running sore of resistance to Vidal in the coastal belt? Perhaps he could, but it was strategically inept. Viera was no longer of any value whatever as a port. As for Cruzada, equally unimportant, a small permanent garrison could deal with the few ragged guerrillas which were all that Valdés could ever feed.

It was midday before the problem was solved — a stark mad solution infuriating Miro by its futility and by the fact that he had never thought of it. A radio message from the
Santa María
, broken off before it was complete, reported that she had been captured. There was nothing whatever he could do about it. He could not use his superior speed and mobility. Sixth Division had the best part of twelve hours' start, and he had not a hope of reaching Viera and preventing embarkation against rear guards of that quality, determined to defend their roadblocks on the narrow paths and their demolitions of the railway.

Well, let them embark their five or six thousand men who might reach Viera — if they would fit in the holds and on deck. The triumph of Señor Elected-General Valdés would be short-lived. The
Santa María
was an unarmed merchantman. The volume of small-arms fire on board her was terrific, but she had no guns. Paco Salinas and the
Frente Unido
would have to deal with her. He picked up the telephone to call President Vidal.

CHAPTER XIV

[
December 18
]

“S
EEKING ASYLUM
, J
UAN
?” the consul asked.

“Certainly not, Enrique. What I want is to listen to Gil Avellana's broadcast.”

“Has Vidal planted a policeman on you?”

“That would be most improper, with two unmarried girls under my roof. But the street crawls with the hyenas of Vidalismo. To their grave embarrassment I send out a tray of refreshments every two hours. No, I am here because I do not wish to compromise any of my friends by encouraging them to call on me at the hour when Gil Avellana, as we are not supposed to know, is addressing the nation. On the other hand, I do not wish to listen to him alone. I require a steadying influence such as yours, Enrique, to prevent me from weeping, smashing the set or sending a telegram of protest to the United Nations when I do not quite know what to protest about.”

Juan de Fonsagrada lowered himself into an immense, leather-covered chair and accepted a drink. Henry Penruddock's private sitting room was extremely comfortable, almost without color — for curtains and cushions had long since lost whatever they had — and had evidently been modeled once and for all upon the indestructible amenities of a London club. The consul had adjusted himself completely to Latin-American life except in the matter of
interior decoration. Juan gave himself most gratefully to his surroundings. Not only was he able to rest, momentarily at ease, upon such ultra-solid ground, but he could also feel patronizing about it.

“Well, thank God it's all over but the shouting!” the consul said. “I'm astonished that Vidal had the guts to go through with it.”

“He didn't, Enrique. For your own private ear, Vidal came to see me in the hope that I could mediate.”

“What did he offer?”

“Anything for a quiet life. Anything except resignation. A return to the
status quo
. Just how he thought he was going to return Fifth Division to the
status quo
I don't know. He couldn't run the film backwards and return bullets tailfirst into the machine guns. I told him I had no means of communication with Vergara. It wasn't true, but the position was hopeless. Avellana was just about to teach Fifth Division a lesson — a task, I gather, which the more senseless officers looked forward to. All over? Well, on the pattern of every other revolution it ought to be.”

“I told Paco Salinas to give it the
puntilla”
, said Penruddock. “I told him that he ought to stop the
Santa María
and escort her into San Vicente.”

“Enrique, I wish to God I knew who was in command of the country. Concha Vidal? Miro and my dear daughter? And now
you
assume that your orders to our Navy are more likely to be obeyed than the President's!”

“Paco Salinas is a very old friend,” the consul replied peaceably. “I assured him that he wouldn't cause any loss of life at all. The
Santa María
still had half Miro's ammunition in her. Not even Valdeski would have been prepared to risk a shell in that lot. All Paco had to do was to train the Joseph and Mary turrets on her and have a tug and some barges standing by for the Sixth Division boys to jump into. But he swore he couldn't get steam on the
Frente Unido
for a week. He was descaling the boiler tubes. It was true. It would be. But it's a pity. There's nothing in the north strong enough to stop Valdeski beaching her whenever he likes. What does the Captain General think?”

“He's hardly likely to confide in me.”

“That's sad — for Guayanas.”

“Thank you, Enrique. It's possible that he would agree with you. But my dear daughter is like all women in an emergency. She immediately sees everything in black and white — or, in this case, red and white.”

“Are there to be any firing squads?”

“No. The only advantage of Miro treating revolution as war is that the rules of war apply. He won't hear of it.”

“Does Vidal want it?”

“The Managerial Society, Enrique, is too squeamish to take life. It merely assassinates the reputation and the means of livelihood. But I wouldn't put it past the Chamber to demand some heads. And the colonels of Fifth Division want Ledesma's”

“I hope they get it,” said the consul. “If it hadn't been for him, poor old Jesús-María de Hoyos and Miro Kucera might have thought of something.”

“Perhaps. But I doubt it. Whatever the intrigues of their officers, the men who died at the Battle of Cruzada died for Avellana and nothing else. Then or later it had to happen.”

He looked at his watch.

“Turn on Vergara, Enrique.”

“Can't they jam it?”

“The Casa de Radio-Difusión is largely staffed by young men and women from the university. The latter part of Avellana's speech will be jammed. An unforeseen technical difficulty — something extraordinarily abstruse to do with magnetism and mountains — will prevent the jamming from being successful for the first ten minutes.”

Avellana's beautifully modulated voice easily dominated the radio's halfhearted shrieks and trills, which in any case only gathered volume during his pauses. A certain harshness of delivery was effective, giving the impression of a man — and very much a man — unused to the artificialities of the broadcaster. He had borrowed at least one technique from abroad: that of the fireside chat. His style contrasted strongly with Juan's own traditional oratory. There was enough passion in it to satisfy the demands of enthusiastic supporters, but the general tone was of the reasonable man,
the calmer-down of café disputes, the scrupulously fair observer carried away, on this occasion only, by his just indignation.

“People of Guayanas, my brothers in suffering, my sisters who mourn the dead, all of you who believe at this moment that your sacrifice is in vain, let me comfort you. Decision is never military. Decision is of the people, and in the determination of the people. The future of Guayanas still lies in your hands, not in those of a brutal Division, drunk with power, trained to kill without mercy, led by a mercenary without a country, without honor, without love.”

“Oh Miro, poor Miro, my dear son!” Juan whispered.

“I never desired this horror.
My
patience was not exhausted. I gave no call to arms. I waited, my person secure in Siete Dolores, my policy safe in the whispers of the very poor and the fearlessness of those of us who are privileged to serve them. I waited until I had won over the generous hearts of the armed forces, until I was sure that the corruption of Vidal would rot into its grave. There was nothing in it to fight, nothing worthy of the blood of men and the tears of women. What can one say of a government which provides the people of the Barracas with lavatories and a cinema while allowing them to fight the seagulls for their food? It is a farce, a bad farce. One does not storm the stage. One waits for the public to demand that it be taken off.

“And while we waited — what? An avalanche of steel, equipped by Vidal, launched by Vidal and paid for — if it
is
paid for — by the sleek financiers of the United States who support Vidal! Bravely the Air Force interposed their handful of planes, the shield of the people at Cumana. But their innocence, their purity of purpose could not prevail against the treachery of a military Caudillo and his sanguinary colonels. The Army of the people moved to meet them, their feet bleeding with the speed of their advance, while the mercenaries of Vidal were carried on wheels, protected by armor. Rifles against tanks.”

“Nothing wrong with their artillery, was there?” Henry Penruddock asked.

“Enrique, this legend will not be destroyed in your lifetime or mine. So you might just as well shut up.”

“What can one expect of men who shoot down girls upon the steps of the Palace? I will say nothing of the Battle of Cruzada, where the glorious Army of Guayanas was treated as if it were a foreign enemy, annihilated with a cruelty unknown hitherto upon this peaceful southern continent. But let us look at what happened far from the decisive front, far from the gallant battle of bayonets against Shermans. Not content with that slaughter, Vidal and his paid assassin committed murder. Fearful lest the lances of Twelfth Cavalry should destroy their armored cars, they hurled down five hundred men to death in the Quebradas Pass. Horses and men in one cataclysm. And if any were left alive, they were burned alive.

“That is neither revolution nor civil war. It is cold-blooded murder. And I swear to you, brothers, that the Law shall take revenge.

“And the flying, the helpless in the Escala de los Ingleses! Those of you of my father's generation will remember the armed rising against the Dictator Orduñez — the horsemen of the plains, the poor of San Vicente armed only with their knives, the flower of the liberal youth of Guayanas, led by the gallant Cayetano de Fonsagrada. The troops of the Dictator fled in disorder, and it was enough. Fonsagrada raised his sword and halted the last charge. Why kill men who have no hope?

“But in the Escala de los Ingleses what happened? When the battle was over, when the mercenary Kucera already held our revered captain general, Don Jesús-María de Hoyos y Alarcón, when General Valdés and his immortal Sixth Division were cutting their way down to the Pacific, when the half-trained youths of Fourth Division were stumbling through the Escala on their way to the safety of Siete Dolores, the armor of Kucera, like a puma which follows the staggering traveler till he falls, came growling up the Pass behind them.

“This too was Vidalismo. I will tell you who commanded those savages. A certain Lieutenant Colonel Ferrer, once an unassuming, valued, colored citizen of the coast. A contractor's foreman. A contractor working on Vidal's Citadel. No doubt Ferrer lined his pockets like the rest of them. But for him that was not enough. He asked to be trained to kill for his masters.

“This was the man who followed those defenseless boys up the narrow paths of the Escala. They tried to climb the slopes out of the way of the advancing tanks. They threw themselves into the abysses. But Ferrer and his drivers did not care. They crushed the bodies beneath the tracks of their tanks. They refused to accept the surrender of helpless men. . . .”

The jamming of the broadcast became momentarily effective, overwhelming Avellana's voice.

“Probably police in the Casa de Radio-Difusión telling them they'd better, or else,” Juan remarked. “But Ferrer? Does he mean that energetic, diseased-looking Sambo who digs trenches for my son-in-law?”

“Mulatto, Juan.”

“Technically a Sambo, Enrique. I know him well. He got my patio fountain to work and did the floodlighting for Miro's wedding. A most kindly, commonsensical fellow and honest as the day. I don't believe a word of it. He'd do nothing of the sort.”

“Oh, it's true enough for a politician's speech,” the consul said. “Ferrer couldn't help it. I know, because I am interested in every bit of information about the Saracens. After all, I sold them. The survivors of the regiment which destroyed Lérida were laagered on a hilltop — nearly out of ammo, and drinking the water from the radiators. They were being shelled by Twelfth Cavalry on one side and machine-gunned by bits and pieces of Fourth Division on the other. Ferrer was racing up to relieve them. God knows what he was doing in command of armor! He couldn't halt and he couldn't get out to take surrenders. I don't suppose he ran over more than a dozen of the enemy. What's bothering Avellana is that Fourth panicked again, and a lot of them blinded into the hills without thinking and died of thirst. But the strawberry jam makes a better story.”

Avellana's voice began to come through again in waves of varying intensity which made it sound like the voice of a prophet from outer space. To judge from the sentences which were intelligible he was speaking of his economic policy. The unknown technicians who were jamming the broadcast seemed to be choosing this passage
to show their obedience to Vidal's instructions, knowing that it was the part of the speech with least appeal to listeners.

“It is an astonishing thing, Enrique,” said Juan sadly, “that the mass of the people will never trouble to understand an economic program although those are the only government measures which can have an effect on every hour of their daily lives.”

“And I entirely agree with them! I have had the problems of industrial takeoff explained to me by Professor Carrillo, by Vidal himself and by the economic experts at the Foreign Office. They were all perfectly clear. They all disagreed with each other. And worse still I never could remember their arguments next day. Economists are like nuclear physicists. You have to take the stuff on trust and hope to God that the one who is believed will be the one who is right.”

“You claim to have raised the standard of living, Gregorio Vidal,” the deep voice of the radio commented. “You have filled the shops with goods. You have offered to Guayanas the luxuries of North America. And the money is there to buy them. It is there for your industrialists, your contractors, your shopkeepers, your bankers and businessmen. It is there for the new middle classes. The faster they spend, the more pesos they have. But what is the peso worth? When you came to power a kilo of bread cost two pesos. It now costs eleven — an increase of 450 per cent. But the daily wage of the peon and the worker has doubled. Merely doubled.

“Have patience, you tell us — patience while Guayanas enters the twentieth century! Or is it the twenty-first we should wait for? I tell you we would rather have the nineteenth century, when, God knows, there were rich and poor, but the poor did not starve. Gregorio Vidal, you have made of Guayanas two nations. And in the name of the poorer of the two, I declare war on you. The revolution has failed. The civil war begins.

“Brothers, from the new front of that war I have good news for you. Sixth Division has landed at Rubayo. Twentieth Cavalry have ridden in from the llanos to their support. My government and I, with our faithful Twelfth Cavalry, march north to join
them, abandoning Siete Dolores to the enemy. You, Vidal, I warn that if you take revenge upon the innocent whose only crime was to believe in me, your supporters in the north shall pay for it.