Thing to Love (32 page)

Soon after midday Salvador drove out by the new track, bringing a sheaf of signals. He had lost his usual air of bearing modestly the joint triumphs of himself and his commander.

“The Avellanistas have been in Hermosillo.”

“For how long?” Miro asked incredulously.

“Four hours, my General.”

“As long as that? What the devil has Mario been up to?”

The story was easily to be pieced together from the successive reports. Hermosillo was protected by the Rio Ica from any attack in force. The ferry which carried over the cattle from the llanos was immobilized, and the only other crossing was Fifth Division's military bridge, thirty kilometers downstream, connecting Advance Headquarters with the San Vicente road. But there was nothing to prevent a small, self-sufficient party swimming the river in the unpatrolled emptiness of its upper course and riding night after night to reach the railway.

That was what had happened. A bold and — on the face of it — quite hopeless raid had gone in well south of the railway station in the dark, apparently with the objective of blowing a culvert. The raiders, numbering about sixty well-mounted men with spare horses, had been interrupted by a patrolling Sherman which called up Troop and then was silent. Troop, arriving with speed but too casual confidence, found the Sherman burnt out and instantly lost three tanks to bazookas.

The raiders then attacked the station, found it too strongly held, galloped halfway round the little town and captured the mounted police station. Colonel Nicuesa refused to risk his precious armor and sent in a company of infantry to turn them out. After heavy fighting, that had been done.

“Bazookas — as likely as not they came in that Dakota,” Miro said. “Avellana could have got some from professional liberals in Colombia or Venezuela. But what amateurs, Rosalindo! Instead of waiting for a serious action like this, they lose all the advantages of surprise by wasting them on a raid.”

“All wiped out?” Colonel Chaves asked.

“Far from it! They abandoned the police station in good time and got clear away in full daylight by the old trick of firing the grass. A very effective smokescreen. I didn't realize it had got so dry. We had better have it burned around all strongpoints.”

“But for Christ's sake! Is Mario going to withdraw the armor every time he has a couple of screws shot off?”

“Well, he has never met bazookas before, Rosalindo,” Miro replied, unwilling to expose his Colonel Nicuesa, though he would gladly have murdered him.

“Are they serious?”

“Not in the least. A simple change of tactics when compelled to use armor at night. There's not enough cover for bazookas to bother us by day.”

“It's going to worry them in San Vicente.”

“You think Vidal will see Valdés under the bed?”

“Well, they say he doesn't sleep with Concha any more since she beats him. A fine woman, all the same.”

“I am certain she has never beaten him.”

“As you say, Chief. But what makes me furious is that here we have taught the Avellanistas the best lesson since Cruzada, and San Vicente has only our word for it. Meanwhile all the tarts in Hermosillo will be writing letters to say they heard a bang. I only hope Valdés's men destroyed the telegraph and telephone.”

“I think a list of dead and prisoners may help to show it wasn't just a propaganda victory,” said Miro grimly. “Get it off at once, Rosalindo — not forgetting Ledesma.”

CHAPTER XVII

[
February 2–3
]

“W
AS IT THE BAZOOKAS
, Concha?” Felicia asked.

“That was the excuse. Foreign arms, and — if one of our planes can escape from internment, others can.”

“I cannot see what possible good Don Gregorio can do in New York.”

“He believes in paper, Feli.”

“It has never looked like it. Fifth Division didn't stay on paper, nor the rebuilding of San Vicente.”

“That is because he could work at leisure. But in a crisis he turns to paper. If Gregorio can get a resolution from the United Nations expressing their regret at our behavior he will think he has achieved something. Perhaps he is right. He will make plenty of friends in the lobbies.”

“But why now?” Felicia exclaimed passionately. “It is here he needs friends.”

“His imagination runs on lances, Feli. Hermosillo is too close.”

“But San Vicente is perfectly safe! So is Hermosillo. Miro gave him his word.”

“I know. And I believe Miro. But he ought not to be in the llanos. He ought to be here at the Ministry of Defense, Feli.”

“He can't. It would mean handing over the command in the field to Chaves or Nicuesa.”

“Couldn't they do it? What do you think of them?”

It was no use telling Concha that in her opinion one was a brute and the other a coward. And anyway, was that really her opinion or a passing, exasperated thought? All Miro had ever said was that his admired Rosalindo was a born bandit and that Mario sometimes behaved more like an able garage proprietor than a soldier.

“No, they couldn't do it,” she replied. “The Division was still training. Miro had no reason yet to think of a substitute for himself. If he was grooming anybody, it was probably poor Calixto Irigoyen.”

“Without Miro I am very much alone.”

“Of course.”

“What should I do if you and I didn't understand each other!”

“In some ways, Concha, he is very innocent.”

“So many of Gregorio's appointments — when they are in office they make the habit of coming to me.”

“I know.”

“To talk things over. I have never given an order, Feli.”

“An order is so brutal! How do men do it day after day?”

She was conscious that her voice had risen. It was so hard to be without a husband who took away all her guilt. And in that thought too was guilt. What business had she to be dependent on him, to draw strength from him when she ought to be giving it?

Concha slightly raised a calming hand from her lap. Feli did not miss the regretful, humorously indulgent flicker at one corner of the full mouth with which the Presidenta was accustomed to dismiss an embarrassing subject.

“You knew?” she exclaimed.

“I heard you. Nobody else did. They were all running down the corridor. My dear, I'd have screamed the order myself if I had known how to. More coffee?”

“Please, Concha.”

The Presidenta's private drawing room was in what had been the northern fort, possessing its own entrance from the courtyard and its own terrace, on which still stood two culverins with the monogram of the Emperor Charles V. It was more like the room
of a man — some man of fine taste who couldn't be bothered to show much of it and was content with beauty of wood, with blocks of color in cushions and curtains, and Spanish tapestries on the cool, naked stone walls. Under the circumstances Feli was aware of a medievalism which she had never noticed before. Concha was the châtelaine holding the castle while her lord was away — at the United Nations, for God's sake!

“Miro has always said that he could win quickly if he were allowed an Air Force,” Feli suggested boldly.

I
am you in San Vicente
, she had once told him. And so, then, she had been. Very well, she would be Miro in San Vicente again, serving as best she could like any other officer of his without waiting for an order.

“Sharpen your thorns, my
Rosa Fonsagrada
. That one was blunt enough for the university. Gregorio would never refuse the North Americans anything. He has agreed and signed, but he will not make the arrangements. The tradition of
mañana
. Since they expect it, why not play it? Fair words from His Excellency, and then — nothing!”

“If it has gone so far, you could do the rest.”

“Miro is so correct, Feli. Signatures, authorities. By God, I would send him all Gregorio's rubber stamps in a brown paper parcel if I thought he would use them!”

“Could you give him anything in writing from the Ministry of Defense?”

“A letter, yes,” said Concha doubtfully, and then added with sudden decision: “But of course a letter will be enough — a confidential letter telling him it has all been arranged. And it will have been — through the police and the civil governors, not the Cabinet. How well do you know MacKinlay?”

“Very well. For Miro's sake I had to. I have even attended what he calls a press conference because he begged me to. Their eyes were disgusting.”

“Did you think they were interested in your intelligence, my girl? Don't come to me with such baby talk! Can you persuade MacKinlay to trust me?”

“I can try. And he is not a person to think that the man who signs the banknotes runs the bank.”

“That is more like your father,” said Concha approvingly, “whose eyes also — Well, to be fair, I should never describe them as disgusting. A somewhat too intimate curiosity, but profoundly courteous. It is really unnecessary to be so distant with him, Feli. The police will arrest neither of you if you talk to him.”

“I cannot forgive him.”

“There are a lot of people whom I cannot forgive until I am exasperated to find that I have.”

“If it was not that he loves Miro . . .”

“He has to have something to love.”

“No doubt he will find it in the usual way. What do you want me to tell MacKinlay?”

“That if his C.I.A. fly the air crews into San Vicente at once by commercial airliner, they will be transported to Lérida by coach straight from the runway without passing through any controls. Once there, they come under Miro's command.”

“Won't they need ground staff?”

“I shall have it recruited from the Air Force prisoners. Enough of them will accept an offer of double pay. They are all demoralized since Miro bumped Ledesma off.”

“Concha!”

“A manner of speaking, Feli. No, he would have treated him like Jesús-María and given him a key to the Citadel cellars. But I am not the only one who would rather see flowers on Ledesma's grave than on his dinner table.”

“I cannot very well ask Don Andrés to the flat or visit his hotel for a long private interview.”

“The United States Embassy will ask me to cocktails or lunch with you in attendance. Arrange the invitation and see that your MacKinlay is there. My secretary will give you my appointments book. I will cancel any of them for this.”

“How much does the Embassy know?”

“Daughter mine, that is MacKinlay's business, not ours!” Concha exclaimed. “He can tell them what he likes so long as he stops that
old fool of an ambassador running up the Stars and Stripes and making a speech of welcome.”

“Where do they get them from? Their career diplomats are very good.”

“This one came from the rubber goods industry, my dear. As I told Gregorio, at least it was some guarantee of tact. The alternative they offered us was a lumberman.”

Felicia, her thoughts obsessed by the continual vision of tiny vehicles too far scattered over the distances of the llanos, acted with speed and decision that were a conscious imitation of her husband. She called at the Embassy, where she was always welcome as an informal and decorative visitor, and persuaded the Ambassadress that the Presidenta was lonely in the absence of Don Gregorio. She gave it all a touching flavor of neighbors in the old home town, and the Ambassadress, though flustered and surprised — she made it plain that she had been somewhat shocked by Doña Concha's incisive conversation and felt her own response inadequate— was flattered into an invitation to the quietest possible lunch the following day.

Andrew MacKinlay was warned and was there, giving his normal modest performance as the distinguished newspaper correspondent easily carrying the culture of New England into the rough-and-tumble of the marketplace. It was a simple and cordial lunch. Felicia assumed that there must have been agitated questioning in private of the Presidenta's real motives. But perhaps not. They seemed to have settled for a point of view which had never occurred to her. Husband in New York — what more natural than that the devoted wife should seek and accept an invitation from the Embassy? Her reason could be sentimentality, or that she wished to communicate with him without passing the message through the President's Office for coding. All ridiculous, when one knew the relationship between Concha and her husband, but plausible when one did not. She herself, if Miro had been in New York, would have felt exaggeratedly warm to all North Americans.

Concha was behaving herself with most endearing simplicity —
a warhorse giving rides to children and enjoying it.
That old fool
, she had called her host; but one had to admit he was an excellent host with a kindly wisdom which wasn't exactly wit but had a pleasant dryness of flavor. So long as there was a competent, professional team to do the work, it might not be bad policy to select an Ambassador who would be content to impress on Latin-Americans the simple good will typical of his people.

Felicia herself was impatient and annoyingly aware of feeling brittle and sharp, like a daughter of the Incas in an Old People's Home. The slow and easy chatter of Don Gregorio's stay in New York, of the history of the Palace, of the coffee-marketing scheme went on and on. She was thankful when Concha, with regal ease, played protocol and dismissed her temporary lady-in-waiting to entertain herself with the only other nonofficial guest while the diplomats gathered round Concha in the drawing room.

“Did you see any damage at Hermosillo?” Felicia asked.

“None whatever,” MacKinley answered, “except a burned-out tank by the railroad line. Trains and convoys were running normally. What nobody understands, Doña Felicia, is the brilliance of your husband's campaign. It looks as if he were all spread out like a snake in the sun; only at the far end can you see the tongue continually flickering. And God help anything it touches, for the fangs are only just behind and faster still!”

“If only the fangs could be directed from the air!”

“I hear that we should like to do a lot more for your husband than we can.”

“How well do you know Concha Vidal?”

“Hardly at all. I like her looks and they say she has a more decisive character than the President. But if she has any political influence she hides it very well.”

“My husband trusts her absolutely.”

It wasn't true. Concha had carefully kept out of the affairs of the Citadel and Fifth Division, except for her one warning of the probable defection of the Air Force. But at least it was true that Miro had learned to have respect for her judgment.

“I admire your husband's taste in everything.”

She smiled her acknowledgment.

“If there is anything you need in the absence of the President you can always go and see her.”

“I'll remember that, Doña Felicia. Up to the present I have had every facility. All of you have put out the red carpet for me whenever I wanted a story.”

“Don Andrés, perhaps I should not know whom you really represent, but I do. Concha Vidal can give you immediate action in more than news stories.”

“And discretion?” he asked drily.

“That stands to reason. You said just now that you did not know how much political influence she had.”

“Well, that's a fair example, Doña Felicia. Shall we stop playing this one with the cards so close to the chest? Without mentioning what I think you are talking about, can she do it? And, if she can, does she realize that we must be able to deny the whole thing and to keep on denying it until the men have done their job and can be quietly withdrawn?”

“Yes and yes.”

“You are sure?”

“Quite sure. Nothing will go through the Cabinet. It would be treated as a Secret Service matter, with nothing but verbal instructions to the police and the civil governors concerned.”

“Who would give those instructions?”

“I don't know, Don Andrés. Doña Concha never gives an order, but it is surprising how she is always obeyed.”

“Suppose someone telephoned or cabled Don Gregorio for confirmation?”

“It won't be done at a high enough level for that. It's just a question of orders to San Vicente airport and police. Such people do not telephone the President.”

“The general himself might. However much he wants the help we can give, he is not a man to pull a fast one on his government.”

“It would never occur to him that there was anything to question. In any case you have the President's signed agreement.”

He made no comment on that, evidently unwilling to commit himself to approval or disapproval of her inside information.

“When can I see Doña Concha?”

“There is nothing to prevent you calling at the Palace. You have been there often enough. Before we leave I will let you know when.”

“Doña Felicia,” he said, “you know this country very well all the way from the Ateneo to the Indians.”

There was a change in his manner, recalling the hardly perceptible difference between Miro's voice in the mess and in his office. She knew that the decision had been taken and that she had in a way come under his command.

“I have always been glad to do anything I could.”

“Not information this time. I want advice. The air crews we send will all speak Spanish, though I don't want them to open their mouths unless they have to until they reach Lérida. There they will be cut off from the world. I'll trust the general to tie up that airport so that even a mouse can't get into it without a pass.