Thing to Love (35 page)

Nor had the students any serious plan. They had begun well, delightfully conscious that this was a rising which their education fitted them to lead. They had distributed arms to Morote's militant groups, passing right round the town in commandeered cars and buses to avoid the police cordons. Then they had driven out to the Citadel, expecting it to surrender to enthusiasm. They had tried to rush the gate, for there was nothing visible to keep them out but a white bar raised and lowered by a chain. What did they think the low cupolas set back a hundred meters from the gate were for? And was it likely that the handful of defenders, the storekeepers and the convalescents of Cruzada, were going to change their allegiance now that they had no certainty left but Miro?

Leaving their dead, the students scattered back into the town, firing at nothing. They sacked Miro's flat and set off incendiary bombs in the block, which wouldn't burn. No doubt they held this against the enlightened building laws of Gregorio's administration, for they had passed on to empty ministries, where the police were weak, and were busy hurling furniture out of the windows.

The real danger now was the scum of the Barracas, unled and uncontrollable, who were out in the Alameda looting, killing and dying. The police had them on the run — or claimed they had — when the pressure of factory workers from the outer suburbs squeezed police and crowd together till every group was fighting savagely for a side street up which to retreat.

That was the last news from the now useless telephones, which were either silent, or answered by hysterical idiots whose reports were optimistic nonsense, or left dangling by corporals in an unseen world of clicks and oaths and falling brickwork while the corporals searched for nonexistent authority.

“It is all close enough now to see for ourselves, Feli,” she said. “If they set fire to the Palace, join the domestic staff and try to get out on to the seafront.”

“The Palace? They couldn't!” Feli exclaimed. “Even when my grandfather fought down the corridor to get at Orduñez . . .”

“This is not a revolution like any other, Feli. One must admit that the two great powers have helped us to be up-to-date.”

From the tall windows of the reception room above the terrace they watched the Glorieta fill. First came running men, turning to fire behind them; then a trickle of small groups; then, as they realized that there was no solid barrier of police, hundreds in a rush which spread out, eddied, and packed the open space from end to end with the liquid of faces.

A short, wavering no-man's-land remained empty between the surge and the machine guns of the Presidential Guard. It was unnatural as the wall of the Red Sea in an illustrated Bible. Across it, the crowd yelled to the troops to declare for Avellana. From hands safely hidden behind the front rank stones were thrown at the windows, and once a petrol bomb lobbed over the heads of the guard. The troops stood nervously behind the weapons which could sweep the square, and did not look like taking the responsibility of resisting a determined rush; nor did their officers, who were shouting excitedly and giving contradictory orders. The lieutenant colonel and his second in command had retired to their still peaceful Command Post in the courtyard.

At the far left-hand corner of the square the crowd began to cheer. The spontaneous, communal shout carried over the disorganized baying in front of the Palace. Heads turned to look back. A compact party, some of them carrying flaming torches as if in a religious procession, pushed their way through the Glorieta and roughly displaced a section of the front rank. They seemed to be Morote's men, for all their faces were very dark except where the copper of a high cheekbone glinted in the light of a torch. They were well armed, but none had a coat, though several wore pajama jackets with no shirt beneath. They had the air of an élite of revolution and as such were plainly accepted by the leaderless crowd.

As the phalanx opened up, some facing the machine guns, some the crowd, Feli was astonished to see her father. He was neatly dressed as always, making no concession whatever to the prevailing proletarian mood. These Indians and mestizos were his bodyguard. God only knew how and why he had collected them — probably
to hold the gate of the Fonsagrada house in case the Red Cross proved to be insufficient to protect it. And he had come prepared for his own type of action, with a stout door from some looted house. They hoisted him on to it, many shoulders bearing it as steady as the dais of the Chamber or the long-forgotten litter of the Cacique.

Juan held up both hands for silence. He didn't get it at first. There were cries of “Down with the Ateneo!” It wasn't his influence which saved him or the casual affection in which he was held, but the fact that in this setting he was comic. There was a halfhearted attempt to hustle his bodyguard. She saw Pancho thrust his torch straight into the stomach of a man who was pushing him too close. The flaming shirt and the screams silenced equally those who saw the atrocity and those who thought it was an accident.

“Gentlemen, let me assure you that if any assault on the Palace is made I shall have no hesitation in ordering its gallant defenders to fire.”

He hadn't the slightest right to order anybody to do anything. Yet both Concha and Feli, staring at each other in amazement, at once accepted this careless assumption of authority as something of which he had always been capable. It was as much in his character as the oratory by which he could sway a Chamber he despised.

The guard was going to obey. They could see that. The troops had an order they could understand — not for Vidal, not for Avellana, but corresponding exactly to the spirit and scene of their daily ceremonies. Bearing tautened and was more confident. A machine-gun crew deliberately exaggerated their stance to show that the blast of fire, if it came, would be directed to one side of Juan's small party.

A voice from the crowd shouted:

“And if we kill you first, you old fornicator?”

Juan raised his voice to carry to the center of the square, though the tone was still conversational.

“Paisanos
and my friend who has just spoken: you will realize when you come to my age that death is a matter to which one is
largely indifferent. Another ten years? Another twenty? Now? When time goes so fast it is absurd to set one's heart, like a criminal in North America, upon continual reprieves.”

“Live, Fonsagrada! We need a Fonsagrada!”

“Thank you. I will do my best. You are, I believe, in favor of my friend, Gil Avellana?”

The Glorieta crashed with the waves of
“Viva Avellana!”
and at last Juan held up his hands again for silence.

“Brothers, I take note of your sentiments. And now look around you—” the upper surface of the crowd turned dark as sides of heads instead of faces were presented to the Palace windows. “Do you not see you have no need to fight? San Vicente is yours. Preserve it! Do you agree?”

When the cheering had again died down:

“Gentlemen, have the goodness to allow me five minutes while you light your cigarettes and compare your deeds of courage and devotion. I shall return shortly.”

Juan crossed the no-man's-land, raised his Panama to the captain left in uncertain command at the front of the Palace, received his permission to pass and mounted the steps.

Concha — with Feli behind her — rushed down into the central corridor crowded with panic-stricken civil servants from the nearest government buildings which had emptied themselves into the Palace; she took Juan quickly into the empty committee room.

“What do you want, Don Juan?”

“The Presidential Guard. With it, I can restore order.”

“He is going to declare for Avellana, Concha,” Feli exclaimed. “Arrest him!”

“My dear Feli,” said her father genially, “this is really not the time to argue about which of us is going to throw the other into the calaboose. It is absurd and undignified, just as when you used to insist it was not bedtime. Doña Concha, I represent only tradition. Another quarter of an hour and the crowd will realize it. Within five years we shall all be yelling
Viva Vidal
and shall have you back — at the sacrifice next time, I trust, of nothing but tramcars. But meanwhile, give me the guard and be quick!”

“Miro is not defeated, Don Juan.”

“One Division to hold down this explosion and destroy Valdés as well?”

“I will not tell the Citadel to surrender!”

“God forbid, Doña Concha! I know very well that Fifth Division is as precious to you as to me.”

Was there anything he didn't suspect? She looked into the smiling courteous eyes, and was at once certain that he saw the danger to Miro exactly as she did. But from pride one couldn't give in on a mere guess.

“If the guard fires, Don Juan, and if then we use every man from the Citadel to reinforce the police, Avellana will have to wait for San Vicente.”

“Yes. Not very long.”

“You believe Gregorio is beaten?”

“It would be even more obvious if he had not the good sense to be absent, Doña Concha. The only power that remains is divided between Gil Avellana and my son-in-law.”

“He will not exercise it.”

“No, he will not. But the guns of the Citadel at least allow him to bargain.”

“Then use them now,” Feli cried.

“On San Vicente? At random? Really, my dear daughter! . . . What we must be sure of, Doña Concha, is that the Citadel is there for him, intact. If you order the handful of troops out into the town you may regain control for a time. But can they hold seven kilometers of road as well? Can they fight their way back? What about the prisoners of war? With a little courage they could overwhelm the few sentries and take the Citadel.”

“And if I give you the guard?”

“Whether Avellana has won or not, I shall pretend he has. What makes democracy tolerable to persons of our taste, dear Doña Concha, is that one can always fool enough of the people enough of the time. I propose that they shall do a little dancing in the streets to enable them to forget for the moment that they are within easy range of the Citadel and that Fifth Division stands between them and Avellana.”

Doña Concha rose, opened the door and sent for the commander of the Presidential Guard. He must have been discreetly watching the Glorieta, for he appeared almost at once. She was not in the least taken in by the professional military mask which covered to perfection his cowardice, his fear of insult and his determination to do nothing. It was another proof — Juan's had not been so humiliating — that the game was up.

“In the absence of the Captain General and the Minister of Defense,” Concha said, “I desire you to take the orders of Don Juan de Fonsagrada for the sake of the Palace and the Capital.”

The colonel saluted the Presidenta and, relaxing before a mere civilian, looked inquiringly at Juan.

“Nothing, my dear fellow, a mere nothing. I wish you to have the band on parade with their instruments in two minutes at the latest. Uniforms and drill are of no importance. You and your officers need not declare for Avellana unless you wish to. If you do wish to, I will undertake that the Captain General appreciates that you did it in accordance with the Presidenta's wish to save the Palace.”

The colonel saluted, hesitated, and retired without a word.

“A manly tear —” said Juan — “he should at least have squeezed it out. And it would have prevented yours, my dear, my dear Doña Concha. Feli, pull yourself together and remember that the troops of Fifth Division will obey your orders while they would tell me very rightly to go to hell. Order the two armored cars in the courtyard to conduct the Presidenta and yourself to the Embassy of her choice. Not the United States. To my astonishment, their windows are still intact and we do not want them broken. The cars must then retire at once to the Citadel. I am sure that in a few days you will be able to join your distinguished husband, Doña Concha. Give him my compliments. I shall look forward to seeing him — eventually — at my table in the Ateneo.”

Juan bowed profoundly and kissed the hand of the Presidenta; then, treating her formally as a respected enemy, that of his daughter. She held it warmly to his lips, and would have smiled when he raised his head if it had not been for the infinite pity in his eyes.

CHAPTER XIX

[
March 2–7
]

“D
ON
A
NDRÉS
,” said Miro, “you remind me of my Colonel Chaves.”

“I haven't met him, but from what I have heard I take that as a compliment.”

“Yes. Yes, you may.”

It was only an hour since Rosalindo had left, savage, depressed, for once in his life arm-in-arm with and clinging to Salvador, not because Salvador agreed with him — or if he did he would never say so — but because the A.D.C. represented a shadow of the Captain General in front of whom curses, protests and even tears were at last permissible.

Rosalindo's mouth, still disfigured by the scar from his broken flask at Cumana and working with emotion under the straggling, drooping Hun's mustache, had moved him as the mouth of some agonized peasant woman who could be just as merciless in all that threatened what she loved.

But what was the good of going on fighting when the base was lost? The Volunteer Air Force was now ready and waiting for orders to strike. It made victory in the field quick and quite certain. But what permanence could victory have when half the Division would be employed in policing San Vicente and the rest of
it sternly garrisoning every town between Los Milagros and the llanos? Vidal would never be caught returning to such concealed anarchy. The alternatives were Avellana or the dictatorship of General Kucera.

The year of the four Caesars . . . The vivid recollection of a far-distant class room in Prague, all black from his trousers to the blackboard to the history master's coat, kept on haunting him. The four Caesars. Vidal. Himself. And when he could face it no longer, when the Division had acquired the coarseness of police, preferring cells and blackmail and the loaded revolver to the rush of wheels in open country, then General Chaves; and at last — inevitable unless Rosalindo caught and shot him — Avellana and order, which, whether legal or not, would appear so after what had preceded it.

“Like you, Colonel Chaves wants me to hold San Vicente and the south.”

“I would never presume to tell you what your duty is, but I think it is just that, Captain General.”

“Chaves cannot bear to be beaten either. Both you and he — if this were a game of football, you'd shoot the referee and compel your opponents to go on playing all night.”

“Well, and who's the referee?”

“The people, I suppose.”

“What's wrong with the people is that they don't know what is good for them.”

“No. Possibly not. But for you democracy means not what they choose. It means what they ought to choose. Let us look at the military position, Don Andrés. On the face of it, no doubt you find us still formidable.”

That was certain, for up to now he had only seen chalkmarks on the map and whatever troops Miro had under his immediate eye. But now he had passed through enough of the Armored Brigade, in Hermosillo, to get an impression of its power, and here at Advanced Headquarters were Chaves's columns — in all six thousand men of a crack Division concentrated and poised to strike irresistibly in any direction.

“I can take and hold San Vicente and the south,” Miro went on. “But I do not think that a people who have refused to be governed legally by President Vidal will accept the rule of General Kucera by force. I have no excuse and no orders. The Chamber is adjourned. The Cabinet is either over the frontier or still waiting for a chance to remove personal assets. My father-in-law has shown incredible cunning by ignoring national politics altogether, and having himself legally elected mayor by the municipal council. The police and the Presidential Guard apparently are obeying him with delight. The Ateneo and the banks are open. Morote and his committee refuse to unload any arms, but are keeping the peace. I can march in or I can order the Citadel to blow the town to pieces. But what is gained? I have no right to send men to death for my own opinions.”

“The volunteers in Lérida are willing to be sent to death by you, Captain General.”

“Thank you, Don Andrés. I believe it, and I shall always be proud when I remember it. But for the sake of adventure? For the sake of an ideal which I don't wholly share? Now, you want me to go on fighting and are prepared to supply me. The only alternative to San Vicente is Lérida. I can turn my Division into a force of bandits based on Siete Dolores — a running sore in Guayanas, which might or might not make all government but Vidal's impossible. But I am a patriot. This is the country which received and trusted me. I will not do it.”

“One or the other you must.”

“I have no duty to support the foreign policy of the United States. You may have noticed a curious omission in that famous poster. There was no mention in it of Avellana. It is quite clear to me that the U.S.S.R. had no interest whatever in his victory or defeat until we presented them with a chance to score a diplomatic success. I blame myself. Yet a commander in the field is bound to state what he needs. It is the business of the politicians to see the wisdom or unwisdom of giving it to him.

“Now you want your revenge. I hope with all my heart you get it. But not here, Don Andrés, not here! If you vast, unchallengeable
powers wish to annoy each other, go and do it on the other side of the Pacific!

“Here I have only one duty left. That is to my command. As you have been good enough to say, it includes the air crews at Lérida and I shall therefore give you and them my orders now. All aircraft are to be immobilized without doing permanent damage. It occurs to me that landing wheels could be removed and carried away. But probably that is clumsy. There may be some essential and much smaller piece of landing gear which cannot be replaced. When not a plane is left for the Avellanistas to fly, I wish you to send transport to evacuate the air crews within forty-eight hours.”

“And if I refuse?”

“I do not think you understand. I cannot protect them. When the Division retreats, the Lérida garrison cannot be left out in the blue without support. I must therefore withdraw it. Your air crews can fly themselves out in the planes of Guayanas. That, however, will cause serious diplomatic difficulties for you, whereas if they simply vanish you can always say they were never there. Avellana no doubt will publish signed statements that they were, but a hundred signatures are not worth half a dozen prisoners as proof.”

“Where are you going to stand and fight?”

“In the Citadel. Whether I fight or not depends on what terms I can obtain for the Division.”

“I see. That is why you would not allow the Citadel troops into the town.”

“I gave no such order, and I think it was mistaken. The risk of losing the Citadel was not so great as it would appear to a civilian and it should have been accepted. I feel the decision was made on grounds that were political rather than military, or else some fool in the Ministry of Defense lost his nerve. But I am now very thankful that I have the Citadel.”

“Captain General, I still won't believe that you can be defeated in the field.”

“I can't be. You are quite right. But I cannot win. It's a
common enough position. Think of Hannibal in Italy, Napoleon in Moscow, yourselves and your allies in Korea, the French in Algeria. On a tiny scale that is where we are. Usually a commander sees it too late. But the poor devil has to draw a line somewhere between cowardice and foresight. When Vidal bolted after that trivial skirmish in Hermosillo, which was he showing?”

“He is not giving up the fight. And the United States is open to all Vidalistas.”

“They will adjust themselves very easily to your civilization,” said Miro courteously.

“And you, too, Captain General.”

“I doubt if I shall have the opportunity. Then, in forty-eight hours . . . ?”

“If my Agency consents.”

“I feel that it will be able to. As soldiers, Don Andrés, we cannot afford to have much respect for the votes of wives and mothers. All the same, they exist. And I am still being pestered by your newspapermen for a story.”

A sour leavetaking, but there it was. When MacKinlay had left, Miro hoped that they would be thinking of each other in much the same terms — criticizing the ally, but admitting that the man would be an admirable character to find commanding the next Division in line. He buried himself in the problems of the retreat.

As the Division withdrew to San Vicente, its left, east of the river, railway and road, was secure. There were no enemy forces in that direction and no organized body could cross the Ica undetected and undestroyed. On its right out in the llanos the enemy was in force. As soon as his own movements became clear to them, they could be expected to make a bold dash for the coast or to attack the rear guard. For the first they were not fast enough; for the second — well, it depended how soon and how cleanly his garrisons could disengage and withdraw.

Miro read over the orders again: Mario and the advance guard to leave at dawn the following day by the Hermosillo-San Vicente
road, pass outside San Vicente and occupy the Citadel. Stores and ammunition to be checked and reported. Civilian labor, if there was any left, to be paid off and sent out. Prisoners of war to be held till his arrival. Particular courtesy to be shown to Don Jesús-María and his staff. An impression to be given that the Citadel was preparing for a siege of indefinite duration. Well, Mario's thoroughness would ensure that he carried out all that precisely and accurately.

Rosalindo and the slower main body would withdraw across country, evacuate the garrison at Rubayo, and approach the Citadel from the north. If enemy patrols were encountered south of the Ica they were to be pursued and annihilated. The triangle Hermosillo-Rubayo-San Vicente must be secured. And that was just the job for a despondent Rosalindo. He wouldn't find much to occupy him beyond routine, but neither resistance nor dispersal would save what he did find.

He himself intended to remain to the last with a small, powerful rear guard. If he was compelled to fight it seemed likely that he would be heavily outnumbered, but by troops which were no match for his own. Rosalindo, allowing his emotions to complicate a sound and prosaic military operation, accused him of self-sacrifice, of wanting to commit suicide. A crazy form of useless heroics that would be! He proposed to stand west of the river Ica until the last convoy had left Hermosillo, then to cross the bridge, blow it behind him and retire in absolute security down the main road. He would pick up the troops from the Siete Dolores garrisons below Cumana and march straight through San Vicente to the Citadel.

That last move, he admitted, was indeed heroics. He was going to give a final example of power and discipline to the Capital. And it could be delivered cheaply, since the only possible opposition was that of the Presidential Guard, which had never been known to fire an unnecessary shot and seldom a necessary one. Twenty-four hours beforehand he would formally and respectfully announce his route to the mayor and town council. It was the sort of stroke which, he knew, would leave Juan chuckling — if he had a chuckle left in him — with admiration, though it would be as well to let him know in a private message that if he didn't
keep the Presidential Guard and Morote's thugs off the route they would be blasted off it.

Timing was the real trouble, for his commanders were inclined to make difficulties. The freedom to speak out, which he had always given them and which had been sparingly used when the whole Divisional front was flickering with action, seemed in retreat to be employed — probably unconsciously — to slow him down. The medical services were particularly insubordinate. The Field Hospital, peaceful and healthy in its requisitioned estancia sixty kilometers east of Hermosillo, had been ordered to leave for the Citadel with the Armored Brigade. They weren't ready and they didn't look like attempting to be ready.

He determined to attach Captain Irala to the Hospital with orders to bully them into speed and to report hourly how preparations for the move were going. There was nobody else, and he wasn't going to need an A.D.C. until Cumana. Besides that — well, a small reward for Irala's untiring service was due. It might be a very long time — one couldn't know — before he saw his charming pathologist again.

He explained his decision to Salvador, coldly emphasizing that no wounded were to be left behind as possible hostages, and that if half a dozen of the critical cases died on the journey they must be considered just as deaths in action, as sacrificed for the rest.

“Those damned doctors want to stay where they are,” he said.

“Avellana will respect the Red Cross, my General.”

“Avellana is somewhere in Los Venados. Hermosillo district will be occupied by crazy llaneros — men who might respect the Cross in its familiar shape but are not likely to pay much attention to a plus sign. I want you to explain that and to see that the Field Hospital is on the road at least six hours ahead of the rear guard. You will remain with the convoy, exercising my authority with your usual tact. It will be in no danger whatever. But when Basilio Ferrer has blown the bridge and I am on my way to Cumana I require the road to be clear.”

“I can return from the estancia tonight and go back again early if you need me.”

“Salvador, I do not need you. And since we started this campaign
I have only been able to give you thirty-six hours leave. I noticed that then you visited the wounded. I admire your taste. I hear she has done invaluable work.”

“I would not like you to think . . .” Salvador began in some embarrassment.

“I don't. I mention your private affairs not to encourage you to obey me, which you will do anyway, but so that you will be really eloquent when you explain to the doctors that they must evacuate the wounded, themselves, their staff, especially their female staff, and get out of there.”

“My General, between your authority and my imagination they shall be frightened out of their skins. But it wasn't that. Since you are a father to me . . .”