A Broken Land Read Free Page A

– it had been going on for years. Industrial walkouts, agrarian uprisings from peasant labourers, a full-blown revolution in the mining region of the Asturias involving a bloody military put-down, the whole mixed with various regions seeking autonomy from Madrid.
    Yet when Cal had read of such things as general strikes he had to remind himself that there had been that in the United Kingdom ten years previously while he had been in the Middle East – the differencewith the Iberian model being that the peasantry tended to murder the landowners and vice versa, while the industrial workers used guns and the authorities everything including tanks, artillery and bombs to put them down.
    ‘We also have information March is shipping weapons and that he has been in contact with both Berlin and Rome about further supplies.’
    ‘And the “we” you represent don’t like it.’
    ‘Not a bit.’
    ‘While HMG?’
    ‘Is either ignorant, which is doubtful, or indifferent, which is likely. We are paying the price for not stopping Hitler in the Rhineland and Mussolini in Ethiopia, we’ve a dictator now in Portugal, as well as a string of rightist governments throughout Central Europe, and that can only get worse if Spain goes the same way.’
    There had been the temptation to press, Lanchester having connections that put him in a position to know much of what went by the name of ‘official thinking’, but it would have been pointless; he was close-lipped on anything like that.
    ‘Has anyone bothered to tell Madrid of what you suspect?’
    ‘I should think everyone has, but they either don’t believe it or are very sure it is all talk and will not come to fruition. Besides which, they are always being bothered by false alarms regarding military revolts. General Sanjurjo, the chap they are talking about as being the titular leader of this one, tried it on four years ago and fell flat on his hidalgo face.’
    ‘They did put him in jail.’
    ‘Then let him out again!’ Peter had protested. ‘Why they didn’t just shoot the bugger when they had the chance escapes me.’
    ‘You must reckon this one more serious.’
    ‘We do, because it is more comprehensive and better organised and that may have been conveyed to the Spanish government. But they are, Cal, a race not traditionally known for rapid activity or cohesive action at any time, while their army, if you exclude the chaps in Morocco, are bloody useless.’
    That was an area in which Cal Jardine did possess knowledge, it being necessary to his trade. Nothing hardens and trains troops like battle, the element that also creates an esprit de corps . The Spanish Army of Africa, which included a unit modelled on the French Foreign Legion, had been fighting Riff tribesmen for decades. They were hard and professional; the concomitant of that was a body of experienced field officers accustomed to leading soldiers in combat right up to and including men who were now senior Spanish generals.
    ‘They are not completely at the old siesta, mind,’ Lanchester had continued, as if reading his guest’s mind. ‘The government have sent the dangerous brass hats off to far-flung postings to put a block on them plotting. Chap called Franco, who is army chief of staff and considered very suspect and second only to Sanjurjo, they have exiled to the Canary Islands.’
    ‘That won’t stop them,’ Cal had insisted. ‘Ever heard of radios?’
    ‘Precisely.’
    ‘So,’ Cal had asked, with a very slight jerk of his head towards the trio of gloom. ‘Why the interest?’
    ‘Jerrold over there is a fanatic and has introduced Cecil Beeb to Bolin, a man funded by the money of Juan March, who, as you say, would be eager to return home and has a bottomless pit of lolly to play with. If certain key generals are going to revolt, the only way some of them can get to the mainland in time to be effective is byaeroplane – Franco particularly – which makes it doubly interesting when we see such