Cal steered the conversation on to that subject. With total cynicism the British government – worried about upsetting Mussolini and Hitler – had made pious noises about non-intervention in what they called a purely national dispute, ignoring the obvious evidence of what those same dictators were up to, plumping instead for an international discussion forum called the Non-Intervention Committee while refusing arms to both sides – in effect, given Franco was getting everything he needed, denying the Republic vital support.

The French, fearful of acting on their own, as well as under pressure from their own right-wing zealots, having offered to supply arms to Madrid and sending a few obsolete planes, had supinely withdrawn that after political protests and street demonstrations and the lack of British support, while the USA was staying strictly neutral.

‘Yep, thanks to our so-called democracies Franco could be sitting in this bar in a week.’

‘It won’t be pretty if he does.’

‘And some.’

That provided another diversion; you could not have a conversation about the conflict without talking about the killing taking place, and often being boasted about in some kind of Spanish love of blood and death in a heated propaganda war in which it was increasingly hard to tell the truth from the exaggerations.

It was bad in the cities, but there was little doubt in areas where the peasantry had risen up – long the victims of rapacious landlord power – death and destruction were particularly acute, with manor houses torched and their owners and families butchered. The priests who had supported them were victims too, often locked inside burning churches with those of their flock considered class enemies, while the Nationalists claimed nuns were being raped and mutilated all over the country, stories vehemently denied by the Republican press.

Yet it was hard to believe even a ferocious, long-downtrodden and exploited peasantry and angry workers could outdo the forces of reaction who, if reports were true, were killing on an industrial scale, while allowing their Foreign Legion troops a free hand in how they terrorised the places they captured, leading to mass rapes and summary executions. It was said that the Nationalist commander who took Badajoz had ordered shot a couple of thousand people before he headed for Madrid.

‘Holy Shamolly.’

That emphatic and utterly incomprehensible outburst, given they were discussing murder and mayhem, made Cal Jardine spin round. He had failed to notice that the babble at the bar had seriously diminished; all eyes were on their banquette.

‘Querido.’

Tyler Alverson did not quite whistle, but judging by the look he gave Florencia as both men stood he might as well have. She was dressed in close-fitting jodhpurs and riding boots, while her leather coat was folded over her arm so that the silk shirt she had on showed her figure to perfection, and she was returning the look, waiting for an introduction, which was quickly supplied.

‘Tyler, you sly old dog,’ Hemingway hooted.

Alverson called back. ‘You can’t have all the ladies, Ernie, stick to Martha.’

A glass was raised and Hemingway was not looking at Alverson, but then neither was anyone else in a group which, with his size and bulk, he dominated, his response another call. ‘When the cat’s away …’

‘Cal tells me you’re an anarchist?’ Alverson said, his attention back on Florencia, with a look that implied disbelief.

‘Si.’

‘Tell me, honey, how do I join?’

There is a fine line between flattering someone and patronising them, added to which there was Florencia’s ability to see a slight where there was none intended and she had a temperament to match. Seeing her eyes narrow, Cal had to intervene quickly.

‘Tyler helped me get guns into Ethiopia.’ That gave her pause. ‘You should read some of his reports on Italian atrocities. He hates Mussolini.’

As a way of saying ‘he’s one of us’ it was perfect and the look on her face changed from impending anger to a dazzling smile. Quite out of character, because he was not the type for gallantry, Tyler leant over, lifted her hand and kissed it, then smiled.

‘I would be happy to read them to you.’

‘As bedtime stories?’ Cal interjected, not without irony.

‘Can I buy you guys dinner later?’

‘We’ll see,’ was the reply from Callum Jardine.

The look on Tyler Alverson’s face then was a curious one, almost wolfish. ‘We’re bound to run into each other; after all, I’m staying in this joint too.’

‘I’m sure we will.’

‘And then, Callum Jardine, you can tell what it is you are being so secretive about.’

Cal tried bluff. ‘Who says I am being secretive?’

Tyler Alverson tapped his nose. ‘This old buddy of mine, and it’s never wrong.’

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Prime Minister Largo Caballero was not a man who could be called upon in secret; in the atmosphere prevailing inside his government, which, with much manoeuvring and abandonment of principle the anarchists were preparing to join, suspicion was the watchword. Trust no one, watch everyone and keep a keen nose twitching for betrayal, so arrangements had been made to meet him away from the parliament building, El Congreso de los Diputados.

But first Cal had to be introduced to the politician who would represent the CNT-FAI, Juan García Oliver, a man about the same age and, according to Florencia, as much of a long-time firebrand as Laporta, with whom he had planned and carried out assassinations. He looked very much less of a fighter, being slim and handsome, with a high forehead, though he shared a countenance not much given to smiling.

He certainly did not favour the foreigner with one, and though it was clear that he and Andreu Nin, now a full member of the Catalan regional government, had already agreed a common position, it was also obvious, from the looks thrown in his direction, that García Oliver questioned the need for Cal to be present. Nin had to take him aside and engage in a whispered discussion to put his mind at rest.

That over, the quartet – it included Florencia – proceeded to their destination. The meeting took place at the home of a trusted political ally of Caballero, a house in a quiet cul-de-sac where Cal came face-to-face with a man whom he knew from the reports he had boned up on had, as much as any other, inflamed the politics of elections during the Republic.

A fiery orator in the tradition of men obliged by internal competition to ratchet up the rhetoric of blood-filled gutters should his opponents get back into power, it was Caballero who had threatened mayhem should the parties of the centre and right triumph in the last elections, he who had possibly created in the generals, now fighting, the feeling that Spain was about to sink into anarchy.

Yet for someone supposed to be a demagogue, Largo Caballero looked remarkably ordinary, more like a career bureaucrat than a budding Lenin: silver-haired, well barbered, bland-faced and very polite, with a calm manner of speaking much at odds with the passionate arguments to which he was obliged to listen.

Cal could only be partly involved; his improved Spanish was insufficient to follow more than the drift of what was a circumlocutory conversation between the male trio, in which little would be openly stated, this not aided by the loathing each had for the other, while Florencia was too intent on what was being said to do much translating.

It was more by watching her face that he followed the drift of the conversation, which appeared to be positive, indicated more by half-smiles and semi-nods from Caballero than any outright declaration. The meeting broke up with handshakes, and only when they were away from the house, in the open, did Florencia fully enlighten him.

‘Caballero agrees that the possibilities should be investigated.’