Winter in Madrid Read Online Free Page A

astonishment for a moment, then gave an embarrassed laugh.
    ‘Certainly not.’
    ‘Sorry to embarrass you, but these things happen at public schools. You know, crushes.’
    ‘There was nothing like that.’
    ‘After Forsyth left,’ Jebb said, ‘did you keep in touch?’
    ‘We exchanged letters for a couple of years. Less and less as time went on. We hadn’t much in common once Sandy left Rookwood.’ He sighed. ‘In fact, I’m not sure why he went on writing for so long. Maybe to impress – he wrote about clubs and girls and that sort of thing.’ Jebb nodded encouragingly. ‘In his last letter he said he was working for some bookie in London. He wrote about doping horses and fake bets as though it was all a joke.’ But now Harry was remembering Sandy’s other side: the walks over the Downs in search of fossils, the long talks. What did these people want?
    ‘You still believe in traditional values, don’t you?’ Miss Maxse asked with a smile. ‘The things Rookwood stands for.’
    ‘I suppose so. Though …’
    ‘Yes?’
    ‘I wonder how the country got to this.’ He met her eyes. ‘We weren’t ready for what happened in France. Defeat.’
    ‘The jelly-backed French let us down.’ Jebb grunted.
    ‘We were forced to retreat too, sir,’ Harry said. ‘I was there.’
    ‘You’re right. We weren’t properly prepared.’ Miss Maxse spoke with sudden feeling. ‘Perhaps we behaved too honourably at Munich. After the Great War we couldn’t believe anyone would
want
war again. But we know now Hitler always did. He won’t be happy till all of Europe’s under his heel. The New Dark Age, as Winston calls it.’
    There was a moment’s silence, then Jebb coughed. ‘OK, Harry. I want to talk about Spain. When France fell last June and Mussolini declared war on us, we expected Franco to follow. Hitler had won his Civil War for him, and of course Franco wants Gibraltar. With German help he could take it from the landward side and that’d be the Mediterranean choked off to us.’
    ‘Spain’s in ruins now,’ Harry said. ‘Franco couldn’t fight another war.’
    ‘But he could let Hitler in. There are Wehrmacht divisions waiting on the Franco-Spanish border. The Spanish Fascist Party wants to enter the war.’ He inclined his head. ‘On the other hand, most of the Royalist generals distrust the Falange and they’re scared of a popular uprising if the Germans come in. They’re not Fascists,they just wanted to beat the Reds. It’s a fluid situation, Franco could declare war any day. Our embassy people in Madrid are living on their nerves.’
    ‘Franco’s cautious,’ Harry ventured. ‘A lot of people think he could have won the Civil War earlier if he’d been bolder.’
    Jebb grunted. ‘I hope you’re right. Sir Samuel Hoare’s gone out there as ambassador to try and keep them out of the war.’
    ‘I heard.’
    ‘Their economy’s in ruins, as you say. That weakness is our trump card, because the Royal Navy can still control what goes in and out.’
    ‘The blockade.’
    ‘Fortunately the Americans aren’t challenging it. We’re letting in just enough oil to keep Spain going, a bit less actually. And they’ve had another bad harvest. They’re trying to import wheat and raise loans abroad to pay for it. Our reports say people are collapsing from hunger in the Barcelona factories.’
    ‘It sounds as bad as during the Civil War.’ Harry shook his head. ‘What they’ve been through.’
    ‘There are all sorts of rumours coming out of Spain now. Franco’s exploring any number of schemes to gain economic self-sufficiency, some of them pretty crackpot. Last year an Austrian scientist claimed to have found a way of manufacturing synthetic oil from plant extracts and got money out of him to develop it. It was all a fraud, of course.’ Jebb gave his bark of a laugh again. ‘Then they claimed to have found huge gold reserves down at Badajoz. Another mare’s nest. But now we hear they