There were times when it seemed difficult to remember where one was, but this wasn’t so bad, it could be fixed in one’s memory as one does with a telephone number: Operator, Sierra Pandols 666, please. Back from the front line now, at a rest camp for the unit he had been filming in action, dressed only in khaki shorts and a battered but very good Panama hat, David Hatton leaned back against a shady tree and wrote out a label to affix to his can of film – ‘Hill 666: Pandols sector’, then jotted down a script for the voiceover.
Hatton + Hatton Films. Report by David Hatton
We had barely taken over the Lincolns’ position on the main heights of the Pandols when the enemy launched its biggest and most sustained attack yet.
An artillery barrage, the like of which none of us had ever experienced, crashed down around us, and flying shrapnel and rock splinters inflicted dozens of minor injuries.
When the barrage lifted, two fascist infantry battalions hurled themselves against us. Although still reeling from the shock-waves of the barrage, we repelled the fascists. The fighting was intense and the battalion received heavy casualties.
The battalion has now been relieved by a Spanish unit. The 35th Division seems likely to receive a citation from the Brigade for their efforts in holding the hill against incredibly superior odds. This report for ‘With the 35th in Spain’ is filed by David Hatton.
Smiling to himself, a tall, fair man, wearing only khaki trousers and the ubiquitous grass-soled zapatos like those worn by the Spanish militia, squatted beside David Hatton who looked up briefly and did a doubletake. The similarity between the two was astonishing.
‘Rich! By all that’s holy! Where did you spring from?’
The two men clasped one another by the forearms and held on. ‘From Hill Six, Six bloody Six.’
‘I’ve just got a can full of that.’ David indicated a film-carrier and the script he had just completed.
‘Stuff for old Hatton Plus?’ Their outfit had been given the name Hatton + Hatton, which in the early days they had thought amusing.
‘Right. A series of short films for Aid to Spain. Fund-raisers. Great stuff, every one a winner.’
‘Well, so they should be, you’re the best movie reporter in town, Davey.’
‘Only since you left. I mean, they’re winners because I have only to point the camera and the story tells itself. No chance of a second take. Gives one a keen edge.’
Richard Hatton punched his brother genially on the shoulder. ‘Modesty doesn’t sit well on you, Davey old lad.’
They were twins, not identical, but extraordinarily alike, with greenish-gold eyes, wheat-coloured hair and eyebrows, and long, straight noses square at the tip. Six feet tall and handsome, they had always drawn attention, especially when seen together. In London the Hatton brothers were well known in the world of film and journalism.
David and Richard Gore-Hatton had both grown up with a passion for making movies since the day when an indulgent great-uncle introduced them to home-movie-making. Later, the same uncle and his sister – their grandmother Lady Margaret (who, before her marriage to a lord, had been a talented actress) – had shown sufficient faith in the boys’ talent to make a small investment which had helped them buy equipment and secure a specialist niche in the film-making industry.
In 1936, when they were in Spain reporting on the first civil disturbances, Richard had met and fallen in love with Maite Manias, a Spanish playwright, and decided to stay. At the outbreak of the war he had joined the militia, and when the International Brigade was formed, he volunteered.
‘Do you hear from Maite?’
Richard Hatton shook his head and fell silent.
‘Trouble, Rich?’
‘She thought that she was pregnant.’
‘Oh, God. And she’s still in Orense?’
‘No, we moved to the coast, to Vigo, then I had to leave her and get back into the Republic. The plan was that she would travel on to Rosal and try to get across to Portugal and on to London that way. But I haven’t heard a word.’
‘For how long?’
‘Weeks now. I’ve used every last contact to try to find out something, but I have to be careful for her sake. They shoot first and ask afterwards and they imprison anybody and everybody who’s the slightest bit suspect. And for God’s sake, Davey, Maite wasn’t exactly discreet in her work. You know what happened to Lorca and he wasn’t even really political.’
‘I’ll see what I can do, Rich. I met Malou French on my last trip back to London, she might be able to discover something.’ He smiled wryly. ‘Met her passing through Biarritz of all places.’
‘Why of all places? Biarritz is exactly the place to meet the French tart.’
‘Oh, she’s done with gossip and fashion, she’s taken up with the Bishop’s Fund for Relief of Spanish Distress.’
‘That right-wing Catholic outfit?’
‘That’s right, she’s in charge of the stocks for a kind of travelling hospital, I think that’s what she said. Anyway she has the ear of some very important people in Burgos, that’s how she got to be in charge of a set-up that’s supposed to be entirely run by Spaniards. She has some nerve.’
‘Then why in hell’s name are you thinking of asking her to get information on Maite’s whereabouts?’
‘Why not? She and I recognize one another for what we are – political enemies – but she’s not the type to do anything against one of her own.’
‘Maite’s not one of her own, she’s a left-wing playwright and poet.’
‘I’m one of her own, you and I both are. We did our duty at her coming-out ball. Look at the Mitfords, daggers drawn politically, but neither of the girls would hand the other to the enemy.’
‘You’re too nice, Davey. I wouldn’t trust any of that set as far as I could throw them.’
‘Rich, we are that set.’
‘Were, Davey, were. I’d inform on Malou.’
‘Would you really?’
‘You know I would. So would you, young Hatton, so would you.’ David Hatton did not answer at first. He and Malou French had had a brief liaison. For both of them it had been sleeping with the enemy. ‘“Play up, play up and play the game”, ta-ra, and all that, Richard?’
‘That was never honour. Honour is what’s embedded in Marxism, honour’s why I’m here. “Honour thy father and thy mother that thy days may be long in the land thy Lord givest thee.” That doesn’t mean nods and winks in the City, does it? That means take care of people, take care of everybody.’
David Hatton saw that something profound had happened to his brother since they were last together. ‘You haven’t caught religion, have you, Rich?’
Richard Hatton smiled, the ghost of his old handsomeness lit his face fleetingly. ‘Not in the way dear old “MacDougall” Gore did.’
David smiled too, a flash of warm family feeling passing between them at the memory of one of their more eccentric relations. ‘Douglas would have been fine if only he had caught some nice quiet Baptist variety instead of that drear Scottish kirk variety.’
‘I haven’t caught anything, old love, it’s our legacy.’ The legacy to which Richard referred was that same eccentricity that had manifested itself in religion in Douglas Gore-Hatton. It had always been something they spoke of lightly, perhaps to reassure themselves that their commitment to communism, in a family with blue blood in its veins, was not also mere eccentricity. ‘The red Hatton blood might have curdled with the old Gore blue to produce Douglas, but ours is unadulterated Hatton red, Davey. Decent red blood.’
David Hatton uncapped one of his cameras. Knowing what was expected, his brother looked away from the lens and lit a thin roll-up cigarette, allowing the smoke to drift about his profile. ‘That OK?’
‘You’re still a vain old sod, Rich. For two pins I’d make you turn the other way and take your bad side.’
‘Haven’t got one these days. Lost weight, uncovered the perfect Hatton facial bone structure. Look.’ He grinned, lifted his chin and turned his face in the opposite direction.
David’s concern as a brother almost outweighed his objectivity as a professional cameraman. Richard’s bright eyes stared out from the deep, dark hollows of his gaunt features.
‘Make a fist, Rich.’
Richard did so, looking directly in the camera’s lens. ‘¡No fucking pasarán!’ He took a long drag on his cigarette, then inspected the tip as he said fervently, ‘That’s more than just a slogan, Davey, you know that? We shall not let them pass, we must not. If we can’t stop the jackboots here, they’ll keep on marching and marching. And it will be the Hattons of this world who will be sent out to catch the bullets in their teeth; the Gores will stand back and urge them on as they’ve been doing for centuries.’
David had never seen his twin show so explicitly the extent to which he despised the Gore blood they shared.
The shadows were growing longer. People elsewhere in the rest camp began moving about again. ‘Soon get a brew of tea, I should think,’ Richard said. Neither of them moved.
‘What about Malou. Shall I work on it?’
‘I wouldn’t trust the bitch as far as I could throw her.’
For a reason he would have found hard to put into words, but it had to do with the possibility that Richard might not live much longer, David wanted to tell him secrets, perhaps to confess that he had not always confided in him as much as Richard might have supposed. ‘Did you know that we once had a bit of a fling?’
‘God help us all.’ Richard stared at him. ‘You and who else? How many to a bed? Or was it on horseback or a back-room in Chinatown?’
David was not fooled by the wry smile; Richard was troubled. ‘Sounds as though you’ve been there, Rich.’
‘Christ, Davey! No! And I never imagined you… I thought we were the only two in our set who hadn’t been there. Anybody else involved? She likes threesomes and the odd dog or two, doesn’t she?’
‘Oh come on, Rich, Malou might be a bit of a mattress, but… no, it was just the two of us.’
‘How innocent. For Christ’s sake, she’s not even a half-way decent journalist.’
‘You’ve always said no experience is wasted – she wanted pictures.’
‘Of the two of you? Christ, David, you never did them?’
‘Why not? It was a bit of a challenge, really, making something more artistic than the regular crude stuff.’
‘Dirty pictures are dirty pictures.’
‘And Malou French is now hob-nobbing with the great and good of the Church of Rome. I think she’s hoping to get an audience with the Pope.’
Richard snorted with derision. ‘Saint Malou of Burgos! Sounds like blackmail, old son.’
‘Blackmail has its uses.’
A few moments of silence ended the exchange.
‘I’ll have to muster soon. What are your plans?’
‘I have to get these cans on a flight to Switzerland. They have to be in London the day after tomorrow.’
‘Are you flying out?’
‘No, there’s some sort of motor car courier service. There are dropoff points where stuff is picked up and taken to the airfield.’
‘For cans of film?’
‘No, it’s a service for visiting nabobs. Nice motors too, requisitioned. They fly Republican pennants on the bonnet.’
‘I came across a writer a few weeks back. English. He was at Eton – senior to us. Name of Blair.’
‘Blair? Tall thin fellow who sneered down his nose? He’s a writer, you say?’
‘And a red. He’s out here with the IB – forget which battalion – what I started to say was, he said something that stuck in my mind when we got to talking politics, “When people become equal, some will be more equal than others.” See, Davey? Visiting nabobs require special motors, your use of them is abetting the system, confirms Blair’s portent. It’s the Gore in you still thinking it’s OK being more equal than the rest.’
‘Come off your high horse, Rich. This courier service is blessed by the state.’
‘Many of whom still see themselves as the more equal.’
‘So what would you do with abandoned and requisitioned Daimlers and Rolls, dynamite them?’
‘It’d be a start, Davey. The anarchists have blown up churches because they symbolize injustice and oppression.’
‘You always have had an answer for everything, Rich. Listen, Tempus fugit, and I’ve scrounged a lift in a lorry going to Madrid.’
‘OK, but I’m reluctant to let you go. At least let’s see if we can find a cup of tea or something. Are you still seeing Fiona?’
‘Lord, no. Fiona married, she’s gone to the States.’
‘So what then, David, not leading a celibate life?’
‘Are you?’
‘It’s different with me, I’ve got my woman, and, Deo gratias, she’s carrying my child. I say, you aren’t still mooning after that mystery woman?’
‘Of course not.’
‘Liar, Davey. I always know when you’re lying.’
‘OK, so I still think about her, but the odds against it coming to anything are pretty long ones.’
‘She probably wasn’t for you anyway. If Mags could scare her off, as you say, then…’
‘Mags with her voice in full flight protecting one of her grandsons would stop a charging bull-elephant.’
‘Maybe she was going to chuck you anyway. Arnold met her, didn’t he?’
‘I whisked her away from him pretty smartish. I had no intention of exhibiting our family, especially in the person of Arnold Gore.’
‘He described her as a truly luscious totty.’
‘I rest my case.’
‘Did you never discover her true name?’
‘Of course I didn’t. If I had I might have had some chance of finding her again.’ David Hatton paused and looked directly at his brother. ‘I was really keen on her, Rich, really very keen, I still have dreams about meeting her.’
‘Big dreams, at night?’
‘Yes, damn it! If I didn’t, then I imagine I might explode with unrequited lust.’
‘That’s bad, Davey.’
‘Don’t joke, Richard. I can’t get the girl out of my mind. It isn’t finished, I feel it in my bones.’ The feeling in his bones, if he were honest, was nothing more than a fond hope that his love-life would be resolved in the manner of the novels his grandmother read to him, her favourite grandson, in his boyhood. Ah, Davey, she would say, how beautifully Jane Austen sorts them all out – each according to his or her deserts.
‘I say, old son, have you thought that this might be a typical Gore affair?’
‘I’m not a Gore, I’m a Hatton.’
‘So you say, but our male ancestors have never been much attracted by their own kind. Perhaps you’ve been searching in the wrong places. Maybe she’s on the stage, like Mags.’
Perhaps. For all her imperiousness now, their grandmother had once been an actress. It had stood her in good stead when she came to play the grande dame for real.
By now they were seated with mugs of tea at one of the long trestle-tables under the canopy of camouflaged canvas which was the cook-house. Richard said the smell put him in mind of the tea scrum at the Badminton Horse Trials.
‘By the way, that reminds me. Did you know that Helan Povey – Helan Alexander as she now is – is running some sort of vehicle clearing-house for one of the aid committees? Down in Albacete, the Auto-Parc.’
‘I heard. The vehicle bit doesn’t surprise me, she only ever had two topics of conversation: horses and motor bikes. I didn’t know that she had married.’
‘Her chap, Alexander, he’s a half-caste, more a quarter-caste. By all accounts, turned out to be quite a character. Got himself into some kind of trouble demonstrating at the Berlin Olympics, and was put on the first plane back to Berne. Black, you see. What with Jesse Owens winning gold, the Germans wanted no truck with an uppity black Jew.’
‘Are we talking about Helan Povey of the prancing horses?’
‘Absolutely. Half-black, quarter maybe, his mother is white, that’s how he comes to have a Swiss passport. The Alexanders live there when they’re not here.’
‘Is he in Albacete too?’
‘He came over here, got taken prisoner almost the same day he arrived.’
‘Poor bastard.’
‘Yeah.’
‘Rich, you really have gone very red indeed. Is that Maite’s influence?’
‘I had a mind before I fell for Maite, I had my ILP membership card, and my Labour Party card even before you did.’
‘But you never held a CP card.’
‘It was a matter of time, Davey, you know that. After Winston Churchill ordered the rifles to be turned on people in Cable Street, and the brown-shirts went through the East End like Cossacks… you saw it, you filmed it. Didn’t it say to you, enough is enough?’
‘Communism’s not the answer, Rich.’
‘It’s a damn good start. Anyway, I don’t know why you’re being so argumentative, you couldn’t put a card between our ideals when we were Hatton plus Hatton.’
‘I’m not arguing. I haven’t lost my ideals, I want no more Lord Gores or Lord Poveys blighting the lives of Joe Soap.’
‘But you haven’t yet picked up a rifle and faced the Moorish hordes.’
‘True, Rich, but I’ve faced them with my camera. In fact, I was sniped at for five minutes.’ He broke the strained mood by smiling, then chuckling, ‘I was right down in a trench, with my camera pointed straight at the enemy line, and phut-phut-phut, the only bullets coming over seemed to be coming straight for me. I changed my position three times, and they still found it.’
Richard Hatton grinned. ‘That silly sod was never you?’
‘What d’you mean, “That silly sod”?’
‘Well, that’s what the chap called you, wasn’t it, when he pulled you back into the trench by the braces? And saved your life? The camera it was that died. So it’s true then?’
‘The camera didn’t die, but I did feel a damned fool not realizing that the sun was reflecting off the lens. But it was my first day at the front line.’
‘Don’t take it to heart, the story’s apocryphal. It’s the kind of story about visitors to our war that gives us a laugh.’
‘Glad you enjoyed it.’
‘The story wouldn’t have stood up as a joke on camp-followers if the sniper had got you.’
‘Don’t needle me again, Rich. I shall not take up a rifle. Somebody has to counter the propaganda the other side is churning out. Desecration, executions, atrocities.’
‘Atrocities? I’ll tell you atrocities. Want to make a real horror film? I’ll tell you where to go.’
‘Calm down, Rich. Let me do things my way, and you do them yours.’
Richard sighed heavily, his inward breath catching like a sob. ‘You’re right, Davey.’ He rubbed his face with the palms of his hands and sat for a few moments staring out over the tips of his fingers. ‘Yes, yes, sorry, old lad. It’s this business with Maite, keep thinking what they might do to her.’
David Hatton had nothing to say. Even as he had mentioned atrocities he wished that he had kept silent.
‘This girl you seem so keen on, you don’t really think she was scared off by Mags, do you?’
‘She barks, Rich, she still thinks she has to reach the back row of the stalls when she answers the telephone. She doesn’t like them, can’t get the hang of them. If Louise wasn’t actually scared off, she might have thought twice about leaving a message with Mags.’
‘Mags thought that she was protecting you from some hussy of a fortune-hunter. I really do hope that you’ll find her. I do know how it feels not knowing where the one you love is.’
‘I have never said I love her.’
‘That’s true.’
David Hatton gave his brother an understanding clasp on the shoulder, leaving his hand there. Then he squeezed his fingers briefly and stood up. ‘Maite’s going to be safe, Rich. I feel that she must be.’
‘You and your bones, Davey. I hope they’re right. Once I hear that she has reached Berne or London, then I’ll be OK and stop shrieking like an old queen. I’ll not leave Spain, of course, I’ll be here to the bitter end. This war is the first frost of a hard winter to come. If they aren’t stopped here and now, Hitler and Mussolini will go for the whole of Europe, and none of us will be safe.’
Trained as they were in the ways of Englishmen, the brothers parted as though they were just off, as in the old days, to take pictures at a society wedding and would see one another the following day.
Before he left Madrid on his new assignment, David Hatton went to see an old friend, a man who knew more than even Richard about David’s work for the Republic. A moving film was a great asset when one needed to send unofficial messages between countries.
Anyone wishing to see the man known as ‘Cero’ had first to be cleared by the tight security that surrounded him. Cero had no official title, no permanent office, but in all the many factions clashing for control of Madrid, he was the one person who had no political or religious axe to grind. Consequently he was trusted. He became an arbiter, a linchpin, a diplomat attached to no embassy. If anyone was able to discover what had become of Richard’s Maite Manias, it would be Cero.