WHEN I got back to Madrid I found that my disappearance had caused a turmoil of excitement. The Press Bureau had been unable to discover any trace of me until a few hours before my return, when someone casually remarked I had last been seen driving out of Madrid in a car with Santiago. As Soviet headquarters were forbidden to journalists, alarm turned into deep suspicion, and when I arrived at the hotel I found a message to ring up Ilse Kulczak, one of the censors. She asked me where I had been, and when I told her, her voice grew menacing: “The authorities are greatly displeased. You will hear more from us.” There was a sharp click at the other end of the line.
I repeated this brief conversation to Tom Delmer and was surprised to see he took a serious view of it. “Whatever you do,” he warned me, “don’t drive to Valencia in a car by yourself. I think they have an idea you are a spy, and if they have, they won’t hesitate to act ruthlessly. Road accidents are often the best way of settling an account.”
I thought Tom was being unduly pessimistic and, since I had already arranged to drive to Valencia with Sydney Franklin, thought no more about it. On the morning of our departure a Danish journalist asked if he could have a lift and the three of us set off together.
The journalist’s real name I never discovered, for he was known in Madrid as “The Trembling Dane”. Although he had been in the capital only three days, the bombardment had completely unnerved him. He had been unlucky, for everywhere he went a shell seemed to fall, and once a dozen people were killed a few yards from him in the main square. He had locked himself up in his room at the Florida and refused to go outdoors until Kajsa persuaded him that it wasn’t as bad as he thought. She took him to Chicote’s bar to restore his morale, but he hadn’t been inside more than ten minutes before two soldiers got into an argument and one of them pulled out a gun and shot the other. After this incident his one idea was to leave Madrid as quickly as possible. As we neared Valencia he sighed with relief at the thought of a peaceful night. He was so grateful to Sydney and me for having given him a lift, he offered to take me to an interview he had arranged with Del Vayo, the Foreign Minister.
I don’t remember much about the interview; it took place at eight o’clock in the War Ministry, and Del Vayo made the usual plea for more support from the democracies. But as it was over and we were walking down the broad stone stairs, we heard a whistle and a crash. The building shook, the lights went out and glass broke over the floor. There were several more crashes and people came streaming out of their offices and crowded down the stairway. At first I didn’t realize what was happening, but the Dane grabbed my arm and screamed, “Les avions.” His voice carried through the halls and caused considerable panic. I tried to calm him but he went on shouting in French, “Où est la cave?” and tried to push his way through the crowd to the stairs. As this was the first serious air-raid Valencia had ever had, and there were no shelters to go to, everyone was at a loss what to do. Most of the people managed to make their way to the ground floor and stood silently in the hallway. The Trembling Dane squeezed into a corner and when he lighted a cigarette I saw that his face was bathed with perspiration.
The bombardment lasted only seven or eight minutes. There were a few more thuds and then silence. I suggested to the Dane that we try to find our way to the Press Bureau a few blocks down the street, but he stood against the wall moaning and refused to leave the building. I finally started off by myself.
It was an eerie scene: the dark forms standing huddled in doorways, the sound of women crying, and the dust still rising in the blackness where a bomb had fallen opposite the British Embassy two blocks away. The deserted streets were beginning to resound to the clang of ambulances and the shrill sirens of the police cars, and already men with flares had run to dig out bodies from the débris.
In spite of the atmosphere of terror and destruction, life was quick to regain a normal bent, for even as I stumbled along the desolate streets a small Spaniard approached me and said hopefully, “Good evening, Señorita, how would you like a boy friend?” When I told him that I had an amigo waiting for me at the Press Bureau he sighed, then gallantly escorted me the rest of the way down the street, bent low over my hand and bade me good night with a flourish.
The next day we learned that the casualties amounted to about a hundred killed and wounded; Valencia had at last been baptized in the war that swept the rest of Spain. In the morning the Trembling Dane came over and said good-bye. He seemed badly shaken and told me he had stayed in the Ministry hallway all night.
My plane was not leaving until the following day. With all the excitement I had completely forgotten Tom Delmer’s warning. That afternoon, however, I had a message that someone in the lobby wished to speak to me. He was a man I had never seen before. He was a German Communist who worked for the secret police. He asked me to come across the street and have a drink and I followed with a sinking heart, wondering if it would end in arrest. It was a disjointed conversation, for he told me my dossier had arrived from Madrid that morning and it showed I had spent a good deal of time at various army headquarters. “I want to know,” he said, “why you are leaving Spain so soon after these trips?” I told him I had only intended to stay in Madrid a couple of months as I had a series of articles to write in Paris. “We have a nice new gaol at Albacete,” he smiled, showing a flash of white teeth. “You could write them just as well from there.”
I replied lightly, as though I thought he were joking, and when I got up to leave he made no move to stop me. The next morning I flew to France.
Not until a year later, when I returned to Barcelona, did I discover from Ilse Kulczak that my arrest had been touch and go; the secret police were instructed to follow me in Valencia while the Madrid authorities debated whether or not to detain me. Even though the Press Bureau was convinced I was a spy, they had finally decided the amount of publicity given to the arrest of an American journalist would do more harm than good. I didn’t know these things at the time; nevertheless, with a sigh of relief, I stepped on to the aerodrome at Toulouse and once again breathed the air of a country at peace.