Chapter 31, Barcelona, 20 July 1936
“Oi, Paddy,” the heavily accented Londoner hissed, “how the hell can you sleep through it, get yourself up!”
Patrick ‘Paddy’ Byrne, actually Mr Cyril Butler of His Majesty’s Secret Intelligence Service, rolled grumpily, dazedly over on his bunk (bottom bunk, bringing back dreary memories of his dreary school) and muttered some choice words under his breath. Blinking a few times, he decided that it was safe for him to open his eyes.
It was warm, of course, but there was something, well, different to the heat here; it lacked the sticky unpleasantness of British heat, it was dryer, more relaxing. The opening of the eyelids seemed to be linked, magically, to events outside of the building, a rattle-tattle noise from somewhere in the city. “Small arms fire,” Butler said, then in panic regretted it; he was maintaining his ‘down at heel leftist academic / civil servant’ cover.
The other man was a burly, powerfully built figure with the same slightly dusty academic dress sense of the Byrne character. With a shock of off white (almost cream) hair, looking like a biblical prophet, A R Northcott, a leading figure in the Acton Labour Party and the most unlikely Olympian that Butler had ever seen winked conspiratorially. Butler sighed; with his lean frame and background as a miler he rued that he was more of a sportsman than this bookish chess player.
There was another burst of fire. Northcott, who had assumed a position of leadership among the British delegates to the ‘People’s Olympiad’, wordlessly looked at Butler with a raised eyebrow. “Closer?”
“I think so,” Butler said with false hesitancy; he was still rattled by his mistake upon waking. “I’m not
really an expert on this, y’know. A few summers with the Scouts and school cadet forces doesn’t make me Earl Haig.”
“You’re the best we have,” Northcott said in swift response. “Cigarette?”
Butler happily took a cigarette; he had ensured that Paddy Byrne smoked the same stuff as Cyril Butler. “What do you want to do?”
“Well we’ve heard from the local lads, apparently they want to press ahead with the games.”
“You’re pulling my leg!”
Northcott shook his head and frowned. Butler realised that, despite his more rational moments, the other man really did burn with the fire of the cause. “No, Paddy, I’m not. Do you want to go home?”
That was a test, and one that Butler had to pass; since being told to capitalise on his earlier deep cover operation as a down-at-heel London lefty he had been shoved, via the hopelessly mismanaged Clapham Labour Party, into the delegation for the ‘People’s Olympiad’ and had, since joining them, hoovered up intelligence (alas more for ‘5’ than his own service) of who was who in the Socialist movements of the UK. While some of the CPGB lot were what Kell, in his own tired way, would describe wearily as ‘troublemakers’ (a couple had tried to capitalise on Invergordon through seditious posters and entrapment operations in the dockyards, Butler’s time with them had revealed), most were reassuringly dull and tediously earnest.
“Not unless it’s not safe,” he said with an attempt at ‘Boys’ Own’ bravery. “But we need to find out what’s what.”
“I hoped that you’d say that,” Northcott said readily. “Shall we have a look outside?”
“Not the roof?”
“We tried, Johnny and I, that is,” Northcott explained; he really did have an oddly humble ‘way’ to him, despite (or perhaps because of) his natural skill as a leader. “Very polite, but ‘Vamos’ nonetheless.”
“Alright then,” Butler said with too much resolve and not enough Paddy Byrne-esque panic, “let’s have a look.”
Northcott gave him a sly look, Butler resolved to be less ‘6’ in his behaviour going forward.
The streets, which had yesterday been deserted, were a riot of defiance, a celebration of joie de vivre, a reclaiming of their city from the (presumed Army) rebels. Across from the hotel, a procession marched past.
The marchers were confident, Butler allowed, as he and Northcott watched them from the entrance of the church next to the hotel, demonstrating past through the city with raised fists and flags waving. Northcott, next to him, raised a fist in solidarity and Butler, inadvertently displaying some Paddy Byrne hesitation, weakly and half-heartedly mirrored him.
“Poor bastards,” Northcott said with passion. “Just trying to fight for the ordinary man.”
Butler, as Byrne, made a ‘uh huh’ noise and watched as the procession passed. How Northcott had turned a military rebellion into tyranny to be met by socialist crusade was beyond him. The truce that held seemed to collapse by mutual agreement. Not far away, sounding almost on top of them, rifle fire started to sound intermittently.
“Take cover you fool!” Butler abandoned any pretence to be an ineffectual academic. “That’s firing near us.”
“Is sounds above us?!” Northcott was peering over the road.
Butler had him, or rather them, two riflemen, both in what looked like an approximation of military working dress. They were firing, as Butler realised, from above them, from the Church over the road from the hotel and above them as Butler and Northcott were stood in an entrance alcove of the Church.
But what in God’s name are they shooting at?
“What’s going on…”
“…look! Just shut up!”
Dear God, Butler realised,
they’re firing right on the procession. “C’mon Northcott, we need to get back into cover!” He feared reprisals as the citizens had to fight back. He was right as the local groups returned a desultory fire. Their marksmanship did not match their passion and bullets were soon whizzing by, like angry bees, everywhere. As Butler sprinted from the alcove of the Church to a woefully small newspaper stand (but, mercifully closer to the hotel), Northcott, heavily and wheezily, followed. The cobbled streets did not make an effective running track.
A sudden snap, not unlike a Christmas cracker, sounded to their left. A fighter (Butler had no idea for which side) had covered their retreat. Bravely exposing himself to fire, he gestured at them to run across the road.
Butler complied, not wanting to explain that he was more scared of the rabble on the street than the sniper in the church, before stuttering to a halt; he didn’t feel that Northcott was near him. Sure enough, the older man was sat on the kerb coughing heavily. “Keep going Paddy,” he said in precisely the same selfless way that they did in novels.
“Bugger that!” Butler said, dammed if he was going to be the stoical friend. “Get your fat chess-playing backside over here now.” Their Spanish protector, understanding the gist of Butler’s exhortation, gestured energetically for Northcott to get out of his field of fire.
Reunited, finally, the two reached the lobby of the hotel. Ted Harding, one of the British team’s athletes, was there, in the lobby, staring at the chaos outside. “We were worried, you only went out to have a look! Are you hurt?”
“Nah,” Northcott said with more confidence than Butler suspected that he felt. “Paddy here’s probably just stopped me from getting caught up in it.” He turned to peer, with the sly look again, at Butler. “You knew what was going on, didn’t you? How?”
“I was in the Territorials for a spell.”
Sometimes admitting to a small lie, the tradecraft bible declares, can help avoid the far greater one. Northcott nodded, as if it all, now, made sense. “Infantry?”
“Actually medical admin,” Butler said, investing in the lie. “I’d be a conshie if anything happened, so I thought if I was a stretcher bearer or a medical paperhanger they’d not send me in the trenches. I’m not really keen on leading a load of lads to their deaths,” he said with judicious (and not Byrne-esque) passion.
They nodded, this they understood. “But you did basic?”
“We all do,” and here Butler, whose SIS training had indeed included a spell of basic small arms and tactical training, managed to talk about that dreadful fortnight at the Small Arms School in Kent with that utter martinet of a Staff Sergeant. He hoped that it contained just enough detail to convince them.
“Well I’m pleased you’re here,” Northcott said simply. “What do we do now? And what’s that smell?”
“Christ it’s burning!” Harding almost screamed this. “The church, it’s on fire!”
The three Britons stared as, indeed, the church was consumed by fire. It wasn’t clear to Butler whether someone had stormed in and taken out the fighters holed up inside, or whether grenade or (
God forbid, Butler thought) artillery fire had claimed it.
“Is there a risk to us?” That was Northcott, paternally.
Harding, now their fire ‘expert’, looked across. “It’s not a wide road, if it takes, then in this wind…”
“What’s the betting that their fire brigade is not available?”
“What’s the betting,” Butler added sourly, “that their fire brigade is even alive?”
Northcott nodded sadly. “We should help. That’s a church, and, well…”
“We’ll all help,” Butler said, in soothing support. “What do you want to do?”
“We could form a chain?” Northcott said this uncertainly.
“Right!” Harding was still very excited. “Let’s form a chain of buckets!”
“It won’t,” Butler said warily, “require all of us. Perhaps those that aren’t helping should pack their bags.”
Northcott turned and stared at Butler as if the younger man had offered to pleasure his aged mother. “Why?”
“You can’t be serious,” Butler said angrily. “There’s not going to be a bloody games.”
“Actually,” Harding said, siding unexpectedly with Northcott, “there is. They want to do a practice march to the stadium this afternoon.”
Butler sagged at the news. “Do you not understand. We’re in real danger here…”
“…we should show solidarity with the workers here,” Northcott said, slowly, sadly.
Risking another argument was pointless, and while they bickered a church was on fire. “Alright, can we at least get the women to pack. They’ll be the first to be evacuated
if we end up leaving,” Butler offered in as agreeable a tone as he could muster. “And,” he said, more commandingly, “we have to tell the British Embassy that we’re still here.”
“If,” Harding said tersely, “they even care about us.” He shook his head and went off to organise the working party. It took surprisingly little time; most of the British men were glad to do something, and the recent firefight added a frisson of danger, of appeal, to the mundane task of passing buckets to Northcott and Harding.
Butler disengaged and, quietly, retreated to the hotel manager’s office. It was not surprising that the telephone exchange was not functioning, but Butler did manage to get the address, from the scrawled notebook that the manager had dumped on his desk as he had fled that morning, the location and address of the post office. Writing it down quickly, he left the hotel to talk to Northcott.
He found the older man in the smouldering ruins of the church, as the local fire brigade had taken over the job, although, Harding had sarcastically commented, ‘not until we had done the hard work’.
“A priest,” Northcott said sadly, pointing at a charred, almost human-looking, shape in the ruins. “We found his crucifix. I hope that he died before he burned,” he said sadly. “You’re not a man of faith, are you?”
“No,” Butler said simply.
“Nor am I, but it’s still, I don’t know, more wrong, isn’t it?”
Butler, who had seen more than his share of death, really wasn’t sure, but muttered assent. “I came here to tell you that I’ve found the address of the post office. It’s not far, and I am prepared to go and try and get through to the Embassy in Madrid.”
“If there still is one,” Harding, always quick with the pessimism, had heard the exchange and offered his unhelpful opinion.
“Or Gibraltar,” Butler said, “or one of the consulates.”
Or, he thought to himself,
someone who’ll be able to get through to HMS London, which I know is in the area, to come in and lift us out of here. The real Paddy Byrne wouldn’t have a clue that not far away was a British cruiser, and so he kept that thought, the one that he felt was their surest means of escape, to himself.
“Do you think that this is the start of something,” Harding asked.
“I wonder,” Northcott said. “Those lads earlier were talking about marching from here to Saragossa, weren’t they? How far is Saragossa?”
Butler knew that it was around a hundred miles, but Paddy Byrne probably wouldn’t so shrugged.
Harding, thankfully, couldn’t keep quiet. “I reckon at least a hundred miles or so.” Butler managed, just, to refrain from smiling.
“I’d like to see them off,” Northcott said, with evident emotion.
“So would I,” Butler said, and he found that he meant it. “But first I want to let someone know that we’re alright.”
There was a commotion as George Elvin made a well-received return to the hotel. Butler couldn’t put a finger on why, but he was instinctively wary of Elvin, of all things a table-tennis player, and the de facto leader of the British delegation (he also had some Spanish, which automatically gave him authority and some power). Northcott had an amiable, paternal leftish outlook; his idealism was consensual and his modest leadership style hugely calming. Harding, the nippy athlete, was none of those things, he had the brittleness of the zealot (Butler wondered if his ideological journey was a new phase in his life – there was no passion quite like that of the convert) and very limited powers of self-control. Elvin, as carefully controlled as ever, saw Northcott and Butler and approached them silently, ignoring the pleas of the more frantic members of the British delegation for news.
“I’m glad you’re returned safe,” Northcott said warmly. Elvin, whose name wasn’t a fair reflection of his dark looks, was astonishingly pristine in dark business suit and carefully oiled hair. He looked at his comrades with his usual quiet insensity.
“The games,” he said, quite sternly, schoolmasterish, “will go ahead.” As ever Elvin had an air of superiority, of knowing things. Butler wanted to punch him for even contemplating the endangering of British lives.
“Alright,” Northcott said, finally and with great calm, “what have you learned from the organisers?”
“The cities of Pamplona, Saragossa, Salamanca, Cadiz, Avila, and certainly more, have been captured by the Army.” Elvin invested ‘Army’ with a hint (nothing more) of distaste.
“Blimey,” Harding said in awe of the scale of the conflict now unfolding.
“What about here, in Barcelona?” Northcott was, typically, concerned for their safety.
“Barcelona has held,” Elvin said with quiet intensity. “The radio broadcasts yesterday were Government officials asking to help fight the rebellious military units,” Elvin explained, again with none of Northcott’s agreeableness or Harding’s bluster; it was all carefully controlled energy with Elvin, Butler realised. “And so I think that we should offer them our support.”
Northcott stared benignly, Harding, by the look of him, was ready to storm the barricades armed only with Elvin’s table-tennis paddle (which he had somehow acquired, and was now waving it like a General directing his units). Butler thought that they were all mad.
“What does that mean, George,” he said with a decent approximation of Byrne-esque apprehension.
“It means, Patrick,” Elvin said with a mildly patronising air, “that I propose to march the British delegation, as the committee requests, to the stadium…”
“…the bagpiper?” That was Harding, and Butler had to roll his eyes.
“He can march,” Elvin said, “along with a Union Flag. By then the next detachment will be ready to march to Saragossa; I will do some of the journey with them.”
Northcott finally shook himself out his torpor. “Mr Elvin,” he began formally, to everyone’s surprise, “I think that this should not be mandatory. I think that anyone that wants to stay should.”
Butler nodded emphatically. “I am going to try and make contact with our people here. If there is an organised evacuation…”
“…I do not disagree,” Elvin snapped, “to your proposals. Are we agreed?” Butler was now astonished that he was calling for a vote.
“Aye,” said Northcott.
“Yes,” said Harding,
“Yes,” said another leading member of their delegation.
“Aye,” said Butler / Byrne.
“Thank you,” Elvin said. “Then let us make our preparations.”
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
GAME NOTES
I have agonised over the start of the Spanish Civil War, and have, at varying times, oscillated between ignoring it, capturing it in a Cabinet / civil servant update, or having Butler call on a Brit in Spain (Hillgarth in Majorca was the initial choice) for an exposition on what was going to happen. But dammit, I wanted some action – so after discounting a tale in which Butler (it has to be him, at the moment, of my fictional characters) helps with the British evacuation from the fighting, I settled on the heroically doomed, gloriously eccentric People's Olympiad. The idea is that Butler, still under something of a cloud after his exploits on-loan to MI5, is exiled to / is already in Spain (I’m keeping that vague) and is asked to integrate with the British delegation. That MI5, in particular, was watching the British team is known, the identity of their man in the team (if indeed they got one in) is not (a gift for the AAR writer!).
The Brits are based on real people; Northcott is fleshed out more or less according to reality (or at least what I could find on him) while Harding is a true blank canvas – his name and position in the British team is real but I wanted a counterpoint to Butler’s panicked subterfuge and Northcott’s ‘gentle giant’ routine with its relaxed socialism. So the energetic, tense little Harding was born.
And then George Elvin. If I am honest, I think that I would find him utterly impossible to be around; everything I read about him suggests ‘left wing zealot’ and I long ago abandoned entrenched principles for ‘drifting pragmatism’. He was born into the Labour movement with a Trade Union family, was an early youth activist (pause as Le Jones shudders at memories of his undergraduate fellows so long ago) and then became reasonably important within the National Workers' Sports Association, responsible for sending teams to the International Workers' Olympiads (more on this presently). I’ve guessed at him being efficient but unlikeable in his youth, a trait that often befalls idealists of both wings, who do well in technocrat and unelected roles but fail miserably when public endorsement is needed. I guess that he just lacked a 'human touch'; he failed to be elected to the Commons no less than four times over a twenty year period, before settling for local government where he was a successful councillor (perhaps he became more affable with age?) for a good couple of decades. Here, he burns with the fire of the movement, and did support, against all reason in the face of the impending collapse of law and order, the British delegation would march, as I’ve hinted, to the stadium, banners flying and a bagpiper (I’m not joking) playing them along. Elvin and others did ‘wave off’ some of the militias as they marched off to reinforce other areas, and an estimated 200 members of the Olympiad would eventually serve the Republican cause.
The People’s Olympiad was as mad as it sounds; it started as a protest against the Berlin Olympics (Barcelona having been decisively defeated in the IOC voting for the host city). In early 1936 the new administration announced a boycott of the Berlin games and invited participants from the varying left-wing workers sports clubs and organisations (hence Elvin’s involvement). These games were to have been held two weeks before the Berlin games and I note with amazement at some of the activities: chess, dancing, theatre, poetry recitals, what we would call, now, I guess, a ‘cultural olympiad’. This wasn’t a tiny event, either: thousands of attendees from around the democracies and left-wing regimes entered. From the democracies, many of the athletes were sent by trade unions, workers' clubs and associations, socialist and communist parties, and left-wing groups, rather than by state-sponsored committees. There is an overlap, although they were separate entities, with the International Workers' Olympiads; these ran intermittently between 1921 and ’37 and featured the same sort of attendees as this Spanish-organised People’s Olympiad.
And so the SCW starts, virtually according to our TL. Barcelona saw some horrific moments in the early days before the Republicans prevailed. HMS London was indeed on hand to evacuate British nationals from Barcelona (and our Olympiad team wisely used her, and a destroyer, to eventually escape). The British delegation had as mad a time as portrayed here; I have merged, very slightly, the events of 20 and 21 July but wanted you to get a feel for the chaos that they experienced (and contributed to). The bit about the church is true, as is the utter confusion that they experienced.
A mod til 2020 and question solved.
I have, oddly enough, played one of the Modern Day mods (I want to say Millenium Dawn, but it was ages ago). It does capture some of modern(ish) geopolitics quite well, although the British intervention into fascist Sweden's seizure of the Baltic states was an odd game (poor Theresa May, even modded Paradox games seem to hate her).
Not a bad one. Clearly he wants the gov to just murder the king and resolve the issue.
I think that you'll see, probably much more swiftly than OTL, Monckton's disenchantment with his royal master.
It's not going to be an easy road ahead. First Parliament, then the Dominions - Baldwin is going to lose more sleep.
I've started (among a ton of other ideas)
the Cabinet meeting when this is discussed (about four or so updates away).
This is the part where I’m meant to say something about prescription charges funding the Korean War, isn’t it?
Not necessarily (although I loved the meme). Attlee just has 'form' for attracting the ire of both left and right leaning members of the commentAARiat.
I heartily approve of the blistering pace of these updates! Interesting to see that picture of Ramsey looking so rough, god must have been punishing him for his duplicity.
Thank you - I have an unwritten rule to have one future update drafted (or even sometimes written out) before I paste the next chronological update onto the site; it just sort of works. It lets me start structuring the AAR, serves as a means of recording mad ideas, and (I hope) keeps this reasonably fresh. So this week, in addition to finalising this effort, I typed up the Simpson decree nisi (which was actually more fun than it probably sounds).
Onto the actual chapter, I still think this has to end in abdication. If no government will serve, and the opposition leaders were firm on that, even Eddie isn't maniacal enough to try and form a dictatorship, which is what it will have to be. Maybe he can find a few toadies, has-beens and ambitious idiots to form a 'King's Party' (though they would be committing long-term career suicide) but they will instantly lose any confidence vote with the entire house against them. If there is an election, any notional King's Party will be a rounding error in the vote at best, and as a matter of practicality he cannot do a Charles II and rule without parliament, even if he were so inclined. Hence abdication.
I'm sure HOI4 would let that happen, but HOI4 allows a lot of things that were basically impossible (it is a game after all) and going entirely crazy alt-history would be a bit of a jarring change in tone. For all that I do hold to the 'very little is impossible' school so with an early enough POD then a Royal Dictatorship in the UK could be done, but probably not by anyone like the OTL Eddie and definitely not with the OTL Wallace as Queen or even Queen Consort.
So, old chum, you're right, and there is one moment where I have to slightly pause common sense. It is, genuinely only moment, before the biting reality kicks in. This will be explained in full as we build to the climax of Part One of the AAR.
Circling back to the AAR itself: I'm definitely reading something of a quiet urgency in these latest proceedings that wasn't present earlier. To be sure, the scandalous nature of the King's arrangements was already a cause for concern before, but it seems to me that as long as his intentions remained somewhat ambiguous, everyone in the Government was adopting a "wait-and-see" approach to see if the crisis would just blow over as crises of this nature often do. Now that we have the King freshly determined to get at least a morganatic marriage arranged ASAP, though, Baldwin and his cohorts are starting to view the coming conflict between Crown and Government as an inevitability and are preparing themselves for the fight they know they'll be having on their hands.
Yes I think you're right - I have dragged this out, but now we're going to rattle through a pretty awful summer.
There isn't an animal's kingdom option yet. No bubbles the dragon adopted by hedgehogs or the great and noble elephant society of great Britian.
Don't give Paradox ideas!
Give it time - the focus tree still has room to grow!
