INTERLUDE IN NAVALCARNERO

By F. J. SUTHERLAND

MADRID was very depressing. We had been there only four days, but already we felt the need of a break. Two and a half years of war had left the city run-down and sombrely dilapidated. Nobody had enough to eat. There was no fuel, and slinking crowds, languid through weakness, eddied through the former front lines of the University City, risking the possibility of land mines, filching doors and duck- board, timber dug-out linings and other oddments, with which to contrive fires. A dozen times a day one was asked for a cigarette. The hotels were dank and cold. None of the lifts worked, nor the electric bells. The half-starved chambermaids listlessly brought a single plate to share among four people.

In the streets the queues stretched endlessly: people wait- ing to change their hundred pesetas' worth of Republican money ; former Republican soldiers gloomily waiting to be " classified." The Fifth Columnites worked hard to main- tain a cheerful noise from the lorries in which they careered along the boulevards. There was a great exchange of Fascist salutes. There was no soap. Shops and cafés were shuttered. Whole districts lay in ruins. The war was ended—but the courts martial were beginning. To cap it all, the weather could nor have been worse. It was bitterly cold, and a mean, nagging April rain descended remorse- lessly on the tired city.

We decided to escape for a few hours. Soon our car was crawling along a temporary bridge over the Manzanares river, and even through the mangled dustheap that marked Carabanchel. As soon as we were out of Madrid we breathed more freely. Miraculously the weather changed. The sun appeared. We opened out along the road that led south-west. Signs of the war grew fewer. There was an occasional string of lorries. The road surface was excellent.

Presently we were in Navalcamero. We had not meant to stop so soon, but instinctively we pulled up. Madrid might have been five hundred miles away. The plaza was charming ; a straggling little square, with a few people lounging in the sunshine over a drink. The date sixteen hundred and something was cut in the stonework of one of the façades. From a now flawless blue sky a burnished sun blazed down upon the scene. We parked the car and got out. A Nationalist officer was sitting at a table outside the café, a bottle of Riscal before him. He had, we perceived, been badly wounded. A crutch leaned against his chair. He was a swarthy-skinned, extremely intelligent-looking man, with large, dark eyes and a lively expression. He smiled at us in a friendly way and we sat down at his table.

From the start the conversation flowed effortlessly. He was from Seville, he told us, and he had the quick, merry manner of the Andalucian. His mother had been in Madrid all through the war, and he had at last been able to see her, when the city fell to Franco. Now his brief leave was over, and he must report back to his regiment in the south. He spoke frankly of the Germans and Italians. Frankly too, but with the utmost courtesy of England. We liked each other very much, and we all realised from the start that it was an entirely propitious and enjoyable occasion. Under the warmth of the sun, sipping our wine, eating from a plate of olives, we relaxed gratefully. The surroundings, the atmosphere, could not have been more thoroughly Spanish ; nor, I thought, could the wounded officer from Seville.

I found that he was asking what brought us there. We had come, we told him, members of the Prensa Extranjera, to get away from Madrid for a little while, and also to see if we could get some food to take back with us. There was, he said, a small fonda over the road where one could eat quite well. He hobbled across with us, and presently we were sitting over some quite passable lamb. After the meal we returned to the sunlit square, and the officer helped us to buy ham and several lengths of sausage for Madrid. Then we settled down once more outside the café, and ordered coffee and anis.

The late afternoon sun was making the plaza a crimson splendour ; two Moorish soldiers wandered across the street ; the wounded officer waved to some friends who were leaving in a military lorry, and called a cheerful valediction after them. Then he turned back to us with a flashing smile. Never, I thought, had I met anyone who so charmingly epitomised all that was most attractive in the Spanish character. Truly, a memorable Spanish vignette—the Plaza, soaked in sunshine, the cool colonnades, the white walls, and this cheerful southerner, making us welcome. . . .

He was ordering more anis and asking our names. We ceremoniously produced cards and he scrutinised them with polite attention. Then, with a flourish, he laid his own card on the table. I glanced at it—and then stared incredu- lously. This could not be. In this most Spanish of settings such a name was fantastic. I looked up a; the officer. With a rather menacing smile he was explaining what the Spanish army would do if the Italians did not leave the country rapidly now that the war was over.

" Pardon me, Sefior," I said cautiously, " but—your name —It is the same as a quite eminent—that is to say—(I must be tactful)—it is the name of a somewhat well-known Englishman."

" Yes, yes," he eagerly agreed. " Your famous admiral. Of course. I think that I am the only person in Spain to bear the name. It is most interesting, no?"

Most interesting, I said. There was another round of anis. The officer explained that the well-known English- man had left Spanish descendants, a fact of which I had until then been unaware. He was, he said, very proud of the name. . . .

The afternoon wore on. The shadows lengthened. It was time to think of returning to Madrid. Unexpectedly the officer announced his intention of returning with us. What mattered it that his leave had officially expired, and that he was supposed to be on his way back to Seville? After all, he had scarcely seen his mother after two and a half years—he must spend one more night in his parental home before finally leaving for the south. His orderly was summoned, and the two clambered cheerfully into the back of the car, where they settled down among the sausages and ham.

Just before we started another officer ran up and put his head through the window to take leave of our friend. addressed him by his name, and it was the same that I had seen on the card. Until then I had half thought that there must be some mistake ; but it seemed that this most incon- gruous of names was indeed the truth.

Through the dark we raced back to Madrid, while our friend sang flamencos softly from the back seat. Outside his mother's house there was an affectionate leave-taking. He embraced us in the Spanish style, con mucho gusto, and we slapped his back heartily in response, for we liked him well. Then he hobbled into the doorway, followed by his orderly, carrying his kitbag.

He was one of the nicest people I met in Spain. But all that night I wondered about his name. And I am still puzzled how anyone so essentially Spanish came to be called Francisco Drake.