Пол Престон – Doves of War: Four Women of Spain (страница 8)

Complete with trunks and hatboxes containing the accumulated fruits of her last months’ shopping trips, Pip left England in some style in Princess Bea’s chauffeur-driven limousine on 21 September 1937. At Dover, they were met by the station master in his top hat and were swept into a private compartment on the boat train.⁵³ Then it was on to Paris for some more shopping and a visit to the World’s Fair. This was the great exhibition for which Picasso’s Guernica was commissioned by the Spanish Republican Government.⁵⁴ Interestingly, for someone just off to the Spanish Civil War, Pip did not see it, instead spending her time at the German and English pavilions. On one side of the Pont d’Iéna on the Rive Droite of the Seine, the German pavilion, designed by Albert Speer, glaring at its equally pugnacious Soviet rival, was an architectural representation of Nazi aggression. Huge, thirty-three-feet-high statues of muscle-bound Soviet heroes strode triumphantly forward, their way apparently blocked by the naked Teutonic heroes guarding the German design, a huge cubic mass, erected on stout pillars, and crowned by a gigantic eagle with the swastika in its claws. For Pip, this was ‘the best’. The British pavilion symbolised the tired gentility of appeasement. The British displays were of golf balls, pipes, fishing rods, equestrian equipment and tennis rackets while the German and the Italian were of military might. Pip thought the British pavilion ‘very bad’.⁵⁵ She and Princess Bea were then driven on 23 September to Biarritz where Pip was delighted to discover that she could understand most of the Spanish that she began to hear. They were received by Sir Henry Chilton, the British Ambassador to Republican Spain. The pro-Nationalist Chilton had been on holiday in San Sebastián when the Civil War broke out and had refused to return to Madrid. With the aid of the French Ambassador to Spain, they managed to get across the frontier to San Sebastián on the following day. With the beautiful resort bathed in sunshine, it was like being on holiday.

The unwarlike nature of the trip continued when she and Princess Bea were joined for dinner by one of General Alfredo Kindelán’s sons, Ultano. Pip went to the cinema with him, then for a long walk and a mild flirtation – ‘If it had not been for the fact that he has known Ataúlfo and Alvaro all his life and would certainly have told them I would have had a spot of fun but I would have been ragged for the rest of my life so I refrained and bade him a polite goodbye at the hotel.’ Pip saw her first sign of the war when they drove to Santander along the route that the Nationalists had taken on their campaign in the north earlier in 1937. They met Touffles, ‘much thinner and very sunburnt … Madly attractive.’ He went out of his way to talk to her and she admitted that ‘alas I still like him more than I want to’. He told her about the capture of Santander and took her to the German airbase from which he flew as a navigator. ‘They fly huge Junkers. His is a beauty with two engines and a retractable undercarriage.’ This means that he must have been flying in the experimental Junkers Ju 86D-I. It was a curious time for Pip, a mixture of tourism and initiation into the war. They visited the beautiful medieval village of Santillana del Mar and La Magdalena, the great English-style royal country residence on a hill overlooking the bay of Santander. ‘It had been ruined inside by the Reds and is still being cleaned up by Red prisoners who are camped in the park. They all looked well and happy.’⁵⁶

Sad to leave Touffles, she continued her journey on 28 September, moving on to Burgos where she toured the great cathedral, then onto Valladolid and to Salamanca. Pip was entranced by Spain, the only drawback being the fleas awaiting her in every hotel bedroom. She and Princess Bea stayed with General Kindelán. Kindelán was a man of great rectitude and austerity. Nevertheless, to Pip’s young eyes, oblivious to his moral and political merits, he was just ‘rather fat and sloppy’. At the Grand Hotel in Salamanca, she caught a glimpse of the ‘stunning looking’ Peter Kemp, whom she knew vaguely from London. In a Carlist regiment, he was one of the very few English volunteers on the Nationalist side. On 1 October, the first anniversary of Franco’s elevation to the headship of state saw a major display of pageantry. Pip was elated by being able to witness history being made – ‘a parade of soldiers led by the Moors in their wonderful coloured cloaks on Arab horses with golden trappings. The leaders rode white Arabs with silver hooves and gold-embroidered medieval trappings which looked beautiful with the men’s white and orange cloaks, behind them were men in green cloaks on black horses got up the same but with golden hooves.’ Her concern that the Nationalist forces might be antiquated was redressed when Álvaro, Princess Bea’s eldest son, took her to inspect the Italian Savoia Marchetti tri-motored bombers at his air base. This was the Base Aéreo de Matacán, built in October-November 1936. Afterwards Álvaro took her to see the fierce fighting bulls at the estate of Antonio Pérez Tabernero, a bull-breeder friend of the Kindelán family.⁵⁷

On 2 October, she was thrilled when Touffles unexpectedly showed up in Salamanca although her delight was tempered when he spent their brief time together teasing her about her figure. She also wrote to her father and asked him to buy her a Ford 10 and have it sent to Gibraltar. ‘I hope you do as I must have a car if I am here alone.’ On 4 October, they left Salamanca and, after a spectacular journey south through the harsh and arid hills of Extremadura, they reached Sanlúcar de Barrameda – the family’s Palacio de Montpensier having been returned to Prince Alfonso by Franco. Pip found its crazy mixture of styles hideously ugly but fascinating. Prince Ali, now a lieutenant colonel in the Nationalist airforce, was stationed at Seville and so was often able to visit his home. Inevitably, she imbibed the family’s views on the Reds.⁵⁸

By mid-October, everything had been arranged for her to go and stay with the Duquesa de Montemar in Jérez while attending a nursing course at a hospital there. Lord Howard de Walden cabled that her car would be sent to Gibraltar in a few days. When it arrived at the end of the month, she thought it ‘heaven. Black with green leather inside and a dream of beauty.’ At first she found the hospital ‘splendid fun’ and ‘not in the least disgusting’. The bulk of the patients were Moorish mercenaries whom she found ‘perfectly sweet but like a lot of children and rather dirty’. When her course proper began, she was shocked by the appalling wounds that had to be treated. ‘I did not feel sick at all but afterwards when I left the hospital I kept seeing the wounds all day and hearing the screams of agony.’ She was fully aware that she would see far worse sights at the front. ‘I understand now why nurses are so often hard and inhuman.’ While in Jérez, she got gathered up in the local social whirl. She was mortified when it was suggested to her by her hostess, the Duquesa, among others, that it was obvious that she was in love with Ataúlfo and ought to marry him. This was not because the idea displeased her. Quite the contrary, but she was embarrassed that her infatuation should be so obvious. Despite her emotional preoccupations, she made good progress with her nursing skills. She loved the work and was beginning to be able to witness without distress the most hair-raising wounds being treated.⁵⁹

There were now two parallel strands in her life. One was training to be a nurse at the front and the other was her deepening passion for Touffles. When he returned to Sanlúcar and telephoned to invite her over, she skipped her classes to go and see him, ‘hopping with life and merriment’. When she got back to the Orléans household, her happiness knew no bounds. The life of the well-to-do in the Nationalist zone had no equivalent in the Republican ranks. Touffles arrived with nine Luftwaffe pilots for a bout of entertainment and relaxation that included swimming, a flamenco fiesta at one of the Jérez bodegas and a visit to a stud farm for Arab steeds. There was then a trip to Gibraltar to collect Pip’s car and to do shopping, during which she bought a white kimono embroidered with golden dragons. She spent a lot of time with Touffles drinking and dancing. After one late night, she wrote: ‘I adore Touffles more every day and only wish I could just stay with him for ever.’ He bought her a radio in anticipation of her imminent twenty-first birthday. It was to accompany her throughout the Spanish Civil War. Loaded with shopping, including 3,000 cigarettes, she drove her new car back into Spain. Her social position ensured that she had no difficulty getting through the border control. ‘They had been warned to expect us and refused to let us declare anything. So we just sailed through with no trouble at all. It was very nice of them to be so kind as it saved a packet of trouble as my car has no triptyque [a document permitting the transit of a car from one country to another] or insurance, and I have no licence.’