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felt.’
    Kelly frowned. ‘Englishmen don’t go in for singing serenades with guitars under balconies!’
    She gave a little laugh. ‘I always loved you when you were stiff and British, George Kelly. I heard what you did at Bilbao and asked for you because I knew I could trust you.’
    ‘You couldn’t in a dark corner,’ he said, and she laughed.
    The streets were full of marching men carrying rifles and flags, the red, yellow and purple Republican colours contrasting with the black streamers they added for the dead. They wore overalls and berets, forage caps and steel helmets, with clattering rifles, pans and aluminium cups hung about them. A few of them had their girl friends with them at their head, scarlet-lipped and trousered, because the Anarchists liked to shock the pious Basques. They were carrying their wounded because it was said that most of the hurt in this war died from the jolting of the ambulances on the appalling Spanish roads, and Kelly noticed that though no one was supposed to believe in the church any more, bells were still tolling for the dead.
    Many of the buildings had been wrecked by bombs and were still smoking, and on the walls were slogans – ‘Arriba España,’ ‘Viva La libertad’ and the more earthy’ Vino y aceite.’
    ‘The bombers came last night,’ Teresa said. ‘The German volunteers. The troops outside the city are Italians. Why doesn’t the British government send soldiers to help us?’
    Probably because they’re a gutless lot, Kelly thought. Or probably because, with half the country in favour of the Republicans and the other half – that half which got its faces in the society magazines – undoubtedly supporting Franco, it was hard to know who to favour.
    The priest, who was wearing civilian clothes, had a flat near the cathedral, which consisted of a living-bedroom and a kitchen. He was an old man, shabby and with a shaking voice, but his resolve was firm.
    ‘The sisters are all in hiding,’ he announced at once. ‘Have you found a ship to transport them?’
    ‘She’s in the bay. I still have to find the means of getting them on board.’
    It was decided that the old man should warn the nuns to be ready while Kelly sought means to get a message to Badger. As they parted, Teresa took his hand to touch his fingers with her lips.
    He managed to find a small ship which had been Greek until a few weeks before but had now started flying the Union Jack and called herself – somewhat hastily, Kelly guessed, so there’d been no time to forage in a dictionary of names – Jimmy. Even that was spelt uncertainly on her stern as JIMY.
    Her captain was obese and moist with anxiety, but he agreed to help and had one of the ship’s motor boats lowered into the water to carry messages to Badger. Because he was due to leave in three days time, he agreed to carry any evacuees Kelly wished to lift off, but he was in constant need of reassurance that the British warships would protect him when he left. On board already were five hundred badly wounded Basque soldiers due to go to Santoña further along the coast. They were dragging their way along the decks to get soup, candles, matches or cigarettes in the light of flickering oil lamps. In the shadows, the bandages they wore made them seem as if they’d been in a snowstorm.
    Returning to the priest’s flat, Kelly found Teresa there with the old man. All the messages had been delivered and the nuns would start appearing the following day. There was still the question of the dozen or so British nationals remaining in Santander, however, and they borrowed an old French Citroën which they used to drive to the British Club near the museum. It had been wrecked by a bomb and then by looters and there was only one British woman there.
    ‘Jenner-Neate,’ she introduced herself briskly. ‘Of the Child Relief Fund.’
    She would have been recognisable as British at once from her sensible skirt and shoes and the pearls she wore round