‘What the hell?’

They were Falangists, young men mostly in bright blue shirts and red berets. There were about a hundred of them. They stood facing the embassy, shouting, their arms stretched out in the Fascist salute. They waved banners reading, ‘¡Gibraltar español!’ The usual civiles in front of the embassy were absent.

‘¡Abajo Inglaterra!’ the crowd yelled. ‘¡Viva Hitler, viva Mussolini, viva Franco!’

‘Oh, God,’ Hillgarth said wearily. ‘Not another demonstration.’

Someone in the crowd pointed at the car and the nearest Falangists turned and yelled their slogans at them, shouting, faces distorted, arms stretching in and out like metronomes. A stone bounced off the bonnet.

‘Drive on, Potter,’ Hillgarth said steadily.

‘Are you sure, sir? They look nasty.’

‘It’s all show. Get on, man.’

The chauffeur proceeded at a snail’s pace, forcing a passage between the demonstrators and the embassy wall. Half of them were teenagers, their Falange Youth uniform a copy of the Hitler Youth with blue shirts instead of brown, the girls in wide skirts and the boys in shorts. One boy had a drum and began banging it dramatically. It seemed to inflame the crowd and some of the boys reached out and began rocking the big car. Others followed and Harry and Hillgarth bounced around inside as the car inched slowly on. Harry felt disgust; they were scarcely more than children.

‘Give them a hoot,’ Hillgarth said. The horn sounded and an older Falangist elbowed his way out of the crowd, motioning the youngsters away from the car.

‘See,’ Hillgarth said, ‘they were just getting carried away.’

A tall, broadly built youth of around seventeen, worked up into a paroxysm of rage, pushed through the crowd and walked alongside the car, screaming insults in English through the window. ‘Death to King George! Death to the fat Jew pig Churchill!’ Hillgarth laughed, but Harry flinched away, the ridiculousness of the catcalls somehow making them even nastier.

‘Where are the civiles?’ he asked.

‘Tipped the wink to go for a walk, I’d guess. These are Serrano Suñer’s people. OK, Potter, pull up opposite the door. When we get out, Brett, chin up. Ignore them.’

Harry followed Hillgarth out on to the pavement. The shrieking was louder and he felt exposed and suddenly afraid. His heart began to pound. The Falangists shouted at them from the other side of the car, the enraged youth still howling in English. ‘Sink the English ships! Kill the Bolshevist Jews!’ Another stone sailed across the road and cracked the glass in the embassy door. Harry flinched and had to fight the urge to crouch down.

Hillgarth grasped the handle. ‘Hell, it’s locked.’ He rattled it. A figure moved in the shadowy interior and Tolhurst appeared, running in a crouch to the door. He fumbled with the catch.

‘Come on, Tolly!’ Hillgarth shouted. ‘Stand up for Christ’s sake, they’re only a bunch of hooligans!’

Then the chauffeur shouted, ‘Look out!’ and Harry caught a glimpse of something hurtling through the air. He felt a hard blow on his neck and staggered. He and Hillgarth threw up their arms as something white swirled round their heads, half choking them. There was a joyous yell from the crowd. For a second Harry saw red sand flying.

The door opened and Hillgarth ducked inside. Tolhurst reached out and grabbed Harry’s arm, pulling him inside with surprising strength. He locked the door again and turned to them, mouth open. Harry ran his hands over his neck and shoulders but there were no wounds, no redness, only white powder. He leaned against a desk, taking deep whooping breaths. Hillgarth sniffed his sleeve and laughed.

‘Flour! It’s bloody flour!’

‘Cheeky bastards,’ Tolhurst said.

‘Does Sam know about all this?’ Hillgarth’s face was alive with excitement.

‘He’s phoning the Interior Ministry now, sir. Are you both all right?’

‘Yes. Come on, Brett, we need to clean up.’ Chuckling again, Hillgarth made for an inner door. Outside the mob was laughing at what they had done, though the demented youth still raved on. Tolhurst looked at Harry. ‘You all right?’

He was still trembling. ‘Yes – yes, sorry.’

Tolhurst took his arm. ‘Come on, I’ll take you to my room, I’ve a clothes brush there.’

Harry allowed himself to be led away.

TOLHURT’S OFFICE was even smaller than Harry’s. He produced a clothes brush from his desk.

‘I’ve a spare suit here. It’ll be a bit wide for you but it should do.’

‘Thanks.’ Harry brushed off the worst of the flour. He felt much better, calm again, even though he could still hear the shouting from outside. Tolhurst looked out of the window.

‘The police’ll come along and clear them in a minute. Serrano Suñer’s made his point. And Sir Sam’s chewed his ear over the phone.’

‘The demonstration didn’t send him into a funk?’

Tolhurst shook his head. ‘No, he’s on form today, no sign of the pink rat. You never know how he’s going to react.’

‘I had a touch of the pink rat myself when that flour landed,’ Harry said self-consciously. ‘I didn’t know what it was. I was back at Dunkirk for a moment. I’m sorry, it must have seemed like I was yellow.’

Tolhurst looked uncomfortable. ‘No. Not at all. I know about shell shock, my father had it in the last lot.’ He hesitated. ‘They wouldn’t let embassy staff join up last year, you know. I was quite relieved, I’m afraid.’ He lit a cigarette. ‘I’m not one of the world’s heroes. Happier behind a desk, if truth be told. Don’t know how I’d have coped with what you went through.’

‘You don’t know what you can do till you get out there.’

‘I suppose not.’

‘Captain Hillgarth seems pretty fearless.’

‘Yes. I think he enjoys danger. You have to admire that sort of courage, don’t you?’

‘That was a minor panic I had then, compared to what I was like a couple of months ago.’

Tolhurst nodded. ‘Good. That’s good.’ He turned back to the window. ‘Come and look at them. They’ve no bread yet they can throw flour. Bet it came from the Auxilio Social stores, the Falange are responsible for feeding the poor.’

Harry joined him, looking at the unruly sea of blue.

‘Lucky no hay potatoes then, eh?’

‘D’you know, we sent some of the bread they get on the ration to London for analysis. The boffins said it wasn’t fit for human consumption; the flour was adulterated with bloody sawdust. Yet they can afford to throw good white flour at us.’

‘The Falangist bigwigs won’t have to eat the sawdust.’

‘Too bloody right they won’t.’

‘They were shouting anti-Jewish slogans. I didn’t think the Falange went in for that.’

‘They do now. Same as Mussolini, to please the Nazis.’

‘Bastards,’ Harry said with sudden fierceness. ‘After Dunkirk I sometimes used to wonder, what’s the point of going on, fighting, but then you see things like this. Fascism. Turning teenaged thugs on to innocent people. Then it’s bombing civilians, machine-gunning retreating soldiers. Christ, I hate them.’

Tolhurst nodded. ‘Yes. But we have to deal with them here. Unfortunately.’ He pointed a finger. ‘Look at that idiot.’

The boy who had yelled in English had taken hold of a ‘Gibraltar español’ banner and was marching up and down in front of the embassy with a military swagger, the crowd cheering him on. Harry wondered where he had learned English. He was a tall, well-set-up lad, probably from a middle-class home.

The door opened and the ambassador’s wiry form darted in. He looked furious.

‘You all right, Brett?’

‘Yes, sir, thank you. It was only flour.’

‘I won’t have my staff attacked!’ Hoare’s thin voice was shaking with anger.

‘I’m all right, sir, honestly.’

‘Yes, yes, yes, but it’s the principle.’ He took a deep breath. ‘I think Stokes is looking for you, Tolhurst.’ He nodded at the door.