Snippets 7

It was 1949 and Spain was just recovering from the aftermath of the civil war and the state was very much under military control, and as yet tourists hadn’t started to visit the country. Doctor Jones and his new bride were adventurous and for their summer holiday they decided to tour Spain with their comparatively new car. Everything was really very cheap in France as they travelled through and even cheaper in Spain when they arrived there. They spent their first night in Spain in Zarauz, a small costal town near San Sebastian, and next day started their journey towards Burgos taking it slowly as they were enjoying the countryside. On rounding a sharp bend as they descended the foothills of the mountains they saw a large American car which had skidded into the bend, so they stopped and found a man unconscious, bleeding badly from a large wound on the side of his head. Dr Jones didn’t succeed in stopping the bleeding as he had no instruments, so he decided to put him into the rear seat of the car and drive to Burgos, where there was bound to be a hospital and he persuaded his wife to sit with him and keep pressure on the wound which controlled the flow of blood. They proceeded like this for about half an hour until his wife said that she thought the man was dead, which was found to be correct when the doctor stopped to have a look. Having made certain of this they carried on to Burgos and went straight to the hospital hoping that it be only a matter of handing over the body. However it took a long time to find anyone who spoke English, not like it is nowadays, and they spoke no Spanish at all. When they eventually got the message through that there was a dead body in the car they were told that they shouldn’t have come to the hospital, that they should now go to the undertaker, and were given directions. At the undertakers they again had extreme difficulty in making themselves understood, at first it seemed that the undertaker was pleased to be getting business but when it was understood that the death was due to an accident the undertaker washed his hands if the affair and said they should have gone to the police in the first place. At the police station once again the language was a problem and it took an hour to make any reasonable progress, and then the form filling started with everything being done in triplicate, with pigeon English on one side and no Spanish on the other. All this took hours and finally they seemed to be getting somewhere until the word American was spoken, at which the police officer pricked up his ears and said that if the dead man was an American the police couldn’t handle it at all, and that they should go back to the undertaker and explain the situation and let him make contact with the American authorities. Back at the undertakers they met with a firm refusal and now they had a family conference as to how to proceed as it was now 6 pm. They decided to stay overnight and sort things out in the morning, so they left the dead body in the car overnight and after breakfast at around 10 am they went back to the police where again they came up against a stone wall. Dr Jones finally lost his temper, demanding that they should take the body, at which the police officer told them firmly that they would have to take the deceased to Madrid and deliver him to the American authorities, and failing to do this they would find themselves in real trouble with the police. Madrid was very much out of their way, but they had no option so they started the journey in rather bad temper grumbling about Spain and its laws, and continued like this for a hundred miles, meeting no cars as there were almost none in the country at the time. Suddenly they saw a car which was almost definitely American so Dr Jones hooted his horn repeatedly causing the other driver to stop. It proved to be an American who was very sympathetic and who suggested that he should take the body himself and return to Madrid. They continued on their journey and heard nothing more.