The Guardian of Secrets

by Jana Petken

  Before she started reading, she called to Aunt Marie and Rosa. It was always easier to read correspondence to them than to have to suffer their never-ending questions later. When they were all seated, she began.

  My darling Celia,

  I’m sorry I have not written sooner, but since my arrival (I cannot tell you exactly where), I’ve been rushed off my feet. I am safe and well in body and mind, although sometimes I feel as though my mind is playing some cruel trick on me, as I still cannot believe the horrors taking place in my country. We are expecting hundreds of foreigners who, it seems, are willing to lay down their lives for the republic.

  I have not set foot on a battleground, although I have gone days and nights without sleep. The hospitals I have seen are less than adequate and leave a lot to be desired. We are organising hospitals everywhere that we can in readiness for battles that will surely come. Let me tell you that scrubbing floors, carrying beds, and fixing lights up so that doctors can see properly has left me a great deal thinner and fitter than the last time you saw me.

  I have not managed to physically see any of our children, but I am still confident that I shall, and it remains my priority. I cannot go near our home for obvious reasons, although I have managed to send a letter to Francisco with my address under the Spanish Medical Aid Committee and I feel confident that I will get some news back from him.

  There have been terrible battles in the South, and so I must tell you that Pedro is my main concern now. Miguel should be safe, as he is in Valladolid, a safe rebel nationalist zone, or at least I presume he is still there. As for María, she is not in any danger at La Glorieta, I am sure of that.

  I will write to you again soon, but for now I leave you with all my love and devotion, as always. I hope that you have forgiven me, as your last letter was not exactly the pardon that I had expected or hoped for. Still, I know you and can picture you right now sitting with a little smile on your face; that’s how I always see you in this dark world.

  I wish I could tell you about everything I’m doing and what I’m about to do, but I can’t risk it, so just let me say that I think of you all the time and will send news of our children as soon as possible.

  With all my love,

  Ernesto

  Since Ernesto’s departure, Celia had thought a great deal about what and if she could contribute to the war in support of her husband and children. For that reason, she had gone to the headquarters of the Spanish Medical Aid Committee and had offered her services. She knew that her position in the propaganda and administration department was not exactly what one could call a great contribution, but it meant that she would be in an excellent position to find out what was going on and would be able to send letters and notes to her husband through the organisation.

  Chapter 57

  On 4 November, 1936, the republican government formed a new coalition and allowed communists and socialists into its ranks. It also saw the CNT, the national congress of workers, joining them and abandoning its most sacred principles in order to save the dying democratic regime.

  On 6 November, the republican government held a meeting. Their spies had come back to the capital with news of the rebel advancement. Rebel troops under General José Valera had reached the western and southern suburbs of Madrid. The Army of Africa was taking the lead and, according to the spies, had a plan to attack the capital on three fronts: northward from Toledo, north-eastward along the Navalcarnero road, and eastwards from San Martín de Valdeiglesias. There were specialist German forces with weaponry never before seen in Spain, and the worst news of all, according to the spies, was that the newly formed Condor Legion would back up the rebel forces with fighter aircraft.

  Panic filled the air at the government headquarters, and a decision was made after a hasty vote: the government would abandon the capital and move to Valencia.

  Lucia and María had become good friends following María’s decision to join the nursing corps. She had been training for almost two months already at the Valencia hospital, and although she was not yet qualified, she’d earned the right to be included in any future medical campaigns, as further training could be given on the job.

  María and Lucia had just finished eating when the terrible news arrived. The two girls had sat open-mouthed and unable to comprehend why their entire government should leave the capital to set up camp in Valencia, and later, both had been horrified that a legitimate government could desert its citizens in such a way and at such a dangerous time.

  María had finally received word from her mother and had been shocked to hear that her father was once again in Spain, putting his life at risk for a cause that he was still unsure about. She wrote back, telling her mother that she would do everything she could to find him, and that she would make it her priority to convince him to leave the country and go back to her. She also wrote that Pedro was safe, as far as she knew, and she assured her that he would write to her in London as soon as he could.

  Carlos arrived at Lucia’s Valencia house just as coffee was being put on the table. He made them aware of the situation in Madrid and told them that he was going there. The three of them sat round the dinner table discussing the news with gloomy predictions being made. Carlos, far from being gloomy, predicted that the nationalists would be like flies in a spider’s web.

  “They’ll never get out of Madrid alive,” he told the two girls.

  María smiled at his remark. “Darling, wouldn’t it be better, though, if they didn’t get into Madrid in the first place?” she said cheekily.

  “What about you? How is your training going?” he asked her, smiling.

  María looked at Lucia and then back to Carlos. She was just about to upset him, and she was hoping for Lucia’s support.

  “Good. The training’s going well. In fact, I think now is the perfect time to put it to the test. They’re going to need all the help they can get to defend the capital, so I’m going to request an immediate transfer there.”

  “Over my dead body!” Carlos said vehemently.

  Usually when Carlos spoke to her in that tone, María knew not to argue further. In most cases, his anger was from overprotectiveness that she found maddening at times, but as they stared at each other, she admitted that his objection tonight was justified.

  “Please, Carlos, don’t look at me as if I’ve gone off my head!”

  “You have!” Carlos told her. “There’s no way in hell you’re going to a battlefield. How am I supposed to do my job if I’m worrying about you getting shot or blown up?”

  “But women are fighting at the front with the militia,” she told him, her voice laced with indignation.

  “They were but not now. Some women are still there, but they’re cooking, not fighting, and in any case, the militia are all but gone. There is only an army now.”

  “But I’m not doing any good sitting around here in Valencia. Everything is so … so normal, and you said I should help people. Let me help, please?” She then tried another argument. “You want to go, don’t you, Lucia? I mean, if Pedro’s going to be anywhere, it’ll be in Madrid. Everyone’s going there to defend the city.”

  Lucia clearly looked forward to the prospect. “Do you think I might see Pedro there?” she asked Carlos.

  “Don’t lie!” María warned him.

  Carlos laughed, defeated by love, defeated by her argument. “You’re no more capable of sitting out this war than I am, are you?” He sighed, shaking his head at María. Then he turned to Lucia.

  “Lucia, María might be right this time. Pedro will probably be in Madrid at some point because it’s going to take the entire republican army and some outside help to keep out the rebels. But I’m not saying I want the both of you to go, because I don’t. María, I forbid it.”

  Chapter 58

  Pedro’s integration into the republican army had been easier than expected. On the night he left his own rebel unit, he’d felt neither remorse nor shame. He knew he was doing the right thing; he had the calling fo
r the other side in his gut and had even felt a sense of liberation. He had joined the small militia band attached now to the republican army on the outskirts of Toledo in the small hours of the morning. He had given the name Peter Merrill, saying that he was a farm worker from Kent but had spent years in Valencia as a child with his widowed mother, who had been an English tutor. No one really cared who he was, he had noted, for men arrived every day and night, and they were coming from all over Europe. Pedro also noticed that they all had their own personal reasons for being there: to join the fight, to exact revenge, out of curiosity, and some simply to hold a gun and get the chance of firing it at something other than wild boars or foxes.

  The republican side was still disjointed, and there was no discipline or chain of command that didn’t involve three or four different bands or units. The camps also held a variety of ethnic and political persuasions such as communists, socialists, and union cardholders, and there were only small pockets of republican soldiers attempting to oversee the chaotic organisation. By day, women arrived in trucks with picnic baskets and cooked over open fires, and at night they made love to men drunk on wine in the crudely erected tents or behind bushes. As a professional soldier, Pedro been taught to analyse and calculate possibilities, and in those first days, he’d calculated that the republicans would lose everything within months if they didn’t join as one coherent fighting force.

  After the republican defeat at Toledo and eventual fall of the town, Pedro went to the town of Albacete to join new units arriving from overseas. The newly formed units were to be called the International Brigades. The decision to go to Albacete had been easy. It brought him closer to Valencia, and he would have a purpose other than killing men. He drafted himself into these overseas units with ease as a liaison/training officer, and he was the perfect choice for the job because of his immaculate command of both the Spanish and English languages. His new task was to ensure that the Brigades had an understanding in weaponry and basic training as well as an elementary knowledge of Spanish military commands.

  Many of the men were out of work, others were adventurers, but the majority knew exactly why they had come: to fight the fascists. Among them were victims of the German and Italian regimes, whose fascist ideologies had destroyed their lives, and they were grateful for the opportunity to fight back against an enemy that they already knew only too well.

  Shortly after their arrival at the training camp in Albacete, Pedro listened to their stories and heard their reasons for joining up to fight a war that they didn’t have to be in. He found out that most had come through Paris at some time in their journey, where organisers, usually Russians and members of the French communist party, had marshalled them onto trains and boats, whilst others walked over the Pyrenees from Perpignan. He noted that for them it was all so clear. Their decision had been so easy to make, and the hazardous journey to, and through, Spain was made out of a fear that if the republic were to be defeated, the rest of Europe would be in terrible danger of suffering the same fate. There was no promise of pay or insurance for any of them. They were not fighting for profit but for their ideologies and consciences, out of hatred and revenge, because of their political affiliations and a desire for some to return home free men.

  One night, after a particularly gruelling day, Pedro got into a discussion with a German in the group. He was one of the few Germans who spoke English, and Pedro had taken an instant liking to him. His name was Hans Becker, a political dissident from Berlin. They discussed at length the reasons they were both becoming involved in something that had absolutely nothing to do with them. Pedro told Hans that he was from Kent in England, that he was a communist and had served in the military. It wasn’t entirely true, he admitted to himself later, but bending the truth stopped any awkward questions being asked about his aristocratic and slightly unreliable background. When it was Pedro’s turn to ask Hans why he was there, a flicker of pain and disgust crossed the German’s face.

  “What do I have to lose?” he answered with a shrug of his shoulders. “Nothing apart from an exile I never asked for or wanted. I am here because I want to return to my country with my head held high, not as some animal being hunted down and hiding in basements because of my beliefs. Isn’t that why you are fighting, Englishman?”

  “Yes,” Pedro told him. “But I’m also fighting because I believe the republican cause to be the right one. If the fascists are not stopped here, they will take over Europe, and then people like you will never be able to go home.”

  “I like you, Englishman. I like you a lot,” Hans said with a hint of a smile.

  Chapter 59

  Joseph Dobbs bathed his tired, blistered feet and cursed the day he’d hatched the plan to come to Spain. He had been welcomed with open arms in Paris by Russians who’d promised him freedom and an adventure of a lifetime. He had gone along with the jolliness, the intrigue, the obsessions of men, and the enthusiasm that had left him cold and bewildered. He had joined a band of like-minded thinkers that he secretly despised and ridiculed, but he had met his objectives and was now on the threshold of achieving his life’s ambition.

  He sat in a corner alone, watching the pathetic men that met his eyes. He drank from the small bottle of whisky, purchased from an Englishman in exchange for decent cigarettes, and looked around him at the sea of faces. He wondered if he was the only one there to notice that the conditions in the Albacete base were disgusting and crude. They were even worse than the dirtiest, smelliest streets of Paris. Streets, he remembered, where his only friends had been the rats and cockroaches that fed on the filth strewn on the pavements. He’d been told that the barracks had once been a base belonging to a group called the Guardía Civil and that it had been taken from them after the uprising. A party of German communists had asked him to help with the cleaning, and he’d told them where to stick their brushes and mops. Who did they think they were? Did they know who he was? They didn’t ask again. He flicked a cockroach off his foot. Christ Almighty! he thought. A disease would probably kill him before the enemy did … whoever they were.

  Joseph passed his days in a blur of activity. The parade ground, as it was called, was used by the recruits and was never empty for a minute. After his tired legs could take no more marching, he was forced to listen to long lectures explaining why they were there to fight. This was then followed by long discussions used by the commissars to introduce ideas which were then discussed and voted on. Joseph sat and listened, neither agreeing nor disagreeing with what was being said. He was in Spain for entirely different reasons and couldn’t care less about the political or military agenda of fools.

  He had left Paris with a hundred or so men in a convoy of buses that had dropped them off in Marseille. He’d then taken a long boat ride to Valencia, and once there, he had debated about whether to part company with the others and go it alone. He had walked some distance from the boat and the other men with the intention of looking for Celia’s home but had thought better of that idea after a trigger-happy Spaniard shot at him, and from his first observations, Valencia looked to be a huge city. Safety in numbers, he had decided, safety in numbers.

  The Spanish military had asked him what he could do for them, and after a long interview about his bad leg and his not-so-fit body in general, it was decided that his war effort would be restricted to the supply division, where he would be employed in looking after food supplies, medicines, and other general stores. He remembered that they said he would only be asked to fight if the situation called for him to do so.

  The army would march out of Albacete any day now. He’d deduced this by the frenzied pace they’d had him working at. He’d never worked this hard in his fucking life, apart from his first few months at Merrill Farm, and he was a lot younger then. He brewed himself some coffee. That was the one good thing about looking after the supplies; he could get just about anything he wanted, no questions asked. He would go with the army and be glad to be out of the dump he’d called home for the last few weeks. H
e’d dress up in their stupid uniform, surplus from the Great War and finished off with boots a size too small. He would keep his head down and wait for the perfect opportunity to begin his own campaign. After all, how difficult could it be to find the four children of an Englishwoman married to some rich git? There would be only so many battlefields.

  Chapter 60

  During Pedro’s first few days in Madrid There was a general deep confusion over how the defence of the city was to be organised. The rebels were waiting in the suburbs to overrun the capital and take the spoils of war. The streets were full of people who, in utter desperation, went out to meet the enemy on the outskirts of their homes.

  Pedro now took up a position on the front lines to the south-west of the city and in earshot of rifles, machine guns, bombs, and mortar explosions. The enemy was getting closer, and he was being drawn closer to it with an almost inexplicable desire for combat to begin. His battalion was panicking and was as frightened as Madrid’s citizens were. This, Pedro thought, was because no one had any idea what their ragtag unit was supposed to be doing alongside hundreds of civilians wielding guns and sticks. Spaniards joined their group every hour, and weapons were shared out quickly, with elementary training given to bakers, butchers, railway workers, and university professors.