by Jack Ludlow
‘I couldn’t have asked for more. For men who are raw you performed splendidly.’ Though these youngsters were pleased and knew they had every right to be, the rearguard less than the others, Cal could sense a residual layer of resentment, exemplified by the looks on their faces when Broxburn Jock spoke, his face tired and pinched, his voice cracked.
‘How’s wee Stan farin’?’
‘He’s in good hands, Jock, comfortable and asleep. The wound is clean and he will be evacuated to a proper hospital for an operation to remove a bullet.’ The pause was brief, the tone Cal employed turning quite hard. ‘I know you are not chuffed with the order I gave to leave Stan when he took his wound, but we were in the middle of a fight.’
One or two nodded, others did not. Tempted, as he was, to admit he had failed to designate anyone to deal with casualties, Cal felt it would come across as false. He had to be hard of heart and that was something they needed to learn, and he glanced at Vince, who had returned from his search and was looking at him, unseen by the lads, with an amused expression on his face as if to imply he knew what was coming.
‘That’s the way it is, and you’d best get used to it. In a battle, the effectives come before everyone else, and most important, you lot forgot to reload, which should be automatic. How would that have played out if one of those trucks full of Civil Guards had decided to stop and make a fight of it and you with empty weapons? It would not just be wee Stan in the surgery. You’re all volunteers, so if you don’t like it you can ship out anytime and I won’t seek to keep you, but know this. If I’m here and Vince is here, we tell you what to do and you do it without question. It has to be that way to keep you alive.’
They were not all abashed by his tone; the best of them held their cold stares and Cal would not have had it any other way. While he could not abide the way the anarchists behaved, neither did he want to lead men who were incapable of individual thoughts or were too frightened to express them. The best soldiers had a combination of both, as well as the initiative to act without orders.
‘Now, for the future, if any of you know first aid, give your names to Vince, and I will see about getting the kind of kit you need to be effective as medics.’
‘Right, you lot,’ Vince called. ‘I got us a billet in the schoolhouse, so let’s get some rest.’
Crossing the main square, now full of the column’s trucks, as well as the now-upright cannon and an abandoned fuel bowser, Cal and Florencia passed the communists, as before in a separate section by the steps to the church, their equipment neatly arranged and looking as smart as they had the first time he had seen them. Florencia took pleasure in telling Cal, in a voice loud enough for them to overhear, that ‘the cowards took no part in the battle, but stayed to the rear where they were safe’.
The only reaction she got was from one of the squad leaders, who looked at her with the same level of hate as she was displaying, then snapped his upraised thumb through his teeth, which meant Cal had to drag his woman away from what would have been a futile dispute.
‘Come on, let’s find out what your leader has in mind.’
They found Juan Luis in the office of the town mayor, sitting behind his desk: he, a left socialist, had been found hanging from the wide archway of the door that led to the courtyard of his house, with a notice saying he was a traitor pinned to his chest. Inside, his family — a wife and two daughters — had been raped and mutilated, then finished off with gunshots to the head.
In total, the insurgents had murdered some thirty-four of the town’s inhabitants before fleeing, taking with them those sympathisers who had not already fled to safety, the locals who supported their aims and had helped their ‘cleansing’. It had to be hoped that in raking those fleeing vehicles, some of those who had betrayed their fellow citizens to the Falange had been killed along with the blueshirts.
Having not long come off the phone to Villabova, Laporta was in a mood of quiet fury, and in reacting to Cal Jardine he showed scant gratitude for the fact that his bacon had been saved by the actions of the Olympians. A question as to the removal of the wounded got a very brusque response, almost a dismissive wave of the hand. About to remonstrate with him, Florencia beat Cal to it; she launched into a furious burst of Spanish invective, halfway through which Laporta started to laugh, his shoulders shaking.
‘My friend, she has just told me I am an ingrate.’ Then his hand went up to protect his face as Florencia, still yelling at him in Spanish, picked up the late mayor’s ashtray and made to throw it at his head; he was saved by Cal grabbing it out of her hand. ‘If she is like this in bed I wonder you have the energy to fight.’
‘I think you owe my boys a vote of thanks,’ Cal said, not in the least amused, now actually restraining Florencia with one arm round her waist, seeking to avoid her kicking legs and now suffering an equal number of insults as the man behind the desk.
The look on Laporta’s face changed immediately, and the laughter ceased. ‘Which I will do in person, my friend, but right now I am suffering from being told by Villabova, our little Cortez, that everything we have done is an error.’
‘What?’ Cal enquired, before snapping at Florencia to calm down, which she did as Laporta talked; his tone was enough to tell her that the matter was serious.
‘He has told me we need to secure the whole region through which we have passed, not just the road to Saragossa, and he listed a whole number of places I have never heard of that we have failed to occupy and cleanse of fascists. Clearly he had a map which tells him this, but one fact is obvious: he has been so busy taking other areas he has not yet reached Lerida, this while our friends are being executed by the hundred further west.’
‘But you all agreed back in Barcelona that taking back Saragossa is vital-’
‘My friend,’ Laporta interrupted, ‘Villabova is not of the CNT or FAI. He is a soldier and I am not, something of which he was keen to remind me.’
‘But I am.’
‘Yes, you are, so I now ask you, as a soldier, what should I do?’
Cal pointed to a sulking Florencia and said, ‘I think you best tell her what you have just told me.’
The explanation did nothing to lessen her fury but it did redirect it and the name Villabova, mixed with a few choice insults, was the result. It served the purpose, giving Cal time to think and to reflect that Laporta was, at last, open about the need for military advice. He was, of course, not in the presence of his lieutenants, so it might be a one-off.
‘What is happening elsewhere in the Peninsula?’
The list that followed took some getting hold of, but thankfully every time Laporta included Florencia, Cal had time to absorb it, well aware, and the anarchist had added the caveat, that much of what he said was less than hard, incontestable fact; the situation was still fluid, the only certainty being that in the territory they controlled, the fascists were not only shooting people by the hundreds, they were boasting about it on the radio, especially one of the senior generals in Seville, who was daily listing the details of his operation to cleanse ‘sacred Spain’ of the disease of socialism.
Enough ships had stayed loyal to their officers to get the first elements of the Army of Africa, especially their heavy equipment, over the Straits to the mainland, and they were being shielded from Republican destroyers by two German pocket battleships, while the man who had taken command in Morocco, General Franco, lacking enough vessels to move his men in time, had sent a message to Rome and Berlin requesting aircraft to provide transport.
‘Have they agreed?’ Cal asked.
‘No one knows yet. Our government have appealed for aid to London and Paris.’
Cal was tempted to tell Laporta not to hold his breath on that one; if Peter Lanchester was right, the British government would want to stay well out of it. Paris, with a Popular Front government of its own, could be more sympathetic to the Republic, and so was a better bet. There was good news from Valencia, the vital port for agricultural exports and thus the flo
w of much needed currency: it had been saved, while the leader of the revolt, that serial rebel General Sanjurjo, had died in a plane crash.
‘So who will take over?’
Laporta shrugged. ‘Let us hope they all kill each other trying.’
Confused as it was, it became apparent to Cal, as Juan Luis talked, that the population centres, the bigger cities, seemed to be the key; it was those the insurgent generals were seeking to take and it had to be a strategy designed to suit their purpose, so it was axiomatic that the best course of action was to deny them their aim.
Great swathes of land did not matter to them because they had seen clearly a fact still obscure to the likes of Villabova: this was not conventional warfare, in which one army manoeuvred to defeat another and took ground; it was a series of disjointed regional actions in which the Republic was reacting to events, not imposing its will.
The army knew they could occupy the hinterland once they had control of the provincial centres, and one of those was Saragossa. Whatever happened elsewhere, and that could have no bearing on the present conversation, Laporta should continue to head for his objective; this Villabova character was dead wrong.
‘Do we know the level of the enemy forces in Saragossa?’
‘Madrid say it is being held by disloyal army units, with a force of Carlists on the way from Navarre to help them hold it.’
Fired by religion, which was what bound them to both the cause of the generals and, historically, that of Don Carlos, a junior member of the monarchical House of Bourbon, the Carlists would be as fanatical as the Falange. The people of Navarre had fought two full and bloody wars against the Spanish government, and launched several insurrections that had lasted over forty years. Whatever else they were militarily, they were not quitters.
‘Then the best thing you can do is get there as quickly as possible, that is, before they do.’
‘Disobey him?’
‘Has he ordered you to stop and consolidate?’
‘No.’
‘Then I have given you my advice. You can also demand that Villabova support you.’
Laporta got up from the desk, came round, and embraced Cal. That was acceptable; the great smacking kiss on the cheek was not and the Spaniard was forcibly pushed away, Cal sitting down to avoid repetition.
‘But for the love of God, before we move any further, get hold of some maps.’
While they continued talking, neither had noticed that Florencia had edged towards the door — she had heard a voice they had not — opening it a fraction and putting her ear to the crack. After a few moments, she waved an impatient hand at Cal and gestured that he should come to join her; his lifted eyebrows and glance at Laporta only made her cross, so he nodded to Juan Luis and slipped out of his chair. Invited to put his ear to the door, he could hear what he thought was Manfred Drecker’s voice, but it was incomprehensible.
‘Querido,’ Florencia whispered, pushing the door till the crack disappeared. ‘That bastard Drecker is on the phone to one of his slimy friends and he is telling him how he and his communists took the town by crossing the canal downstream and attacking it from the rear.’
‘What?’
That got him a finger to her lips and the door was opened a crack again, ear to it, her face screwed up, but Cal had heard enough. He grabbed the handle and pulled it open, seeing Drecker with his back to him talking on the phone, fag in the air, his voice emphatic and before him some kind of map-like drawing, obviously so engrossed he had not heard. Florencia had come to join him and then Laporta appeared in the open doorway, and now it was Cal’s turn to call for silence.
It could only have been the feeling of eyes on his back that made the communist turn round, the look he gave the trio one of unadulterated loathing. Quickly he spoke into the phone, Cal surmised to say he would call back, then slowly put it down, picking up and folding the paper he had laid on the table.
‘Herr Drecker, can I ask you what that call was about?’
‘Why would it be any of your business, Herr Jardine?’
‘Florencia tells me that you are claiming to have undertaken the task carried out by the men I led, that you are in fact claiming to have taken the town.’
If it was true, and Cal thought it very much so — for why would Florencia lie? — Drecker seemed unabashed. ‘I am engaged, Herr Jardine, in the very necessary task of giving the people the news of the victory of the forces of the left over the fascists.’
‘My victory,’ Cal snapped, then jerked his head, ‘as well as that of Juan Luis, his men and mine. From what I saw of your men on the way here, they do not look as if they have been fighting at all.’
‘They were held in reserve.’
‘Far enough back, I suppose, not to even get dust on their boots, while others died.’
‘That is of no importance. What is important is that the people read that the forces opposing the general and their lackeys have gained an important success.’
‘Read? You were talking to a newspaper?’
‘I was talking to the organ of my party and they will spread the news.’
‘That will spread a lie.’
Drecker smiled, a cold thin-lipped expression that reminded Cal of a particularly supercilious schoolmaster he had endured, one who never ever accepted he could be in the wrong, then spun on his heel to leave, his words delivered over one shoulder.
‘The cause for which we fight does not need truth, Herr Jardine, what it requires is the right propaganda targeted at the needs of the cause, words that will make the proletariat rise up and fight.’
Complaining to Laporta did not achieve much, he just shrugged and suggested you could expect no less from such a canaille; it was months before Cal Jardine found out that he had done exactly the same as Drecker, phoning in to the anarchist newspapers in Barcelona an account of the column’s progress and the battle for Albatarrec which made no mention of foreign Olympians, but extolled the furious bravery of his own men and their indifference to losses. Communists were likewise not mentioned.
The column pulled out as the heat went out of the sun in the late afternoon, this time at least aware of both the name and distance to their next stopping point, a village where they found that, unlike previous encounters, their enemy had not stopped to exact a blood price, but had driven straight through without halting. During the night, a motorcycle messenger arrived with a set of maps, querulous because, as Florencia explained, he had not thought he would have to come so far.
Under lantern light Cal studied the maps, seeking to establish the places where between their present position and Saragossa the Falangists could stop to make a stand, none of which, unless they were reinforced, he thought they could hold. Not that he discounted the possibility of meeting stronger opposition — where had the cannon the column now possessed come from?
Speed was the key, giving them no time to settle and build defences, and if they could get to Saragossa and it was lightly held, the city might be taken back by a quick coup. The same map showed why such a recapture was important: Saragossa stood on the Ebro, the largest river in Spain, and it served as an important rail and road communication centre in all directions, especially north and south. It was thus a vital artery for the lateral movement of troops.
It was also a vital connection for the Republic to the north-west of Spain, to the provinces of Cantabrica, the Asturias, as well as the Basque region and Galicia; held, and the corridor extended to the Atlantic Coast, it would also cut off the Carlists of Navarre from the Nationalist centres of Burgos and Valladolid. More importantly, it blocked the road south to Madrid.
The next few days took on the nature of a race, with constant reports sent back to Colonel Villabova naming the places taken and bypassed, with requests that he support the Barcelona column. Finally they arrived before the walls of Saragossa, to find it held by a force strong enough to repulse their first feeble attack; how could it be anything else with nothing but waves of human bodies to throw at the defen
ces and only one piece of artillery?
Worse, there was no sign of any support, and by the time Villabova was persuaded of his error in taking territory instead of towns, it was too late to effect even a siege that stood any chance of success. Worse, the defenders, reinforced, were not content to stay within the confines of the city; they came out to fight and in numbers that drove the Republican forces back until the battle lines sank into a rigidity that lasted weeks, while around the country things went from bad to worse for the Republican cause. Communications, being in touch with the rear areas and news of what was happening elsewhere, turned into a mixed blessing.
The advantage, as it had from the outset, lay with the rebellious generals, the only hope of an immediate collapse the possibility of a divided army command — that the generals would fall out amongst themselves. Such a possibility was dashed when it seemed they had settled on the former army chief of staff, General Francisco Franco, to lead them.
As the man who commanded the colonial forces, as well as, it transpired, the backing of Berlin and Rome, he emerged as the most potent voice in the Nationalist cause and he came to prominence with the Republic in chaos, struggling in the north-west provinces, bogged down in Aragon, with an ineffectual navy lacking in officers so that no blockade could be enforced, and the capital city incapable of defending itself from a determined thrust.
His Army of Africa columns swung up from Seville to attack the old fortress town of Badajoz, taken, but at a high cost in experienced troops. For all the losses of trained men, that capture linked the two halves of the Nationalist forces and cut the Republicans off from their confreres in the west. It also gave Franco the Portuguese border, over which the Nationalists were able to receive support from the openly fascist dictator, Antonio Salazar.
