The Sentinel: 1 (Vengeance of Memory)

by Mark Oldfield

‘Anything else, gentlemen?’

  ‘Two Cuban cigars,’ Guzmán said, gently whirling the brandy in his glass, ‘the really good ones, Paquito.’

  ‘At once, Comandante Guzmán.’ The waiter’s smile was definitely slipping now.

  ‘I can’t remember the last time I had brandy as good as this. Not even at my wedding.’ Peralta said.

  ‘Get used to it. But make sure you earn it. When a job needs doing, do it right.’

  ‘You mean tonight?’ Peralta asked.

  ‘I mean all the time. But yes, tonight included. You’ll need to pull your weight.’

  ‘What time will it happen?’ Peralta asked.

  ‘We’ll move them after it gets dark. The trucks will be brought up to the entrance and we’ll load them up and then drive them out there.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘The countryside. Mustn’t offend sensibilities in the city. Especially with the Yanquis visiting. The war is over,’ Guzmán gulped down his brandy, ‘officially.’ He caught the waiter’s eye as the man approached with the cigars. ‘Two more brandies, Paquito.’

  The smile was gone. ‘At once, Comandante.’

  Peralta persisted, his cheeks flushed now. ‘But what happens to the…’ He was unsure of the word he wanted.

  ‘Bodies?’ Guzmán grinned. ‘Normally, we’d dig a big pit and bury them. But the winter makes that difficult – ground’s too hard to dig. So we’ve found a compromise. There’s an old mine near Las Peñas. The entrance is just a long tunnel dug into the hillside. We’ll put the bodies in, and brick up the entrance. Simple.’

  ‘Who will form the firing squad?’ Peralta asked, attempting professional interest.

  ‘The usual people, they’ve done it before.’ Guzmán smiled. Or possibly sneered, Peralta found it hard to tell the two expressions apart.

  The brandies arrived. Peralta realised he actually felt warm now, and unusually full. He watched the waiter cut the ends off the cigars. The aroma was exquisite.

  ‘Rolled on a virgin’s thigh, Paquito. No?’ Guzmán held the cigar to his nose.

  ‘If you say so, Comandante.’

  ‘I’d think virgins are even harder to find in Madrid than these cigars, verdad?’

  ‘As the comandante says. Everything is in short supply at the moment.’

  Guzmán sent the waiter away. Peralta saw him in deep conversation with an older man in a dinner jacket – the owner, he imagined, given the man’s concerned look and the length of the piece of paper they were both studying.

  ‘I wish María could be here,’ Peralta said, inhaling the aromatic cigar smoke.

  ‘Your wife?’ Guzmán asked.

  ‘Yes. It would be nice to share this with her. She’s probably making do with a bowl of soup right now.’

  ‘Well,’ Guzmán said, ‘there’s a number of shops where they would be pleased to offer you a generous discount as a serving member of the Brigada Especial. I’ll get the sarge to make a list for you.’

  ‘When in Rome…’ Peralta said, martyred resignation.

  ‘Who said anything about Rome?’ Guzmán snapped, exhaling a cloud of cigar smoke. ‘Fucking Italians. They think they won the Civil War for us.’

  Guzmán looked at his watch and stood up, pulling on his coat as he headed for the door. Peralta downed the last of the brandy and followed.

  The head waiter opened the door for them. ‘Hasta la proxima, señores. I hope you enjoyed your meal.’

  ‘Yes, thank you.’ Peralta nodded. Guzmán ignored the man completely.

  The cold closed in as they walked back. Peralta looked at his watch. It was almost half past two and, as they reached the door of the comisaría, the air shimmered as the great church bell sent waves of deep bass notes into the freezing day.

  *

  Guzmán was hunched in his office shouting into the telephone. Peralta sat in a room down the corridor, meticulously copying the names on Guzmán’s list with a red mark against them into a leatherbound register. Against each name he filled in the charge: Crimes against the Spanish State, Serious Apathy, Treason, Bearing arms against the Spanish State, until the repetitive lexicon of capital crimes no longer held any surprise for him. His concentration was weakened by the large lunch, particularly the drink. His head ached and he took intermittent sips from a large mug of black coffee. It was foul.

  Ernesto Garcia Mendoza, Bearing arms against the Spanish State, Assisting the enemies of Spain. Sentence: Death.

  Peralta paused at the last column headed Sentence carried out. Later he would complete that. This evening. Something churned in his stomach. He cursed himself. Why could he not take Guzmán’s advice and buckle down? He stared at the stained walls of the cold office with its chipped whitewash and drab military-coloured furniture. Because he was not like that, he supposed. But he could not escape this place now: he worked here. General Valverde disliked him so much that, if he tried to get out of Guzmán’s unit, the general would wash his hands of him. And then his career would be ruined. Unable to follow orders, too scared to watch them shoot a few Reds. And there was María to think of, María and little Luisa María. He began to balance the issues, stacking the justifications for the execution against his growing physical repulsion. These Reds would be shot anyway, whatever he did; no one cared, just as Guzmán said; there had been so much killing already – and these men were condemned to death by the courts; they had committed serious crimes – as defined by the law at least. As far as he could tell. So why was he squirming in a light sweat on a freezing day, concerning himself with the rights and wrongs of a legal process? Why was he worrying about criminals and not worrying about his wife and daughter? He sat back, staring at the pages of the ledger. What will be will be, he thought. I must do my duty. My father fought against the Reds to save the country from Bolshevism. I’ve got to do the same.

  He looked down at the list Guzmán had received from Headquarters. There was Mendoza’s name, with the letter ‘M’ indicating the sentence of death. There was another letter next to it, a red ‘C’. He flicked back through the list. No other name had it. Peralta was inclined to ignore the mark, but his training at the academy came back to him: attention to detail was always key. He decided to check with the comandante. Overlooking anything at this stage would only attract Guzmán’s wrath. He took the sheet down the corridor.

  Guzmán looked up from his chair where he had been dozing by the wood-burning stove. ‘Qué hora es?’

  ‘A little after five.’

  ‘An hour to go,’ Guzmán said. ‘What do you want?’

  Peralta pointed out the extra letter alongside Mendoza’s name.

  Guzmán said nothing.

  ‘I just thought…’ Peralta tried to excuse himself, sensing another firestorm of anger.

  ‘Excellent work,’ Guzmán smiled. ‘I’d missed this. Joder. That could have caused us some bother. Good work, Acting Teniente, if this had gone unnoticed we might have been digging latrines in Galicia in some pueblo with one goat and a dog. And the goat would outrank us. Well, you anyway.’

  Peralta was taken aback by the unexpected praise. ‘Just what does it mean?’

  Guzmán’s eyes darkened. ‘Wait and see, hombre. All will be revealed tonight in God’s own good time. In the meantime, I’ve a job for you.’

  ‘A sus ordenes,’ Peralta answered automatically.

  ‘This is something you won’t have any difficulty with,’ Guzmán said. ‘Go down the road to the church and inform Father Vasquez we’ve a job this evening for him. Give him this.’ He placed a thick envelope on the desk. ‘He’s to attend at the usual time.’

  Peralta took the envelope and placed it in his jacket pocket. ‘Will Monsignor Vasquez be administering the last rites this evening?’

  ‘He will. And when you go out, tell the sarge Mendoza will be a special tonight.’

  Peralta nodded. ‘I will. But may I ask—’

  Guzmán placed his feet on his desk. ‘As I said, all in good time, Acting Teniente. Now go an
d see the priest. We can’t have all these godless bastards shot without a proper send-off. It wouldn’t be decent.’

  Peralta nodded; his stomach was churning again and he was sweating profusely. Get a grip, he thought.

  At the door, he paused, turning back to Guzmán who was struggling in his chair to find a comfortable sleeping position.

  ‘One question if I may, Comandante?’

  Guzmán’s look did not invite further discussion, but he nodded.

  ‘Does this get easier with time?’ Peralta asked. ‘Will I get used to it, do you suppose?’

  Guzmán looked at him blankly. ‘No. Not for a second you won’t, son. At least not unless you suddenly start breaking a few people’s heads now and again just for the fun of it. And I can’t see that happening somehow. It’s the way it is. There are people like me – lots of them – and there are people like you. What you need to do is to make sure that while people like me do the dirty work, you make yourself as useful as possible without getting in the way. Keep your head down and keep quiet. Especially tonight when we shoot those traitors we’ve got downstairs. I know what I’m doing, Teniente, you’re there to make up the numbers. Dismissed.’

  Peralta stepped out into the corridor and closed the door, muffling Guzmán’s laughter. He felt as if he was coming down with something. His head ached and he was sweating. He retrieved his overcoat from the meeting room and walked to the reception desk, the sense of dread still growing inside him. What had seemed distasteful work a few hours ago was now rapidly becoming a singular, terrifying reality.

  ‘Evening, sir.’ The sargento’s voice was as contemptuous as ever.

  ‘A message from Comandante Guzmán,’ Peralta said stiffly. ‘The prisoner Mendoza has been identified as a special case.’

  The sargento’s sullen face cracked into a harsh smile. ‘Well, that doesn’t surprise me, Teniente. Be a surprise to him, though, I bet.’

  ‘What does it mean, Sargento, “special case”?’

  The smirk grew bigger. ‘The comandante didn’t tell you, Teniente?’

  ‘He said it’ll be revealed to me in due course.’

  The sargento smiled, revealing several missing front teeth and exposing disgusting shards of those that remained. ‘I won’t be the one to spoil your surprise, sir. Besides, the comandante would kill me.’

  Peralta walked out into the icy darkness. A few flakes of snow drifted down through the anaemic glow of the street light. The windows of the shops and bars along Calle de Robles were pale and tired, much like the people in them. He walked slowly, breathing in the sharp icy air, making his way through bustling workers, preoccupied with the dull routines of daily life. The concerns of normal people, Peralta thought. Not for them the knowledge that in a few hours they would be involved in killing fifteen people and dumping their bodies in a mine.

  Peralta had never killed anyone. That was what made the coming night’s work so worrying. He had seen a robber shot once in his last year of training. He’d been on patrol near the Prado, accompanying a uniformed officer on his beat. A sudden shout came from ahead of them, the crowds parting near the window of a jeweller’s shop. A man dressed in a dark suit ran towards them, pistol in hand, looking back at the shop where angry voices denounced his theft. Peralta didn’t move. He felt the uniformed officer at his side raise his pistol and take aim, the blast a white starburst that drained the world of colour. Peralta saw nothing, heard nothing until time moved again as the man crumpled, legs flailing drunkenly, heard his pistol fall to the ground, strangely loud. And the voice of the policeman as he moved forward, still aiming at the man: ‘No te mueves, coño. Manos arriba.’ The man lay twisted and broken, a dark bloody slick outlining his body. He didn’t move, nor would he again.

  That had been bad enough, Peralta thought. But to bind them, blindfold them and then stand them in front of a firing squad. Could he do it? Even though they deserved it. It wasn’t that he cared, he realised. He just didn’t want to be there. He rummaged through his pockets and eventually found a solitary, crumpled cigarette, black tobacco spilling from the loose wrapping in small flakes as he raised it to his mouth. He lit it gratefully.

  MADRID 1953, CHURCH OF SANTA MARÍA DE TODOS NUESTROS DOLORES

  The grim Gothic outline of the church towered over him. A slight glow within shone kaleidoscopic light through the stained glass window. Peralta looked round, finishing his cigarette. He saw a couple pressed close together in the shadows, an old beggar with his feet bound with rags sprawled against the wall. He turned back to look towards the comisaría. A man in a black overcoat with a wide-brimmed hat moved into a doorway. Peralta threw the cigarette away: it tasted foul.

  Inside, the church was silent with an icy stillness in which the slightest move produced a whispered echo. Light glimmered from rows of candles, leaving the pews obscure in flickering semidarkness around the penumbra of the altar. Peralta dipped his hand into the holy water of the font and crossed himself. He walked slowly down the aisle of the darkened nave, and crossed himself again, his footsteps loud in the cold silence. He stopped to listen. A faint noise. The sound of weeping. He turned towards the sound and saw the bulky shape of a woman, kneeling in prayer, her forehead pressed against the back of the pew in front. She was whispering hoarsely, her prayers interspersed by muffled sobs. The words clear and familiar in the darkness:

  ‘I believe in God, the Father Almighty, Creator of Heaven and earth…’

  Peralta felt embarrassed to be eavesdropping upon her grief. Each line was accompanied by more muted weeping and stifled sobs. He moved towards the vestry door which was lit by two small candles on a table piled with leaflets and tracts. Peralta decided to knock on the door but, as he moved forward a figure crashed into him from the side. Peralta stumbled and fell, struggling to get back to his feet. Above him a wild distorted face, florid and unshaven, the eyes improbably bloodshot. The man looked down at him, while from the darkness came the distant echo of the woman’s voice as she continued her prayer.

  ‘I believe in Jesus Christ, His only Son, our Lord, who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died and was buried.’

  ‘You clumsy fuck,’ the man spat, his florid face distorted with anger. ‘What are you doing hiding there in the dark?’

  ‘He descended into hell. On the third day, He rose again.’

  Peralta dusted dirt from his coat and looked at the man. In the pale light of the candles he saw signs of physical decay, the damage wrought by a determined and sustained life of dissolution. The man had teeth missing, his hair was unkempt and his face unshaven and dirty with flecks of spittle at the corners of his purple lips. Peralta heard him gasping for breath and saw the way he staggered. He detested drunks and this one in particular.

  ‘I’m looking for Father Vasquez,’ he said coldly.

  ‘He ascended to Heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father. He will come again to judge the living and the dead.’

  The man laughed with an asthmatic rattle and his attempt at a smile showed his few remaining teeth. ‘Why, God bless you, my son. I’m Father Vasquez.’

  Peralta saw the clerical collar and understood: this was Guzmán’s priest. This wreck was to attend the execution and deliver final absolution. He felt sudden anger.

  ‘Comandante Guzmán requires your presence, Father. You’re needed in an official capacity this evening.’

  The priest looked at him blankly and then his face folded into a smile.

  ‘I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Holy Catholic Church…’

  ‘Ah, the good comandante,’ he beamed. ‘How I love the work he does.’

  Peralta looked at him with distaste. ‘Really? Have you known the comandante long?’

  The priest grinned. ‘A long, long time, my boy. We’ve trodden the same road together, he and I, through blood, much blood. The blood of those without God. The blood of the Antichrist has washed around our ankles and always God ha
s seen us through. He protects us in our work.’ He crossed himself fervently though somewhat inaccurately.

  ‘… the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins…’

  ‘Then you’ll know what’s required tonight.’ Peralta’s voice was tight with anger at this travesty of a priest. ‘The comandante requests your presence in an hour. No later.’

  Father Vasquez nodded. ‘And the money?’

  ‘Money?’ Peralta echoed. ‘What money?’

  ‘… the resurrection of the body, and life everlasting. Amen.’

  ‘The money from the pockets of the Reds, the rapists, the assassins, the child-killers, the nun-violators, the freemasons, the…’ the priest’s red eyes rolled as he searched for another category to add to his taxonomy of hate, ‘those fuckers, the church burners…’ He staggered against a pillar and clung to it gratefully.

  ‘You’re drunk.’ It was a statement, not a question.

  ‘And you’re an arsehole. So what about my money?’

  ‘Comandante Guzmán sent you this.’ Peralta took the envelope from his pocket and handed it to Father Vasquez who took it with a reverential air. The priest clutched at Peralta’s sleeve. ‘I hate them, like you,’ he slobbered. ‘The spawn of evil and international Jewry and—’

  Peralta shrugged the man’s clawing hand from his coat sleeve. ‘Get off me, you piss-head. Save your slobbering for Comandante Guzmán. Perhaps he puts up with it, but I won’t. My advice is to sober up, you filthy bastard. There are men going to die and we’re expecting you to give them the comfort of the sacraments.’

  He turned and walked through the darkness towards the church entrance.

  The priest’s voice echoed in the shadows. ‘Comfort? Comfort is for those who follow the way of God. These cabrónes will get no comfort, señor, I’m not there to tell them it will be all right: just a little bullet and then off to heaven. Oh no, I’m there to tell them they deserve to burn in hell for eternity and that I will pray every day for their continued suffering. The priests they killed, the nuns they raped. Those who lived without God shall die without him. Their suffering is a small atonement for what was done by their side. The fuckers, the—’