by Various Orca
Anyway, Tiny checked that everybody was all right (I found a piece of shrapnel wedged in my backpack), and we continued. We trudged over a couple of low hills, seeing quite a lot of abandoned Fascist equipment and more lines of prisoners. Shells still exploded here and there, but we were well spread out and I don’t think they did much damage. We could hear firing in the distance and see the smoke from much heavier artillery fire.
Word came that we were to stop for a break and we drank and ate some sausage and bread. I was shocked to see that it was early afternoon. I would have sworn that we had crossed the Ebro only an hour or two ago, but the day was half done.
We sat and waited for orders for a long time. As we eventually collected our packs and set off again, a squadron of dark shapes flew over, heading toward the river.
“Heinkel one-elevens,” Hugh commented, shading his eyes against the sun and squinting up. “Not as fast as those Italian Savoias, but they can carry more bombs. I don’t envy the boys working on the river bridges.”
We watched them pass in silence. “They were like a flock of big black birds,” Bob commented afterward. I didn’t reply, but I was glad we had crossed early enough in the morning to miss them.
The rest of the day was spent in a boring march, spread out over the country so as not to offer a tempting target to the planes that shuttled back and forth above us all the time. “Not one of ours,” Hugh commented bitterly every time a flight passed over.
I find it hard to believe all the things I have seen today, not just the river crossing or the shell exploding. Almost every moment of today I saw something new and different, and often something dreadful that would have shocked me into a panic back in the old world. Even on what I called this afternoon’s “boring march,” I saw bodies, wrecked artillery pieces, a burned-out farmhouse surrounded by dead goats, and groups of our own wounded heading back for the river. The last were filthy, exhausted and bloodstained, and the less severely wounded helped or carried the others, but everyone cheered us as we passed and gave the clenched-fist salute. I wonder if I will be able to go back to worrying about the boring “normal” world after this is all over.
TWELVE
“Do you think that piece of black metal in the suitcase was the shrapnel that got caught in his pack?”
“Probably,” Laia replied. “He seemed to collect things.”
“I wish we could know exactly where he was. For all we know, he could have spent the night in that olive grove across the road.” We were finishing off a lunch of spicy sausage and bread. At the expense of a wet shirt and Laia’s laughter, I was learning how to drink out of a leather bota. “At least we’re eating and drinking much the same as him.”
“When we get to Corbera d’Ebre and Gandesa, it should be easier to work out where things happened.” Laia lifted the bota and directed a precise stream of water into her mouth from arm’s length.
“Corbera can’t be far now,” I said.
“It’s not,” Laia agreed, “we’ll be there easily by tonight.”
“I’ve been thinking,” I said, hesitantly. “Maybe we shouldn’t go straight to Corbera.”
“What do you mean?” Laia asked. I was relieved to see she looked puzzled at my suggestion and not angry.
“Did you see the map of the area in the display?” She nodded and I hurried on, “It showed a side road going off to a place called La Frat…something.”
“La Fatarella,” Laia said. I was encouraged to see that she was smiling at my pitiful pronunciation.
“I know my Spanish isn’t any good, but there seems to be a museum there, and there was a picture of some trenches.”
“Yes,” Laia said as she rummaged through the folder of pages she had printed from the Civil War website. “There are a couple of places where the trenches from the fighting are preserved, and you are right, there is a museum to the International Brigades in the village itself. We should go there. I am sorry I missed it.”
“No, don’t be sorry,” I said. “You’re a great tour guide. I couldn’t do this without you.”
Laia smiled. “Thank you. There’s so much history it’s hard to know what to pick. Most of the tourists who come to Spain just come for the sun, the beaches and the cheap wine. They may run through a cathedral, but that’s all.”
I nodded agreement, thinking of Elsie and Edna from the plane. How was their holiday going? I wondered. Probably very different from mine.
“Only the old people care about our history.”
“You care.”
“I care because of Maria. You care because of your grandfather.”
It was true. History had become much more important to me since reading Grandfather’s journal. Maybe that was one thing he intended. “Okay,” I said, “let’s do it.” I stood and stretched my aching back. “Is it far to La Fatarella?”
“Are you regretting our side trip already?” The smile I got from Laia was worth all the discomfort I was certain was soon coming my way.
I groaned at the turnoff when I read the sign announcing that La Fatarella was 8 kilometers away. Then I shook my head in disgust; an aching back and a few kilometers on an uncomfortable scooter were nothing compared to what Grandfather had gone through. The going was easy for the first couple of kilometers. The road was flat and straight, and there was no traffic. It allowed my mind to wander to something that had been niggling at me for a while. Ultimately we were headed for Corbera, and that was what Grandfather had called the town, but back at the memorial Laia had given it its full name, Corbera d’Ebre, and that was familiar, but from where?
The road was beginning to climb and the scooter’s small engine was complaining when I remembered Aina on the bus in from the airport. The town where her grandfather—no, the grandfather of one of her relatives, a cousin or something—lived was Corbera d’Ebre. He had been in the war and been saved by an International Brigader. Aina had given me his address. I tried to reach into my pocket and…almost fell off the scooter. It could wait until we stopped.
I had to concentrate harder on my driving as our route steepened and we began to wind along roads cut between walls of layered white rock. The only buildings were rough stone huts at the edges of the ever-present vineyards and olive groves. Most looked as if they had been there forever and had grown out of the ground rather than been built by farmers.
After a series of particularly vicious switchbacks, the road leveled out as we reached the top of the range of hills. Laia slowed while she checked the map, a feat that would have had me in the ditch. We continued for a few hundred meters and turned off on an unmarked dirt track. After about a hundred meters of wrestling with the scooter as it was mercilessly thrown from one pothole to the next, we stopped beside a pile of rocks. Laia parked her scooter, jumped off and removed her helmet. I followed suit. “Where are we?” I asked.
“Hill five thirty-six,” she replied, setting off around the pile of rocks.
All at once, we were standing on the lip of a depression cut out of the hilltop. To one side, a room had been excavated into the rock face; the doorway was surrounded by piled sandbags. Laia scrambled down, and I followed.
“What is this?” I asked as we peered into the dark, dank hole.
“This was part of the trench line that was dug by the Republican soldiers during the battle.”
“Could my grandfather have been here?”
Laia thought for a moment. “Probably not. I think these date from November of ’38. That was after the International Brigades were sent home.”
“They were sent home?” I asked as Laia scrambled around the end of the hollow and up the hill. Then she disappeared.
“Wait,” I said, hurrying so much that I slipped and scratched my arm painfully on a sharp rock.
Laia was standing in a trench carved into the rock. It was the scene in the photograph I had found at the memorial. The trench was at least a meter and a half deep and stretched in an irregular line along the crest of the ridge. It was made deeper by rock
s roughly placed on the lip. “Una fosa,” she said. “A trench.”
I scrambled down beside her. If I stood up, I could just see over the rocks and across the wide valley at the bottom of the ridge. I tried to imagine being a soldier standing here while the enemy charged up at me. I failed. “This is really from the war?” I asked.
“Yes. People keep it tidy, but this is what it was like.”
I walked up and down the short stretch of trench, trying to picture it filled with soldiers: Grandfather, Bob and the others.
“Why were the International Brigades sent home?” I asked once we were back at the scooters.
“The government thought that if they made a gesture, sent home the foreigners who fought for the Republic, that would force Britain and France to put pressure on Germany and Italy to withdraw their troops, planes and tanks. Of course it didn’t work, and anyway, I don’t think it made any difference. By that time most of the Brigaders had been killed or wounded. Your grandfather says in his journal, even before the Ebro, that most of the men in the Mac-Paps were young Spanish conscripts.”
I nodded.
“There was a parade through Barcelona on October 29, 1938. Maria was there. She told me that the streets were covered with flowers and people were weeping openly. La Pasionaria, a Communist politician, made a famous speech to the Brigaders.” Laia closed her eyes in concentration. “‘You can go with pride. You are history. You are legend. We will not forget you; and, when the olive tree of peace puts forth its leaves, entwined with the laurels of the Spanish Republic’s victory, come back!…Long Live the International Brigades.’”
Laia opened her eyes and smiled. “Maria knew the whole speech by heart and, even six decades afterward, could never repeat it without a tear in her eye.”
Laia glanced at her watch. “We should probably go if we are to have time to see the museum in La Fatarella before it closes today.”
I nodded agreement and hauled my aching limbs onto the scooter.
From the road down the hill into town, La Fatarella looked like a comfortable place, a collection of red-tiled roofs nestled in a curve of the road and surrounded by prosperous farms and regimented terraces of olive groves. With Laia asking directions, we worked our way through the narrow streets, some of which were oddly covered by stone arches and wooden beams, until we arrived at a guesthouse a block away from the church in the center of the village. It was even smaller than our accommodation in Flix, but it was cheap and there was no emotional landlady. We dropped our packs, parked our scooters and walked to the museum of the International Brigades on the edge of town.
The museum wasn’t large, but it was packed with information. Dozens of national flags hung to one side and the walls were covered with photographs of soldiers from all around the world who had flocked to fight in Spain.
Laia translated the information boards for me. Of the 40,000 foreigners who volunteered for the International Brigades, the greatest number—10,000—were from France. The statistics confirmed that almost 1,600 Canadians fought in Spain and that about half of them died.
We spent more than two hours wandering around staring at photographs of stern-looking men and rusted equipment. I tried to imagine Grandfather in the photographs, but it was hard. I knew him when he was alive and I was coming to know him through his writing, but the displays were impersonal and cold. I didn’t doubt that the men in the photographs were as passionate as Grandfather, but I didn’t know them.
As we stepped out into the late afternoon sunshine, I remembered that there was something I was going to talk to Laia about. “A girl on the bus in from Barcelona airport gave me the address of someone in Corbera. She said he was the grandfather of some relative and that, as a boy, he had been saved by an International Brigader.” I reached into my pocket and pulled out the scrap of paper that Aina had given me and handed it to Laia.
“Pablo Aranda, Avinguda Catalunya, 21, 43784, Corbera d’Ebre,” she read slowly. “We shall look for him in Corbera. Perhaps he has a story to tell. In any case, you look tired. Perhaps you are not used to our scooters?”
“Not really,” I said.
Laia laughed. “Then let us go and find somewhere comfortable to read the next section of the journal, and then we can find some dinner.”
“Sounds good, but first I have to call home to let Mom know I am all right. This would be a good time to catch her.”
Laia moved away from me as I took out my phone. I had a couple of texts from DJ. Getting up, but it’s hard, the first one read. I never thought I could be this tired. The second one said simply, Hope I can make it. That wasn’t like DJ. It worried me. I texted back, Go for it. I wanted to say more but I was confused by DJ’s uncertainty.
The phone call to Mom went well. I told her I was fine and had found out a lot about Grandfather, without going into specifics. She told me stuff that was going on at home, none of which seemed in the least bit important in the middle of my adventure.
I felt odd as I folded the phone. Toronto was dull compared to what Grandfather had gone through and even compared to what I was doing.
“Your mother is well?” Laia asked.
“Fine,” I replied.
“Let’s read the next chapter then.”
JULY 26, AFTERNOON
Sitting on a hill outside Corbera watching the town being pounded by wave after wave of bombers. Most come over at high altitude—3,000 feet Hugh says. I am learning to recognize the sleek gull-winged Heinkels and the ugly three-engined Savoias.
The noise is terrifying, great successions of explosions as the sticks of bombs explode in a line. It’s like rolling thunder but harsher. Between the explosions, we can make out the crash of collapsing buildings and, even across the valley, the screams of the wounded and trapped. The entire hilltop is mostly invisible behind a swirling, dirty cloud of smoke and dust. As many of the inhabitants as possible have fled into the olive groves in the surrounding fields, and we can see their tiny black shapes. Some bombs have hit the dam that held back the town’s reservoir, and a wall of water cascaded down the road. I hope no one was in the way.
The Poles of the Dabrowski Battalion took the town this morning, but they have pulled back because of the bombing. The Catalans we have been following for two days are almost at Gandesa, 3 miles farther on, and we are to take over from them tomorrow in preparation for the attack on that place. Everything is going well and we have taken a lot of territory, although some units have suffered heavily and resistance appears to be solidifying. Tiny says that once Gandesa is ours, the Fascists will find it very difficult to move troops and supplies around because it is a major road junction. I wish our tanks would hurry and show up. At least our air force has put in an appearance.
This morning we were attacked by a German fighter plane. According to Hugh, who seems to know everything about the enemy equipment, it was a Messerschmitt 109, one of the most advanced fighters in the world and more than a match for anything Britain or France has. It came in low over a hill while we were marching in loose formation across open ground. The first we knew was when bullets began kicking up the dirt around us. It was a pale-gray machine with the Fascist black diagonal cross on the tail, and it made three passes, although no one was wounded. It was swinging round for a fourth pass when three of our Chatos appeared from the north and engaged it. We all leaped to our feet and cheered wildly as the shapes twisted and turned frantically above us.
The Messerschmitt was faster, but the Chatos turned tightly and one of them must have got in a lucky shot as the Fascist plane turned away toward the river, trailing a long black stream of smoke. The Chatos didn’t follow, but they waggled their wings over us in greeting and we all cheered until we were hoarse. Now all we need are the tanks and there will be no stopping us.
JULY 26, EVENING
We are in Corbera, or rather what’s left of it. It is built around a church on a hilltop, but mostly all that is left are the smoking shells of buildings and rubble-filled streets. There are r
ipped drapes, shattered furniture and smouldering bedding everywhere, and fires are still burning in some streets. There are bodies among the collapsed walls, but most of the injured have been moved to a first-aid station set up in what is left of the town winery. Those who fled the bombing are staying overnight in the surrounding olive groves in case the bombers return.
Our squad was among the first in after the bombing stopped, and we have been working steadily since to search for and rescue those trapped in the ruins. Most of those we found were dead or dying, but there was one shining moment.
We were passing a collapsed house when Bob stopped and ordered us all to be quiet. Very faintly, we could hear a child crying. Following the sound and working very slowly and carefully, we eventually located where it was coming from. When the house had collapsed, one of the roof beams had fallen and created a small space in the corner of one room. A child, a boy of about six or seven, was huddled under the beam. He was scratched and scared, but suffered nothing worse. Tiny, in an incredible feat of strength, lifted the beam high enough for Bob to reach in and pull the kid out.
We were convinced that the child’s family had been killed in the house and were taking him to the first-aid station when he abruptly broke free from Bob’s arms and ran across the street shouting “Mama” at the top of his voice. A young woman sitting on a pile of rubble looked up and screamed. She was the child’s mother and was convinced that her son was dead. It felt good to save a life and reunite a family amid all this death and destruction.
The worst thing is how impersonal everything is. I expected to be fighting against other people, but it is like battling against a vast uncaring machine. We see the planes that drop the bombs, but not the pilots. We don’t even see the artillery that lobs shells at us from over the farthest range of hills. How can we fight back against that? I want to see the enemy.
