Not Just a Soldier’s War

by Betty Burton

  English admin said it was just the change in diet, it took time to get used to hot spices and horseflesh, or goat, or donkey, some of it too long dead before it reached the cooking pots, but it was meat. Food had taken on an importance way beyond being the mere means of nourishment. Sometimes, after dark in the Starlight Hotel dormitory, they would create fantastical meals composed of all the differing foods they longed for. Next morning it would still be bread and beans, sometimes bread and corned beef. Occasionally Eve was given treats by the VIPs she ferried around, but she often used them as barter for soap, or lavatory and writing paper.

  Today she had delivered her charges, a two-man film team, and made a start as soon as it was light. She was on her way back from the hospital at Colmenar where she had spent the night curled up on the back seat of the Mercedes, while a transient nurse slept in the front. A couple of hours ago she had stopped off in a small damaged town to buy something to drink and found a cantina where the savoury smell of frying had been too much for her. She longed for something familiar and comforting and it seemed ages since she had smelled bacon frying. The meal had been a wonderful diversion.

  Even now that the breakfast had gone and her stomach was empty again, Eve still considered that she got a good deal. It had been as close as she had come in months to a Sunday-morning breakfast. Perhaps she ought not to have drunk the local wine, but over the weeks she had come to like its sharp, rough taste. Ozz had said that the wine the peasants drank was full of tannin which killed off stomach bugs.

  The nausea subsided. She lit a nub of cigarette and sat quietly smoking and looking out at where the violence of her stomach had forced her to halt. This was beautiful. Here, where a quiet, unravaged countryside dozed in the glare of the late summer sun, there was no sign that elsewhere there were two Spains viciously grappling with each other. She had stopped on the road from the Guadalajara region, and in valleys in the south where there were olive groves and orange groves and where, as now, there were moments when nothing moved, and she had felt herself falling for the country. Alexander had said, ‘Wait till you’ve spent a winter here, then tell me you love it.’

  Waiting for her strength to return, she took out the notebook that now had an essential place in her haversack and continued one of the accounts she now sent regularly to Sid Anderson, her sponsor in London.

  Almost daily now, I drive through towns where churches have been demolished, sometimes destroyed purposely when the Republic was new and people wanted to obliterate signs of their past subservience and poverty. In many towns, centuries-old buildings are damaged beyond repair by bombs, and blocks of modem workers’ flats, built since the Republic, are pitted with shell-holes and have their windows boarded-up. Both sides are convinced that theirs is a crusade, the Nationalists against communism, the Republicans against fascism.

  I went through one town which has been held by both sides, tugged back and forth, and is now back with the Reds again. On a church ¡Fiexisme No! was daubed in red paint, then overpainted with the cross of Catholic monarchists and the yoke and arrow emblem of the right-wing Falangists. Then the Republicans returned, so that the most recent message is a new red ¡Fiexisme No! This raised my spirits because it gave me hope that, even if the Republicans are forced to give up a town, it is not the end.

  A bit like the game children play piling their hands one on top of the other and the object is always to have the top hand. How many children’s hands will be left to play anything when the fighting stops? The Republic must, absolutely must, succeed. Any other outcome is too dire to contemplate, for the German and Italian fascists will not stop at Spain. I sometimes wonder whether what we foreigners do is worthwhile, but then I tell myself that it must be, if only as a message to the Spanish people that although our government stands aloof, many of us will not.

  Oh dear, Sid, if this sounds rather introverted, I expect it’s probably because our food can sometimes be a little… disturbing? Yes, that’s the word. Stomachs trained to fish and chips rebel against olive oil and hot spices. Please believe that, whatever happens, I am very glad that I came here. I shall always be grateful to you for believing in a pushy young girl who burst upon you asking for the keys so that she could open up the door to the world.

  The cigarette didn’t last long, so Eve took another from her small supply. Each time she finished a pack she told herself it didn’t matter if there were no more cigarettes, she’d be better off without them, but each time when she heard where there were some to be had, she bought what she could, as everyone did, chasing everyday items such as pins or hair-clips or soap. The Spanish cigarette was dry and squashed, but it at least tasted fresh. The smell reminded her of Ozz. She hadn’t seen him since Jávea bay. He left her funny, friendly little messages, mostly about what he would do if she didn’t take care of the Mercedes.

  She took black sunglasses from her top pocket and a rolled-up man’s Panama hat from the shoulder tabs of her workman-like shirt. She should move, yet still she sat on. Eager as she was to get back to the Auto-Parc, she was also putting off the time when she would need to explain her decision to Alexander and plead her case.

  Before she continued her journey, she added a paragraph to her letter to Sid.

  Yesterday – Colmenar hospital, talked with an Italian, a Marxist who was delivering supplies in an American truck. He had spent some time with the partisans. He was there when some fascist soldiers tried to give themselves up and come over to the Republic. Partisans shot them all. My truck-driver said, You couldn’t blame them could you? Could I? Maybe I could, I don’t know. With families split, brother against sister, father against son, it is all so complicated. I started out thinking it was Them and Us, but I am beginning to see how fragmented Us is. I am not sure which of the splinters I agree with. None and yet all I suppose. I believe that although they welcome foreign aid, the Spanish do not really want outsiders in their war except as symbols of international support. We don’t understand the nuances of the various factions. It’s true, we don’t.

  Her mission now was to pick up a small medical team, led by Mr Siel, who was, in his other life, a Harley Street specialist in reconstructing limbs, particularly of men who had crashed in motor racing. The others were his anaesthetist and theatre nurse. Mr Siel was legendary; he and his team divided their time between his lucrative London practice and the battle-zone hospitals. Eve had transported the Siel team several times before. She had supposed that all English doctors who offered their skills to the Republic would be young Marxists, like the one with whom she had travelled out, but she had been wrong. Mr Siel was urbane, Jewish and middle-aged.

  Back on the road, she glanced at the open map on the passenger seat. Not far now. Her life had become hectic: maps, street-plans, place-names, some of them well-known, others isolated, orders and papers. Sometimes she hardly knew what day it was. The nursing sister from New Zealand who had slept in the car last night had said, ‘Time moves so fast here, you grow up quick. When I left home I was my dad’s good little girl. When I arrived here last year I was twenty-five, next birthday I shall be fifty.’

  Another hospital. This one still bore signs of the convent that it had once been, a Moorish-looking building, probably as old as the presbytery where the burnt child had died. Not as suited to a hospital as that had been, but as near to the fighting front as this was, beggars couldn’t be choosers.

  She could tell at once that they were busy. She had come in on the road from the east, and so had not seen the line of ambulances and Red Cross vehicles coming in on the western road. At the gates she had to wait in line between two Bedford ambulances of the type she had driven when she first arrived. They were vehicles that looked as though they were on important work even when they were merely parked. She felt irritated with Alex and envious of the drivers. Lately, although she got great pleasure from driving the motor car, she had been dissatisfied with the uses to which it was sometimes put. If the thoroughbred horse she had ridden had finished up in the stew-pot, i
t had at least served the Republic, but the thoroughbred motor car was sometimes pushed into doing what it had always done: providing an insulated cocoon to carry elite persons around so that they might look at what war did to other people.

  Before setting out on this journey, she had again pressed Helan Alexander to take her off some of the VIP duties – the Vipps. ‘The trouble with you, Alex, is that you’re too concerned with people of rank.’

  ‘Not Mr Siel, he’s a real Vipp. There are men walking on two legs who might not be doing so if it wasn’t for Mr Siel.’

  ‘You know I don’t mean the doctors, it’s some of the others. It’s those who have just come to look: titled ladies who think they’ve been to the front if they walk through a hospital ward, and army officers who think they own the war. I can’t stand them, they’re useless out here.’

  ‘Titled ladies are good at raising money, we can’t do without them. High-ranking Soviet officers go home with a favourable glow around them and send out more of everything the Republic needs. If we had them haul their bags on and off railway trains, it might not endear the Republic to them. You and I have got accustomed to grubbing about, they have not.’

  ‘You could soon get me off your back, Alex, by putting me on more valuable detail. When do I get to drive a truck again, or an ambulance?’

  ‘You haven’t been listening. The Vipp service is vital. I leave you with this thought: fawn on those with the wherewithal to keep us going.’

  ‘You know that I’m as good as any of your men at driving heavy vehicles. If a man told you that you could keep your Vipp service, then you would. Alex, just give me a break sometimes. Ask Ozz, he knows I’m a good driver. I didn’t come here to ass around with Vipps. I see why it has to be me, Alex – if a few blue-blooded liberals get a young woman courier, it looks good, equality of the sexes at work.’

  ‘You aren’t detailed to do the Vipps because you’re a pretty woman, you are the best man for the job. Don’t give me a hard time. I promise you, it’s vital work, especially the delivery of X-ray plates. The hospitals couldn’t function without them, and it would be profligate to use a truck or van that could be used for other supplies.’

  ‘I don’t mind the X-ray plates.’

  ‘Mr Siel says he’d take you on as his personal driver any time.’

  ‘Well, thank you, Mr Siel! My greatest ambition has always been to drive some rich doctor around.’

  ‘D’you remember that first day here? I road-tested you, we went to look at the horses?’

  Eve tried to look non-committal. ‘Of course I remember, you said the poor things were destined for the pot.’

  ‘I had you down as the daughter of some parson, a Fabian probably, raised in the country, been to a frightfully nice day-school where you did rather well – probably head girl or prefect or something, trained to care for people and animals, and come to Spain in a cloud of idealism, and looking for independence. A nice, well-brought-up young woman, quite shy and retiring, wouldn’t say boo to a goose but sharp as a tack.’

  Eve smiled wryly, wondering just what Helan Alexander had her down as now. ‘But you changed your mind.’

  ‘I dunno, except that I am aware that my infallible first impressions failed me.’

  ‘So, what are your second impressions?’

  ‘Not very shy or retiring, would say boo to a goose, quite often does. Caring, idealistic, that was right. Sharper than I first thought – as a blade. I don’t know about the rest.’

  ‘Good. That’s my ambition, to become the greatest enigma the world has known.’

  ‘That is exactly it! I can never tell when the real Eve Anders is there. Is she ever?’

  ‘I wouldn’t know, Alex, I’m only the driver.’

  Enigmatic. Yes, that would do for now.

  She switched off the engine and let other vehicles through. With all this activity she would have bet a bar of soap that Mr Siel wouldn’t be leaving today. He’d stay on to mend as many casualties as he could. She had to admit one thing: it was possible to have an upper-class accent, and a practice in Harley Street, and not be a snob. She liked Mr Siel, although he seldom said much, because there was no side to him. In fact, the great man himself had less side to him than the anaesthetist, Dr Parragon, who treated Eve like a chauffeur. She had formed the opinion that perhaps Dr Parragon disapproved of Mr Siel’s voluntary work, but in terms of the Harley Street practice, he knew which side his bread was buttered.

  ‘There are injured coming in,’ she was told, as soon as she reported and handed over the flat pack of X-ray plates. ‘Mr Siel is still operating. He won’t leave while men are coming in, so you’d best find yourself a corner somewhere.’

  An orderly showed her a room that was at present unoccupied, but didn’t make any promises about it staying that way. It was about the size of her own single bedroom at home, but here three beds had been crammed in. She didn’t care, there was the back seat of the Mercedes, but it would be nice to stretch out. All that she could think of now was food and drink.

  There was a terrible rush on. Orderlies were carrying stretchers, the nurses wore limp dresses and creased aprons, and rolled-up stretchers filled every available corner. And there was that same pervasive smell of blood, carbolic and cigarette smoke that she had encountered before. The difference here was that she had arrived in the midst of it.

  ‘Stay with him, will you?’ The nurse hung a bottle of blood above the injured man’s head and put a bowl of water and a cloth on the floor. ‘I’ll only be a jiff. He’s…’ she hunched her shoulders a little, ‘he’s under morphine.’

  ‘It’s OK, I know what to do.’ Abandoning her ambition of finding something to eat, Eve sat down beside her patient. He wore the uniform of the militia. Even though his features were obscured with dirt and blood, she could tell he was young. His eyes were closed, but was he asleep or unconscious? Was he dead? Judging by the colour and texture of his skin, almost like the big altar candles in the church adjoining her school, he must be pretty bad. A small stain of blood showed at chest level. Was it his blood? His eyes flickered, opened momentarily, then closed. With a little shock she knew that she had seen him somewhere, but couldn’t remember where. In the last few weeks hundreds of people had come briefly into her life and then disappeared.

  She squeezed out the cloth and gently wiped his face. He groaned, low and weak as though he had no energy left.

  ‘Marco?’ There was no response. The bloodstain had grown larger.

  The mingled smells of blood and faeces caused her to give a little shiver of horror; she remembered that smell from a long way off. Death was never far away from that smell. Repellent and hypnotic, it stayed in the nostrils for ever.

  As children, a gang of them would sometimes haunt the slaughterhouses after cattle and pigs had been driven from the cattle-market to await the stun. Animals and children alike sniffed the terror, the animals bucking and banging around. Children, held captive by barbarous scenes hidden from their view, shivered with excitement at being in the presence of violent death.

  Where was the nurse? ‘Marco, can you hear me?’ There was no response. Eve delved into her top pocket and drew out the little talisman she always carried. ‘Marco, look I have the… do you remember me? Sacred Heart?’ She could have cried with frustration at her lack of vocabulary.

  ‘Señorita Anders.’ Marco’s voice was barely there.

  ‘Yes, Marco, yes. Look. Remember, you gave this to me?’ She held up the little charm. A faint smile passed across her face. He brought his hand up, and she pressed the cloth into it. He held on to her fingers, but she didn’t understand what he was saying.

  ‘Catolico…’ He closed his eyes.

  ‘You want a priest? Is that it? A priest?’ He had withdrawn again. She didn’t know what to do. He looked as though each one of his short puffs of breath might be his last. She stopped a passing orderly and asked him to fetch a priest.

  All that Eve could do while they waited was clean away the bl
ood as best she could. When she went to return his hand under the cover, she saw for the first time what a fragment of shell can do to a shoulder and ribs. The extent of the damage was devastating. The top of his khaki dungaree uniform had been cut away, a field dressing applied and the jacket rebuttoned to hold the dressing in place. Dungarees and dressing were saturated with dark blood. She straightened the blanket and positioned the Sacred Heart talisman where the wound was.

  The priest came, ready with his accoutrements. He was having a busy day. ‘The orderly said you were English.’

  Eve breathed a sigh of relief. ‘Yes.’

  ‘I’m Brother Nellis. He asked for a priest?’ Brother Nellis wore plimsolls, a pair of what appeared to have once been cricket flannels and a navvy’s shirt.

  ‘Yes, at least I think that’s what he meant.’

  The nurse returned, apologizing for the delay. She lifted Marco’s eyelids, and felt the neck pulse. ‘He’s still with us. Shall I leave it to you a minute, Father? Only two ahead of him for theatre.’ She caressed his downy cheek with her knuckles. ‘Hang on, laddie.’

  The priest knelt at Marco’s side and began the rite that might assure Marco’s future in the next life. Eve stood back, watching the priest perform the rituals.

  Brother Nellis got up stiffly.

  ‘Thank you,’ Eve said. ‘He is so young, isn’t he?’

  ‘As are you.’