Not Just a Soldier’s War

by Betty Burton

  Your affectionate friend, Sid

  ‘Alex, I want to join you here. Permanently, I mean.’

  ‘Doing?’

  ‘Anything you like. All that can happen now is for the Republic to wait for the coup de graçe.’

  ‘You should leave.’

  ‘No. I can help with the children.’

  ‘Would you drive a truck?’

  ‘You’re not thinking of evacuating?’

  ‘No, no. I shall stay whatever happens.’

  That ‘whatever happens’ sent a shiver through Eve. The rumours of the huge numbers of committed reds being shot in every town the Nationalists conquered were not without foundation. Every town and city had, as General Franco had suggested, its fifth column waiting in the wings to inform and denounce.

  Alex continued: ‘But there is a Friends International refuge in Barcelona which is in dire need of help. The man who drove for them went down with typhus.’

  Eve remembered the time she had spent helping in one of the Barcelona cantinas with Madge Pickawa and, what was his name?, O’Dowd. That would be something worth doing.

  * * *

  Unable to get a seat on a plane, Eve took a lift in a supplies truck to the coast and then sailed on to Barcelona.

  The craft was small and hugged the coastline, so that the waves and tide flipped it about making her feel queasy. There was the smell of oil and diesel and engine fumes. The view from the open deck, where she sat on a box, was a dismal one. She had seen the shapes of all the sunken supplies ships from a distance, but as the captain navigated between and around them, the full extent of the devastation hit her.

  These ships had been carrying aid to the Republic – food, raw materials, armaments, vehicles – much of it paid for out of funds collected by the penny and sixpence from people all over the world who had wanted to do something against the fascist invaders. What had started out as coins in collecting-boxes at fund-raising meetings had ended up this close to the shore.

  The thought of all those necessities feeding fishes and all those tanks and lorries providing lairs for sea-creatures made her ache with bafflement. Sid had sent her a cutting of a speech made by Helen Wilkinson, a fiery little woman MP whom Eve admired. The MP too had been baffled by the international agreement which allowed Germany and Italy to control the non-intervention scheme and consequently put a blockade on any vessel carrying supplies for the Republic. Britain, which had always been looked up to for its tradition of democracy, had concurred. As she looked at all the hulls and sterns sticking up out of the water like so many grave-stones, she thought, This is crazy, no, worse, it’s immoral.

  The only other passenger was an elderly woman with a black shawl covering her head. She spoke a Spanish dialect Eve did not understand. Who the woman was or where she was travelling Eve would probably never know. It had been like that ever since she had been in Spain. People came close for an hour, a day, a month, and then they were gone. There were lives here that would always be entwined with her own: Marco, Sophie Wineapple, Ozz, Alex, Dimitri.

  And there were fleeting glimpses of people who had left a deep impression on her, and had probably been part of the changes in herself that she recognized, like the young schoolgirl whom the women had pushed to the front of the queue because she had to get back to see to the children. Was she still surviving? And the woman with the orange grove who had accepted Lord Lovecraft’s waistcoat, a chance meeting out of which had come a link that led directly to Bonnie and the strawberry fields at home. Would she ever see them again? The odds against it seemed quite heavy. Especially now that she was entering a city under fierce attack.

  * * *

  The miserable light in Ken Wilmott’s prison cell burned night and day. There was no bedding, and the chill of the stone floor struck through his thin trousers and rope-soled canvas shoes. There was nothing to sit on except the floor. There was nothing to do except to pace from the wall with the small barred window, to the cell door. There was no one to talk to except the large crucifix above the light. The guards must have thought him a devout Christian. Perhaps he was, for he found no difficulty in talking to the icon.

  ‘The only logical answer is that somebody denounced me to curry favour. Do you reckon? No, neither do I. My own blokes wouldn’t, and I can’t believe those poor young Spaniards would, can you?’

  It was obvious from its grievous expression that the icon could not.

  ‘I don’t know who painted your loin-cloth in the fascist colours. Did that hurt? More than a crown of thorns. If you’ve got so much say in things, why didn’t you stop them? What I was saying earlier, I’m sure it wasn’t the Spanish boys. Do you know, I came to Spain because I wanted to see it. I had heard that the sun always shines in Spain, and I love the sun. I didn’t know about the snow. I got frost-bite, you know. That’s why I walk with a bit of a limp. See?’

  The icon’s expression did not change, but Ken felt sure that, in spite of the red-and-black loin-cloth, this chap who had been so much against oppression agreed.

  ‘Do they ever feed you in this place? The guards didn’t look as though they’re going short of anything. My admiration for the Spanish workers (of course, I only know the ones fighting for the Republic), my admiration has grown a lot since I’ve lived close to them. I know, I know. Some of them have done some terrible things, but if you put people in danger of losing their freedom, then they are going to fight dirty, and you couldn’t have wanted all those great churches to stand there when so many people didn’t have a roof over their heads.’

  He tried to look out of the window, but it was too high even when he jumped. He tried to see out into the passage along which he had been led, but he could only see the wall and a bit of another cell door. He heard the voices of the guards from time to time, but the only time he had seen one was when food had been handed in. Good gazpacho and bread, the best soup he’d had in ages. It had gone down better than anything he could remember since he was last in hospital.

  ‘What I can’t understand is why, in the name of God, you let it happen. The Republic started as a splendid ideal, you should have been on its side. It should have been an example to the rest of the world, but you let the ordinary people down. All we ever wanted was for things to be fairer. I know an old man back home who always said that the first true socialist was Jesus Christ, he really believed that. Maybe you were, but if you were you didn’t get the message over very well. Do you know what? I think that’s not a loin-cloth at all, it’s the fascist flag.’

  They had all gone to an English Church school, but none of them had ever taken to religion. Even so, he had often thought how comforting it must be to have a moan at, or try to twist a promise out of, some great father who could do anything. Comforting, but damned childish.

  He had grown so used to the sound of his own voice that he jumped when a guard appeared at the door. Every four hours, day and night, when the guard changed, this happened. He sprang to attention and stood against the wall furthest from the door. He saluted and said ‘Franco’ as he had been taught by his captors. He was quick off the mark, he had enough bruises already that no amount of decent soup would compensate for.

  Ken gave his salute. The new guard gestured with his rifle butt. Ken quickly followed him out of the door to where a sergeant and some other guards were waiting. With the sergeant in front and flanked by two guards, he was marched across the parade-ground to what turned out to be an administration block.

  Seated at a long table in a spacious room were officers in beautifully tailored uniforms decorated with braid, impressive medals and epaulettes. The sergeant went forward and answered questions asked by the most senior officer present, both, it sounded to Ken, speaking partly in English. Was that for his benefit? Was this a trial? He felt dread creep through his loins and he most desperately wanted to pee, but he tightened his muscles and held his head erect. If there was any last request, then he would ask to empty his bladder. He caught the words ‘…is no doubt. He is English.�
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  The sergeant instructed, ‘About turn, quick march.’

  He was marched to the latrines and then back to his cell. Well then, he thought, as he marched as smartly as he could in his canvas shoes, I’ve had it. His cell was now occupied by another prisoner, a Moroccan, still wearing the uniform that his own side had feared to see more than any other. The Moors took no prisoners. This one sat glowering, a blanket clutched around him.

  ‘Well then, mate, what have you done to get yourself in here?’ He didn’t expect an answer. He didn’t get one. The Moor sneered, turned his back and sat facing the wall.

  ‘Well, if that’s how you feel, I’ll go on talking to this block of wood. I just wondered why they’ve put you and me in here together.’ The Moor dropped his head on to his knees and pulled the blanket close about his head. Ken’s forced levity was to keep his spirits up. He needed to; his knees still felt like jelly from his sudden brief appearance before the panel of immaculately uniformed Nationalist officers. The brevity could well have been because he knew that he must stink. He must have been as offensive to the nostrils of the officers as his new cell-mate was to him.

  Ken stood silently staring up at the wooden crucifix. Had that been one of the infamous ‘hearings’ they had all known about? Death by firing squad. No appeal. There was no time to collect his thoughts for the guards were back. He put one foot in front of the other, the last bowl of gazpacho coursing through his bowels. His legs did not want to function, but somehow he managed to pull himself together. As he faced the firing squad, he was determined to be defiant: ‘¡Viva la Republica!’ God above, what if his bowels let him down at the last moment. He’d seen it often enough in dead and dying men. The next to last indignity, the last being heaved into some shallow grave.

  At the main gate of the barracks a party of captured Republican soldiers was already drawn up. He was ordered to take a place with them. It was bewildering. Nobody knew where they were going except the guards and they said nothing. At the railway station they were ordered into what could only be cattle trucks from the smell and lack of any kind of fittings. As the train wound its slow way through Aragon, they relaxed and began exchanging stories of the various battles in which they had been engaged, some shaking hands at discovering that they had fought in the same sector at the same time.

  At Burgos they were ordered to disembark and march, their destination still unknown. At least, Ken reasoned, they probably aren’t going to shoot us, they could have done that at the barracks. After several hours they reached San Pedro de Cardena. One of his compatriots said that El Cid was buried in the church in the village. Ken had only the vaguest notion about the hero; perhaps he would live long enough to find out.

  Their place of captivity was a neglected palace, stripped of its splendours. It stood, a pile of decaying architectural beauty. It was filthy.

  Well, Ken thought, I’m suited to this place. He was still wearing the clothes in which he had been captured, and had been given no opportunity to wash or shave. What had once been smaller rooms had been knocked into one, and into each of these modified spaces were herded hundreds of men. The days passed in the most dreadful, insanitary conditions, the men plagued by lice and infected wounds. At any time Ken Wilmott would have almost exchanged it for the hill. Almost, for in spite of being among long-stay men whose diet of garlic-flavoured water, bread and a few beans once a day indicated scurvy, he was at least alive and had hopes of eventually being part of the exchanges of prisoners being made between the two sides.

  * * *

  Amazingly, some mail caught up with Eve almost as soon as she arrived in Barcelona. There was a parcel from her aunt who ran the strawberry farm containing packet shampoos, some hard sweets stuck in their wrappers, and a letter in which she gave a detailed account of Bonnie’s progress. There was also a photograph. When Eve saw it, her heart leapt; the picture was obviously an attempt by her uncle to re-create one that he had taken of herself when she was a girl. The pretty toddler was standing in a field surrounded by poppies. From the squinting eyes and the shadow thrown by the brim of a straw bonnet wreathed in poppies and ox-eye daisies, it was obviously a hot day. As it had been that day ten years ago. There was another of Bonnie and her mother, again a re-creation of that day. Bar’s great buzz of black hair was studded with flowers, and she was wearing a sleeveless, black top and long black skirt. Eve, sheltering from a strafing and bombing raid, ached to be back there. If she could choose a day to relive, then it would surely be that one.

  No. That was maudlin and sentimental for, unbeknown to herself, her mother had already been dying of cancer. Her unforgivable father was probably already planning to kill himself rather than have to retire from his life at sea. The thwarting of her ambition to go to university was there in the shrubby background, as were four years of working in a factory.

  No. Nothing is as sweet as the life being experienced now. All the rest is memories and daydreams.

  The other two letters both held an Australian stamp and the name and address of Ozz’s parents on the envelope. She read them in sequence.

  Dear Miss Anders or Eve if you don’t mind,

  Thank you kindly for the letter you wrote about Clive. The news has just about floored his mother, and it has knocked the rest of us sideways too. He had told us that he had met a nice English girl who was driving lorries same as he was. It seems hard kind of work for a woman, but seeing as you feel same as we do ourselves about politics, it is a great thing that you are doing.

  The kids in Clive’s school had a special memorial for him, he had been sending them pictures and letters. He says that you were with him when he took the bullfight trophy he sent me. It was about the queerest keepsake any boy ever sent his father, but I still got it in the box with all the medals he has won for sport. The Lavenders are proud of their youngest son.

  You could do the whole family a great favour if you could ever find it possible to come to these parts, we should give you the biggest welcome ever. Clive’s mother says she won’t rest until she sees what sort of a girlfriend Clive had. If you have a picture, could you please send it. Seeing’s believing as they say, so if you could get the lorry in too we could take it down to the school and show them.

  She sent them a photograph similar to the one she had sent home to Ray. Ozz had taken it before the tragedy of the villagers at the bus stop in the Alcaraz valley. She was wearing her old cords and shirt and smiling happily at the camera. She knew that now she was much thinner and more haggard than she had been then. She had shared in more terror and grief, and seen more tears and blood than she could ever have imagined. Ozz had written across the bottom: ‘This is for you, Sweetheart.’ It put a seal on Ozz as a normal son with a girlfriend. That was all right. A man friend was what Ozz had been, her best and only one.

  Dear Eve,

  We hope that you will take this in the spirit we mean it, but we just wanted to let you see how sincere we are about you. Lloyd (my son next up from Clive) is going down to the shipping office to see if he can make arrangements and pay up front for you to get a passage out here any time it suits you – that is if you would like for to have a stay with us. I expect your own family will be longing to see you, but a visit from you would be such a great consolation to us in our grief over the loss of Clive.

  Your affectionate friend, Jess Lavender.

  Her own feelings of grief for the loss of Ozz must pale into insignificance compared to theirs, especially to that of his mother. Theirs was a really nice offer. Would she ever dare take it? The only people in the world to whom she could talk about her best friend. If they thought that they’d had a romance, never mind. To his mam he would live for ever as her lovely, handsome boy who had won at the People’s Games and had stayed on to fight for an ideal that had emigrated with them from Welsh Wales. And to his mam, as to Eve, he would never grow older than twenty-four, would always be good-natured and cheerful, never mean-spirited or depressed or old or sick.

  * * *


  It was satisfying to be driving a truck again, but she felt less free than she had in the early days. When she was not driving she helped at the Friends International centre, sewing and mending clothes for refugees and orphans. When a warning of approaching enemy aircraft sounded, they would head for the basement where they continued to patch and darn by the light of hurricane lamps and candles, but as these were both in short supply they would quite often sit it out if the sound of the planes was not too close.

  Eve could not fail to see the irony of her situation. For years she had sat in a roomful of women and spent her working day stitching garments at an industrial sewing-machine. For years she had worked at educating and making something of herself, and planning to escape. And so she had.

  One day she would go home and tell Bonnie that there was an extraordinary world out there if only she would tear herself away from the poppy fields, and break the bonds of the pretty daisy-chains and give up the narcotic love of a protective family. Until recently, her understanding of what had transformed her from Lu Wilmott into Eve Anders had been only subconscious, but now that she had grown more contemplative and less likely to live up to Lu Wilmott’s reputation of going off like a fire-cracker, she was better able to think clearly about how that transformation had worked.

  She had escaped to the country of – as Mrs Lavender had said – splendid ideals, and here she was again, sitting in a roomful of women stitching garments. Yet, here was the difference: the girls at the factory had not experienced feminism, or the kind of equality that the young Spanish women had come to expect. As they sat and sewed, these women whose language she could now understand and speak, many of whom spoke better English than her Spanish, gave her a potted history of their transformation through education. She had at last found an encampment in which she felt that she belonged. They were, as she was herself, butterflies recently emerged. They wanted to fly.