Ashes In the Wind (26 page)

‘They’ll not attack in daylight across the valley, will they?’ asks Robert. He is unshaven, dirty, his fingernails broken and grimy, his spectacles held together with wire, a crack across one of the lenses. His uniform is torn and inexpertly patched, his boots red with dust.

‘Doesn’t seem likely. You’d think they’d come round on the plain.’ John points to the west, where the two ridges drop down to a vast red flatland. A small town, Huesca, is visible in the distance. ‘It looks more like Africa than Europe.’

‘The Moors must feel at home. I hope our commanders have, what’s that disgusting phrase, secured our flanks.’

‘I expect they’re too busy rooting out informers.’

An artillery shell shrieks overhead; it lands a quarter of a mile away and fails to explode.

‘Two out of five shells are duds,’ says Robert. ‘So our commissar told me yesterday. And he says the Moors’ morale is terrible, that they all want to go home.’

‘I’m right with them. This doesn’t feel like a war we’re winning.’

‘The commissar’s view is that we’re on the side of the angels.’ The end of the sentence is drowned by the shriek of another artillery shell.

‘Perhaps we ought to dig deeper, not rely on the angels.’

Robert takes a long drink from his water bottle and begins to clean his rifle.

‘How many times have you fired that bloody thing?’ says John. He lights a cigarette and throws the packet over to Robert.

‘Twenty or thirty times.’

‘Twenty or thirty dead Fascists then.’

‘It would be an unlucky Fascist that was hit by a short-sighted Oxford history don. Look, here’s our lieutenant come to lower morale.’

The lieutenant, a tough Scots Communist from the Clydebank shipyard, arrives in a crouching run, says, ‘We expect an attack tonight. We’ll hold the hill, then counter-attack and sweep down into Huesca,’ and runs on.

‘If I understood Big Jimmy’s dialect and dialectic right, that sounds like a good, simple plan. Maybe we’ll even pull it off.’

‘I wonder where Kate is now,’ says John.

They had met Kate Lowell, a tall, fair-haired war correspondent for the
New York Times
, when their contingent arrived in Alicante to join the International Brigade in the spring of 1937.

‘Can you two give me a story?’ she asked, picking them out in the transit camp. ‘I can’t take another hardline Communist explaining why the real enemies are the bourgeoisie.’

‘We’re your men,’ said Robert. ‘I’m an Oxford don specializing in thirteenth-century manorial rolls and he’s an Anglo-Irish racehorse trainer. Completely untypical. Eighty per cent of the International Brigade are working class, and half belong to the Party.’

‘You’re just what I wanted,’ said Kate, and they went to the canteen where she was the only woman among sixty or seventy men. They talked over thin soup and black bread.

‘What brought you here?’ asked Kate, pulling out her notebook.

‘We came for the food,’ said Robert.

‘Don’t pay any attention,’ said John, leaning across the table as he spoke. ‘We’re both here, we’re all here, because we believe in the
causa
of the Republic. If we fail there’ll be a war in Europe within two years.’

When Kate stood up, John looked again at her carefully, her brown eyes, her short blonde hair, her long fingers closing the notebook, locking them away in a war-free zone in his memory, then said, ‘Make sure you find us if you get to the front line.’

‘Of course I’ll get to the front line, probably before you. I’ve already been shot at and shelled, which is more than either of you can say.’

‘Quite right,’ said Robert. ‘My friend means well, he just wants to see you again.’

They met again six months later in Jarama, a town secure enough for a dozen journalists to be bussed in. John heard of their arrival and went to the Hotel Victoria, the only large hotel. He saw Kate standing in a small group of journalists outside on the pavement. They were being briefed by a smartly dressed commissar, who scowled at John as he returned his salute.

‘Robert and I want to buy you a drink in the Bodega Nacional. It’s just round the corner. We’ve become battle-hardened veterans since we saw you last.’

‘I’d like that,’ she said, smiling. ‘I made shameless use of you after our meeting in Alicante. You were both famous for a day in New York.’

Two of the other journalists looked disappointed as Kate walked away from their group.

The cobbled square had a plane tree at each corner and a dry fountain at its centre. It seemed remote from the war. There was little food in Jarama. Bread, meat and cigarettes were rationed, there was no coffee or milk, and only wine was plentiful. Robert made Kate laugh through the long, hot evening. John, more serious, found it hard not to keep his eyes fixed on her. He persuaded a waiter, one of the collective that had taken over the bodega, to produce black olives and hard cheese, which they washed down with several jugs of rough red wine.

‘It turns out,’ said Robert towards the end of the evening, ‘that Tolstoy was right. War is chaos and confusion. There is no connection between the plans of the generals and colonels and what actually happens on the ground. It’s all a series of random events, and the most important thing to do is not to kill the enemy but to avoid being killed yourself.’

‘I’ve had a detailed briefing with maps and statistics showing how the Government forces will defeat Franco’s Nationalists within a couple of months,’ said Kate.

John refilled their glasses. ‘That’s their reality, not ours. Our chaos is greater than Franco’s. We’re a patchwork army, Communists, socialists, anarchists, anarcho-syndicalists, democrats, mostly untrained, and as suspicious of each other as the Fascists. There’s a war of initials going on – CNT, FAI, POUM, PSOE, PCE, UGT. Hard to keep up with. Although we have plenty of men, enough to shoot twenty of our own troops, including three officers and a brigadier, after the Brunete fiasco. We’ve got several hundred in our own concentration camp. Which is where I’ll wind up if a commissar overhears me.’

Kate lit a cigarette, offered the pack to Robert and John, then asked, ‘So who will win in the end?’

‘The big battalions always win in the end. At the beginning, in Barcelona especially, we thought we were fighting for an idea, for a new kind of democracy. Then the commissars took over. Now we’re fighting for survival.’

A militia man walked past, unshaven, dark blue boiler suit, red and black scarf, rifle slung over his shoulder. Robert gave a right-fisted salute.

‘
No pasar
á
n!
’

‘
No pasar
á
n!
’

‘Anarcho-syndicalist. Surprised he didn’t ask for our papers.’

‘How can you tell?’

‘Red and black scarf. He’ll be off to a meeting. If long lectures and group discussions could win a war, we’re there. They’ve just sent round a new directive reinstating the salute.’ Robert fished a crumpled copy of ‘Our Fight’ out of his pocket. ‘It says here, “A salute is a sign that a comrade who has been an egocentric individual in private life has adjusted to the collective way of getting things done.” And listen to this bit. “A salute is proof that our brigade is on its way from being a collection of well-meaning amateurs to a steel precision instrument for eliminating Fascists.”’

Ten minutes later John stood up and took Kate’s hand. ‘Let me walk you back to your hotel. Robert will settle the bill.’

Robert and Kate were both surprised at this sudden end to the conversation. She looked again at John, brown, lean, tall, smiling, and didn’t drop his hand as they walked slowly back in the hot night. Outside the hotel, John, a little dizzy from the heat and the wine, steadied himself by putting his hands on Kate’s shoulders. She laughed.

‘I thought you were seeing me home.’

‘You know what Horace said? “Trust not tomorrow’s bough, for fruit. Pluck this, here, now.” You’re a pomegranate, a peach. I’m in love. I don’t think I’ll make it back to barracks.’

‘Horace would say you’d better stay here until the morning.’

‘That would be safer. Robert will tell them I haven’t deserted.’

Caceres, February 1937

Dear Mother,

I am sorry not to have written sooner, but we have been constantly on the move since we arrived in Spain, and much has happened, not all of it good, I must say.

We began badly when our lorry from Kenmare broke down and we thought we would not get to Galway in time. As luck would have it the embarkation was delayed for two days. La Bandera Irlandesa had a great send-off, with Archbishop Gilmartin leading us in prayer in the big square in Galway. We sang ‘Faith of Our Fathers’, feeling that we were going on a crusade. O’Duffy made a good speech.

That has been the best of it so far. Our German ship, the SS
Urundi
of fourteen thousand tons, was not allowed within the three-mile limit, so we had to board the
Aran Island
tender. On our way out the wind got up, and we sheltered under Black Head for five hours. Many of our fellows were seasick, and twenty of them could not face the rope ladders up the side of the
Urundi
and turned back. Or perhaps it was the thought of five more days at sea.

Anyhow we arrived at El Ferrol, and entrained to Caceres, where we were given uniforms and, eventually, decent rifles after we refused the single-shot Mausers. They were at least thirty years old.

We did some basic drill and training in Caceres. We are a mixed bunch, a few old soldiers, IRA or British Army, but mostly green farmers’ boys. There are four companies in the Bandera. I am in No. 2 Company.

Next thing we were off to the front to take part in an attack on the Republicans (strange that our enemies are called Republicans) near Jarama. What happened was we were attacked on the way, not by the enemy, but by our own troops – Canary Islanders, who hadn’t been told we were coming and opened fire on us without a warning. They killed four of our men, a Kerryman from Dingle among them. We fired back, not knowing who they were. Apparently we killed a dozen of them, but that was little consolation. It was all of an hour before we all realized our mistake; as you would expect there has been a real Donnybrook about the whole affair since.

That was over a month ago. We have seen many ruined churches and convents, and the stories of Republican outrages against the Church are not exaggerated. It is certain that four thousand priests and nuns were killed in the first weeks of the war, and many more since. At the same time our side is pretty ferocious – not many prisoners are taken, and those that surrender are treated very roughly.

The food is plentiful but most of it not my taste. There is an abundance of wine, and many of our fellows drink too much of it. I must close now, and remain,

Your loving son,

Tomas

PS Show this letter to Mrs O’Hanrahan when you next see her, as I haven’t written to her yet.

Valencia, June 1937

Dear Mother,

Since I last wrote we attacked the village of Titulcia, our first proper action. It poured with rain, the attack failed, and we lost two men. The next day we were ordered to renew the attack, and our leaders refused. They don’t seem to have much of an appetite for fighting, and we’ve been kept in reserve ever since, not a surprise.

We saw little of O’Duffy, who spent most of his time in hotels well behind the front line. The men have started calling him ‘O’Scruffy’ and ‘Old John Bollocks’. He was a good Commissioner of the Garda, but he is completely discredited after Titulcia.

So when our six months, which is all we signed up for, was over, we were asked whether we wanted to fight on, not that we’d done much fighting. Out of four hundred men only eight of us agreed to stay. I still believe in the cause and I’ve seen what the Reds can do to churches and priests and nuns. And I’m not ready to come back to Ireland yet. The eight of us are now part of the Foreign Legion and we have a new general, Yague. This is a different kettle of fish entirely, much tougher, battle hardened, well drilled and disciplined. We are more than a match for the Republicans; our air force, mainly Germans, has shot down almost all the Republican planes.

Your loving son,

Tomas

Teruel, December 1937

Dear Mother,

We are outside Teruel, a town that the Republicans kicked us out of at the end of last year. Reinforcements have arrived and the weather has improved, which means that our air force has bombed the town for three days in a row. We expect to attack on the ground very soon.

I am getting used to the Spanish food, although I avoid the wine. I look forward to coming home to a good stew. We have the other side beat, and the war will be over by the summer. Don’t worry about me. It’s much less dangerous here than Dublin was in 1921.

My best regards to Mrs O’Hanrahan and Father Michael.

Your loving son,

Tomas

B
Y
THE
END
of 1937, John and Robert’s battalion is in Teruel – a different war and different weather. Teruel is a small town in harsh country; it is bitterly cold. They fight from house to house, hand-to-hand combat with bayonets, interrupted by strafing and bombing from the Nationalists’ Condor Legion whenever the weather allows. The Republicans pray for snow and cloud, and for the last two weeks of December their prayers are answered, although their casualties are heavy. Robert is hit by shrapnel and has to go back to a field hospital for three days.

‘You’ve taken Teruel while I’ve been away. I didn’t think you could manage it without me,’ he says to John on his return. He has a bloodstained bandage around his head and he looks tired and grey.

‘I’m glad you’re back. How do you know we’ve taken the town? We’re still getting shelled every day.’

‘It’s in this morning’s directive. They say the journalists are coming for tonight’s concert. Perhaps your friend Kate will be there.’

‘What concert?’

‘God only knows.’

There is a concert on Christmas Eve; Paul Robeson sings spirituals to the battalion in the Town Hall.