Fire Line

14/10/2020 Fire line
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According to this account, on the night of July 24 to 25, 1938, at the beginning of the Battle of the Ebro, 2,890 men
and 18 women from the XI Mixed Brigade of the Army of the Republic crossed the river to establish the head of
Castellets del Segre bridge, where they fought for ten days.
In reality, neither Castellets, nor the XI Brigade, nor the troops that face him in the Line of Fire ever existed.
But while the military units, locations, and characters featured here are all fictional, they are not.
the facts or the names from which they are inspired. It was exactly like this that parents, grandparents and relatives of
many readers of this book fought on both sides during those days and those tragic years.
The battle of the Ebro, which caused more than twenty thousand national and republican deaths, was the hardest and
bloody of how many have been fought on Spanish soil, and on it there is abundant documentation, war reports and
direct testimonials. With all that, combining real events, rigor, invention and some personal memories and
relatives, the author has built the novel.
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The Reds fight with tenacity, they defend the terrain inch by inch, and when they fall they do so with
gallantry. They were born in Spain. They are Spanish and therefore brave.
Juan Yagüe. Franco general
We were not red beasts, nor were they fascist assassins. They and we, the
best of them and best of us, we were young and good. I say this because it seems
that it is fashionable to put us to broth to nationals or republicans. Because I think it would be better
that we get together and make them shut up.
An officer in the 46th Republican Division. Alfambra
Understand the language of the enemy, speak the same language of those who kill, of those you have
to kill, is an ordeal that depresses as if a mountain fell on the shoulders ...
man who says like us girlfriend and friend, tree and comrade. That is happy with them
words and also swear with the words that you swear. That I would go to your side, under your flag,
Charging on strange people
Rafael García Serrano. The faithful infantry
Stubbornness against tenacity, boldness against daring; and also, it is fair to say, the
Courage against courage and heroism against heroism. Because, at last, it was a battle of
Spaniards against Spaniards.
Vicente Rojo. Head of MS of the Republic
What brutes, my God. But what men.

Arturo Barea. The forging of a rebel
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To Augusto Ferrer-Dalmau, painter of battles
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It's 00:15 and there is no moon.

Crouched in the dark, motionless and silent, the eighteen women from the
Broadcasts watch the dense parade of shadows heading for the riverbank.
Not a voice is heard, not a whisper. Only the sound of footsteps, hundreds of them, on the ground
wet from the night chill; and sometimes the slight metallic clash of rifles, bayonets,
steel helmets and canteens.
The flow of shadows seems endless.
The section has been in the same place for more than an hour, protected by the wall of
a ruined house, waiting its turn to get going. Obedient to orders
received, no one smokes, no one speaks and they hardly move.
The youngest soldier is nineteen and the oldest is forty-three. None of them carry
rifle or belt like the militia women so much like the photographers of the foreign press and now
they never really step on the fronts. At this point in the war, that is propaganda and folklore. The
Eighteen of the transmissions are serious people: they carry a service pistol at their belts and, at the
back, heavy backpacks with a transceiver, antenna poles, two heliographs, telephones
campaign and thick cable reels. They are all volunteers in good physical shape, disciplined,
Communists of militancy and with Party card: elite operators and links trained in
Moscow or by Soviet instructors at the Vladimir Ilyich school in Madrid. They are also the
only of their gender assigned to the XI Mixed Brigade to cross the river. Your mission is not to fight
directly but to ensure, under enemy fire, communications at the bridgehead that
the republican army intends to establish in the sector of Castellets del Segre.
Sore from the straps of the frame that leads to the back with a coil of five hundred
meters of telephone cable, Patricia Monzón - her companions call her Pato - changes
posture to relieve weight on the shoulders. She's sitting on the floor, leaning on her own
He charges, watching the shadows run as they head towards the combat that has not yet begun.
The humidity of the night, intensified by the nearby river, wets his clothes. Like the coil that
worn on the back does not leave space for a backpack or satchel - they will be sent with the
second step, they promised— he wears a blue twill jumpsuit with big pockets filled with
must-have: individual cure pack, a cut strip of tire to stop
haemorrhages, a handkerchief, two packages of Luquis and a wick chisel, documentation
personal, the cyclostil sketch of the area that the commissioner of the brigade gave them, a couple of
spare socks and panties, three cloths and cotton in case the period comes, half a pill of
soap, a can of sardines, a piece of stale bread, the technical manual for
campaign, a toothbrush, a stick to squeeze in your mouth during the bombings and a
Swiss army knife with horn scales.
"Stay tuned ... We'll be leaving soon."
The whisper circulates through the section. Monsoon Duck licks his lips, breathes
deep, change position again, adjusting the shoulder straps better, and raising the
face to look at the sky the tassel of the frill touches his eyebrows. Never in his life had he seen
so many stars together.
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It is his first real combat action, but he benefits from other people's experiences. The same as
most of her companions, when forty-eight hours ago she learned that her fate was
on the other side of the Ebro he had his hair shaved for two important reasons: not to be seen from afar
that she is a woman, and reduce in the next few days, unfavorable to hygiene, the possibility that
lice or other parasites nest. At twenty-three that gives him an androgynous appearance,
boy, accentuated by the barracks headgear, blue overalls, leather belt with canteen,
Tokarev TT-33 pistol and two reserve magazines, plus received Russian spike boots
a week ago, so new his heels still blistered. That's why he wears them hanging
of the neck by the laces, and like almost all her companions wears espadrilles with
esparto grass tied with ribbons to the ankles.
"Stand up, come on… Now we're really going."
It is the only male voice in the section, that of the militia lieutenant Herminio Sánchez. his
petite and skinny figure moves between them, repeating the order. Duck can't see his face
although he assumes it as usual: wrung out, poorly shaved, always smiling. Communist,
like most of the chiefs and officers of the brigade. He makes himself loved and in unity
want. He is a good boy, with his little castles of the Engineers gun on the peaks of the
shirt, his bad jokes about priests and nuns, the shell glasses and prematurely
gray under the peaked cap, so curly they all call him Harpo.
"Line up one at a time."
Snorts, murmurs, team sounds, brushes with colleagues in the dark at
group standing up. They touch each other to line up along the wall, without further ado
order than chance.
Avoiding thinking about what awaits behind the other shore — yet it surprises him that he is not afraid,
just a vague apprehension that clenches his stomach—, Pato concentrates on the way to the riverbank
nearby, where the means of crossing the assault echelon await: rowing boats, rafts and
fishermen boats. For the crossing of the Ebro and the great republican offensive of which Castellets
constitutes the most extreme western flank, the Republic has requisitioned everything that can float
between Mequinenza and the Mediterranean.
"Walking, and not making noise," Harpo is heard whispering. The fascists have yet to
aware of the one that comes over them.
"Well, I hope they take a long time," says a woman's voice.
"As long as they remain clueless for another hour, it'll be sweet," says another.
"Have ours started to cross?"
—A while ago… Swimmers with hand pumps and light equipment on car tires
swollen. We saw them go by yesterday.
"Wow guys." You have to have the courage to soak in that way, in a night and in a place like that.
"Well, I still can't hear anything on the other side."
"That's
"As longa good sign."
as it lasts until we get there ..."
-It already. Shut your mouth.
The last order, moody, comes from militia sergeant Remedios Expósito.
Pato easily recognizes his voice among the others: hoarse, cutting, with bad fleas - ways of
Moscow, girls jokingly call them. She is a dry and tough woman, a communist of the first hour.
The oldest and most senior in the section. He was in the assault on the Mountain barracks and in the
defense of Madrid and then trained for a month at the Budionny communications academy
of Leningrad. Widow of a trade unionist who died in Somosierra in July 36.
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"Are we still far from the river?" Someone asks.

"Shut up, damn it."
They walk in the dark trying not to stumble, each one attached to the partner who
precedes. The only light is that of the stars that over their heads curdle the night.
The invisible path slopes gently down to the river. On one side and the other are now sensed,
grouped together, numerous bundles of men waiting motionless. You can smell clothes
sweaty and dirty, gun oil and masculine humanity.
"Halt ... Get down.
Pato obeys, like everyone else. The straps on the reel of telephone wire keep hurting you
shoulders, so take the opportunity to sit down and rest the load on the ground.
"If anyone wants to piss," Harpo whispers, "take advantage now."
Some of the close companions move in search of the appropriate posture. Duck is
too uncomfortable for the team; I'd have to get rid of it, open the jumpsuit and come back later
to fit it all; so he decides to do it on top, as is. Motionless, feel the liquid
hot running between her thighs and soaking the legs of her jumpsuit down to her knees, already damp
because of the night time.
Vicenta Espí, the companion closest to him, leans on his shoulder. It's a girl
plump and pretty who was a Singer operator and a faller in her neighborhood a couple of years before the
factious uprising. Valenciana, they call her, and it is also her first real combat action. In
The heavy backpack carries two field telephones weighing ten kilos each: a Red Aurora
Russian and a German Feldfernsprecher NK-33 of those caught the fascists in Teruel. Like Duck,
comes from the Communist Youth, but they met four months ago at the school of
broadcasts: a dance in free time, a movie session, a confidence. The
Valenciana is a good girl, with a gunner brother on the same front.
"Did you pee, Duck?"
-Over.
"Like me ... Let's see if we're lucky and that's the only thing we got wet tonight."
They stay quiet, shoulder to shoulder. Waiting. In the silence that follows you only hear
the murmur
that carry menof on
thethe
river current,
shore. Onevery close,and
hundred andfifty
the meters
muffledseparate
but audible sound
this one of the
from the other,
boats in that place. Duck
He has calculated it in the sketch that he carries in his pocket: one hundred and fifty meters of water, night and
uncertainty.
Harpo and Sergeant Exposito move along the line, giving instructions.
"We fit six in each boat, which carries two rowers," whispers the lieutenant.
"Are there no catwalks?" Asks a voice.
"The pontoneros will not lay them out until the light is on, and it's our turn now."
"What if they shoot us in the middle of the river?"
—Whatever happens, let no one shout, speak, or do anything other than wait to meet the
other side… We will regroup there.
-It is understood? The sergeant rivets.
"What if we scatter when crossing?"
"The comrades who swam past have stretched ropes from shore to shore, to guide us ...
They are placed flush with the water and a little diagonally, in order to take advantage of the current.
-It is understood? Exposito insists harshly.
A chorus of affirmative whispers answers him.
"Damn, they're jais," exclaims a pure male voice to the right of the path.
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Around them a murmur of male expectation sprouts, compliments included, silenced in the
act by the controls.
"I smelled your ovaries, clothes," whispers a last voice.
Then the disciplined silence returns, only disturbed by the muffled noises that come from the
River. Duck listens carefully: sound of oars, clatter of wood or weapons, orders given
quietly. No enemy reaction, for now. He knows that at that moment, downstream, between
Castellets and Amposta, along a winding one hundred and fifty kilometers, six divisions
Republicans are crossing the Ebro through twelve different places to attack the
unsuspecting fascist army corps garrisoning the other shore. The detailed plans of the
high command does not reach the level of the troop, but it is said that the offensive aims to reach
Masaluca, Villalba, Gandesa and the Sierra de Pandols to advance from there towards the Mediterranean
and reconquer Vinaroz.
"Come on," Harpo says, and the order moves down the line.
Pato stands up and walks among his companions, behind the Valenciana, entering between
reeds that thicken as they approach the river, brushing their waists. The thighs already wet
they are cold and shiver a little, so clench your teeth so they do not chatter and
some take it for what it is not, or is not at all.
The ground becomes soft and moist as the shore is closer. Espadrilles are
sink to the ankles in the muddy earth, stirred by hundreds of footsteps, which a little
beyond
"Let'sit see,
becomes
stop."thick
The mud.
first six, boarding.
Now it is possible to notice, against the light in the faint reflection of the starry sky in the stream of the
river, the dark shapes of the waiting boats. The sound of wood clashing on the side,
mud and water splashes. In a low voice, trying not to make more noise than necessary, the
rowers urge women to embark.
—Lend a hand here, we're stuck… Push, come on… That's it, eagerly…
Push.
The ground on the shore, black as night, is dotted with a constellation of small
specks of light color. Duck notices this when, after pushing the stuck boat, he bends down to
Secure the straps of the espadrille that you are about to lose in the mud. For an instant
she watches, surprised and intrigued, before getting back to her feet. It is as if the shore has
been sprinkled with hundreds of little pieces of verbena confetti.
"Next six… Come on, move."
Duck takes off the frame of the telephone cable and puts it in the boat. She is not willing, if something goes
wrong, to fall into the water with that weight on your back. A lot of ballast carries in the pockets of the jumpsuit.
Then he rests his hands on the gunwale, passes his legs over it and settles in the narrow
boat, tight with its companions. La Valenciana falls by his side. Someone pushes from
land, the oars clang against the wood and the boat pulls away from shore.
"Grab the rope and pull it to help the oars and the current," says a boatman.
The six women obey, pulling the thick wet rope that lacerates the hands. You hear their
gasping breaths with exertion. The opposite shore is still silent, and it is obvious that the
fascists do not realize what is happening; but that can change. They all know it and try to give
the boat as fast as possible, directing it towards the faint dark line, more and more
intense and close, marking the enemy shore.
In that instant, Pato realizes what the hundreds of little specks of paper on the
shore they leave behind: before heading into an immediate and uncertain future, still veiled by
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the darkness, all the men of the first wave are tearing their membership cards
political and union: PCE, UGT, FAI, CNT. They ignore what will happen in the initial moments
of the assault, and they don't want to carry them with them if they are taken prisoner. One of those documents in hands
of the enemy can lead directly to the wall.
Certainty hits her like a slap, and for the first time tonight apprehension gives way to
fear. But it is a true fear - now he finally understands it - never known before:
an intense, dark shudder that rises between the groin and slowly ascends through the belly and
the chest down to the throat, dry and bitter, and the head, clouded with forebodings. A beat
out of step with the heart, as if cooled by a dirty gray mist.
Then Monsoon Duck, gripped by that newly discovered fear that does not resemble any
another who
clothes in has never
search of his felt, stops pulling
Communist Party the rope
card, and, the
breaks withcardboard
sudden urgency,
into tinyputs his hand
fragments between the
and
Drops them overboard
Sitting in his marksman pit with the Mauser resting on the edge and the steel hull on the
the ground, a hundred paces from the river bank, the infantryman Ginés Gorguel Martínez
gropes a cigarette with the bite that he keeps in the flask, runs his tongue along the edge of the
paper, he spins it between his fingers and brings it to his mouth. The night is so dark that you only see
light spots on your hands.
Smoking is prohibited in the outposts, but you have more than three hours of
sentry and no officer or noncommissioned officer nearby. Nor is he an exemplary soldier, one of those
they strictly comply; rather the opposite. He is thirty-four years old, can read and write, knows
the four rules. In your service sheet, if someone has it up to date, your intervention will be recorded
in the battles of Brunete and Teruel; but in both episodes he tried to stay away from the tomato,
attitude for which he has a special talent. According to the doctors, whose advice follows the foot
of the letter, the shots are fatal for the health.
Gorguel takes the sparkler out of his pocket, crouches as far as he can to hide the spark, rubs
with the palm the wheel and light the cigarette with the smoking coal. After giving him a long
sucked by hiding it in the hollow of one hand, he puts on his helmet, sits up a little and takes a
gaze at the ink-black landscape, hearing nothing but crickets chirping or seeing more
than the stars. There is not a breath of breeze. Everything is still calm, so he sits down again
In his hole, turn his back on the river
Although he cannot see them, Gorguel knows that the closest companions are scattered around
left and right, in holes similar to yours. Between him and five others they cover two hundred meters
shore, which is evidenced by the fat blood with which the leaders of the group take it - medium
infantry battalion, a Moroccan tabor, and a Legion company placed as a reserve - which
it garrisons the Castellets sector. So sleepy and bored, imagine, like himself. He
The front is calm and the rumors about an enemy offensive are more typical of radio macuto
than from a serious source. Also, the river is a wonderful natural defense. There's also
laid a line of barbed wire. So snuggled tightly, the cape over the legs to
shelter from the chill that begins to seep into your clothes, attentive that none of your own or those of
In front of you notice the ember of the cigarette, you are about to enjoy it.
While smoking, Gorguel thinks about whether he would go over to the enemy if the river did not mediate between him and the
red. If I would have the courage for that.
The idea crossed his mind more than once, since he is from Albacete, and that is in the area of
the Republic. There he has a wife, a son, a widowed mother and a sister, and by now he would be in the
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enemy army for not having found himself working in Seville on July 18, 1936, where he
recruited: lotteries of life. Actually, a carpenter by trade, he doesn't understand politics
nor did he ever join anything, not even a football club; and in this sense, the same give him some that
others. Once he voted for the left, but he doesn't even remember. Whoever wins, when the
war everyone will need someone to make doors, windows, and new furniture, the kind of
a few have been broken in recent times. Therefore, when thinking about the family - the letters that
send through a relative in France they do not arrive or have no answer - a black woman comes to him
melancholia. There are many who find themselves in the same situation, both on one side and on the
other.
Had he dared, Gorguel would have crossed the lines long ago. It dissuaded him that four
Comrades who wanted to pass, without succeeding, were shot. Anyway, not now
It is worth taking risks, because everyone says that the matter has little left, that the Reds do not
they raise their heads and they go from defeat to defeat. On the ass and downhill. In such case, some
advantage will have to have been with the nationals, when he returns to Albacete. Or so it supposes. Even
for a carpenter officer.
He has just extinguished the cigarette butt, and carefully puts it in his hip flask - half a dozen
cigarette butts add up to a whole cigarette - when you think you hear a noise coming from the river: something
like a soft clatter of wood. Sitting up in the marksman pit he leads a long
look at the shore without seeing anything but darkness. Then look left and right, but no
he notices nothing between him and the place where the closest companions are. Only night and
silence.
I hate fucking guards, he thinks.
He is about to crouch down again when he realizes that the silence is more absolute than before:
the sound of crickets chirping through the bushes cannot be heard. That surprises him a bit,
and for a while he scrutinizes again, very carefully, the darkness between himself and the river. Go on without
notice nothing disturbing - a sentinel's nights are full of strange sounds - but not
he decides to relax. The sudden silence of the crickets has it fly.
After thinking about it for a moment, he takes two Lafitte hand pumps out of their holsters and places them in
the edge of the marksman's well, next to the butt of the rifle. Lafittes are percussion grenades that
explode upon hitting the ground, and are activated in midair during launch, unrolling a
four-turn tape that removes the safety pin. They are capricious of guard court, and
they kill the user more than the enemy, because sometimes they explode in mid-flight. That's why the
they call the Impartial. But it is what it is, and also the reds use them and suffer them. They weigh almost
half a kilo and can be thrown, depending on the strength of whoever does it, at a distance of twenty or
thirty meters. Just in case, he removes the wire pins from both of them, leaving them ready for
use.
Despite everything, Gorguel thinks it over. Riding a party for a false alarm at those hours of
The night means that nearby stalls will start shooting wildly and foolishly, and all the
line, officials included, will wake up in a bad way. That assumes safe squirting.
Complications, which he is not fond of at all. So you better make sure before
start an imaginary combat at your own risk. One of his skills is to pass
unnoticed; that helps drain the bulk and survive. Prudence, the sages say, is
mother of science. Or something similar. And he, two years of war without a scratch neither for God nor for
homeland, has a tail more bare than an alley cat.
Even so, be smart, Ginés, he says to himself. Do not go to wake up early because of your face.
For now, what he does is how much he can do, grenades aside: secure the chinstrap of the
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helmet and get hold of the Mauser. The gun already had a five o'clock bullet locked from the comb that
entered when entering guard, so he simply unlocks it and pops his index finger on the
trigger guard. Then stretch your neck a little more and force your eyes to penetrate the darkness somewhat.
Straining the restless ear.
Nothing.
No light, no noise. Silence.
But the crickets still don't sing.
And now he does hear it, again the same slight noise of wood, like planks being touched.
Far from the black shore. It can be anything, of course. But they can also be
the Reds. On that side there are only the barbed wire and the shore, and no one from the national side
I'd walk around in the dark That makes useless a who lives or the demand for a password - that
night is Morena Clara -. So, without giving it any more thought, Gorguel puts down his rifle, takes a Lafitte,
he gets up to gain momentum and throws it as far as he can, toward the river. And even
the first grenade is in the air when it does the same with the other.
Pum-bah. Pum-bah.
Two booms with an interval of two or three seconds. Two brief orange flares that
they trim skeins of barbed wire attached to iron pickets. And its glow illuminates
dozens of moving black silhouettes for an instant: a thick anthill of men
they move slowly from the river bank.
Then, leaving behind the rifle and the cape, Ginés Gorguel leaves the shooter's pit and runs
terrified towards the rear.
Wet and covered with mud up to the chest - the boat in which he crossed the river, made of woods
rotten, it was flooded about to reach the shore—, Julián Panizo Serrano ascends, ducking his
body as much as possible, between the bushes of the slope.
It is not easy to move with muddy clothes and twenty-six kilos of equipment on you between submachine guns
naranjero MP-28 II, with thirty-six-round long magazines, knife, cartridge belts, satchel,
wick, detonators and trilite blocks. Also, Panizo advances paired with another comrade,
because between the two of them they hold a wagon wheel that, placed on the fascist wire, will help
frank it. The two of them, with eighty other men from the shock sapper company of the
First Battalion, they form the first line of the attack towards the town of Castellets. Those who
they must clear the way.
Everything went well, disembarkation and silent approach, until a moment ago two
Grenades exploded nearby to the right. Then flashes of spaced shots flashed,
from other places, and the crackling of riflemen rushed along the line, dotted by
the dull thud of hand pumps. At the moment, luckily, the enemy fire,
improvised and blind - it is evident that those in front did not expect the attack or know in what
consists—, goes too high; although from time to time some grenade bursts closer and
the plotters of a machine that has just begun to pull from the left, although at good
tuntún, raise sparks when hitting between the bushes.
"Cheer up!"
That's what Panizo yells to his partner when he stumbles in the dark and is delayed pulling towards
behind the wagon wheel. The partner's name is Francisco Olmos and he's from Murcia like him,
Former miner from La Unión, a communist since 34, when there were still four card holders
cats, before becoming a decisive force thanks to their iron discipline, their firmness in
defense of Madrid and its eagerness to create a popular army that would displace the enthusiasts but
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incompetent militias. Veterans both, Panizo and Olmos, of almost all the scrubs since
Factious uprising: improvised dynamiters at first, shock sappers later, do not
they have lost almost none: Madrid, Santa María de la Cabeza, Brunete, Belchite, Teruel. A good
resume.
Their objective tonight, once they pass the fence, is to blow up the blockhouse from which the
Fascist machine gun, which by sound is a Hotchkiss —ratatatá, ratatatá, ratatatá, does—:
an efficient machine, deadly if it gains confidence, that lines up the path of advance
republican. His servants still haven't gotten the hang of what's coming and
thirty-round combs stutter haphazardly, but they won't take long to adjust the shot. Y
then they can do a lot of damage, especially when there is light. That is why Panizo, Olmos and others
four behind, who have been tasked with neutralizing the machine, spent the day of
yesterday camouflaged on the opposite shore, studying the place with binoculars. Learning from
memory to the last brush and the last boulder.
"Cheer up, hosts!"
While pulling the wheel again to make his partner go faster, Panizo stumbles
in the dark with the barbed wire. The encounter is painful, as the spikes tear the
pants at the knees. Muttering blasphemies he recoils to free himself; and then him and
Olmos, almost groping, cast the wagon wheel on the wire, crushing it. Panizo se
He climbs on it and crosses to the other side followed by his comrade and the other four.
Now there is a lot of gunfire along the river bank, own and enemy, but someone shoots
also from quite close: a couple of rifle shots, although with little precision. Maybe it's a
a fascist who has heard them bustling around the fence and burns bullets; because what is said
see, no one can see anything. Only night, flashes and shadows. Neither Panizo nor the others respond to
the shots, for not giving away. Each thing at it's time.
"Where the hell are the trees?" Olmos asks, disoriented.
"Go ahead, I think."
"Does it just seem that way to you?"
"Yes, man ... About thirty meters."
-Are you sure?
"Like the proletarian revolution."
Panizo has the landscape drawn in his head, from looking at it so much in daylight: a few pine trees
loose, a small trough and the blockhouse on an elevation. What it also has is a heat
ghastly, inside, despite the cold damp of the night. Things of tension, he knows very well. Carries
many like this. When you get up halfway and step forward again with one finger on the trigger of the
orange, sweat mixes with mud on wet clothes. As soon as it stands still
He'll start to shiver, he thinks. But it's still going to take a long time to settle down; and before
that happens, some of the others will stay even more still. Of those who are now doing
noise.
Ratatatá, ratatatá, ratatatá. The machine gun itself helps orientation, so the sapper
move safely, crouching, until a hand is stained with resin when it touches the trunk of a
Pine tree. We are getting closer, he concludes. The trough is below, very close, and the six of them go into
she. The flashes of the Hotchkiss flash higher up like flashing stars in
series of four shots, less than twenty paces, and the tracers cross high overhead.
Panizo puts the gun and the rest of his gear down and runs a hand over his face. For the
Who comes now, prefers to go light in weight.
"Give me the fishing pole."
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Clinging to his back, Olmos hands him the extension pole while he prepares a block of
trilite number 5, he uncoils a few inches of wick from his chest and opens the hermetic box of
tin containing detonators and lighter. Groping, with gestures a thousand times practiced before
Now, the former miner places the kilo of explosive at the end of the pole and fixes it with
several rounds of black tape.
"Back the others ... Stand back."
As Panizo and Olmos approach the blockhouse very carefully and step by step, the
booms from the enemy machine become deafening, like prolonged blows to the
eardrums. Opening his mouth so they don't bother too much, Panizo stops for a moment and
he makes a screen while his comrade lights the fuse, calculated at forty-five seconds.
-Come on. Get out, Manolo is coming.
Manolo is the way of saying that a load is going to explode: the warning voice of the miners of La
Union. Olmos does not make him say it twice and retreats in the dark as Panizo
it continues its advance cautiously. Now he's crawling, skinning his elbows as he tries not to
clipped into no glare to give it away. By the lowest and darkest of the trough.
Five, six, seven, eight, he is counting. Nine, ten, eleven, twelve ... The acrid smell of the wick, which
It is as familiar to him as tobacco, fills his nostrils. At last he looks up and sees the
flashes of the machine only ten feet above him: almost exactly the size of the pole. So the
move as close as possible to the pocket, but below, so that they do not see the cargo from the inside.
The machine gun nest is not made of concrete, but a simple casemate of logs, stones and
sandbags. Although it detonates outside the enclosure, the trilite has plenty of power to demolish it.
Twenty one twenty two twenty three twenty four…
Panizo sweats to the soul, and has to rub first one hand and then the other on the ground
so that the pole does not slip between your wet fingers.
You've done this before, but it always feels like the first time.
Twenty nine, thirty ...
The tension makes him gasp without realizing it. You have fifteen seconds to get away from there. So
leaves the pole resting on the lower part of the enemy parapet and retreats, first crawling,
then on all fours, at last running crouched.
Forty, forty-one, forty-two ...
At forty-three, the dynamiter throws himself to the ground, opens his mouth wide, and covers his face.
nape with hands. And then a blinding deflagration lights up the night behind him and empties him
of air into the lungs as the shock wave lifts it a few inches off the ground.
Manolo in everything hers.
Rapid noises, of men on the run, pass by, and the battered eardrums
they think they hear distant voices. When he finally opens his eyes and turns to look, Olmos and the other four
sappers clean up what remains of the fascist position with hand bombs and short bursts of
orange tree.
Smiling, Julián Panizo brushes the dirt off himself and wipes the sweat from his
face.
It was, he thinks, like getting laid.
The broadcasting section has safely disembarked and the women are lying on the
the ground, still near the shore, waiting to be ordered to move. Tracer bullets
they pass over their heads with equivocal slowness and the night is dotted with flares and flashes.
The enemy defense is not intense, because all the time groups of shadows arrive from the
Page 19
river running into the darkness ahead, and no one seems to stop or turn back. The sound of
grenades indicates combat by assaulting enemy parapets. Between the crackle of gunshots and what
resounding of explosions farther and farther away - that's another good sign, because it means that the
fascists retreat - voices of encouragement are heard from officers and commissioners.
"They're giving them for their hair," someone says.
Monsoon Duck, reloading the cable reel, is upside down on a freshly field
plow, whose stones and hard clods dig into his belly and thighs. Still have clothes
wet —they disembarked with water around their waists— and the night, which is cool, does not allow entry
in heat. With wide eyes she attends, fascinated, the pyrotechnic show of the war seen
very closely, you never imagined so beautiful and so terrible.
The light bullets criss-cross complicated paths in the sky, extinguishing the stars, and
occasionally a silent glow, sometimes taking a second to become
boom, outlines in the distance a hamlet, some trees, some bushes, an elevation of the
ground.
"My Silhouettes
land seems of
to men
be inrunning
faults," and shooting are
La Valenciana silhouetted
says against those brief backlights.
with amazement.
Thanks to the sketch he studied the day before, Pato can get a rough idea of the
situation: Castellets is opposite, three kilometers away, and due to the shooting and explosions the
combat is approaching the first houses. The objective of the XI Mixed Brigade is to cut off the
road between Mequinenza and Fayón, which passes through the center of town; more to ensure the
advance and the landing of new troops is essential to take the hill where the
cemetery. That is the reason why it is fought hard for that part, to the right of the
bridgehead. It is there where the flashes and the rumbling of explosions follow each other with much
speed and intensity.
"Are you all comfortable, comrades?… Are you enjoying the show?"
Harpo, Lieutenant Herminio, crouches past the women, solicitous and playful as
usually patting the shoulders and sipping a flask of brandy to ease the
cold. He is answered by an affirmative chorus in various tones of integrity and the occasional joke: the
Morale remains high. A voice asks why the Republican artillery does not intervene.
"We're too close to the factious," says the lieutenant. Artillery is the weapon
that regularly beats its own infantry and sometimes the enemy, so it is better to have it
still for now ... It will start when everything is clear and we tell you where to shoot. Among other things,
that's what we are here for.
Smile Duck in the dark. Harpo always talks about the women's section, including himself.
He's a good officer and a smart boy.
"Will our guns and tanks cross?"
"As soon as there is light, the pontoneros will lay out catwalks to bring in reinforcements and acclaim
heavy weapons… Also a bridge for vehicles and tanks. I saw the frames ago
two days, camouflaged in an olive grove. There we will hang a phone line from shore to shore.
Duck looks into the distance. At that moment a flare breaks out from which red sparks arise and
oranges, as if an ammunition depot had just exploded. The rumbling comes two seconds
after: it was about seven hundred meters. Outlined by the distant glow, the crystal gleaming
Of the glasses under the brim of the cap, the lieutenant looks in that direction.
"Milks," he says.
Then he turns to his people.
—As soon as the cemetery is secured, another line must be laid that connects it with the
town, ”he continues. It is planned that the staff of the brigade will be installed there - he takes a
Page 20
pocket flashlight. Let's see, some of you, run to cover the light. Y
put something on top of me.
They obey, gathering around him. Duck sticks his head under the cover, next to the
faces of La Valenciana and Sergeant Exposito. The officer has spread out a map on the ground
military,
—These similar to the387
heights, sketch that all
and 412, arehave, and and
the west illuminates it with
east pitons thatthe weak light beam.
flank
Castellets. ”As he speaks, he points to places with his finger. The idea is to take both to
secure the road and the village. But we cannot reach the west without the prior control of the
cemetery ... Do you see it clearly?
After the affirmative answers, Harpo looks at the time on his wristwatch, whose hands point to
01:47. Take a look around that part, he says. Someone to go, liaise and advise
when the line can be laid safely. Everything should be in order at dawn.
"I'm going," says Pato.
The lieutenant and Sergeant Exposito look at her inquisitively.
-Why? Harpo asks.
"I'm cold," Duck shrugs. If I move, I will warm up.
"More than you expect," says Exposito.
The officer winks at Pato. Then he turns off the flashlight and the map is saved.
"Leave the equipment here."
Pato obeys, relieving himself of the heavy burden. Harpo puts a hand on a
shoulder.
"Are you carrying a gun?"
"The Tokarev."
-Ammunition?
"Three chargers."
"Would you like a couple of grenades?"
-Not. I'm already carrying too much weight.
"As you prefer ... Keep your head down, watch where you step and try not to get into trouble."
When you get to the cemetery, ask for the person in charge of the sector: it is Commander Fajardo,
of the Second Battalion. As soon as the position is secured, you come back light and tell me.
Pato feels a pang of mistrust. From what he has seen, in combat things never
they are as clear as when plans are made on them.
"Will you still be here?"
The officer hesitates for a moment.
"Here or a little later, if ours secure the town soon," he finally answers. That
It depends on how long it takes.
"As little as possible."
"I hope so." Harpo fumbled the nearly empty flask of brandy. If we have to
move on, I'll leave a partner to let you know.
"Is it clear?" Exposito asks with his usual harshness.
Duck takes a short sip, returns the flask, and runs the back of one hand over his lips
as the liquor runs slowly down her throat and burns her stomach. Maybe because of its effect
tonic feels lively and lucid; with something concrete to do, instead of lying on the floor,
numb, looking at things from afar.
"It's quite clear, Comrade Sergeant."
Against the background of shots and explosions, Harpo's irreverent laugh sounds.
Page 21
"Then to the bull, pretty girl, he's a cute one." And long live the Republic.
"There are no pretty girls here," Exposito objects dryly.
The lieutenant laughs again, as he usually does. Without complex.
"A volunteer to go to the cemetery," he answers, zumbon, "with the one who is falling there, no
it is that she is beautiful… it is that she is Greta Garbo.
Page 22
II
Tripping over stones and bushes, head down every time a boom sounds
close by or the buzz of stray bullets passing over him, Ginés Gorguel runs in the dark.
His lungs burn with exertion, and he is deafened by the beating of blood in his eardrums and
own shortness of breath. Around him other shadows run the same as him, although
ignore if they are friends or foes; if he runs between the attacking reds or between the nationals who
flee.
His only desire is to reach the first houses of Castellets and protect himself in them.
A machine gun shoots from its right in short, spaced bursts, and appears to shoot in
direction to the river. Gorguel recalls that, of the two machines that line the riverbank, one is located
for that part, at the very entrance of the town. The other, the one on his left, is no longer heard; so
he supposes that the servants have abandoned her or that the Reds have taken them all.
Orienting himself by the gusts, he looks for the houses, and on the way he runs face-first against a wall.
The shock throws him on his back. After rubbing his aching forehead, standing up, gathering momentum, he
climbs up and drops to the other side.
-Stop there! A voice asks him.
The shot arises before I can respond. A flash, a bang, an impact on the
wall, very close to his head.
"Spain, Spain!" He shouts decomposed.
"Spain, my balls!… Holy shit!"
A metal bolt from a rifle when mounting, another shot, another impact. The fugitive raises the
arms uselessly, for no one can see him in the dark. Suddenly he remembers the slogan of that
night.
"Morena Clara!"
The sound of the bolt when inserting another bullet into the chamber is followed by a silence marked by the
explosions and shots nearby, as if the rifle itself hesitated.
"Approach with your hands up and clapping your head."
Gorguel obeys, shaking like a pudding.
Plas, plas, plas, do, trying to hear it well. Plas, plas.
Five steps further, he finds the barrel of a gun on his chest. Some lumps
Menacing men surround him, moving cautiously. In the gloom two or three glimpse
white turbans: Moors, no doubt. But the speaker is European.
"Who are you and where do you come from?"
—Ginés Gorguel… 2nd Company of Monterrey. He was listening on the river.
—Well, you have heard terrible, damn ... We have the reds up to the hump.
"I was the one who raised the alert."
"Okay, hero."
-Seriously. The first hand pumps were mine.
"If you say so ... Come on, walk around behind." When you find people ask for him
Commander Induráin and tell him what you saw. He's reorganizing the defense next to the church.
If you follow the first street, even if you go in the dark you have no loss.
Page 23
-Who are you?

—Regulares de Melilla, XIV Tabor.
"And do you know what's going on?"
"No idea ... Only that the Reds have crossed the river and are giving us hosts like bread."
As he walks away, feeling around the walls of the first houses, Gorguel counts. If the
Moors are in line, it is that the defenses next to the Ebro have been overflowed by the enemy.
Until yesterday, the XIV Tabor - Moroccan troops with European leaders and officers - was calm and
in reserve, encompassed at the other end of town. If you are here now, that means the hundred
Fifteen men from the Monterrey infantry battalion covering the front are in
disbanded or have disappeared. And that the regulars come to plug the gap.
There are people next to the church. Numerous and messy.
In the light of car headlights dozens of soldiers move among the elderly, women and
children who carry their belongings in carts or flee loaded with packages. In the square everything is racing,
haste, cries of anguish and harsh voices of command. Bewilderment reigns. I know
regulars and soldiers mix without order, people half dressed or unarmed, groups that crowd
like fearful herds under the command of corporals and sergeants. Some more looking
disciplined, almost all of them Moors with full equipment, satchel and rifle, formed in lines. In front of
From the church there are wounded lying on the ground, whom no one attends. Others arrive at
streets, wobbly, alone or brought by companions.
The church bell tower stands gloomy under the stars. From the outskirts of
People, on the river side, the noise of combat continues to arrive.
"Commander Indurain?"
"There by the car."
A tall guy with a mustache seems to be wanting to organize this. Found in sleeves
in his shirt, with a pistol at his belt and high boots, shouting orders. When Gorguel approaches him,
a European officer intervenes. It is covered with a Moorish tarbus bearing two stars of
lieutenant.
-What do you want?
"I come from the river ... They tell me to report to the commander."
"Inform me."
Gorguel does, including the episode of his hand pumps. He tells it without much detail,
not to compromise. The lieutenant looks him up and down.
"Where is your rifle?"
"I lost it in combat."
"And your squad?"
-I dont know.
A skeptical look. Tired
"In combat, you say."
-That's.
The officer points out a double line of Moors and Europeans.
"Get over there with those."
-My company…
"Your company no longer exists." Come on, move ... I'm Lieutenant Varela and now you're with me.
"I don't have a rifle, my lieutenant."
"As soon as one falls, you take his."
-I am…
Page 24
I was going to say a stupid "I am a carpenter, my lieutenant", without coming to mind, or actually
maybe it does come; but the other interrupts him with a push, making him walk. Obey Gorguel,
embarrassed. Most of the men in the formation are indigenous regulars, but
there are also Europeans from other units. Those in that group number about thirty, dressed in
any way: steel helmets, Elizabethan sparrows, turbans, djellaba, bare heads,
various uniforms. Some don't even carry weapons.
"Get in there with the others."
"But if I ...
Another push.
"Fuck you, fuck."
In the light of the automobile, the weathered faces of the Moors look calm, fatalistic at the
that night and destiny hold. The Europeans, fugitives from the Monterrey Battalion and also
ranchers, office choppers, and even band musicians are more nervous, or maybe
they just show it.
"Come on, line up… now!"
A European sergeant with a fierce expression, accentuated by the lights and shadows of the headlights of the
car, he goes up and down the line, handing out material to the men. When Gorguel,
with a shudder, he stands in line between two moors, the noncommissioned officer gives him a hand pump
and six five-round combs.
"I don't have a rifle, my sergeant."
"You'll have it."
The Moors flanking Gorguel look at him curiously. They are shaggy, sallow. His eyes
Dark ones shine in the gloom. One wears a white turban and the other a felt tarbus, and they support
hands indifferently on the barrels of his Mausers.
"Nasional soldier not knowing how," says one, jokingly, seeing him unarmed. Without the rifle
kill few spells, paisa.
"Fuck you," Gorguel growls grumpily.
While the Moors laugh as if at a good joke, Gorguel hangs the pump from the belt and
he puts the ammunition in the holsters, resigned. Then he looks apprehensively at the wounded, who
now they begin to put inside the church. It is made by men of the people who have been
their houses. For the most part they are old; men of fighting age have long been
mobilized with nationals, in jail, underground or in the enemy army.
—Left, head on… Ar.
Without further orders or explanations, at the voice of such Lieutenant Varela, who is at the head, the row
starts up. And while everyone goes from light to dark, the sergeant is careful not to
dismay, Gorguel verifies, uneasy, that they retrace the path where he came from the river.
From the small trough next to the destroyed blockhouse, only their heads sticking out of the
Edge, Julián Panizo and the other five dynamiters observe the attack on the Levante python. Some
fascists scattered from the lower positions must have retreated there. Among the ones who
arrive and those who were already above will have joined a few, because they seem to defend themselves with
Energy. No artillery or mortars for now; just infantry fire. The pam, pam, tac, tac
it comes far. The python's dark mass is punctuated by glow from gunshots that indicate
how things are going: the Republicans trying to get up and the others making it difficult since
up.
The line of flashes that was seen progressing a while ago has stopped at a third of the
Page 25
hillside.
"It seems that the fascists are holding out," Olmos says.
"And those who attack are from the Fourth Battalion," Panizo adds dismissively.
He doesn't say more, but everyone understands. Unlike the other battalions of the XI Brigade,
composed for the most part by well-trained people subjected to the iron discipline of the
Party, that of the Fourth is a flood troop mixed in a bad way: anarchists, Trotskyists
survivors of the purges made to the POUM, passed from the other side, people from
disciplinary and kids from the last fifth, hastily organized to rebuild the
battalion, decimated in April during the fighting for Lleida. Panizo meets Perico Cabrera,
political commissioner of that unit, who is from Murcia like him. And what Cabrera tells puts the
creeps. Discipline, fair. Fighting spirit, scarce. Lots of dangerous and shady people, and
even camouflaged fascists who infiltrated the CNT in search of a card to save the
skin when the unions opened the door to every son of a neighbor. Consequences: two
shot for disobedience and three for desertion, in the last month. But someone has to
take care of the eastern python, and there are those of the Fourth, in fits and starts, doing what
they can. Or let them do.
"We have to find our people," Olmos says.
It is true. The orders of the six dynamiters, once the blockhouse has been neutralized, are to meet with
his unit, the sapper company of the First Battalion, which has been tasked with taking
Castellets. If they have not been very confused, thinks Panizo, the town will be little more than two
miles ahead and to the right, on the other side of the pine grove. The shooting for that part is
intense so it's not hard to get your bearings.
"I'm thirsty for hell," says one of the group.
They all have it. To be lighter and without noise they did not even carry the canteens. Just the team
basic. Now they regret it, but nothing can be done until they find water, or their own. The
canteens of the four fascists killed in the blockhouse were burst by the grenades and
there was hardly a crop for each one.
"Come on." Panizo takes the orange tree off his shoulder. Let's go.
Bent over so as not to bulge, finger on the trigger of the gun, the six men
march, first through the valley and then, with great caution, among the black silhouettes of the
Pine trees. Their espadrilles make little noise and the blue jumpsuits on their work clothes make them
they hide in the dark.
There is now a slight breeze, and the distant smell of gunpowder mingles with that of resin. The
The flat tops of the trees hide the stars.
Olmos is the first to hear the voice. He touches Panizo on the shoulder and they stand still,
crouched down to squatting. Scanning the dark.
"You hear? Olmos whispers.
Panizo nods. The voice comes up next, only ten or twelve steps away, and sounds sore and weak, between
groans of anguish: "Mother," he exclaims from time to time. "Mother, mother ... my God ... Mother."
"A wounded fascist, sure," Olmos says.
Panizo runs a hand over his face.
"How do you know he's a fascist?"
"Man, I don't know… He's calling God and his mother."
"And who do you want me to call?" To the Pasionaria?
They are silent for a moment, motionless. Listening.
"We should go over to see," Olmos says.
Page 26
-For what?
"In case he's really a freak, damn it."
"So what if it is?"
"Well, we aviated it and we continued our business." Maybe he has a canteen.
"And maybe he has a hand pump."
Olmos thinks as four expectant shadows surround them.
-Then what do we do? Someone asks.
"I kill fascists, I don't assassinate them," Panizo replies. That's what the sons of bitches are for
our rear ... The militiamen who defend the Republic in brothels and cafes.
"Okay, don't go on," says Olmos. Got the message.
Panizo gets up slowly.
"So come on, let's go." Let's see if we find that damn town.
The group sets off again, moving away from the voice until it is behind and
shuts off in the distance. Panizo walks ahead, the submachine gun ready, trying to orient himself in the
darkness.
"It's the bad thing about these wars," Olmos is saying from behind him. That you hear the enemy
to call his mother in the same language as you, and like that, right? ... You feel cold.
At 04:37, when there are still a couple of hours until dawn, Santiago Pardeiro Tojo, twenty
years to come, accidental head of the 3rd Company of the XIX Legion Banner,
receives from a link the order to move the unit towards Castellets to establish there, along
the road that crosses the town, a defensive position. Then, with his hands shaking a
little, he orders his assistant - a former Segovian soccer player named Sanchidrián - to get into the
I bag the infantry tactical regulations, a bar of Los Canónigos chocolate and a bottle
of Tres Cepas cognac. Then call the horn for orders.
—Turuta!
"At your orders, my Ensign."
"Blow, let's go!"
"Yes, my ensign?"
"Yeah, damn it."
While the trumpet sounds the call, the men dismount the tents, put out the
fires lit and they form a knapsack on the flank, leaning on their rifles. They carry two
machine guns and their boxes of ammunition. There is no confusion between them: they are shock troops,
Professionals made to frenzy and startled.
Pardeiro closes the collar of his leather jacket - caught a red commissioner on the bridge
of Balaguer - on whose left side he wears the black patch with the six-pointed star of his
degree. It's cold. Around, in the dark, under the star-studded sky, they echo with
command voices harshly.
Until now, the 3rd Company, made up of 149 legionaries, was placed in reserve in a
olive grove on the outskirts, on the opposite side of the river, under a place called the Aparecida hermitage.
Fulfilling the order, ignorant of the general situation but alerted by the distant din of the
combat, Pardeiro, equipped and ammunitioned his troops, sets off to cover the kilometer
that separates it from Castellets. However, the march started, another link sent by the
Commander Induráin, who organizes the defense of the town, asks him to send some reinforcement to the
Levante python, which is under attack by the Reds.
-A lot?
Page 27
"From what they say, yes, my ensign," confirms the link. Regular people and some
scattered from Monterrey who have taken refuge there are barely supporting themselves. There is the thing of
black mustache.
"Well… Tell the commander that I take care of that, but that I have few people."
Taking care not to weaken the company excessively, Pardeiro detaches a platoon commanding a
sergeant and sends him on his right to the lift python. Then the march continues with the rest
one hundred and twenty-nine men.
"Vladimiro!"
"At your orders, my Ensign!"
Sergeant Vladimiro Korchagin - sixteen years of Tercio, three red crosses, medal
military man and four scrapes of wounds on his sleeve - he advances in the dark until he is at his
side.
"Send a squad to fight the ground." I don't want to face the reds in full
night.
"Right now ... am I going with them?"
-Not. You stay here, within reach of my voice. Send a corporal who knows what he's doing.
"Sending Longines?"
"It can be worth it." Tell him to orient himself by the Polar, which looks good among the olive trees ...
all the time at eleven o'clock.
-To the order.
A moment later, five shadows rush by without saying a word, going ahead. After
them, leading the rest of the troop, Santiago Pardeiro continues his march engrossed in
calculations, assumptions and intuitions. Ignore what is really happening, and do not know what
you will find when you get to town. In any case, your responsibility is great: until a year ago
Naval Engineering student in El Ferrol, he is a provisional ensign and is in command of the
unit due to the loss of the captain, a lieutenant and an older ensign, one wounded and the others dead in
the river Cinca. Actually, the entire XIX Bandera - the other three companies and the staff are
far from Castellets - had been swept along the Fayon road in order to
make it rest, recover and cover casualties after the fighting in late May. A
sector that was supposed to be quiet and in the rear.
A whistle ahead. Sharp, deliberate. Pardeiro orders the troops to halt and takes a few steps forward.
There are five immobile lumps, each one behind the trunk of an olive tree, where the shadows stand out
blacker and longer than the rifles.
-What happens?
"There is the town," replies a legionnaire.
The young officer steps forward and takes a cautious look: darkened houses a few steps away —Castellets
it has about three hundred of stone, brick and tile - with the noise of shots on the other side. On the right, to
in the distance, the eastern python raises its dark mass dotted with distant flashes. The platoon of
reinforcement must already be there.
For half a minute, Pardeiro observes the altitude with the Zeiss 8 × 30 field binoculars
which he wears hanging from his chest, without seeing anything in particular: only that the combat continues. Then
look at the west python, which seems calm, without activity. The commotion that resounds from that side
It comes from a more distant place. Perhaps the cemetery, he concludes. That means reds don't
they have engulfed the town yet, assuming such is their intention.
-Cape.
—Zusorders.
Page 28
Andalusian accent closed. Cape Longines is from Malaga and is actually called Ruipérez; but
Before a judge gave him a choice between the Legion or the El Puerto de Santa María prison, he was
watch thief specialized in that brand, and it stuck with the nickname. He also flirted a
a little with the FAI. Now he has two years of Tercio without any blemish. Peeling of hair in
chest, tattoos, hawkish to the corners of the mouth. A classic. With bread and flag, until
worst scum can turn into something decent. Sometimes.
—Get into town and tell us that we are here… Don't give us a candle to see us
show.
"It would be ugly, my ensign." That they put our cunt in the noodles.
"Well, that." Wake up.
—Zusorders.
Deployed in guerrilla, without getting together much in case the flies, the five shadows move
swiftly towards the village and immediately out of sight.
After a while, after slowly counting to one hundred, Pardeiro turns to the olive grove.
"Vladimiro!"
"Mande, my ensign."
"Let the troops arm bayonets."
Order. Well, it is better just in case, it tastes good — it has been in fine rubber for five months.
Tercio since it was stamped — what a who would have said it. Then think for a moment about
his parents and the pretty girl from Burgos - his war godmother - who writes him a letter every
week that he has never seen in person, but of someone who has a photograph in his wallet. Y
then, while the metallic clack, clack, clack of machetes snapping into rifles resounds,
forget all that, take out the 9 Astra long from the holster that hangs from his belt, lock a bullet,
unlocks, takes six deep breaths and enters Castellets five meters in front of his
company, scanning the darkness.
In war, he learned by watching men die, you think less with your head than with
eyes
At that same time, on the other side of town, the improvised unit where Ginés Gorguel is going
runs into the enemy before deploying. The order received by Lieutenant Varela, according to
commented those who know something about the matter, is to occupy a broad front to make believe that it is
of a large force and resist until a counterattack is organized; but just arrived at
outside Castellets by the river side, while still walking in line in the dark, the
an intense rifle fire and automatic weapons surprise.
"To be fucking arrogant!" Exclaims a Moor.
Dumbfounded, Gorguel sees the rosary of flashes ahead, and the whole night breaks into
flares and booms. He still doesn't carry a rifle, but he wouldn't know what to do with it either. Fall
hand pumps, and that indicates that the others are much closer than expected, a few
meters. Amid the buzz of bullets passing, they hit rocks and trees and click
Sinister when they hit the flesh, the men scream and the troop falls apart.
"Here, fascists! ... Bastards!" They yell in front of them.
Shrinking his body, Gorguel tries to seek refuge, and when he finds nothing he throws himself to the ground. The
The last he sees of Lieutenant Varela is his body thrown backwards, with great violence, by the
explosion of a grenade.
Pum-bah, pum-bah.
Hand bombs keep raining like hail. A few of the troop face rifles and
Page 29
They respond to fire, but most of them fall down, scatter, and run. Everywhere there
cries of helplessness and pain, and the wounded howl as if their entrails were ripped out.
Ziaaang, ziaaang, ziaaang.
The whirring of bullets overlooks Gorguel, but Gorguel is not fooled by the apparent
security offered by lying down. Fear, which at other times paralyzes, miraculously clears up
the thought. If you stay there, the shots that start sparking between the stones and
bushes will eventually hit him. So crawl back on your elbows and knees
slowly, trying to get off the ground as little as possible.
Ziaaang, ziaaang.
Chac.
For a panicked second, Gorguel believes that the click of that bullet came from his own
Body. But it's not like that. A shadow running by nearby lets out a groan and collapses
on him: a limp, inert weight, from which he frees himself by pushing him to one side without regard, and
Before rolling, he wets his hands and shirt with a warm, viscous liquid.
"Fuck you sons of bitches!" They keep yelling on the other side of the shots.
Gorguel continues to crawl a long way until, when the shooting seems to decrease at
his back, he stands up panting and runs crouched in the dark, back to the first houses
from town. His elbows and knees are skinned from crawling and his lungs burn
as if it had embers inside.
I won't take any more shots, he swears to God. Even if they shoot me.
Enemy fire weakens on the cemetery ridge, but the fascists still hold out,
clinging to the ground.
Pato Monzón has seen the Republicans launch two attacks, but these have only managed
occupy the eastern wall and a third of the enclosure. It is fought inside almost meter by meter, well
They break the tombstones, put aside the coffins and use the graves as trenches and pits.
shooter. The stench of the unearthed corpses mingles with that of the disturbed earth and acrid
smell of gunpowder. The glow of the hand pumps that are thrown from pit to pit reveals
gunshot mutilated crosses, broken marble, granite mounds whose splinters fly through the air
waving the slender, dark spears of the cypress trees. And the indecisive clarity that grows by
lift makes the scene even more sinister, by illuminating it slowly, more and more precisely, with a light
of dirty gray dawn.
Duck is crouching on a sandbag parapet near the cemetery gate. The
The entrance gate, off its hinges and half falling, vibrates with metallic sounds every time the
touch a bullet.
On the parapet there are four living men and two dead.
The living are Commander Fajardo, head of the Second Battalion, another officer and two links.
The dead are two fascists that manned the position, fallen in the first moments of the
attack. They have been dragged into a corner out of the way, and the growing clarity allows Pato
see them already in some detail. They are the first combat casualties that he sees in his life and it costs him
look away from them, as the light slides through the sandbags and defines
contours.
One of the dead is face up and the other is face down. Their pockets are turned up
inside out and their boots, or whatever they were wearing, have been removed. The one on his back has hair
scrambled, and although his features are partially shadowed, or perhaps because of that, he seems very
young and very lonely. Looking at him with sudden pity - he always imagined fascists alive and
Page 30
another way—, Pato considers that at that very moment, somewhere far away, there may be a
mother, a sister, a girlfriend who wake up thinking about him without knowing that he is dead. Maybe one
worthless objects thrown on the ground by the person who emptied his pockets - documents, a
open wallet, a rosary— be it a letter received or written a few hours before dying: Beloved
mine, I miss you a lot ... Dear parents, I am in good health, far from the front ...
The idea reminds you of your own cards. The images themselves: the faces of their parents and their
twelve-year-old brother; the mouth, the eyes, the hands of the man she thinks she loves, whose photograph
He carries in his wallet - that one didn't break it while crossing the river - and he hasn't heard from since
that five months ago Franco's men took Teruel back; the increasingly diffuse trace of a dawn
also uncertain, the last hug, the last kiss, the last goodbye a year ago in a
train station, among men with backpacks and rifles forming on a rain-soaked platform
and then they climbed into the wagons singing to hide their fear:
If you want to write me
you know my whereabouts ...
They are not practical thoughts at the time, he concludes. They do not lead to anything; and furthermore, to
After all, the two dead that are four steps away are, or have been, enemies of the Republic.
Volunteers or unintentionally, sympathizers of the fascists or enrolled in the
force, they did so as an objective instrument of the coup generals, the bankers and the
priests: those who bomb Madrid and Barcelona, and are compadres of Mussolini and Hitler,
enemies of the proletariat and honorable people; of that Gil-Robles who assured the need for
suppress three hundred thousand Spaniards to clean up the country; of the Señoritos de Falange and the
requetés that after receiving Communion they shot in cities and towns where they were not even
front; of the foreign mercenaries from Queipo de Llano and the other generals, who did not
alive, as they passed through Andalusia, Extremadura and Castilla, rather than the elderly, orphaned children and
women dressed in mourning.
Scum to exterminate, all of it. That's what Pato thinks. A sea of blood, necessary against the other
sea of blood. Each one has their time. So well dead are the wretches of the
trench, whether directly at fault or not. That is why he tries to occupy his head in other things: in the
evolution of combat, in his companions in the transmission section and in Lieutenant
Herminio alias Harpo, who await his return. Also in the instructions that the commander
Fajardo — until a little while ago only a stocky shadow, with a hoarse and harsh voice — imparts to the officer,
before hitting him hard on the back and he jumps off the parapet and runs crouching
towards the entrance of the cemetery.
"Let's see if you can get your waiters to squeeze a little more," Fajardo told him. Do a
last effort.
From something further back comes suddenly the tump, tump, exit tump of three small mortars, of
50. A moment later Pato hears the projectiles fall on the other side of the cemetery: plam-clack,
clam-clack, clam-clack, they do, with shrapnel rings. Like the noise of a stack of dishes
break.
"Fuckin '," the commander exclaims.
That's a good sign, Pato understands. It means that, with the first light of the day, such
pieces can now go into action and adjust the shot. The rattling also resonates nearby
characteristic of Russian Maxim machine guns. Obvious proof, all this, that the
pontoneros are laying the first catwalks, the heavy material begins to cross the river and
the attackers have more and more fire support.
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Tump, tump, tump. Three new distant mortises sound, behind the back, followed by three
front impacts after twenty seconds: clam-clack, clam-clack. Plam-clack.
"Too close," the commander mutters.
Worried, he turns to one of the links, which is a young boy, about sixteen
years.
—Go down to the river and tell the 50-year-olds to lengthen their shot a bit, because if they don't, they'll end
placing the cucumbers on our side ... That here we are too close to the factious, and
that they try not to screw us.
-It is understood.
—Tell them also that they better shoot between the western python, the cemetery and the town. So they
we cut the reinforcements and we screwed up the retraction ... Is that clear, chavea?
-Like the water.
"Well come on." Smoke.
Duck goes to lean on the sandbags next to the commander, and he turns to look at her. The
diffuse light brightens his face under the soft peaked cap with a thick graduation bar at each
side of the red star: rude peasant profile, bushy eyebrows. About forty years, maybe.
"This is no place for a woman," he says sullenly.
"It's no place for anyone," she says.
The other looks at her without saying anything else, up and down, and then again looks at the entrance to the
cemetery.
"I have to call when the position is taken," says Pato.
Fajardo shrugs his shoulders.
"The enemy is not going to hold on much longer ... Their fire is weakening, you see? ... Those who still
They are a few, remains of the people we have destroyed. You can go and say that
except here, it's a piece of cake. An hour or less.
"I'd rather be sure."
Several shots rattle the entrance gate like bells. Duck crouches down
instinct, while the commander remains impassive, leaning on the parapet; looking towards him
inside the cemetery, where the shooting rages.
"That's Captain Sanchez from the 3rd Company," he says cheerfully. Do you hear it? ... Good
boy.
Then he looks at Pato again, curious.
"Are there more women in your unit?"
"We are all women except the lieutenant."
"And the others are as good as you?"
The nasty laugh of the second link sounds: a skinny, bleary fellow with a steel helmet,
crouched with the rifle between his legs, he has stopped biting his nails to laugh. Duck it
ignore it and look directly into the commander's eyes, without blinking.
-All.
The other smiles after a moment, as if thinking better of it, looking at the pistol that Pato carries to the
belt. A conciliatory smile that looks like an apology; or that it is.
—Well, you have to have eggs for yours, comrade… Are you going to lay a line to this
place?
-That's the idea. As soon as possible.
The commander's face lights up.
"Really? ... Are you really going to put the field phone here for me?"
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-Well of course. That is why I have come.

The other nods, satisfied.
—It will be good to be communicated, because it is a key position. From the cemetery we can
attack the west python and protect the river passes ... My orders are to stay here and in
the python, if we take it. Cover the right flank of the bridgehead. So you can ...
It is interrupted by a succession of explosions in the cemetery: hand bombs followed by a
loud gunfire and shouts of assaulting men.
"There goes Sánchez!" Exclaims the commander, suddenly excited. Olé his balls
brunettes!
He then slaps the link on the helmet, causing him to stand up.
"Go over there and tell the comrades to insist and squeeze, we're coming ... Come on!"
The link secures the chinstrap of the helmet, hangs the rifle on the back, leaves the parapet
and runs crouched.
Just past the gate, a shot knocks him down.
He falls limp, like a rag, and remains motionless. Pato looks at him in amazement. Incredulous Is he
first man he sees fall, shot. It looks nothing like the dead you see
at the cinema. The former fall with fuss, putting their hands to their chests. The link has been
limited to collapse, as if passed out.
She turns to Fajardo in a daze to see if he shares her stupor; but after emitting a sound
blasphemy this one has stopped paying attention to the link. Now take the gun out of the holster, take out a
warrior's whistle, she brings it to her lips and blows hard three times before standing up
over the parapet and run to the gate.
"Go ahead, fuck it, go ahead!" -shouts-. Don't leave a whole one!… Long live the Republic!
And to that voice, in the gray light that blanks the cemetery wall, dozens of men who
they were waiting in hiding or lying on the ground —Pato thinks he sees workers, peasants,
employees, artisans— stand up and run after their commander.
When Santiago Pardeiro reaches the center of town with his legionaries, Castellets is in chaos.
The resistance of the nationals has collapsed.
The first light of dawn, which already defines the contours and allows us to see what is happening, shows
terrified civilians and soldiers on the run, wounded retreating alone or with the help of their comrades,
officers and noncommissioned officers ripping off their chevrons or taking off their tunics and buckles
belts in case prisoners fall. Moors and Europeans run scattered, without order. Some neither
they even carry weapons.
On the other side of the houses, on the side facing the river, guns and hand bombs can be heard. The
Reds have set foot in that sector of the town and clean house by house. Also towards the
cemetery loose shots ring out.
The lieutenant calls out to several of those who pass by in terror.
"Where is Commander Indurain?"
-I dont know.
New try.
"Have you seen Commander Indurain?"
"There, by the church."
At last he finds the head of the sector: he is under the bell tower, pistol in hand and cigarette
steaming in the mouth. Blood drips from a makeshift bandage around his head.
It stains his mustache, half face, neck and shirt. With him there are a score of men
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armed that still maintain discipline. Seeing the legionaries appear they look at them with
amazement, as if they no longer expected to find them there.
Pardeiro squares himself as if he were in the courtyard of a barracks. Martial salute and strawberry tree
of the chapiri bent over the right eyebrow, brushing it with panache.
"At your command, my commander."
Dark circles, insomnia features, fatigued expression. Eyelids hooded by cigarette smoke. In
Relief and distrust are mixed on the superior's face.
"What people are you bringing?"
—A platoon detached to the Levante python, as ordered, and one hundred and twenty-nine men
with me.
Induráin watches him up and down with critical curiosity, pausing at the
Red Commissar and the Provisional Ensign patch.
"Are you in command of the company?"
"Since the fighting in Cinca."
-He was there?
"Yes, my commander ... All the officers were low except me."
Induráin nods as if distracted, as his attention is directed to some soldiers who arrive fleeing
from the other side of town, mixed with some women and children. They bring rifles, but they run
messy. Turning his back on the legionnaires, the commander lets in the civilians and
face the fugitive military.
"Where are you going?"
The others hesitate, stopping. They are five Moors and three Europeans, very decomposed. A
NCO who goes with them points back.
"The reds are coming," he says.
"I know who's coming, dammit." What I'm asking is where do you think you guys are going?
The other looks at him without answering. An unshaven face, greasy with bewilderment and fear. Indurain
he raises the pistol and points it at his chest.
"I'm going to shit," he says very hard and very slowly, "on your fucking mother."
The fugitives doubt between continuing or staying still. The soldiers who
they were with the commander, raising their weapons and surrounding them.
"Being too brave, you bastard," protests one of the Moors, pretending to leave.
Without saying anything, the commander puts the cigarette in his mouth and hits the one who has spoken
slap that almost undoes his turban. Clack, resound. The Moor fits her submissively, without bouncing.
Done to treatment.
"Rodriguez!" Indurain yells.
One of those with him, sergeant stripes on his sleeves, comes forward frowning, his finger
stroking the trigger guard of a submachine gun.
-At your service.
—Incorporate them… And whoever goes out of control he passes it on to me.
-To the order.
The fugitives obey, head down. The matter resolved, Induráin turns again to
Pardeiro.
"How are your moral people?"
That sounds like a comparison, so the ensign blinks like he's received an insult.
"They are legionnaires, my commander."
He says it as if they could not have been something else. The other responds with a tired smile.
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-Sorry.
A loud bang sounds from the east side of the python, and everyone looks over there.
roofs of houses.
"You are providential," Induráin comments. Your name?
—Pardeiro.
—Well, as you can see, Ensign Pardeiro, the Monterrey Battalion company no longer exists.
and the fourteenth Tabor is in disarray - another glance, now at the still dark landscape of the northwest, where
the shooting languishes. And I smell that the cemetery is no longer ours.
"What are your orders?"
The other thinks about it for a moment, looking around. Then take a drag on the rest of the cigarette,
He holds it between his bloodstained fingers, and drops it to the ground.
"Deploy them along the main street, which is the road through town,
leaning on the church ... Do you have machine guns?
"Two Hotchkiss with nine thousand rounds and two Bergmann rifles."
"Put a machine upstairs, heading up the street and the square." And don't give up a hand.
Pardeiro swallows saliva, trying not to show it. The crucial piece of information is missing.
"How long, my commander?"
The other shrugs.
"I suppose some kind of help will come sooner or later."
"You suppose?"
A pale smile.
"So I said."
Then the commander points his pistol at the soldiers who are with him.
"I'm going to try to recover what I can from this disaster by entrenching myself in the python of
Get up with the people you can gather.
"Will he have his command post there?"
"Yes ... I'll try to communicate with you through links." Do the same.
Formula Pardeiro, making up his mind, the question that burns his mouth.
"What if I can't hold on?"
The commander studies him intently. A long and evaluative look.
"You have to hold out in town as long as you can," he says.
"What do I do if they overflow us?"
The other keeps looking at him as if evaluating the strength of his interlocutor. Reliability, despite
youth. In the end, the professional eye seems to render a favorable verdict.
"In that case," he concludes, "retreat with whatever is left of the python or the hermitage of the
Aparecida ... Hold on to the max, but don't get caught up in it.
Pardeiro clears his throat, uncomfortable.
"Can you give it to me in writing, my commander?"
-Clear.
Without hesitation, Induráin takes out a notebook and a pencil point from his trouser pocket, scribbles
A few words, he tears off the page and hands it to the ensign.
-Good luck.
"Same here, my commander."
When the sector chief retires with his men, there are no more fugitives, and on the part of the
The town facing the river begins to spread a threatening silence. The leaden light of dawn
gives the houses a sinister look, illuminating the floor covered with abandoned objects: weapons,
Page 35
Moorish djellaba, cartridge belts, macutos, papers. With a chill, Pardeiro imagines the reds
advancing cautiously, glued to the facades, getting closer. And suddenly an extreme
urgency.
"Sergeant Vladimir!"
The Russian veteran fits in: very short hair under the chapiri, high cheekbones, oblique eyes of
Slavic.
—A machine at the bell tower and another down here covering the square ... I want the people
deployed by squads and supported by the two machine guns in the houses along
the wide street, which will serve as a glacis. That by our fire it seems that we are more than
We are… Got it?
"Yes, my ensign."
—Well, do it quickly, we have the reds on top… Ah… And spread the word. To what
Chat, I shot him myself.
When he turns to the church, Pardeiro sees a boy sitting on the steps of the portico.
Increasing clarity defines her still fragile silhouette, skinny face, and cropped hair. You saw a
old, frayed sweater. Slim, dirty and long legs peek out naked under the
shorts.
"What are you doing here, baby?"
The boy stands up, very serious, without answering. He shows no fear. Look admiringly at the
legionaries and greedily their weapons.
"Are you from the town?"
Pardeiro sees him nod his head. He's about to tell you to get out of there in a hurry
when an idea occurs to him.
-What is your name?
After contemplating it for a moment, serene, without looking away, the boy pronounces a name.
—Tonet.
-And what else?
"Saumell."
-How old are you?
"Twelve, Captain."
"I'm not a captain, but an ensign." Pardeiro points to the church, the square, and the main street.
Do you know this site well?
-Very good. Like all the people.
-Where are your parents?
—I don't have parents… I live with my grandparents.
"And where are they?"
The boy points to an imprecise place in the direction where the fugitives disappeared.
"Over there, I think."
Pardeiro takes four ounces of chocolate wrapped in silver foil out of his jacket and hands it to him.
"Do you want to help us?"
The boy holds the chocolate in the palm of one hand as if it were something valuable and
weigh. Thoughtful. Then he nods without parting his lips.
"Are you running fast, Tonet?"
The boy nods again.
"Enough to carry and carry messages?"
Page 36
Tonet responds with a fourth affirmative gesture. An ounce of chocolate has been put into the
mouth.
"I need you to accompany my soldiers," says the lieutenant. Show them the best places
on this side of the street and also where to go from one house to another without being seen ... And if
you find neighbors, tell them to hurry away. That there are going to be many shots here.
Tonet shrugs his shoulders.
"Some don't want to leave their homes."
"Well, let them hide in the cellars." Pardeiro turns to the men close to him.
-. Cape Longines!
The legionary comes forward, haggard and stripped down, striking the ground with the butt of the
Mauser.
"Zusordenes!"
Pardeiro points to the boy, who looks at them impassively as he chews chocolate.
"Take care of the new recruit." It's called Tonet and it's going to be our beater.
—I see it very tender, to the pistolillo. But you command.
"Tell my assistant to give him two cans of preserves and a piece of bread."
—Zusorders.
Then, after verifying that the Hotchkiss cannon already appears at the top of the bell tower,
Pardeiro begins to calculate places of protection, lines, blind spots and at what distance
It will break the fire when the reds appear.
Until help arrives, you must hold out as long as you can. That's what the commander said.
It's cold, or seems it. On the brown roofs, dawn is veiled by a shroud of
mist. Now everything is silent. With a shudder, the nineteen-year-old ensign climbs
the zipper of the jacket a little more, and his left elbow touches the bulge of the purse, where
he carries a half-written letter and a photo of the woman he has never seen in person.
He wonders how much he will be able to. And he wonders if he will ever see her.
Page 37
III
"Live!… Faster!"
Standing on the right bank of the Ebro, the greatest of militias Emilio Gamboa Laguna, called
Gambo for his comrades, he looks around uneasily. His 437 men petaque across the
river by the footbridge that the pontoneros have laid from shore to shore, and that the curved current
dangerously when affecting its central part. They hit boots and espadrilles running over the
boards. The walkway is an unstable one and a half meter wide passage mounted on floats
of cork and boats, which the soldiers must travel in single file, loaded with their equipment and
as quickly as possible.
"Hurry up, come on!"
Two things disturb Gambo Laguna: the current and the sky. From one moment to another it is expected
that the fascists, located upstream, open the floodgates of the reservoirs near
Mequinenza, and the rise in the water level hinders the passage of the troops that along one hundred
Fifty kilometers of river, between Castellets and Amposta, continue to cross the Ebro.
"Come on, come on! ... Run more!"
The other danger is aviation, and that is why the commander of the Third Battalion of the XI Brigade
Mixed looks at the sky with even more concern than the river. Despite what was promised, because among the
plans and tactical reality usually mediate an abyss, no republican apparatus has appeared
still to support the ground offensive. However, almost two hours ago, with the first light of the
One day a fascist reconnaissance plane — the Chivato, the soldiers call him — flew over the
zone. A bad omen.
Taking to his eyes the Russian Komz 6 × 30 binoculars hanging from his chest, Gambo
he carefully observes the clear sky, where the sun is already beginning to be high. There is not one
cloud, nor a sign of enemy or own aircraft, for now.
"I don't like a hair of this," he mutters, to himself.
Then he turns to look behind him, towards Castellets and the two pythons that flank him. He
west stands far away, on the other side of the roofs of the houses on which the
church steeple and smoke that indicates hard fighting in the village. Python
Levante is closer, separated from the river bank by an extensive pine forest. And it is there, for his
proximity, where the greatest din of combat is heard. Through the binoculars, Gambo
notice the flashes and dust of the explosions as the sound reaches clear to
him: the roar of grenades, the rattle of machine guns and the intense crackle of riflemen. Behind the
initial recoil, the remains of the enemy troops seem to stick to the ground, defending themselves with
more tenacity.
"That the men do not group together," he ordered his second, captain of the militias, Simón Serigot.
González. As they keep coming, scatter them into squads and well protected ... I love them
far from each other, and that they cover everything that shines.
"There are no fascist planes," says Serigot.
"There will be."
Like most of his people, and although he is only thirty years old, Gambo is a seasoned
fighter: son of an Asturian bricklayer, the youngest of eight siblings and the only one in his family who went to
Page 38
school, bellboy in a hotel in Oviedo, member of the Party at eighteen, organizer of the
Various Trades Union, jailed twice before fleeing to the Soviet Union where
worked on the works of the Moscow metro while studying at the Lenin School and the Academy
Frunze, upon his return to Spain, was an instructor of the Antifascist Militias, defender of Guadarrama
in the summer of 36 and collaborator of Enrique Líster in the creation of the Fifth Regiment. A
man, in short, made to military discipline and to that of the Party, which hardly differ from each other.
"Men cross too slowly," he insists to his second. I want to see them run to
everybody.
"The walkway is narrow and it moves," Serigot objected. Some may fall into the water, and they carry
over thirty kilos of equipment.
"They will have more water if the fascists open the reservoirs or their planes show up." Make sure
that they wake up.
-At your command.
Serigot obediently walks away: bald, parched, saffron eyes, tobacco yellow teeth,
He has been with Gambo Laguna since the Fifth Regiment was founded. The older man watches him go and then
look at the soldiers gathering on this side of the river - their magnificent warrior looks. He
Third Battalion, better known as Nikolai Ostrovski Battalion, is a shock unit, core
hard-line of the proletarian vanguard that in the Ebro intends to cut the faces of the elegant
knights, the sons of the aristocracy, the stiff military educated in the best
academies. Made up largely of peasants and workers from Extremadura, Asturians, Andalusians,
Alicante and Madrid, the Ostrovsky has in its ranks authentic proletarians forged in
hard past lives and tempered in trenches and assaults. They are all communists, of the
convinced to the core by Negrín's "to resist is to win": resolute, strong,
disciplined, trustworthy, Third International and Stalin to death without discussion.
Except for those that cover the latest casualties, the rest have spent almost two years of war in the bag,
fired first in the mountains of Madrid and in Talavera, and later in Guadalajara, Brunete and
Teruel, where the battalion wrote a page of glory that earned Gambo his promotion, still
recent, from captain to militia major.
"There are few left to cross," says Serigot, who returns. Only the people of Ortuño and the
material that comes in the cans.
"Well, let's see if they wake up." Good luck never lasts long.
The people of Ortuño - militia lieutenant Félix Ortuño Gómez - are the 2nd Company: the only one
from the battalion not yet in the river or on the right bank. Gambo sees the men come down from the
trucks and rush over to the other side of the walkway.
"Here come the weapons," says Serigot.
He does
81 and so by pointing
ammunition, to the
on board approaching
of which boatsrow
some men loaded with heavy
and others machine
lead by guns, mortars
the reins
to the mules that swim with them. The battalion has eight mules to transport the
team, and the first two animals are already boiling in the mud and the crushed reeds of the shore,
shaking off the water between brays of relief as men laden with
macutos of primers and fuzes.
Gambo consults his wristwatch and looks again uneasily at the sky. There is still to
half an hour; and in that time, he thinks, many good and bad things can happen. Especially,
bad.
Then he turns to take a look at the men of the battalion, who scattered according to their
orders are sitting on the ground showing no concern for the scramble at Castellets,
Page 39
of which sooner or later something will happen to them. Half protected on the edge of the pine forest, they smoke,
they bait hand pumps or rest. They look good, of a true army of the
people: red neckerchiefs, tattoos with red stars, sickles and hammers. All trained
them in the offensive, the trench assault and the night infiltration, in their attitudes and equipment they
the elite troop shows through: uniforms in reasonable condition, steel helmets, four grenades and
two hundred cartridges in the straps. Even in the face of what is coming, the old ones have changed
Mexican Mausers, bad like the mother who gave birth to them and so worn that some extractor nails
they did not grasp the culottes of the cartridge, by Mannlicher new Austrians of lashing; so much that still
They are removing the last traces of protective grease with rags.
A boom louder than others resounds from the lift python. Gamboa and his second look
in that direction.
"Factionalists hold out longer than we expected," says Serigot.
-It seems.
Ramiro García, political commissioner attached to the Ostrovski Battalion, approaches with his hands in
the pockets and the pipe between the teeth, also looking towards the place of combat. Is a
short and ruddy in his forties, with a childish face, who always smiles. Former hairdresser in Alcoy,
He has only been in office for three months - his predecessor had both legs blown off in Teruel - but already
he fought well during the last battles in Aragon. And he has taught to read and write half
battalion; to peasants and workers who until recently were illiterate.
"I thought we broke their backs," says the commissioner.
"And they have split," Gambo confirms. But from what you see and hear, not everyone.
"Neither are our attackers there a great thing," Serigot points out.
They look at each other significantly, although neither goes further. The political commissioner and the two bosses
Ostrovski's are aware of the low quality of the unit that must take that position: the
Fourth Battalion is a murky mix whose cohesion and combat morale leaves much to be desired, and
where only some of the commanders and the political commissar are safe. They were assigned the python
Levante believing it an easy target, but the enemy resistance is greater than expected.
As Ramiro García has just learned, and so he tells it, pointing to the place with the pipe of his pipe,
Scattered remnants of the factional troops have gone to take refuge there, making it difficult.
"Apparently they weren't as scattered as was thought."
"In the end, they'll send us to solve the ballot," Serigot says. It always touches us
the ugly of the verbena.
Gambo shakes his head, alternating glances between the python, the catwalk and the sky, which follows
clear.
"I don't think ... Our orders are to keep intact and in reserve, in case there
enemy counteroffensive.
"They won't pass," says Ramiro García, giving them one eye.
"Castellets will be the tomb of fascism," Serigot concludes, in the same tone.
-At least.
They smile with retreat. The battalion commissar is a sensible and reliable man, whose orthodoxy
Politics, unlike many of his comrades who are or are ruthless, is
compatible with common sense. Furthermore, since the Ostrovski was established, none of its
members have been shot for indiscipline, cowardice, desertion or attempt to go over to the enemy,
as it happens in other units. In fact, Ramiro García is for the men of Gamboa what
that the military chaplains are for the fascists: moral comfort and ideological support. Some
they die for the paradise of Christ and others for that of the proletariat.
Page 40
"Is there anything known about our artillery?" Asks the commissioner.
-Nothing yet.
"Who knows where they are," says Serigot.
"The 105 were on their way," says Gambo. They should already be on the other shore,
supporting us from there. The one they call Vértice Campa… But you can't see them.
The commissioner twists the gesture, annoyed. Then look up at the sky, squinting low
the brim of the cap.
"Do you think our planes will be here to help out soon?"
The battalion chief makes a skeptical face.
—I'm satisfied with the enemy's not coming.
As responsible and disciplined combatants that they are, Gambo, Serigot and the responsible
politically they get along. Apart from some specific discussions, the three agree on what
fundamental: outside the communists, in Spain there are no real revolutionaries; surplus
hollow slogans and lack of scientific sense for socialism, in a nation easy for riot,
the rapture, the useless heroism and the animal exercise of barbarism, but refractory to be commanded
by anyone. For a good part of left-wing Spaniards, give orders or obey them without debate
previous are fascist acts. The proof is that, before the Franco coup, the union that
affiliates it had were the anarchists of the CNT.
Ramiro García looks towards the river bank, where the mortars are being loaded onto the mules
heavy and Russian machine guns. Then he takes off his cap to wipe his forehead with a
clean little handkerchief. The sun, higher and higher, begins to feel.
"It's going to be fucking hot."
Gambo nods and looks at Serigot.
"Make sure people fill their canteens before we go, because the terrain is rough and
broken, with little water ... In the town there are only a few cisterns, you know how they will be. He
Only known well is on the other side, far from here.
"Don't worry."
There is something else that only the three of them know, like the other battalion chiefs and commissars, but
that the junior officers and the troops ignore: in the meetings with the lieutenant colonel of
militias Faustino Landa, head of the XI Mixed Brigade, it was clear that the attack on Castellets del
Segre is not posed to penetrate deeply the enemy lines, but as a maneuver of
fun on the right flank of the republican offensive along the Ebro. Taken the town
and the two pythons, the brigade should be kept there in order to distract as many
fascist troops and prevent the passage of reinforcements on the road from Mequinenza. Is about
entrench themselves in a bridgehead six kilometers wide by five deep; of
Hence the Ostrovsky Battalion reserves itself for when the enemy awakens and begins to press on
I laughed. The reinforcement of a battalion of the International Brigades and another of
Coastal Defense, but it is not known when they will arrive, or where they are. Not even if
they will come.
"There's good cocoa down there," says Serigot.
It is true. The three men prick their ears, and in the brief pauses of silence in the
Levante hear a distant rumble of artillery to the south, in the direction of Fayón and beyond, river
down. If everything has gone according to plan, at that time, and after surprising the Fascist 50th Division,
almost one hundred thousand soldiers from the Ebro army are fighting or going to fight to reach Gandesa; already
From there, as everything goes well, they will continue to point towards the Mediterranean to alleviate the
pressure on Valencia.
Page 41
Another louder boom from the python. The three of them observe that the
Dust dotted with flashes.
"Lola," Gambo says, pointing to the place.
They look at him strangely. The battalion leader shrugs his shoulders, takes out a folded paper that
He wears it on the pad of his cap and shows it to the others.
"Lola is the eastern python," says the one on one side of town. And Pepa, the one from
west ... I just got the new tactical name.
-Cast? Ramiro García is interested, returning the paper.
"The command has decided to call them that to avoid confusion in the transmissions." Keep it in
counts every time you communicate something. Let's not get involved.
"Lola and Pepa," Serigot says, making a funny face.
-That's.
"How romantic."
Gambo returns to look at the sky, worried. Then it turns towards the river, where the 2nd
Company is already crossing the narrow walkway. Men run on planks,
spurred on by the sergeants, but there are still fifty left on the other shore.
Then he hears a very distant, almost imperceptible hum of engines. And his blood runs cold.
"Planes," he says.
Upon his return from the cemetery, Pato Monzón cannot find the broadcasting section where the
left: Lieutenant Harpo, Sergeant Exposito and the sixteen comrades have disappeared.
Neither are his backpack with the coil of telephone cable or the rest of the equipment. Bewildered,
directs an uneasy glance around. The lieutenant promised to leave a companion for the
orient yourself, but there is no one there.
She is alone in an unknown place, which only walked in the dark before. And he doesn't like that.
The light of day provides no more references than the distant village, where some houses smoke and
the rumor of riflemen sounds, and the two pythons flanking it. After a moment's hesitation,
decides to head to Castellets. So draw the pistol, cock it with a bullet in the
chamber and proceed with caution, as you learned in military school, trying not to let yourself
seeing too much and looking for the lower parts of the terrain.
He walks with a dry mouth, his pulse beating strongly in his eardrums and a heat in his body that
It has nothing to do with the rising sun, but with the tension that tightens his muscles. And to
reach a small boulevard, just a ditch from which reeds and bushes appear, find there
about thirty men lying on the ground: blue overalls and khaki still wet from the
landing, rifles, grenades hung from the straps, steel helmets, red stars on the
hats. They smoke, doze, clean weapons. Several speak in Catalan. They wait, like all
soldiers in all wars.
Seeing her appear, some raise their heads and look at her with a curiosity that is accentuated by
notice that she is a woman.
"I'm dead and I'm in heaven," says one.
Ignoring the chorus of whistles and joking compliments that he raises in his wake, Duck uncocks and
holsters the pistol, approaches one who wears the two lieutenant bars on his cap, identifies himself,
He says what he's doing there and asks for the broadcast section. The officer - skinny, pale, a map
spread out on mud-stained legs - he studies her up and down, still
Surprised.
"This is no place for a woman," he says at last, harshly.
Page 42
"This is the second time they've told me today, Comrade Lieutenant." Duck looks him in the eye,
trying not to blink. You're going to make me believe it and leave.
The other smiles a little, looking at her for a moment without saying anything. Then he asks where
comes.
"From the cemetery."
The officer raises his eyebrows under the brim of his cap. Surprised.
"Is it ours already?"
"When I came, it was."
The other's smile slowly fades. He looks at the holster with the Tokarev.
"Were you in combat?"
-Not. I just saw it.
"It was hard, I imagine." It sounded strong.
"There was something ... It wasn't easy, but there we are."
Now the lieutenant looks at her with more respect.
"I don't know where your unit will be." When we arrived half an hour ago we did not see anyone ... If they are
of broadcasts, most likely they have gone to town. ”He flicks the map with one finger,
showing him a path, and Pato compares it to his sketch. The command of the brigade has
planned to settle in a house called La Harinera.
-Where is that?
"Here on the outskirts." Do you see it?… To the right of the path.
Pato studies the map with the attention of someone who knows that his freedom or life can go to him.
"Is the path clear there?"
"I think so, but I'm not sure… You know how these things are." He looks at her with intention.
You know?
"I know," says Duck without hesitation, as if he really knows.
"If you want to go, you'll have to fix yourself." I can't send anyone to accompany you.
"I didn't ask for it."
Another appraisal look from the lieutenant.
"It's true ... You haven't asked." She glanced at the soldiers in the ditch and smiled another
time-. You have more eggs than some of these for walking alone.
A sergeant has approached, curious. Red scarf around the neck, gallon on the cap and carbine
Tiger hanging on his back. His upper lip is split by a scar and a cigarette butt is smoking
on one side of the mouth.
"If you go to town, stay away from the pine forest that you will see on the left," he intervenes. For the
seen there are loose moors that pack in that part. Although we have given them for hair,
fascists are ordered to regroup in the python behind.
"It's true," confirms the officer.
"How do you know?"
"They told us."
He points to eight national prisoners sitting on the ground at the end of the trench, tied one to the other.
others with a rope. Livid, frightened, trembling, they flock together like sheep prowling the
Wolf. Infantrymen of the 50th Division. The straps and shoes have been removed. One
one of them has a head wound, covered with a bad bandage from which blood drips that
stain the shirt.
"We actually took nine," says the sergeant. But the other was a Moor.
The butt in his mouth shakes with laughter when he says it. Duck nods and stands up.
Page 43
"Can you give me a sip of water?"

"Water or wine?"
"Water is enough for me."
-Of course precious. Clear water from the source.
The sergeant hands him his canteen. She puts it in her mouth and takes two short drinks. Then
Screw the cap and return it.
"Thank you, comrade."
The lieutenant offers him a flask with already rolled cigarettes.
"A cigarette?"
-No thanks.
"Healthy and without vices," says the sergeant. This is how the doctor recommends them.
"I have mine," she corrects him.
"Come on ... Are they a good brand?"
-Vices?
The others start laughing.
-The cigarettes.
"American luquis."
The noncommissioned officer twists his mouth, greedy.
"Geez with the girl ... I rectify: healthy and with expensive vices."
Duck takes out a packet of the two that he carries in a pocket of his jumpsuit.
"Do you want one, comrade?"
"You don't even wonder."
The sergeant pushes his butt away, sniffs the blond cigarette with delight, and puts it away carefully.
Pato gives another to the officer. Then he brings his clenched fist to his temple, saluting with much
formality.
"Greetings, comrades."
—Health and Republic, sweetie… And good luck.
Ten steps beyond the ditch, Pato sees the Moor. First hear the buzzing of flies and then go
the corpse in some bushes, face down. With my hands tied behind my back and half a skull
shot at point blank range.
He had never seen a Moor from Franco up close, neither alive nor dead. That's why it stops
contemplate it while analyzing your own feelings. His love for humanity is intense -
for that reason, among other reasons, he is there—, but he is not able to see a human being in that spoil,
but only an enemy erased from the world: a beaten down beast. Know the stories I know
They tell of the Moors who are with the rebels. Of what they do to the prisoners, to the women
and the children. As a well-trained communist militant, she thinks she knows what this man, and how many
came with him, he represents: indigenous people recruited in Morocco by local caids, brought
like cheap cannon fodder, thrown forward to rape, steal and kill. Naive perhaps in their
clumsy savagery;
assassins but as harmful
of the Falange, in their
the fanatical crueltythe
Retinas, and barbarism
German as and
Nazis the mercenaries of the Tercio, the
the Italian fascists.
Also, remember, a brother of his mother was in the year 21 in the reconquest of Annual and
Mount Arruit, and buried hundreds of corpses of mercilessly murdered soldiers while their
bosses ran to take refuge in Melilla: Uncle Andrés, with his melancholic voice and a burnt mustache
for cigarettes. Duck remembers him crying when he remembers Africa, sitting with the family around
to the stretcher table and the brazier. Those red and watery eyes in which, many years
afterward, the horror still lingered.
Page 44
It will not be she, he concludes, who is moved by a dead Moor. Although the wretch has
hands tied behind his back.
Someday think while looking at the corpse, when the world is better than it is now,
also people like that carrion that rots in the sun will be redeemed in the final fight, with justice,
bread, education and culture. But first there is a long way to go. Many minds to change.
Many fights to fight and many uncertain days to fight.
Suddenly, Pato feels isolated in a ghostly gray landscape; as if the sun, that nevertheless
shines in a cloudless sky, it would have darkened for an instant.
Above all, she feels very lonely.
Back to the place where she is, to her own survival instinct, the young woman draws her
the pistol again - the sweat from his hand dampens the grips - and with a finger parallel to the trigger guard,
Without touching the trigger —another lesson from the military school— he continues towards the town;
trying, as the sergeant advised, to stay away from the pine forest. And upon reaching a hill by
the one that must pass by to avoid some barbed wire that no longer protects anything, look at his
back, towards the distant river, he realizes that there continues the slow flow of boats with soldiers
and he sees the troops that arrive ashore enter the small valleys that offer protection.
It is a true people's army, he says with a point of pride. Army of the Republic,
Spanish, disciplined, finally with almost exclusively communist leadership: serious people, capable of
hold the pulse until France and the European democracies go to war with Germany and
Italy. That it is already time. A true army of the people, exemplary, hardened, tough, heroic.
A pioneer in the anti-fascist struggle and who, sooner or later, the world will thank for his fight and his
sacrifice.
The young woman continues looking at the river. In the distance, a little curved towards the current,
a footbridge is stretched from shore to shore, along which it crosses, extended like a
tiny ants, a line of men. Duck is preparing to follow his path when in heaven,
Beyond the catwalk, you notice three dark spots that seem to move slowly, like a
flock of birds flying close together. That makes her stop to watch, intrigued, until
understand that these are airplanes. The distant sound of the engines comes after an instant:
monotonous purr that gradually increases in intensity making the blue of the sky vibrate.
IThe
hope, he thinks,
normal thing,they are one ofafter
he concludes us. a moment, is that they are. It is unthinkable that an operation like
that, the crossing of the Ebro between Castellets and Amposta, did not have the support of the air force. That the
powerful bombing Katiuska, protected by the Spanish-piloted Chato and Mosca fighters
And for Soviet comrades - the Gloriosa, they call them - do not come en masse to crush the
enemy positions and to dispute the sky to the factional aviation, which will undoubtedly soon
Appear. So he stands, pistol in one hand and raised the other to visor over
eyes, watching the three black dots grow larger as the sound of their
Engines, already close, resounds clearly.
Then, to his surprise, he sees that the planes, already distinguished by the long wings and the
shine of the sun in the eddies of its double helices, instead of flying over the right bank of the
river descend approaching it. And out of them come out, almost simultaneously, six tiny specks
that glisten in the sun and fall with equivocal slowness on the place where the boats cross and is the
runway.
Paralyzed with astonishment, Pato remains motionless, her hand still visor over the
eyes And this is how he sees four tall columns of water rising between the boats and the gangway,
while the tiny figurines crouch and smash into them, and two flashes of color
Page 45
intense orange, violent, they sprout on the nearby shore, throwing up a dust of earth
and stones.
Pam-tuump, they do. Pam-tuump.
The booms reach the young woman a moment later, driven by a strange
air ripple. And while that happens, see how, after dropping the bombs, the planes - now
it is clear that they are German Heinkel - they lean over the left wing and, even lower, fly
staggered strafing the mainland, the pine forest, the valleys, the scattered trees, with long
trails of dust spikes approaching where she stands, still stopped by the
stupor and fear.
Tacatacatacatac, it sounds, deafening. Tacatacatac. Tacatacatac.
Pato reacts when the trail of bullets is at twenty or thirty meters and warns, frightened,
that is on your path. Then he falls to the ground with a groan of animal anguish,
over the hard clods and stones that hurt his elbows and knees, dropping the gun to
protect the back of her neck with her hands, or try, as if that would save her from the hot metal
hitting and bouncing everywhere, while feeling the nearby impacts, and the shards of
stone and earth and the broken branches of the bushes fall on his back and his legs. Y
when the roar of the gusts ceases and the engines turn away, and as he turns to look, the sweat
his blue jumpsuit moistens the earth that has turned to mud, the fascist planes are of
again three black dots receding in the sky.
Where are our planes, she wonders in disbelief.
Where willgets
At last she our damn planes
up slowly, in be?
pain, feels her body, looks for her pistol among the
bushes, he grasps it and continues on his way to the village. His mouth is as dry as sandpaper; but
thinking of the fallen men at dawn in the cemetery, of the dead Moor he leaves behind,
In the orange glows of the bombs he has seen explode on the shore, he feels a fierce
joy to be alive.
To his misfortune, Ginés Gorguel has not managed to flee or ambush. The ancient carpenter of
Albacete runs around the outskirts of town looking for the road to Fayón when they cut off his path
some legionaries. They come out of the gutter next to a square of road workers, when they see him arrive. A
corporal and two soldiers: open shirts, shaggy chests, sideburns under green chapiris
lopsided. Openwork bayonets. His appearance is anything but nice.
-Where do you think you are going?
Gorguel stands still, panting, saying nothing. The corporal looks suspiciously at his holsters
empty.
"And your rifle?"
-I dont know.
"What unit are you from?"
-I dont know.
"Bring the papers."
"I'm not wearing them… I broke them."
-Why?
"The reds were about to catch me."
He has sat on the gravel of the road, exhausted after running at least a mile
surrounding the town. At that moment he doesn't give a damn.
The corporal seems to be thinking about it. He slings the Mauser over his shoulder and shakes his head, as if
Page 46
rule out a bad idea.

-You have to go back.
-Where?
Without saying anything, the other indicates the python that rises half a kilometer beyond, to the east of the
town: a rocky hill, with no other vegetation than some low bushes. Of the
counter-slope comes combat noise, and after each boom rise plumes of
dust that lazy climb to the top.
"Not crazy," says Gorguel.
The corporal looks like a patient man.
"Look," he says. They put us here to stop backgammoners. If they are injured -
points down the road — we let them go that way. If they come healthy, the order is to send them to
Python,
For nowwhere Moors
it seems fromhold;
that they the Tabor have
but the gathered,
enemy some and
is pressing pistols
theylike youpeople.
need and a platoon from the Tercio ...
"I'm in no condition."
The other studies it with a critical eye.
"Well, I see you great."
"I have fought twice today."
"No two without three, the saying goes."
"I'm not going back."
-You will come back.
-I am telling you no.
The other legionaries look at each other. The corporal shrugs his shoulders and pats the
rifle butt.
"So mate, you have a serious problem ... Our orders include shooting him
who does not comply.
"Then hit it on me and let's get it over with."
It is not a bluff. Gorguel is sincere. He really doesn't care. You just want to keep walking up
lose it all out of sight. Or, if you're still there, lie down on the gravel and sleep for hours and days and
months.
"I'm up to the hilt," he murmurs.
"We all are."
"Well, me, much more."
Suddenly he starts crying. He does it silently, without drama, with tears
abundant that make grooves in the dirt on your face and hang on the tip of the
nose. The corporal stares at him very intently, as if he were really considering hitting him
threw. His skin is tanned, his face is unshaven, and fine lines around his eyes accentuate his
hardness in his dark irises.
"I'll tell you what we're going to do," he says. Do you see that pitcher?
Gorguel looks where the corporal indicates. Next to the door of the road pawn box
there is an earthen pitcher in the shade.
-Yes.
"Well, first have a good drink of water, because you must be thirsty a thousand hell." Y
then —he points to the python— “you walk around until you find ours. There are people
down on this side, organizing the thing. Or trying… So you introduce yourself to them and offer yourself
for whatever is necessary.
-And if I do not do it?
Page 47
Without responding, the corporal looks at his men. One of them supports the bayonet of the rifle on a
Gorguel's shoulder, patting it.
"Stand
Gorguelup," he orders.
doesn't move. The body feels corked and is unable to think. Everything seems
a nightmare from which, with an effort of will, you can wake up if you try. So what
try again and again. However, the nightmare remains as if it were real.
Maybe it's real, he concludes suddenly, terrified.
The legionnaire rests his bayonet on the back of his neck, pressing a little but not completely pricking.
The tip hurts.
"Choose," says the corporal. And choose now.
Slowly, unsteadily, Gorguel finally gets up. The corporal again points to the pitcher and the
lift python.
"Drink up and get out." Right up the hill, you hear? ... We'll be watching you all the time, and
If you go off the trail, we'll shoot you from here.
"And we're fucking good," says the one with the bayonet.
Bullets going high sound ziaaang, ziaaang, down the street, and the others click on the
pavement and facades of houses.
The fascist machine gun has its way down the street, and the black and yellow tiles of the
ad for Nitrato de Chile that is on a facade are so stung by bullets that they seem to have
shot the mule and the rider.
When he looks out from the hall where he shelters the portal, also shot to death,
Julián Panizo can see two immobile bodies on the ground. They are republican soldiers. One is
close by, crossed in front of the threshold, hunched over a rifle that no one dares to retrieve. his
head is turned the other way and rests in a pool of blood.
The second is a little further away, in the middle of the street. They saw it fall almost at the same
time than the other, while everyone advanced glued to the facades of the houses and the machine
Suddenly he started shooting from the church steeple. At first the wretch fell
limp, as if dead; but soon after, when Panizo and the rest of the comrades
had already sought protection in doorways and corners, they saw him crawl trying to
retreat from there while leaving a red trail on the ground. He used only his hands, because a
The bullet had broken his spine.
"Help me, comrades!" He begged in a voice of anguish.
But none of them wanted to risk it. Then, seeing that no one bit the bait, those of the bell tower
they shot the wounded man with a certain snatch, precise, almost musical. Rat-tatata-ta-ta, sounded the
machine, drumming the half glass of ojén with art - that does not come by chance, you have to
practice and good set of thumbs. And now the one that crawled no longer moves.
Panizo leans back seated against the wall of the hall, supports the orange tree and looks at his comrade
Olmos, which is small and sucked in the face but hard as flint. He wears the gorrillo in the
shoulder with the capado strawberry tree, because he says that going with the dangling tassel is about fags and
fascists. The former driller from La Unión has the same tired look as his compadre and the
others: two-day beard, dark circles, dirty and sweaty shirt under the fuse and detonator cord
that he carries across his chest, the straps and the bag. The brick and plaster dust that
impacts and explosions kick up everywhere their clothes begin to cover them, their hair tousled
and the skin.
"Do you have smoke left, Paco?"
Page 48
-Taking.
The other holds out a flask with a bite and rolling paper. Without haste, after wiping the sweat from
hands in his pants, Panizo puts the tobacco, rolls the paper between two fingers and runs his tongue
over the edge. When he puts it in his mouth, Olmos brings the chisquero close to him with the smoking wick
and Panizo thanks him with a blink. He appreciates his countryman very much, he thinks. Apart from the lived
together, the two coincide in despising the traitors ambushed in Madrid and Valencia, the
anarchists who, with their indiscipline, risk losing the war, the right-wing gentlemen or
lefts sold to capital, to career military men and priests.
"It's not the best tobacco in the world, countryman."
"Cuarterón," the other shrugs. Of what little there is.
"Well, let's see if you can buy it good."
"Yes, man, from the Canary Islands ... I'm going to buy it from the fascists."
Panizo smiles, his eyelids squinting from the smoke. As if humor wet his dry mouth.
—Before they machine-gunned us, I saw a tobacconist at the end of the street ...
free.
"By the time we get there, if we get there, they will have emptied it between each other."
-Surely.
"Without smoking, this war sucks."
"And even smoking."
After a few quiet puffs on his cigarette, Panizo looks outside, where from time to time
gusts crackled, rattling on the cobblestones and doorways. The two corpses are still in their
site, no news. Very still. There is nothing more still than the dead.
"We got it screwed up, buddy," he says.
-It seems.
Another puff. Smoke slowly comes out of the dynamiter's nose.
—That way we don't get to the square… They kill us all.
"Don't fit."
-It does not fit me.
There are more soldiers in the hallway: two of the comrades with whom they flew the
machine gun and seven more, grouped together in the tight space. They all belong
as Panizo and Olmos, to the shock sapper company of the First Battalion, in charge of
take the town and dislodge the enemy. The group of dynamiters met the others at dawn,
when between the first light they approached the center of the town. With almost half Castellets in
their power, the republicans try to reach the square where the church and the town hall are; but
the fascists, who were backgammoning at first, seem to have remade themselves, or received reinforcements. Now
they endure and stick to the ground. So people, who used to advance with a lot of morale and
enthusiasm, gradually cools down. The two in the street are not the only ones who have fallen, and
nobody wants to be next.
"Do you hear that noise, Julian?" Olmos says.
Panizo pays attention. And it is true. Between the crack of shots that beat the street echo
dull thumps coming from within. Even the wall behind him vibrates
lightly with each hit, transmitting the sound. So stick your ear out. Boom boom, you hear it.
Spaced, rhythmic. Bum Bum bum.
Olmos looks at him, intrigued. With restless eyes.
-What is that?
"No idea, compadre."
Page 49
"Where does it come from?"

Panizo drains the cigarette, turns off the grill and puts the butt in a tin box of pills to
cough. Then he picks up the submachine gun and stands up.
"Make way," he says to the others.
He walks among them - they smell as dirty as he does, of sweat and tiger den - and enters the
House. The place has been looted as much by the fascists on the run as by the Republicans that
advance; and the light from a skylight illuminates fallen furniture, broken china, trampled clothing. Still see
remains of the dinner of whoever lived there until last night, dirty dishes and pots overturned on the
stoves. In a corner, used as a latrine of circumstances, some excrement stinks. In the
walls, faded and yellowed photos, family faces in crooked frames, evoke ghosts
from another time. And in a wire cage there are two dead canaries.
"They come from there," Olmos says behind him. From that bedroom.
Panizo mounts the gun and enters the room. In one of the corners of the ceiling there is a hole
through which you can see some blue sky, bare beams and broken tiles. The blows sound with more
intensity in one of the partitions, next to an iron bed covered by the dust of the tiles. To the
next blow, the Sacred Heart that was on the wall falls to the ground and a large
chip of plaster.
"Milks ... They're biting right there," Olmos says.
Panizo nods and the two of them go back to the door, where the
companions.
"Are they fascists or ours?" Asks one.
"What do I know?"
Everyone prepares their weapons. At the next blow, the tip of a pick pokes out of the septum. With
two more strokes the hole is enlarged; and the next, between the dust of the falling bricks and
They leave enough room for a man, they can see something moving to the other side. Panizo takes
the orange tree to the face and points to the hole.
"Who goes?" -shouts.
The blows stop. Panizo keeps aiming and Olmos takes off a grenade from the belt
polish of pineapple and remove the ring.
"I'm going to shit on your fucking mother!" Panizo yells again. Who the fuck is going?
A moment of silence, as if the other side doubted. There seems to be a whispering.
-Republic! A voice finally answers.
"Then show the face, but slowly."
Hands stick out of the hole and then a restless, bearded face in which, under a
cap with a five-pointed star in a red circle, Panizo recognizes the political commissioner of the
First Battalion, a certain Rosendo Cehegín: wide, loaded with guts, with one eye of each color. Comes
this one accompanied by Lieutenant Goyo, who commands the company of shock sappers.
"What a scare you bastards gave us," says the officer.
"It could have been worse," Olmos replies, putting the ring back on the grenade.
In a moment, they all explain themselves. Panizo tells that the enemy machine gun has them
stuck; and the others that, for the same reason - in addition to that machine, there are a couple of rifles
machine gunners hitting the main street - have been making their way through houses, pulling
partitions. It was the only way to communicate.
"We sent you a link, but he limped back with a shot in the foot," says the lieutenant.
Goyo. How many are you here?
"In this house, eleven." And in the back, about twenty. Across the street is the brigade
Page 50
Cancel, with many others.

The lieutenant points to the hole in the wall.
"The rest of the company I have on the other side ... Can we communicate with Cancela?"
"Carefully yelling, it could be."
"But if we give a lot of voices, the fascists will hear us," Olmos warns.
"Yes," Panizo agrees. Those have the ear of a consumptive.
The lieutenant thinks about it for a moment.
-Let's see. Tell us where.
Panizo leads them to the hall. The lieutenant looks out cautiously, looks at the two corpses
from the street, hears a shot and goes back inside.
"The enemy," he explains, "has taken cover in the church and along the road that
it crosses the town as a main street. On this side, we have the town hall and the
school… When the heavy weapons we expect arrive, we can beat them and advance. Come on
us with the 1st Company. The 2nd and 3rd are in reserve.
"What support weapons do we have?" Asks Panizo.
"Four machine guns are coming; and at the entrance of the town, near a building called the
Harinera, we are placing mortars of 50 and 81.
"I like to hear that ... What about the artillery?"
"Almost ready on the other shore, or so they tell me."
-Almost?
-Almost.
"Well, they're late, right? ... Our batteries should already be pulling."
"Well, you know how these things are." Anyway, for how close we are here to
the fascists, it is better not to shoot for the moment. In case something happens to us.
"There is a lot of traitor," Olmos mutters.
The lieutenant clicks his tongue, uncomfortable, and glances at the commissioner.
"Let's not start, man ... that we spend our lives seeing traitors down to the
stones.
"Well, they left us stranded in Teruel."
"Okay, Olmos." Do not exaggerate.
"What am I going to exaggerate." The Peasant ran out of there like a rat.
Another glance from the lieutenant to the commissioner, who listens without opening his mouth.
—Stop it as hell, now we are in the Ebro and not in Teruel ... What there are are the
normal problems in an operation like this. In addition, the criminals have opened the
gates of the reservoirs, the water has risen in level and makes everything more difficult. Almost we were
It has the only footbridge that we have been able to build.
"What about the tanks?" Panizo is interested.
"Russian T-26s are due to arrive, which are great." That, of course, as
Let's find a way to bring them to this shore
"How is it going on the other sites?"
"As far as I know, well ... The cemetery is already ours, the west python is about to be."
and the one from the east is attacked by the Fourth Battalion.
"Those in the Fourth are trash," spat out the dynamiter. And lazy that you shit.
"The fascists are looser," the officer replies.
"You won't say it because of those in front of us," Panizo points out to the street. These sell
expensive the skin.
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—I'm talking about those who have taken refuge in the python, fleeing from the beating we have given them ...
Temp waste, it is what it is. Those of the Fourth will be able to with them.
"Why isn't our aviation coming?" Olmos asks, charging back.
The lieutenant hesitates for a moment, and it is the political commissioner, Cehegín, who takes the floor.
"He will come, do not hesitate," he said, bell-ringer. In time.
"Well, I'm glad, because the only one that's hanging around up there is Franco's."
The other looks at you, censor. Annoyed by the inconvenience.
"It's a hundred and fifty kilometers of frontage on the Ebro, comrade." You can't be at all
parts at a time.
"Yeah ... the same old story."
-And what about us? Panizo intervenes, buzzard. Do we keep attacking or do we get
comfortable?
Cehegín looks to Lieutenant Goyo to give him the junk. And this one explains the plan: fire of
mortars and machine guns to soften the rebels and attack on the building of the old
Sindicato de Labradores, across the street, from where they can approach better protected
to church. The attack, adds the officer after consulting his watch, will begin in an hour, and the
Sappers will be essential to blow up walls, houses and parapets on the approach.
"So prepare fuses and firecrackers," he concludes, "because we're going to make a noise from the
host.
One more thing, the commissioner intervenes solemnly. What to say next,
he warns, it is not because of Panizo and the other comrades present, that they are to be trusted. But he and the others
Battalion commissars have received serious instructions. The Ebro army is the vanguard of the
world proletariat. Those on the other side are mercenaries or people forced to fight, while
they are the people in arms. So no backgammon this time. No indiscipline. Nothing of
lower your head and have others raffle it.
"We are combatants proud of being one," he concludes didactically. Whoever scurries or slacks,
Whoever tries to cross over, who betrays, who shows cowardice before the enemy will be shot in the
act to set an example, without any arrest or trial ... And it is up to each one to ensure that their
comrades comply.
Lieutenant Goyo remains turned towards the street, as if he did not hear anything. Olmos and Panizo, which
they understand each other without words, they exchange a knowing glance. With his war biography and his appearance
hardened, they are not the type to squat before a commissar's star cap. That in addition,
It is rumored that he was a seminarian until 36.
For all that, Panizo allows himself to give Cehegín a twisted smile.
"And we must shoot them personally," he asks, staring at him with hard eyes.
do you plan to take care of yourself?
The other one reddens, annoyed. And swallow hard.
"They are orders," he argues. We are communists, and I issue orders.
—Well, let's see when you broadcast that they bring us some chorizo sandwiches.
"And tobacco," Olmos adds.
At that point, uncomfortable, the lieutenant stops looking at the street, glances at the commissioner and
he turns to the dynamiters.
"Come on, let's get down to business… Let's see if we can communicate with the Cancela squad."
Page 52
IV
Across the square, under the church tower, Santiago Pardeiro chews a piece of
dried jerky as he stands on the toes of his boots, cautiously peering over the barricade
that his legionaries have mounted in one of the intersections: a wagon reinforced with sacks
terraces, wooden beams, furniture and mattresses brought from nearby houses. It is not very solid nor
it would take a cannon shot, but it allows one to cross from the church to the adjoining houses without
shoot yourself on the way.
The young ensign's obsession is that his people continue to be spread out along the main street,
although maintaining communication between her. That will make it possible to coordinate the fires, which
orders circulate well and that in case of withdrawal everyone can do so calmly and
supporting each other.
He knows that he sends professionals, and on that side he feels calm; but the chaos of a fight
it is full of unforeseen events. He checked it in May, during the red counter-offensive around Lleida,
when a perfectly laid out plan fell apart in fifteen minutes, the company lost everyone
the other officers and a third of the people, and Pardeiro, in his baptism of fire, saw himself in command
of a force that was no longer struggling to conquer the assigned position, but to retreat and
survive.
"Sergeant Vladimir!"
-At your service!
-Come here.
The Russian, who was waiting at the side entrance of the nearest building, clinging to the wall with the
cornet of the company, the assistant Sanchidrián and two liaisons who follow in the footsteps of their ensign
Like faithful dogs, he approaches the barricade, lowering his head a little, with a Beretta submachine gun
18/30 hanging on the back.
"Mande, my ensign."
Pardeiro studies the square again and then looks up at the church tower, appraising. The
machine gun stationed there remains silent. The ensign has ordered that neither that nor the other
machine to pull again until there is no serious movement to the other side. You need to save one
ammunition that is not yet in short supply, but not in excess.
"Look a little more." Look ... Do you see the town hall and the school?
-I see them.
—I still think that when they come they will do it from there, take a good look: on that side, where
narrow the square and the street begins. Next to the arcades.
The other one squints as he considers the thing with his Tartar eyes. Then
nods without saying anything. Pardeiro points to the adjoining building, the old Labrador Union to which
everyone, even since the liberation of the town, continues to call like that.
"The union needs to be strengthened… Put four or five more men inside, some of the best."
-Right now.
"Get them out of where they make the least hole, and let them take one of the machine guns there ...
They must at all costs maintain contact with the one they call Casa del Médico, which is next door,
because reds can sneak in there.
Page 53
Formal as if he had lunch military ordinances and legionary creed - he behaved the same in the
Balaguer Bridge, when people fell like flies - the Russian plays the chapiri.
"To order, my Ensign."
"Well, come on, they'll assault us any minute."
War, Pardeiro reflects as he watches the sergeant go, is above all a matter of
arithmetic: God helps the bad when they are more than the good. Of the one hundred and twenty-nine
men with whom he entered the town, plus the reinforcement of nine neighbors affiliated to the Falange who
They submitted volunteers, he has already lost three. It happened about an hour ago, when the first
Reds appeared near the square, the fighting began and the building of the
town hall, the only one that remained on the other side. Enemies came everywhere,
defenders were forced to retreat, and the last three, two Falangists and a legionary,
they were hunted from behind in the middle of the race. Now they are motionless specks lying on the ground, together
to the pylon of the square.
These casualties leave the available force at 135 men, the young ensign laments intimately.
Very few for what is coming. Anyway, the machine located in the bell tower
it stopped the Reds when they wanted to cross, and continues to do so. They too must
have, at this point, a few casualties. The proof is that they are very still on the other side,
Paqueando a little but without rearing his head yet.
Pardeiro knows that this will not last, and that they will try again. What was before was just a
score, a fix new attack positions. That is why he has been visiting the position for a while
her own, checking that her people are properly disposed, that the two Hotchkiss and the two
Bergmann lined up what they should and that men, barricaded in portals, windows and balconies to
along three hundred meters of line, they are able to resist.
Something else worries him besides ammunition: water so his people can drink while
Fight. The sun beats down, the heat is intense - for a long time he has been in his shirt sleeves himself
- and in such conditions thirst can become unbearable. Outside of the wounds, there is no torture
higher. In the fighting for Cinca he saw hardened men crumble after two days without testing
a drop of water. People fighting fiercely for a well or a ditch, or to recover
canteens of dead or wounded enemy soldiers.
At times, the ensign stretches out his ear trying to decipher the distant noise of gunfire and explosions
that sounds on the outskirts of town. It appears intense in the lift python, indicating that the
Commander Induráin, if he's still alive, still hold on; and weak, just a spaced package,
on the western side. That gives him a bad feeling, because if the Reds have taken that python, the
company could be flanked on the left. In such a case there would be no choice but to withdraw to the
point that Pardeiro has established as an alternative stronghold, three streets further back: the building of the
Cooperativa de Aceites.
"Zusordenes, my Ensign."
Who says it is Corporal Longines, who has just appeared accompanied by Tonet, the boy
from town. Next, Pardeiro hears the words that he has been most afraid of.
"There is hardly any water."
The officer attends, annoyed, while the legionnaire gives his report. The boy and he, he says, have
half town, house to house. A woman and a couple of old men who stayed in the
basements lent a hand, and thus they have been able to gather half a dozen full jugs and some
carafes. But the wells are dry and the jars are broken.
"Apart from what is left in each of the canteens," the corporal sums up, "we didn't even go out
four sips per man.
Page 54
The ensign remains impassive while listening, but feels as if the world fell on him
over. Between them and the river the reds interpose, and behind them there is only a well between the people
and the hermitage of Aparecida. Too far.
To hide his anxiety, Pardeiro looks at his wristwatch and pretends to be interested in what time it is.
it is, and then take another look over the barricade.
"Still, drinking ..." adds the corporal.
The ensign looks at them again, interested, and sees how Longines and Tonet exchange a glance
accomplice while the kid runs a finger through his dirty nose and smiles as if hiding a secret.
The legionnaire has put a hand on his shoulder.
"If it's drinking, there's something." At least that's what the pistol says.
-I do not understand.
Longines shakes Tonet a little, with rude affection.
"Tell him, come on."
"The Wine Cooperative," he says.
Pardeiro takes a moment to understand. At last he raises his eyebrows.
"Is there wine there?"
"No one has taken it."
-A lot?
"A cellar with large jars."
"It came clear from the land, my lieutenant," Longines points out as he takes down his canteen
-. With your permission, I have tasted it in one of the houses and they tell me that it is the same
cooperative ... Try it, if you like.
The canteen is full. Weighing it, Pardeiro looks askance at the legionnaire.
"You had no water left, or what?"
"Not a splash, my Ensign."
-Already.
He raises the canteen to his lips while the boy and the legionnaire watch him closely. Knows
good and fresh, check. A strong wine, high graduation. But quench your thirst, which is what
it is about. After wiping your mouth with the back of one hand, screw on the cap and return the
canteen to the legionnaire.
"Is the cooperative ours?"
-Yes. It's one block from here, just behind the church.
-I did not know, I did not know it.
"Neither do I ... The dwarf came up with it."
Pardeiro touches the child's shaved head, who squints his eyes like a puppy when receiving
a caress.
"Good work, Tonet."
"He asked me for one of our chapiri," says the corporal, touching his legionary sparrow.
Pardeiro nods.
"Well, when you can, give him one." He has earned it.
—Zusorders.
Anyway, thinks the ensign, it is possible that in a while there will be more of their hats and
those in front. That is what goes through his head, although he does not say it.
"Post a sentry at the coop door and secure supplies." Let wine mix
with the water we have, half and half, to double the supply.
-And later?
Page 55
"We'll see later."

—Zusorders.
Watching the legionnaire and the boy leave, Pardeiro returns to tactical calculations: strengths
and weak in their defensive line, distribution of men and weapons, withdrawal routes. Late or
early, think, some kind of help will come. That, at least, was what the commander said
Induráin before going to the Levante python. But that sooner or later haunts the thought of
Pardeiro.
The difference between early and late may well be the faint line that separates the
triumph from defeat, life from death.
After taking another look over the parapet, he makes his way to the entrance to the Syndicate of
Labradors to meet with the cornet, the assistant and the two links. He does it without bending the
body, knowing that he is exposed to someone, from the other side of the square, hitting him in
head. He walks with tense muscles, clenches his jaw, trying not to fan the
He passed; like a Tercio officer is supposed to do. You have a few days left to comply
twenty years old and wears a star stamped in a black patch over the left pocket of
shirt: provisional ensign, effective corpse, veterans say. And nothing closer to the truth.
Half of them die in the first fight; and for Santiago Pardeiro this is already the second.
Hopefully, he thinks, he'll live long enough to be a veteran someday. To see their
parents, live and work in a Spain in peace, free from insolent and criminal rabble, where
order, work and justice. A nation more dignified and honored than the one it has known until now.
Last night he tried to explain that in the letter he had half written when he went to sleep,
ignorant that they were going to wake him up with the news of the red offensive. He wears it folded in the
wallet, in a breast pocket, waiting to be finished, and contains the answer to a
Question from his war godmother, the young woman in the photo whom he has never seen in person:
Dear María Cristina, my friend, dear godmother:

You ask me in your last letter the reasons why I fight. Why i showed up
Volunteer without waiting to be called up. I am from a modest family, little bourgeois.
My father, with great effort, set up a small business in Lugo and with his work and sacrifice,
helped by my good mother, he was able to give life and education to four children. They gave nothing to
my family neither the left nor the right and neither intervened in politics. My father neither
He never even voted, because he said how opportunistic some were as well as others. I, older than
brothers, I was privileged to facilitate my studies: a career for once situated to be able to
help the rest.
However, this messy and chaotic Republic changed everything. The bad faith of
politicians, gunmen with impunity, the absence of authority and public order, mobs
illiterate dominating our lives, irresponsible demagogy, the caciquismo of
the left, which was as disastrous as the one on the right (someone born in a
region that knows a lot about caciques), led Spain into the abyss. They made her a great
Christ crucified for all.
It is not true, as the Reds say, that four soldiers and bankers rose up against him
village. I am a people, my family is a people, and we were, like many others, fed up with so much
impunity, so much barbarism, so much if you are not with me you are against me. Who, seeing that
You insult your mother or your girlfriend, your sister, would you not come to their defense? Well, the offense that
They make Spain their enemies, destroying it is more than an insult. It's a crime.
Long live Russian Spain! Those irresponsible scoundrels shouted. They forced us to take sides
even those of us who didn't have it. They forced us to choose, even if we weren't enthusiastic either
Page 56
the others. They faced friends and even brothers, when most of us only aspired to
order, peace and work. But that's impossible when everyone has the word revolution
in the mouth. Even my poor father, having a modest business of his own, was considered
"Exploiter of the people." As for me, a simple student, the son of a working family,
I remember one day when I was going to class, when when I got off the tram some workers insulted me for
wear a tie! "We're going to hang you with her, you filthy bourgeois gentleman," they said, laughing.
insolent, with the arrogance of victors savoring their revenge. So when the military will
They raised up to put an end to this nonsense, the good Spaniards had no choice but ...
So far goes the letter that the young provisional ensign carries in his pocket, while he
he asks if he will live long enough to finish writing it. And as by way of answer, in that
moment and without warning or buzzing, a projectile explodes in the square, beyond the barricade,
hurling shrapnel and stone shards through the air.
The outburst takes Pardeiro by surprise and makes him instinctively flinch, bewildered,
while watching those at the door throw themselves on the floor, Zamora style.
It's a mortar, you understand. Small caliber, probably a 50. It fell from above and into
very curved parable, and that's why he hasn't heard it coming. An enemy shot that has fallen short by only
fifteen or twenty meters, and whose range they will undoubtedly correct in the next shots.
The dust from the blast has yet to dissipate when the other side breaks with multiple
echoes the characteristic stammer, as of beating tin, of a pair of Maxim machine guns
Russian women shooting against the church steeple. Bullets come in short, precise streaks
well directed, pecking the tower with their clicks and then falling without force, mixed with
pieces of brick.
Then Pardeiro looks at the cornet and the links, which are still on the ground, and yells at them to warn
people to be willing. From one moment to the next, the Reds will try to cross the square.
In La Harinera, a hamlet located on the outskirts of Castellets, between the town and the river, the
command post of the XI Mixed Brigade is seething with activity. Chiefs and officers consult maps and
they issue orders, and there is a constant coming and going of armed men and links with messages.
Kneeling under a patio porch with pliers before the impatient gaze of the sergeant
Exposito, Pato Monzón works on the coupling of a telephone cable to a telephone
NK-33 campaign. After reporting on the situation in the cemetery and the west python has
reunited at last with his colleagues from the transmission section, who are busy laying lines,
They install terminals and diligently weave the spider web that will link the place with the different
Republican positions that are established as the advance progresses, as well as with the
rearguard on the other side of the Ebro.
-How's that going? The sergeant asks.
-Still nothing.
Exposito has a bad face.
"Well, the phones better be operational soon, because the Erre-Erre isn't working."
Pato looks at her, surprised. The Erre-Erre is a Philips ultra-short wave transmitter-receiver,
essential to maintain communication with the other shore. She weighs thirteen kilos and they only have one.
"But it's new, and the batteries are full." We checked it two days ago.
"Well, you see ... At the moment, we depend on the telephone cable." So get smart.
Pato has the open Bakelite box in front of him, and with the headset pressed to his ear he
quickly turn the crank to test the connection, blow, press the key, and blow again.
Page 57
Stretched across the river, along the footbridge, that line connects the command post with the
105mm six-gun battery being stationed on the left bank.
-How are you? Exposito insists.
Attentive to his own, Pato does not respond. Turn the crank again, press, blow and listen.
Behind the sergeant, striding and glancing at his wristwatch, Lieutenant
Harpo goes back and forth between them and the table installed under a canvas awning, where the Valenciana and another
companions are in charge of adjusting a ten-line field switchboard, core of
brigade communications.
The earpiece emits parasitic squeaks and throat clearing. Then a voice is heard
far away:
- «Here Vértice Campa.»
Such is the code name for the artillery position. Duck runs the back of his hand across his forehead
full of sweat and looks up at Exposito.
"We have communication."
The sergeant snatches the phone from him, listens, and turns to Harpo to give him the news:
two banks of the Ebro already communicate in the Castellets sector. Relieved, the lieutenant runs to
inform his superiors, and at the moment he returns in the company of three commanders to whom Pato
recognizes in the act: the lieutenant colonel of militias Faustino Landa, commander of the XI Brigade,
promoted in grade just a couple of weeks ago; his second in command, Major Antonio
Carbonell, and the commissary of the brigade, a guy who some call Ricardo and others the Russian, among
other things because they say it is.
"Let's see if it's true," says Landa.
He has a half-smoked cigar in his mouth, which he removes when he picks up the field phone. Press
the microphone, exchanges a few words with the other side of the Ebro and returns it, satisfied.
"The battery is almost ready… We will have artillery support in an hour and a half." And maybe before.
He points to the greater Carbonell towards the east of the town, from where a crackle of
Rifle force that is sometimes revived and at times languishes.
"Those of the Fourth Battalion will do well, as they don't finish finishing the job."
-Clear. But as long as our cannons beat the fascists - Landa says it in tone
light, between two puffs on the cigar— and do not put the pepinazos on the Fourth.
"It wouldn't be the first time," Carbonell points out.
The lieutenant colonel makes a sarcastic face. He is forty years old and broad in body, with
Workman's hands and ready pirate eyes. Asturian from Gijón, less republican than communist,
Like almost all the commanders and commissars of the Ebro army, a former usher of the
cinematographer and early affiliate of the Socialist Youth, Faustino Landa went to
Party with the people of Santiago Carrillo. Vividor, lover of good food, although it is commented
who is not a ray of war and likes to appear in the newspapers too much, enjoys the
confidence of Lister and Modesto. Prudent in military matters, he has a reputation for being one of those who
get into trouble, but they don't help you get out of it either. More gifted for defensive actions than
offensive.
"Nor the last one," Landa confirms. When there is own gunner support, it sometimes brings
It is more important to be at the target to beat than in the vicinity of it.
They all smile except this Ricardo alias el Russian or vice versa: scant blond hair, badly faced,
slightly smoked steel glasses that hide fish eyes that seem little to Pato
friendly, in keeping with what is rumored about the character. Distinguished in the repression against
Trotskyists of the POUM, it is said that the Russian has killed or made disappear more Spaniards from the
Page 58
own side than typhus, and that he is an educated and well-traveled man, capable of ordering you to be shot in
four or five languages. Apparently he has solid influences in Barcelona and Valencia, a lot
hand in the Department of Public Order, and that, they say, makes him authoritarian and dangerous. With the
The chief of the brigade is only half-dressed: one popular and almost frivolous, the other sinister and devious,
they keep their distances.
"There are traitors everywhere," says the commissioner poisonously. Even among our
gunners.
The Spanish accent is so perfect that Pato thinks that it is a hoax that it is Russian. For his
In part, Faustino Landa winks at the others and shakes his head.
"What the hell traitors ... incompetent, that's what they are." Luckily it happens to the fascists
the same.
"Are you comparing?" The commissioner is removed.
The other looks at him, mocking.
—I'm cheating myself, Ricardo. Do not write it down in your famous notebook.
After putting the cigar back in his mouth, the head of the squad raises his face and remains
listening like a hunting dog sniffing the air. Follow the shooting to the east and downtown
from the town, and a reassuring silence reigns to the west. After a moment he gives another
sucked to the pure, thoughtful. And then another. At last he turns to Lieutenant Harpo.
"I want priority for a telephone link with the people of the python Lola ... You know, Lola and
Pepa, lift and set. Get used to little names.
"Lola's name is my wife," says Major Carbonell.
"Well, they're making her pretty."
Everyone laugh. Landa always laughs at thanks; and above all, his second, that for being
career military man — Carbonell was a quartermaster in July 1936 — it often seems that
I must make him forgive. The only one who doesn't laugh, observes Pato, is the Russian.
The lieutenant colonel now addresses Harpo and Exposito.
"Send someone to Lola, and have them run a secure line there."
-At your command.
The bosses leave. When Pato stands up, the lieutenant and the sergeant are looking at her. Is
the downside of doing things right, he thinks. There is nothing worse than creating an essential.
Girl for everything.
"Do you want to go with someone else?" Harpo asks.
-Well of course.
Deep down it's true, he reflects. You want to go. You actually want to take a look around
that other side. Observe closely. So far, your first battle is looking like a
fascinating adventure. She feels whole and useful being part of everything. From effort, heroism and
fight.
"Take two telephones with two large drums of cable and a translation coil." For the
seen that python has a lot of rock, and maybe it is necessary that the line be double in the last
stretch ... Is it clear?
"Very clear."
"You will go laden like mules." Do not care?
-Not at all.
—When you arrive, ask for Captain Bascuñana or Commissioner Cabrera, who are in command of the battalion.
Will you remember the names?
-Yes.
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"Shoot through the pine forest, which protects more, but don't stray too far." Don't tense it too tight
but save cable.
"How many comrades do you need?" Exposito asks.
Pato points to Vicenta Espí, who continues to work at the field switchboard.
—La Valenciana and another one.
The sergeant looks back and nods.
"Is Margot okay?"
-I do not care.
"Well, come on, comrade ... You're already taking time."
Breaker grenades explode at fifteen meters high with white clouds and trills
treble from broken casings. Brass pods flutter sinister as they open and spread their cargo
silver, and the shrapnel buzzes between the rocks or hits them like hail, sending splinters flying
of stone. From time to time they make meat. The ground on the ridge is hard and the rocks do not offer
too much protection, so men have dug with helmets and bayonets, clawing
a few feet to cover something else.
A few steps from a Moor and as many from a soldier of the same battalion who barely
See, because they hide as much as they can and only lean out to pull, Ginés Gorguel rubs his
eyelids swollen and red, back the latch on the Mauser a quarter turn, put a comb
five rounds, squeeze with your fingers into the magazine and lock one into the
bedroom with trembling hands, clumsy, with the rush of someone who knows that life is going on it.
Chac, clack, it sounds.
It is the fifth time that he has executed such movements, and that means that he has shot twenty times towards
the blue, khaki and earth-colored figurines that laboriously ascend from the pine forest of
down the slope of the eastern python.
It will be twenty-one times in a moment, he thinks, with the next shot. The cannon of the
gun is hot. Stepping on the empty pods everywhere, lift your head a little
behind the rock that protects it, trying to expose itself as little as possible. Then he takes the rifle to his face,
stick his cheek to the butt damp with sweat and aim at two enemies, the ones
next, moving in leaps, seeking the protection of the bushes and stones
naked. They are thirty or forty meters away and you are gesturing with your arms a lot, so Gorguel
try to align it in the rifle sight.
Shoot especially those who move their arms. That's what the noncommissioned officer, wounded in the legs, said
who is behind with a pistol in his hand and two grenades nearby, ready to shoot him between
eyebrow and eyebrow to the first to chat. Shoot those bastards first, because they're officers and
curators. And when you screw it to the boss, they usually think about it.
Pam, makes the rifle, syncopating her boom with the others ringing around. Gorguel has
squeezed the trigger, and with the recoil of the gun he felt the new butt on his sore shoulder
law.
Those in front hide when the bullet raises a small dust as it bounces between the
rocks, without hitting. Bad luck.
Gorguel crouches again as quickly as he can, and after giving a sidelong glance
the noncommissioned officer who is still seated in the back, his back against a stone, watching them, bolts
another bullet. Chac, clac. Number twenty-two. He's got thirty-nine shots left to hit, figure it out, yeah
nobody distributes more ammunition.
The old Albacete carpenter feels, anguish and fear apart, an absolute despair,
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immeasurable, infinite. That of the animal caught in a trap. No matter how much he thinks he can't believe
With what he has run since last night — he has even stiffness — still being in that damn place.
Also fighting for the third time. As his father said, they even hang by force; and the
he feels the noose fixed on his neck.
Damn the legionaries of the road pawn box and the mother who gave birth to them,
he concludes desperate. If it weren't for them, at this time I could have taken those of Villadiego and
walk through Fayón, or further afield.
"You! ... Come here! ... Come, I tell you!"
Deafened by the shooting and the beating of his own heart, Gorguel is slow to notice the screams
and understand that they are addressing him. Then, relieved to stop peeking behind the stone, with
Enemy bullets now passing higher over his head, he crouches down the five steps that
They separate from the noncommissioned officer who calls him.
"Tighten this tourniquet, I can't."
The noncommissioned officer is a regular sergeant whom half an hour ago, when the Reds arrived
nearby and they started dropping hand bombs, shrapnel hit the legs. The left
shows small wounds that appear light, spatter of splinters with little blood already dried;
but the right, just below the knee, has a nice tear that, under a bandage
improvised by the casualty himself, it leaks a lot.
"You don't have a vial of iodine, by any chance?" Asks the sergeant.
"What am I going to have?"
"Too bad ... By tomorrow, sure infection."
Fresh blood, red and bright in the sun, runs slowly staining the leg to the
boot, despite the belt that the NCO has fastened above the knee.
-It hurt? Gorguel asks stupidly, just to say something.
—Of course it hurts, man ... Squeeze it better, because it seems that it has opened
a tap. And scare me the fucking flies.
Gorguel puts the rifle on the ground and obeys. The other one moans when he tightens him more
ligation. The pistol has been placed on the belly - it is a regulation Astra of 9 length - and
he clenches his teeth until they grind.
Gorguel holds the belt as best he can and wipes his bloodstained fingers on the
trouser legs.
"They should evacuate you."
"Yes, by ambulance and with a nurse holding my hand." The other rubs his nose. Not
it fucks you.
They look at each other for a moment without saying anything else. The sergeant has curly gray hair, features
sharp and large nose. He's pale from blood loss, but that doesn't seem to bring him down
too. Sweat trickles down his face soiled with dirt and grime. Like everyone, it takes two
days without shaving and his voice is hoarse with thirst. The only well is far away, and the few that
They come and go to fill the canteens of their companions it takes forever.
"How do you see it, Sergeant?"
"I don't see shit from here."
Gorguel gestures toward the men who crouch, rise, and fire between the
rocks, the wounded crawling to hide, the corpses that no one removes from where
fall. Those who are still fighting do not reach a hundred: remains of the Moroccan tabor and the battalion of
infantry annihilated during the night, and the platoon of legionnaires that reinforced them at dawn.
"I mean, can we hold out much longer?"
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The sergeant makes an ambiguous gesture.

"Ammunition we have at the moment, with which the Tercio brought," indicates the two hand pumps
next to his legs. We also have some of these.
-And the people?
The other touches the gun with one finger.
"The others, I don't know." But I assure you that, while I'm here and if I don't empty myself before
hole, you and those who are close are going to continue shooting at those who climb ... I don't know here
no one defers. Are you clear?
"Very clear."
"Then go back to your post."
Gorguel obeys, resigned. But when he picks up the rifle to leave, the sergeant grabs him for a
arm.
"Hey, tell me… Have you seen Commander Induráin?"
"Not in a while." When the reds got too close I saw him standing up, cheering for the
people. But then I lost sight of him.
The sergeant half rises with effort, to take a look. Gorguel helps him.
"They may have charged him anyway," he suggests.
"Don't be a beast, man… Come on, go back to your place."
Gorguel doesn't move. He remains crouched, leaning on the rifle.
"What's going on, Sergeant?"
The other hesitates and finally shrugs his shoulders.
—Well, the reds caught us last night in our panties… But we got smart and they
It's hard to gnaw on the bone. ”He nods to the left, toward the town. Y
from what you hear from time to time, the same thing happens down there.
"Will reinforcements come?"
-Do not hesitate. You've already seen our airplanes, putting fire to those Marxists
bastards ... It's only a matter of hours. To hold on a little longer.
-If you say so…
With a slap, the sergeant chases the flies out of the wound. Then drum with two
fingers on the butt of the pistol.
"I say it and this one says it." Come on, go back to your post.
Gorguel returns to the rocks, well crouched, and once there he rises cautiously, the rifle
in front. It seems that the reds get down on something, because they no longer see anyone moving nearby: their fire
It is only a low intensity paqueo, and there are several that go down back to the pine forest
protecting itself between the bushes and the rocks. Some carry wounded. Twenty steps from the
crest, at the limit of the enemy advance, immobile bodies can be seen.
The Moor who is to the right of Gorguel also pokes his head and the two look at each other: one face
unshaven brown, with premature wrinkles and some gray mustache, under a dirty tarbus of
land that has a gallon of rope sewn on. About thirty-something long years.
"If we have the crazy rifle, not even one can escape," says the Moor, with the air of someone who knows
calico.
"Crazy rifle?"
"Machine with a lot of pum-pum followed." The Moor moves a finger in the air, as if pressing
repeatedly a trigger. Almitraladora.
"Ah."
The other sits up a bit more, looking very carefully at the slope.
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"Fucking jewels will go down shit," he adds. You see?

-I see.
—Communist bastards have a lot of face, I say. They don't believe in God.
"Not a bit."
"There are two there." Are you coming to try if they carry things?
"Go there? ... Not crazy."
"Okay, paisa." Very carefully, the Moor puts the rifle on the stone and indicates it to
Gorguel. You watch my rifle with a white eye, yes? ...
"Why don't you wait for nightfall?" The sun is already low.
"Easy, I know how." I gossip and come back God willing.
"He doesn't always want to."
"Easy, paisa."
After saying that, the Moor takes out his machete and, with it in one hand and a grenade in the other,
crawls over the stone and disappears into the bushes. Gorguel stares, interested,
while he draws his weapon to cover it, although he does not see anything. Nobody shoots on the slope anymore, and
last enemies have been safely in the pine forest.
"Where is that motherfucker going?" Asks the voice of the sergeant behind him.
"To take a look at the dead reds," Gorguel replies, without turning around.
The noncommissioned officer laughs.
"The jamidos are crazy." And that one, in particular.
"Do you know him?"
-Well of course. It's Corporal Selimán… A chivani from my platoon, with barnacles in his eggs.
The Moor returns in ten minutes, crawling as he left. Smile from ear to ear, and with
triumphant gesture shows Gorguel his loot: a ring and two bloody gold teeth, a watch
bracelet, two purses with Republican money, two straps with ammunition, a can of tuna in
oil and a crumpled packet of Gauloises gabachos, almost whole.
"You sell a cigarette fransaui, paisa," he says, offering her one. Smoke to be güino, cheap ...
I only have no shirts.
Walking on his back with the coil pack hanging from his chest while his
companions, each with a field phone case on her shoulder, spread out on the floor
the cable that they are leaving behind, Pato Monzón enters the pine forest, where the smell surrounds them
balsamic resin. We look like, he thinks, spiders shedding web. Higher up and across the
The trees, in the python they call Lola, have ceased the crackle of rifles and the rumble of bombs.
hand. Now there is an almost complete silence that allows to hear, far away, the rumor of the combat that
continue in Castellets.
"We have already taken the position the same," La Valenciana comments as she places stones and
branches on some sections of cable, to camouflage it.
"I don't think so," says Margot, who works alongside him. Look at those.
He says this by pointing to the first men of the Fourth Battalion who appear in view: they are coming
scattered among the pines and are far from looking victorious. Some wear around the neck or in the
gorrillo the red and black colors of the FAI. They all have dirt dirty clothes, wet faces
of sweat. They move slowly, exhausted, as if aimlessly after a superhuman effort.
Even those who go in groups do so in silence and oblivious to each other, their gaze absent, as if
walked alone. They are dropped anywhere, or rather they collapse, ignite
cigarettes with insecure fingers, they lay their heads on tree trunks or on their
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macutos, closing their eyes as if to sleep.

It is the face of defeat, thinks Pato, shaken. And he does it for the first time since
know the war.
A few steps further, a few more meters of telephone cable, and the wounded begin to appear.
That is even worse.
"Okay," Duck mutters.
He was on the point of saying God help me, for the old habits - childhood in a school of
nuns— but she restrains herself in time. Some men come trudging, limping,
leaning on each other, on stretchers or blankets that support companions. His wounds bleed
still, naked or covered by improvised bandages. Thus they concentrate on a clearing
Among the pines, where there are a dozen bodies stretched out among which move and kneel
a practitioner and several orderlies, classifying them according to severity.
From time to time they pick someone up and take them to the river. From the place springs a deaf
collective groan: gloomy, prolonged, interminable, broken at times by a scream of pain or
a scream of agony.
Duck detaches himself from the coil and leaves it on the ground, sheltered by a couple of thick logs. The
Valenciana and Margot look at her, awed. It is clear that they were not expecting a show either
similar. It has nothing to do with that with the photos published by Mundo Gráfico and the others
illustrated magazines. Nor with the news in theaters.
"Stay here and hook up a phone." I'm going to find the controls.
He leaves them behind and walks in the opposite direction to the soldiers who continue to descend from the python.
"Have you seen Captain Bascuñana? ... Commissioner Cabrera?"
Some questioned look at her with curiosity and others with indifference. Many shrink from
shoulders. Among the resinous aroma of the pines, perceive the smell that emanates from all of them. They smell
sour, dirt and dirty clothes. To fear, vomit and blood.
"Look," one exclaims, astonished. Is a woman.
"For women I am now," says another. Not even Antoñita Colomé to appear, hey.
A few steps further, sheltered by a tall rock that hollows into a shallow cave, Pato
find the battalion leaders. They are in a group, sitting on the ground around a map
deployed, and from time to time someone points to the python whose slope begins to rise not far from
there, among the trees. They all wear wrinkled, torn and dirty clothes like their men, their faces
unshaven. They are covered with visor caps, berets, barracks hats, and there are not two uniforms
the same: from blue jumpsuits or rolled-up shirts to civilian clothes.
Pato walks over and raises his fist, touching his temple.
"Greetings ... Private Monzón, from broadcasting, introduces herself."
They all look up to watch her. One of them, wearing a navy blue cap and a little mustache
Clark Gable makes a gesture of relief, slapping one knee contentedly.
"About time," he says. Have you brought a phone?
Duck looks at the three bars under the red star, sewn into a patch above the pocket
left side of a faded plaid shirt.
"We bring one and the other as a spare, Comrade Captain."
-Bravo.
"Do you prefer it Russian or German?"
The officer looks at her, amused.
"Can you choose?"
-It can.
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—In that case put it Russian, why will they say.

Smile Duck.
"An Aurora, then."
"Red?"
-Clear. There is no other.
Everyone laughs, including Pato, and the captain points to his companions.
"I'm Bascuñana ... They are Captains Bosch and Contreras, and Lieutenant Patiño."
The young woman brings her closed fist to her temple.
-Pleasure. They also told me about Commissioner Cabrera.
The smiles stop and the officers look at each other reluctantly; serious suddenly. The head of
battalion makes an ambiguous face.
"The commissioner was killed in the python."
-Wow, I'm sorry.
New looks. The captain repeats the grimace.
"Not everyone feels it," he says cryptically.
He has risen to his feet as if it were costly.
"What about that phone line?"
"I have the equipment near here and the cable is down."
The other smiles. He wears the cap very tilted to the right side, with a touch of bravado
virile, and at the belt a Syndicalist Star. He's a handsome man. Fine hands, not very proletarian. How
in his early thirties. Despite the signs of fatigue, his face has a sympathetic air. Sad eyes
about a child's smile.
"Can we communicate now?"
"As soon as we connect them."
-Great.
The captain studies Pato with interest. He doesn't seem to dislike what he sees.
"Are you going to stay with us?"
"Only until I make sure the phone works."
-Pity.
At that moment, a heartbreaking groan crosses overhead, as if a gigantic blade
tear the air. Instinctively, everyone, including Pato and the captain, bow their heads. A
An instant later, a thunderous boom resounds from the python's crest. Through the branches of
the pines can be seen, above, a column of smoke and dust.
"They're our 105s," someone says.
"Well, good hours," says another. We would have been great before the attack, not after.
All congratulate, however, that their own artillery is finally in position and active when
other side of the river. In the so-called Vertex Campa. That, they comment, means that things are going to
change. That the Republican infantry will finally have the necessary support to crush the
fascists.
"With those onions, those up there are going to run like rabbits."
-We'll see.
-What I say.
The air is ripped open again, with a second boom high above the python. And after half
minute another projectile arrives. The latter comes closer, at the beginning of the slope, until the
to the point that they all crouch down again, because stones, dirt and pieces of pine jump through the air
chipped that fall too close.
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"What we lacked," says Captain Bascuñana. As the short throw fits us

they are going to bother, but good.
"We can prevent them, comrade," says Pato. We already have a phone connected to it
command post. There you can tell the Vertex Campa to correct the shot.
The other nods.
-Where do you have it?
"Ten minutes from here."
"Well come on, let's go." The battalion chief turns to one of his officers. You Bosch
control this for me while I come back. ”He points to some soldiers standing near the boundary.
of the pine forest, watching the hillside. And bring those a little further back, let's not have a misfortune.
-At your command.
The sun gilds the sky behind the west python, which is silent at that time, and the
The first shadows lengthen through the busted portals and the narrow streets of Castellets, which
During the day they have been covered with broken glass, broken tiles and fallen bricks from the
houses.
Glued to the blind spot of one of them, protected behind a car without tires or seats that
it's nothing more than a twisted sheet metal structure riddled with bullets, Julián Panizo —cigarette
in the mouth, orange tree hanging on the back, scarf around the head so that the sweat does not
fall in the eyes - set a firecracker to blow up a stone and brick wall: two kilos of
trilita in blocks of five hundred grams put in a large tin of Chiquilín cookies,
detonator, meter and a half slow fuse; double the latter, in case one fails.
-Hurry up! Whispers Olmos, crouching three steps and covering him with the orange tree,
if the fascists take the bagpipes out.
—Dress me slowly —answers Panizo, attentive to his own— “I'm in a hurry.
"As the fascists see us, they fry our chistorra."
"Hush, man ... Let me work."
Olmos approaches a little, always crouching.
"You call anything work." Let's see. Bring, help you.
Panizo slaps him away.
"Quit, damn it."
The wall is that of the old Labrador Union, and on the other side are the mercenaries of the
Third, who have been defending themselves there like cats upside down for hours. Attempts by
to dislodge them have proven useless, especially since one of their machine guns, the one
from the church, continue along the square and the main street. At the cost of effort and blood,
Republicans have managed to cross and set foot in that part of town, taking one of the houses
contiguous to the union. And if they manage to get hold of it, they will try to take over the church during the
night, infiltrating the houses behind.
"How's that going, compadre?" Olmos insists.
"Shut your mouth."
Olmos begins to hum between his teeth The Young Guard while Panizo, very concentrated,
manipulates the explosive with mechanical movements that he repeated a hundred times when he placed
almost dark holes in the damp bowels of the mine where the wages were earned: the same
from which for nineteen years, from the age of fourteen, he was returning home with a meager
salary to feed a woman, four children, and a father with lungs gnawed away by
silicosis. The mine where, upon learning of the fascist uprising against the Republic, he and others
Page 66
colleagues, Olmos included, threw the manager and two foremen into a well after
kill them with blows of their beak, and then they did the same with the village priest - the mayor, who was
of the CEDA, narrowly escaped them - and the Civil Guard sergeant, a certain Peña, who had
tortured a brother of Olmos during the mining strike of 34. The priest died praying and the
others crying; But the sergeant rolled the bag pretty well, calling them red motherfuckers and
spitting in their faces. As Panizo said, equanimous, he was a bastard with balconies facing the street, but
you had to recognize a couple of eggs.
Do not give him peace or barracks,

peace or barracks ...
Keep humming Olmos, softly. After taking a drag on the cigarette, the ash of which falls on the
trilita, Panizo connects the two wicks, looks from side to side, and extends them close to the wall,
so that they are not seen too much when they smoke and encourage the fascists to come out to extinguish them.
The three and a half minutes that it will take to consume can be long or short, depending on how you look at it.
"Dressed for sentencing," he says.
-It was time.
"You will do it next time, asshole."
"Don't fit."
Calmly, the dynamiter applies the ember of the cigarette butt to the end of one wick and then to the other.
"Let's go to Pénjamo."
The tarry gunpowder hisses as it ignites and smokes, and the two companions recoil in
squatting, walking backwards, like ducks, watching for someone to appear. At that time barely
Gunshots are heard, except for intermittent pacing and bursts from enemy machines that,
from the church and another nearby building, they continue to beat the square and the main street at intervals.
Throughout the afternoon, every fifteen minutes, systematic as if it were triggered by a stopwatch in
hand, a mortar shell has been falling in the fascist positions; but that fire is
suspended an hour ago, due to the proximity of their own infantry.
"And here comes Manolo," says Panizo, finishing counting.
As he does so, he lies on the ground, close to Olmos, his eyes closed and his hands behind his neck,
his mouth open so that the shock wave does not burst his eardrums.
Puuum-bah, it sounds, thunderous.
It is Manolo himself, indeed. A double muffled echo reverberates violently throughout the
houses and the street, shaking the ground, making glass shatter and the neighboring walls vibrate,
From which gypsum dust falls and mixes with the acrid and black smoke from the bomb.
"Someone was nearby," says Olmos.
It is true. On the other side of the blown-up wall, behind the huge hole in it, now emerges a
long, endless scream; a human throat screaming its desperate agony, its wounds, its
mutilation. Someone hit squarely by the explosive charge and who, unfortunately, has not
still dead.
"They are legionnaires," says Panizo, satisfied. Fuck them.
-Yes.
The scream lasts almost half a minute, without a pause, as if whoever emitted it used all the air
and the energy you have left. Afterwards, the voice of the wounded is drowned out by the exploding of the bombs
hand that a dozen Republican shock sappers, after attending the race between the
smoke not yet dissipated, they spew out of the hole in the wall, before peering into it and watering it with
rifle shots.
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While Pato Monzón and Captain Bascuñana walk together under the trees, the sun
declining, the sky reddens to the west, between the branches of the pines. The soldiers who
They arrived scattered, they have been grouped together and now they are lying or sitting on the ground.
"You did well," the captain tells them as he passes them. It will come out better
next time.
Some greet him by raising their fists or shaking their heads. Others look at it
silent, indifferent.
"We already have artillery, comrades ... It'll be better next time."
They don't seem like men willing to climb the python next time, thinks Duck. But it doesn't say.
Bascuñana seems to guess his thoughts.
"They did what they could," he justifies them. We ordered them to go up, and they went up. Without artillery,
without aviation. Not even our mortars have arrived yet ... There were only stones and bushes
to protect yourself.
He takes a few more steps, shrugs, and nods as if to himself.
"They did what they could," he repeats.
Duck goes to his side, listening with extreme attention. Since last night, in this hard
discovery of war as the combat of men against men, everything is new to her.
It has nothing to do with the fascist bombings of Madrid, horrible as they are, or with
what they imagine in the rear.
"Some of them are very young."
—Yes… Less than three weeks of training and hardly knowing the order of combat. If they
You ask why they are here, they will answer: «Because they put me in a truck with other
Twenty-somethings of my people.
He takes off his cap to wipe the sweat from his forehead and puts it back on.
—Before going up to the attack, the political commissar of the battalion gave the people a harangue and
He ended by saying, 'See that python? Well, the Republic needs it »… And do you know what he answered
one? ... "Well, the Republic could come personally to take it."
"And what did the commissioner tell you?"
"I told him: 'You're the Republic, you idiot.'
He is silent for a moment with a sad, thoughtful smile.
"But if there are no others," he concludes, "what are we going to do?"
"There are also some that seem too old," observes Pato. Are they all volunteers?
-Not. Those you say are 40-year-old reservists. And the others, bounced off a hundred
sites… This battalion was formed two months ago. After all, a soldier is not just a rifle and
fifty cartridges. It needs to be done, and few have had time.
They continue through the pine forest, avoiding the trees. Sometimes they rub lightly, shoulder to
shoulder, and Pato smells the earth and sweat of the man walking beside him.
"That's why I tell you that they have done too well," he continues. The best they could.
Good thing the officers, Bosch and the others, are good.
"Are all the commanders from the Party?"
The captain's smile is accentuated.
-Not all.
He walks a few steps in silence and still smiling, under Pato's gaze.
"I come from the Marines in Cartagena," he adds. I was a sergeant and I was one of those
they kept loyal… you know what I mean?
-Well of course. But there weren't too many like that.
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"There were some, mostly non-commissioned officers." I initially walked through Madrid with the column
Del Rosal as a military adviser, and that was a disaster: bricklayers, plumbers, office workers,
railroad workers, students with too much life to squander… Brave, but they ignored everything.
They did not obey orders, they attacked singing The International, they fell like flies and left
running through the mountains ... At last it was understood that a real army was needed, and in the
Antifascist School of Valencia, to the professionals of the Army and Navy, of those who before
They distrusted us, they gave us promotions and commands. And here I am.
"Then you're not a communist," Pato concludes.
"I see you're a smart girl."
The captain stops to look around, among the pines, fixing the path on his head to
the return.
"War has some visual art," he says absently.
Then he looks at the young woman as if she had just fallen into something.
-What is your name?
—Patricia.
-And what are you doing here?
"The same as you, Comrade Captain."
The other smiles again: a pleasant smile that twists his mustache and accentuates his resemblance
with the movie actor.
-You are from Madrid?
-Yes.
"You have studies, or so it seems."
—I worked at Standard Eléctrica, on July 18 I volunteered and they assigned me to
Telefónica… I wanted to sign up for the front, but they wouldn't let me. You are missing in other places,
they said. You are a qualified technician, but you have to train yourself better.
"They were right." Bascuñana gives him another curious glance. Had you been in combat
before?
"It's my first time, but I know what war is." The bombings and the dead people ... All
Madrileños we know it.
-Of course.
He starts walking and she follows him.
"Why are you a communist, Comrade Patricia?"
It takes the young woman to respond. Hearing his name from the mouth of that almost unknown man
produces a strange insecurity. And in a way, pleasant.
"Because it is the only Spanish party that is almost entirely workers," he answers after a moment.
-. And that means work, discipline, efficiency, silent heroism ...
—And little democracy.
"Democracy is overrated," she says warmly. It's just a form of government
in which every four years the tyrant is changed.
"Yes, I know ... It is defended until it is no longer needed." A simple phase prior to
dictatorship of the proletariat.
"You said that, Comrade Captain."
Bascuñana contemplates it with renewed interest.
"But you don't belong to the working class," he says. You are an educated girl and you had a good
bourgeois work.
"Also eyes to see and ears to hear ... I didn't feel like being taken for one of those
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who raise their fists every so often, but those who are more concerned with having their hair darken
because hospitals require hydrogen peroxide.
Again the friendly smile. Thoughtful
"A lot like that, right?"
-Some.
"And the communists don't dye their hair?"
She runs her hand over her shaved head.
"I don't dye it."
He thinks about it a little more and after taking a few steps he nods with conviction.
"Franco is death," she adds emphatically. And we are life.
"Wow." There is a soft, almost friendly mockery in the man's tone. A communist
romantic… That's almost an oxymoron.
"I don't know what an oxymoron is."
—Two opposite words that go together, complete and contradict each other.
"I don't contradict myself."
—Romanticism is more typical of anarchists.
"I hate anarchists."
The captain's open laugh sounds.
"Then stay away from my men."
Duck doesn't pay much attention to that. The memory of the young man who said goodbye in a
station in the rain, the disappeared in Teruel, grips her suddenly like remorse.
As if that conversation, or what he felt with her, somehow betrayed him. Fortunately,
think, they are very close to the field phone. From the end of the conversation.
"Because of my experience in commanding a mob, they gave me this battalion," he says suddenly.
Bascuñana. Which is certainly not the jewel of the Republic ... Thank goodness, as I told you, that
I have good officers, half communists and half socialists. We get along well, and between all
we do what we can. A combat unit is not a democracy, but many do not know
find out.
Now Pato nods vigorously.
"Without discipline there is no army," she thinks convinced, seeking the relief of ideas. And the
The only noble, justified discipline is ours. Nothing comparable to the criminal machinery of the
fascists.
"We do agree on that, Comrade Patricia."
He seems to tease again, softly. She maintains the serious gesture. Stubborn
"I suppose the commissioner ...
I was going to say that surely, before falling into the attack on the python, the political commissioner of the
battalion would have done a good job of framing the unit; but something in the expression
of her companion makes her shut up.
"Perico Cabrera was an orthodox man, very imbued with his mission," he says, and makes a
strange pause. Maybe too strict.
Pato has the instinct for dialectics. The habit.
"What does that mean, in a commissary?"
-Nothing out of the ordinary. He did his job and he did it well. Thanks to him he acquired the battalion
certain ideological consistency ... And when we had problems with people, he knew how to solve them by
the fast track, shooting without fuss: three young deserters and two alligators
insubordinate members of the FAI… Cabrera was not the man to be fooled.
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There is something in his tone that makes Pato look at him more closely. Sad eyes contrast
now, even more, with the almost childish smile. He's an attractive man, he thinks despite himself,
uncomfortable with herself. With that carefree way of smiling and the way of moving. And also
that smell that, despite the dirt and sweat - or perhaps because of that, he deems unsafe -
she has something masculine that disturbs her.
"How did the commissioner die?" He is interested, to dilute such thoughts.
The other looks at her for a moment, evaluative. What if he hesitated to speak or not.
"Oh, like a hero," he says at last. How it is ensured that the commissioners must die.
Harassing the men in the assault.
After saying that, he pauses, which Pato thinks is too long.
"And shot in the back," he adds suddenly.
She looks at him with a start.
-In the back?
"That's what they told me." Surely people had been encouraged again when a chinazo
fascist hit him from behind ... If not, it is not explained. True?
The smile widens for a moment and then disappears dry, as if it had never been there.
Now only sad eyes remain.
"A hero, as I said ... A pride for the Republic." Commissioner Cabrera died as
a hero.
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The train cars are uncomfortable and grimy, with no glass in the windows, and the men from
the shock company of the Tercio de Montserrat are accommodated as they can, dozing supported
one in another, pressed together on the hard wooden seats. Aisles and luggage nets
they are crammed with weapons and equipment: carabiners, bags, boxes of ammunition. Smells of humanity
dirty and tired.
The requetés have been like this for twenty-four hours, from Calatayud, where the company, reorganized
After his activity at the Huertahernando front, he rested while waiting to meet with the
rest of the third. The red offense, however, speeds things up, and the 157 components of the
assault unit have been dispatched ahead, hurried into the first available train
to strengthen the national positions in Castellets del Segre.
The train comes to a halt with a dry screech and clatter of wagon bumps. Startled, Corporal Oriol
Les Forques — a pleasant brown face, very short hair, a good plant — who dozed
leaning on a colleague's shoulder, he is about to fall to the ground.
"Collins," he mutters.
Blinking, he sits up and glances out the window at the platform where the gray light
leaden dawn begins to fade the shadows: just clarity for Les Forques
Reach for the sign hanging on the marquee.
"We're in Bot," he exclaims.
The owner of the shoulder he was dozing against also opens his eyes and rubs them with his
fists. He is skinny, blond-haired, and wears sideburns like Zumalacárregui. His name is Agustí Santacreu
And, like Les Forques, he is a native of Barcelona, born and raised just like him on the Rambla de
Catalonia. Former student of Philosophy and Letters. The two are neighbors and friends since
childhood: they were together in the Escolapios de Sarriá, they wooed the same girls, they escaped
to France on July 21, 36, when the uprising failed in Catalonia, and like other escapees
from the red zone re-entered the Dancharinea pass to enlist in the army
national. They are twenty-one years old only three months apart —Santacreu is the oldest— but
They are war veterans with many shots to the eyes, memory and instinct. Both are counted
among the scarce fifty survivors of the bloody battle at Elbow, near
Belchite, where the Tercio de Montserrat was almost annihilated, with 142 dead including
all officers and sergeants counted.
"Bot is already Catalonia," Santacreu falls suddenly.
Oriol Les Forques's eyes sparkle under the beret with the sewn-on cape braid. Support a
hand on his friend's arm and squeeze hard.
"Exactly, Agustí ... We set foot on our land for the first time in two years."
The name of the station is spread across the car. Now there are already several who are leaning out to look
and they repeat the name of the place with an almost religious anointing: Bot, Catalonia at last. Some clap and
they wake up the companions who were still sleeping. The grunts and yawns turn to screaming
enthusiasm.
"Down, requetés! ... End of the journey!" A voice shouts along the platform.
The men obey, loosening their aching limbs. Then they take their equipment and
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they go down to the platform, where they begin to line up by squads and platoons. Between them moves
phlegmatic, wagging his tail, Durruti, the company's mascot hound. Some bundle up with
the blankets turned into capes, since dawn is cold despite the time of year. Everybody
have an empty stomach, because in the last twenty-four hours not more than one
chusco of bread and a can of squid per head; and even the most fervent Carlist among them
he would gladly give his red beret in exchange for a latte: his first Catalan latte.
But nothing is arranged, and the company waits on its feet after taking cover in formation, while the
Captain Don Pedro Coll de Rei calls the roll.
—Aiguadé.
-Present!
"Brufau."
-Present!
"Calduch."
-Present!
"Calvell."
-Present!
"Dalmau."
-Present!
"Dencás."
-Present!
—Estadella.
-Present!
They are all from Catalonia, coming from the most diverse social strata of the four
provinces: families of the upper bourgeoisie and even aristocratic families of rancid Carlist tradition,
students, workers, employees, civil servants, farmers, all have in common, in addition to the
language - the Tercio de Montserrat boasts of speaking in Catalan -, a deep Catholicism and a
visceral hatred for the Marxists and separatists who have torn apart their land. They are volunteers, and in
their ranks are brothers, parents and children.
"Fabregat."
-Present!
—Falgueras.
-Present!
—Gabalda father.
-Present!
—Gabaldá son.
-Present!
"Moaning."
-Present!
Formed in a resting position with his friend Santacreu, both hands resting on the
barrel of the rifle - the rosary as a bracelet on the right wrist, next to the
identification—, Oriol Les Forques listens to the monotonous litany. Most of the stories
of those around him are similar to yours: many of them hardened in street fighting
against the anti-Spain of Azaña, Negrín, Largo Caballero and Companys, revolted and defeated in
the first days of the Uprising, those who were able to escape the shootings in the cemetery of
Montcada, the gutters of La Rabassada and the moats of the castle of Montjuich have been reaching the
Tercio de Montserrat and the shock company by different routes, some after fighting in others
Page 73
places and units, and the rest as recent recruits. His fighting spirit is very high, tinged
patriotic and religious fervor - there is no better soldier, they maintain, than a requeté after
Communion—: mass and sacraments in charge of the pater Don Ignasi Fontcalda, medals under the shirt and
stop bullet with the Sacred Heart of Jesus sewn to the chest. All have received helmets from
new steel, of the Trubia model, but they have it hanging from the bag and no one uses it. Your pride
It is to enter the fire wearing only the red beret.
-What do you think? Santacreu murmurs.
"We have a wedding tomorrow," said Corporal Les Forques in the same tone. There will be
tomato, and well fried.
They are together in formation while roll call continues. Les Forques is taller than its
friend, to whom it carries almost a head. Like many colleagues, in the butt of the Mausers
Oviedo have a picture of La Moreneta attached. Although both have studies, neither of
they have opted for the provisional ensign course. They prefer the Catalan third, the language, the
comrades.
Santacreu twists the gesture.
"They haven't given us a cup of chicory ... And look at the captain: he's going to waste the platform so much
go from one place to another.
See Les Forques at Don Pedro Coll de Rei, who looks less like a soldier than an aristocrat
in a hunt: three six-pointed stars in the red beret, well-groomed beard, good plant, cane
for a walk that usually sways with indifference. Not even the weapon his assistant carries is
regulation, but a superb Sarasqueta with two barrels. He took command of the company
crash only two months ago, but everyone knows that before that he won the military medal in the
Northern campaign, in the hand-to-hand combat of Peña Benzúa, with the Tercio de Lácar.
"That's in a hurry." You know him… We are thirty miles from the front.
—As long as the remigios have not brought him a little more here at this time.
Oriol Les Forques smiles. The remigios comes to the reds for a humorous broadcast of
National Radio that depicts them as lazy, cowardly, and scoundrels: The militiaman Remigio pa la
war is a wonder.
"We'd less have to walk, in that case."
"Well, hey, look, you're right there," Santacreu answers. As the pater says, God squeezes,
but it doesn't drown.
The company is full; and with a curt command, the dog clinging to his heels, the captain
Coll de Rei makes her get going. Without too much military protocol, in line of noise, the
requetés leave the platform behind the flag with the cross of San Andrés that he carries on his shoulder
Sergeant Buxó, and they walk in the dawn light that has not yet settled.
"Goodbye to all hope of breakfast," says Santacreu when he verifies that the company
border the town and take the direction of Batea.
After half an hour of walking, when the clarity becomes firm, the requetés receive the order
divided into two rows, one on each side of the road, in order to better disperse if the
enemy aviation. They walk almost all the time in silence, saving strength, between resounding
bayonets, canteens and aluminum plates on rifle bolts and holsters.
gas masks, of which none retain the regulatory content, as they are used to
save the tobacco and the individual cure pack.
Boots rattle messily on the gravel of the road. Sometimes to fool a
While empty stomachs, some chorus a song from their Carlist great-grandparents:
Mare, mare, come carlins.
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Tites, tites, totes a dins ...
A little further on, they come across three mourning women carrying bundles of firewood, and
see them stand to the side, undecided whether to raise their fist or arm. Some partridges take flight
in a nearby wheat field, and Durruti throws himself after them, returning a little while frustrated and with his tongue
outside. Like a rosary of poppies, the double row of red berets stretches down the road,
while Oriol Les Forques breathes with delight the gentle breeze that comes from the pine forests bringing
aromas of resin, fennel, thyme and rosemary.
It already smells of the Mediterranean, he thinks. To Catalonia.
"It's a beautiful day," he tells Santacreu, who is walking ahead with his rifle hanging from a
shoulder.
"It will be more so if we eat something," growls the other. Ad mensam sicut ad crucifix.
Les Forques feels a double pride: to be back in their land and to do it in combat, won
each step with effort and dangers. Demonstrating the separatists of the Generalitat - that
opportunistic and infamous mob— that not all Catalans are submissive slaves or rabble
maddened by Marxist ravings; and also the rest of the Spanish, including the generalissimo
Franco, who despite the old gunmen, the failed Uprising, the armed mobs and the Czechs
where torture and murder are carried out, there is another noble, loyal Catalonia that does not surrender and fight. What is
willing to erase with her blood, at last, the mistrust that a Catalan surname, speak the language
Catalan, has infiltrated the hearts of so many Spaniards who, misinformed, measure everyone with the
same standard. That is why the Tercio de Montserrat is so important, he thinks. For what it symbolizes and
give back.
"We are back in the nostra terra, Agustí," he insists, satisfied. There is less for a
vermouth with gin and a hot bath at the Ritz ...
"Too bad Freixes, Riera, and the others aren't here to see us."
"They see us from heaven."
-It is true.
There they are, of course, Les Forques sincerely believes. Enjoying the glory of God. Went up
directly from Elbow, saving themselves a purgatory that they had already suffered in life:
Castany, Padrós, Ensign Alós, the three brothers Sábat, also brothers Juan and Joaquín
Figa, the Gubau father and son ... They and all the others, those who succumbed fighting until
last cartouche among the ruins of the town; those who, wounded, were shot by the Reds and the
that, when the last ones standing tried to reach Belchite by breaking the fence at the
bayonet — only Les Forques, Santacreu, and forty-two others succeeded — they left
staying on the way. Requetés worthy, all. Men of faith and honor. Brave Catalans.
-Planes! Someone yells.
Distant rumble of engines, black dots flying low on the horizon from the west. Is
true.
-Scatter!
Captain Coll de Rei blows his whistle and the two rows run and unravel on either side of the
road, falling to the ground. Some raise the Mausers, and Lieutenant Cavallé orders to prepare
Chauchat 8mm machine guns, just in case.
But it is a false alarm. These are two national Chirris with the black cross painted on the
tail rudder. And when they flew over the company and warned it down there, one of the pilots raised a
arm in greeting.
Still lying in the uncut wheat, the men watch the planes go by as they
impassive, his tail stiff and his hind legs flexed, Durruti, who has not moved from the
Page 75
road, leaves a copious dog stool there, head raised like an undaunted
requested.
"In the House of the Doctor they are full, my Ensign!"

Santiago Pardeiro hears that as he cautiously looks out of an upper floor window
of the union, protected with a mattress and sandbags, and feels an unpleasant emptiness in the
stomach. A sense of impending disaster. So wait a few seconds to calm down,
motionless, looking out as if still observing the deserted square, where now only a
I shoot from time to time. Then he slowly turns his face covered in plaster and brick dust,
streaked with perspiration, towards the legionnaire who has spoken.
"Lower your voice, sweetheart." You don't have to shout.
The legionnaire almost squared off. He's a blond, light-eyed Hungarian named Körut, or something
similar. Enlisted a year and a half ago with other anti-communists of his land, he still has his
accent on vowels.
—The reds have got in there, my ensign… They have the two houses that are attached
to them and they cut us off.
His breath smells of wine and he wears his leggings unbuttoned over his espadrilles. Pass from
noon, the water is gone, the heat is pressing, and the reserves of the town cellar are emptied at
awareness. Almost all the legionnaires already fight half drunk, dirty, disheveled and
fierce, sweating what they drink.
-Are you sure?
He points to the other behind him.
"He says so, he comes from there." It is commanded by Corporal Longines.
Behind is Tonet, the village boy, as dusty as everyone. Has scratches on
knees and is dirty from crawling through the rubble. He covers himself with a legionary chapiri that
comes big. The red strawberry tree dances on his childish and obstinate forehead.
"Is it true, baby?"
Tonet nods, and reports the situation. In the House of the Doctor, left end of the line
In defense, there are Corporal Longines and eight legionaries, three of them wounded. Or was that his number
when, about to be surrounded, the corporal ordered him to escape from there and report to the lieutenant.
"There are also two women and an old man in the basement, hiding," adds the boy. They are the uncle
Arnau, his wife and their daughter, who is pregnant.
Pardeiro makes calculations on the plane he has traced in his head. I was confident in that position
to protect your defensive line from a possible enemy flanking. Drunk or taken this, the
situation becomes dangerous.
"What else did the corporal say?"
"Only that he says on his part: 'To me the Legion.'
Pardeiro makes a face. At the voice of "to me the Legion", wherever it may be, all will come, and
Rightly or wrongly they will defend the legionary who asks for help ... That is what the legionary creed says,
but the situation is not for creeds. The red lunges are tremendous, they hold back hard
penalties and there is not a single man available to reestablish contact with the fences. Take back the
Union has already been tough: one dead and three injured. Now those of the Tercio can only resist and, in
Ultimately, go back fighting. So Longines and the others will have to cope
alone.
A mortar shell explodes over the church, with a crash of broken tiles falling to the street.
It is the fifth or sixth that hits there. They all instinctively bend over except Tonet, who has been
Page 76
yesterday roaming the town like a squirrel and already has veteran liaison works. Then,
Before the silence returns, broken by some isolated shot, two rifle bursts resound
machine gunner in a nearby building, and the machine in the bell tower - so riddled with
that seems miraculous, is still standing— he joins another half glass of ojén: ra-tatatata-ta-tá. further
of some wild boars, Pardeiro concludes amused, those who drive the Hotchkiss up there are some
horny.
Look at Tonet.
"Could you go back there, baby?"
Nor does the kid think about it.
"I can, Mr. Ensign," he answers with aplomb.
"Without getting shot?"
"There is a corral, a chicken coop and a cistern… I will go without being seen, crawling through them."
-Insurance?
"Very sure." That is where I came from.
"Then tell Corporal Longines we can't do anything for him." Wait for the night and
I tried to break the fence… Got it?
-It is understood.
—And if we can't hold out here by then, we'll become strong in the Cooperativa de
Aceites, almost at the exit of town.
-Voucher.
"Can you tell them where to go in the dark, to those who manage to get out?"
-Well of course. I can stay with them and guide them.
"Good idea ... Let's see, repeat everything."
The child repeats it continuously, as if he were reciting a school lesson. Pardeiro smiles and gives him a
affectionate cheek.
"Did you go to school, Tonet?"
-Yes. Until the teacher was killed.
-The Reds?
"The Falangists."
He said it with childish indifference. As if, at his young age, killing or dying was already for him
the His
mostwords
normal
arething in thebyworld.
followed a brief and uncomfortable silence.
"You're a great link, raptor," Pardeiro finally says, just to say something.
"Thank you, Ensign."
The officer moves away from the window.
-Come on, let's go. I walk you to the door.
They go down the stairs followed by the Hungarian legionnaire. At the foot of this there are bloodstains on
the gypsum dust that covers the tiles. There, three wounded Reds were finished off with bayonets,
left behind by their comrades when the legionnaires took the building reluctantly
to take prisoners. Their bodies are now in the basement, with two other dead from before, after
take away their ammunition, hand pumps, canteens, and tobacco.
"Careful, Tonet ... Wait a bit."
Leaning out the back door, Pardeiro glances down the alley. The place is not yet
Ended by the Reds, but some marksman may have infiltrated from nearby houses.
"Cover him as he crosses and accompany him as far as you can," he tells the legionary Körut.
-To the order.
Page 77
The other checks the ammunition of his weapon and runs through the open space. To the
Arriving, he crouches next to a half-collapsed wall and, facing the rifle, watches the alley.
"Come on, baby, run." The ensign claps Tonet on the shoulder. And good luck.
The kid licks his lips, flies off like a deer, jumps on a beam
fall and disappear behind the wall. The legionary stands up, looks at the ensign, who nods, and leaves
behind the.
Pardeiro consults his watch: a quarter to two and a thousand devils heat. It is in sleeves of
shirt and sweat sticks to his torso. Too many hours, still, until it gets dark.
He does not know if the House of the Doctor will hold out until then, but he can do nothing for the corporal.
Longines and his men. You have enough to maintain the position. The young ensign knows there is
face Red troops equivalent to a battalion, and things will get worse.
Sergeant Vladimiro appears, suffocated and covered in dust, the submachine gun slung over his shoulder.
You just ran through the positions and you come with your report. Fortunately there is enough ammo, something
of food that was found in the houses and wine to drink and even to shave; like, true to your
official decorum, Pardeiro did with the razor and the bar of soap that at dawn he prepared his
assistant.
"The Reds have taken Corporal Longines," he tells the sergeant as they climb to the floor of
up.
The other one twists the gesture. Know that the fall of the House of the Doctor means safe flanking,
sooner or later.
"Can we do something, my Ensign?"
"Nothing ... Itand
Clash of tiles depends on them."
splinters hittingLet them
walls. try an mortar
Another exit or stay
falls there.
into the alley by
where Tonet and the Hungarian legionnaire crossed. Pardeiro leans out the window to take a
He glanced around and steps away before some sharp-eyed marksman takes aim at his head. Square
it's still deserted except for a few corpses in the raw, blinding sun.
"I suppose the reds are going to tighten up, because we're holding them back a lot." Tell the people
that, if the thing collapses, we will retreat in order, slowly and by steps, to the
Cooperativa de Aceites… Is that clear, Vladimiro?
"Very clear."
"If you have to go, the last will be the church." I will be with them.
"I can take care of that, my Ensign," the Russian suggests with professional automatism.
Pardeiro represses a smile. If we must withdraw, the church will be a mousetrap; but it takes in
the Tercio long enough to know that Sergeant Vladimiro is not a heroic show. How
With Corporal Longines, Hungarian Körut and the others, it is just an automatic routine of
legionnaire: first to attack, last to retreat. Simple pride of caste that boasts of courage
and toughness. An officer asks for volunteers to die, according to the old formula, and everyone takes a step
front. It is done because the colleagues give it, in all simplicity, and there is no possible analysis. He has
always happened and will continue to happen. It's the Legion. For her, Pardeiro cast a
volunteer when they stamped him as an ensign, and here he stands, sweating wine, smudged with
gunpowder and covered in dust. Trying to measure up.
"No, the church is my thing," he answers. Get the wounded who can be taken away
move ... At the last minute they would get in the way, and it's not a matter of leaving them here.
-And the others?
-They stay.
They look at each other without further comment, understanding each other. Nationals and Republicans know and assume
Page 78
the rules naturally: Moors, Legionaries, Requets and Falangists, on the one hand; volunteers
foreigners, officials and political commissars of the other: whether they are injured or not, the usual thing between them is
not to be taken prisoner, or to put them under arms after questioning. Not counting the
finished off hot, in the heat of combat. In war, good manners are left to
novels.
Far off, over the rooftops, an artillery boom sounds. The Russian frowns under the tassel
of the gorrillo.
"It looks like the eastern python is still holding out," he says.
"Yes, but we have lost the western one."
The sergeant nods thoughtfully.
"My ensign ...
-Tell me.
"Do you think
Pardeiro shrugsthey'll try to wrap us up from there?"
his shoulders.
-It is probable. Although the order is to resist as much as we can.
The Russian takes off his chapiri to wipe the sweat, which wet his very short blond hair.
"And after the Aceites Cooperative, my lieutenant?"
"If we don't hang out there, you mean?"
The Russian does not respond to that. He just puts on his scarf and looks at the officer with his
Tatar, disciplined and formal.
"My intention is to fight all the time," Pardeiro summarizes. Until reinforcements arrive.
He thinks about it for a moment the other. He seems about to say something, thinks about it, makes up his mind at last.
"And if they don't arrive, or are late?"
They look at each other in silence, because Pardeiro knows what the Russian has in mind: ensign
provisional, effective corpse. For Vladimiro, with his experience, the young officer who has
ahead is already amortized. He has seen it in combat without draining the bulge, trying to give
example. And it's going to stay that way until his number comes up. So if the legionnaires end
also withdrawing from the Aceites Cooperative, it is possible that Santiago Pardeiro is no longer with
they. Such is, without drama, the natural course of things; and the sergeant, who in sixteen years of
Legion has seen too many officers go down, wants to know what to expect if he stays in command.
No one can blame him.
"In that case," Pardeiro explains, "we have the Aparecida hermitage, a little more than a
kilometer from town. There is a path through the olive groves, remember. The terrain is staggered in
terraces with stone walls, and that would facilitate defense, if we get there… ”
brief pause. Or if you arrive.
Three mortars collide one after the other, with a rumbling that shakes the walls. Startled,
the lieutenant looks out the window and checks that the houses across the street are starting to come out
enemies. Rifle fire runs along the line, and the bell tower machine gun
shoot fanning bursts between the blue figurines and persimmons that run valiantly in a zigzag
across the square.
Then Santiago Pardeiro removes the heavy Astra 9 length pistol from its holster, removes the
secure with thumb and sigh with dense, enormous weariness.
"To your place, Vladimiro ... Here they come again."
In the Harinera, where the command of the XI Brigade is, Pato Monzón is relieved after
two hours sitting at the Ericsson field switchboard.
Page 79
"It's my turn," Margot says.

"Well, get ready." Ten pegs are too few for this madness.
"Is the Erre-Erre still not working?"
"Off duty…the
Pato passes Weheadphones
depend on the
andphone."
the microphone to his partner, indicates in the log book
the numerous ongoing communications that he has written down, he gets up and stretches his arms,
sore. During her shift as an operator she has not had a moment of rest. All the world
wants to talk to everyone: the commander of the brigade with the other side of the river and with the
battalion chiefs, outposts with the brigade chief, commanders and officers
subordinate to each other. Tense voices of those close to the firing line, with noise of
shots and explosions in the background, and impatient voices of those who see the bulls from the sidelines.
The chaos of war through ten telephone lines.
"I'll be out," he says to Margot.
She is exhausted and needs to get some fresh air; So leave the lit smelly corner
by kerosene lamps and across the aisle full of officers and soldiers consulting maps,
links that carry and carry messages; of men who, with the carabiner between their legs, smoke,
they talk and wait seated on the stairs or with their backs against the wall.
In the background, around a large table, Lieutenant Colonel Landa, Major Carbonell, and
Political commissar of the brigade discuss pointing out positions on maps. From behind there
another soldier who resembles Captain Bascuñana, the head of the Fourth Battalion, with whom yesterday
Pato talked as they walked through the pine forest. They are seen to disagree, and the Russian hits two
times the table with a clenched fist.
"Don't stray too far," Lieutenant Harpo says as Pato walks past him. As you see,
the thing is hot.
-Everything is going well? She worries.
"It could be better."
The atmosphere is full of tobacco smoke, sweat, voices, beehive buzzing
agitated and tense male; and the young woman breathes relieved when she goes outside, under the intense
daylight, to the large patio with whitewashed walls.
On the other side, in a place that was used to store farm implements, a stall has been installed
first aid and classification of the wounded who in a tragic trickle come from the town, some
by his own foot and others brought by orderlies. In the shade of the shed jars are piled up
greens of tetanus serum, bundles of new dressings, bandaged heads dripping with blood,
blind eyes, chloroform bottles, arms in a sling, shattered legs dangling
Swaying from the bloody stretchers to the poles. As the wounded arrive, they are gone
placed protected from the sun, while a doctor and four practitioners classify them according to the
gravity. Some are given a quick cure before they return to combat; others are evacuated
in the direction of the river; and those for whom there is no hope stand aside, reassured with a
morphic chloride ampoule waiting for a place between the bodies aligned a little further,
next to the wall: blankets on which swarms of flies buzz, and from which feet appear
immobile in boots or espadrilles.
Duck watches from afar, his hands shoved into his overalls pockets, remembering the
Fascist bombings of Madrid: women and children under the rubble or busted on the sidewalks.
More than once, when leaving the Telefónica building, he found destroyed bodies and remains
attached to the walls; And when an aviation bomb smashed the revolving door of the
entrance, to the assault guard who was watching her - a nice mustachioed man who used to compliment her very
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castizo - lying on the ground, his face riddled with splinters of glass, blind and asking for help in
a pool of blood.
"All that brought me here," she mutters to herself.
He has said it out loud without realizing it. And he is only aware when he hears a voice
male behind her.
" All that had to be too much," says the voice.
She turns around, surprised and confused. Almost blushing. Next to him is Captain Bascuñana: mustache
by Clark Gable and a cap on the side with some swagger. He watches her while the cigarette smoke
that he has in his mouth makes him squint.
"Those are no longer for historical analysis, self-criticism or Marxist dialectic," he says.
indicating with his chin the wounded and the dead.
Duck says nothing. She stays still as she was, breathing slowly.
-A cigarette? The captain offers.
She shakes her head.
"How are things going for the python Lola?" He asks at last.
"Neither good nor bad," says the other. Factionalists keep holding up, so
We prepare another attack and they have made me come for the new instructions. Let's see if I get what
our artillery hits them and not us. Soften them before we go up.
"Without a political commissioner?"
The captain smiles.
"Yes, this time without a commissioner ... But I'll manage."
Duck nods. Note the eyes of Bascuñana fixed on her. They are still sad, about that
smile similar to that of a child.
" All that," he repeats softly.
She makes an evasive gesture. However, you feel the urge to explain yourself, or rather
to do it in front of that particular man.
"I'd rather live this than watch, helplessly, how Franco's assassins kill us," he answers.
To be still in the rear.
He thinks about it for a moment, hesitating between continuing or leaving it there. The male gaze seems
encourage her.
"In the first days of the war," it is decided and continues, "I saw women from the people,
militia women full of passion and fury, to take to the streets to fight alongside the workers, they were their
companions or not ...
She stops, undecided about whether to say more.
"I don't think it was exactly your case," says Bascuñana.
She nods, grateful for the nuance.
—Mine was not passion or fury, but a political act ... I was eighteen when I joined
to the Agrupación de Mujeres Antifascistas. I was amazed that La Pasionaria, Victoria Kent or
Margarita Nelken filled more bullrings than the best bullfighters. I was fascinated by the photos
of Russian women on the covers of Graphic World and Estampa.
"And you wanted to be one of them," concludes the captain.
-I am. Or I try to be.
"It's rare to find women at the front now."
"I know, we have a bad reputation."
Ladea Bascuñana's head.
-I did not mean that.
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"It's the same, don't worry." It doesn't offend me… At first we were useful for propaganda.
Those photographs with blue denim overalls, cartridge belts and a rifle sold the cause well, including the
Foreign. Then we went from being heroines to being frowned upon ...
She pauses, as if fatigued.
"You know," he finishes.
-No no I dont know.
—Source of problems, women of life, venereal diseases ...
"Ah, that."
Bascuñana takes one last drag on the cigarette that almost burns his nails, throws the butt into the
ground and shrugs.
"There was some truth." His smile takes the seriousness out of the comment. In the first days,
prostitutes signed up en masse. I remember a few.
Duck frowns, annoyed.
"Only at the beginning," he says, "until everything started to get organized." Anyway,
the evil was done ... The word militiaman had become a merit for men and
a disgrace to women.
"That is also true," Bascuñana concedes. Unfair, no doubt; but it is true.
"It was decided that the war was a male affair, and that we are better off at the
rear.
The captain gives a sarcastic laugh.
- In that, some of our political leaders agree with the fascists.
"Yes," Pato agrees. Reproductive machines of children, housewives ... This is how the
some and some of the others. Of ours.
"But you are here, with your companions." You are the honorable exception.
"Our work has cost us." All of us in my unit have studies and good training
previous. And to that he adds specialized courses, training ... We are technicians much more
capable that most of these ...
He stops there as the man's smile deepens.
"Half-illiterate soldiers?" He suggests.
Duck doesn't respond to that. He just looks at the wounded under the shed.
“As a woman,” she says after a moment, “I know what awaits us if the fascists win.
"You will lose everything… You will go back a century."
-Yes.
They are silent, now holding their gaze. Very serious. There is in the eyes of the captain,
thinks the young woman, a fatalistic, lucid resignation. Hence the apparent sadness, in contrast to the
smile that the face maintains as if trying to hide it. The look of those who do not
illusions about the present or the future.
"How is the battle going?" She asks to break the silence. To interrupt their own
thoughts.
The captain makes an ambiguous gesture.
"You should know better than I do," he points wryly to the inside of the house. You are in the bud
of the matter.
—Don't think so… I limit myself to laying telephone cables and inserting and removing plugs from a switchboard
campaign. To establish communications.
"Won't you put your ear close?"
"The least I can."
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"You are not very curious."

-Yes.
Look at Bascuñana towards the wounded. At that moment three arrive from the town. One of them,
covered eyes with a bloody bandage, rests hands on partner's shoulders
limping before him, supported by his rifle.
"The news is generally good," he says. Ebro down, ours advance towards
Gandesa and the fascists are in retreat.
-And here?
"We are getting there little by little." The cemetery and the python Pepa are ours, and more than
half a town… I'm going to take care of Lola in a little while. She checks her watch and touches herself.
mechanically the holster of the pistol, as if he suddenly noticed that he was carrying it on his belt. What me
remember that, although I am comfortable chatting with you, I have to go.
Duck feels a sudden desire to hold him a little longer.
"I heard our tanks are going to cross the river."
"That's what they say ... There was no way, because the fascist aviation destroyed the iron bridge that
they were going to tend. But they have brought a floating platform that will allow them to pass one by one.
The captain is silent and they look at each other indecisively, looking for something else to say. A pretext that prolongs
the conversation.
"I hope we meet again," Bascuñana says.
Then he smiles, touches the brim of his cap with his thumb and forefinger, walks past Pato and
take three steps away. Suddenly he stops, turned towards her.
"Do you have a partner?"
Duck hesitates, caught off guard.
"I think so," he replies.
The captain's smile widens.
"It's not a very convinced yes."
—I was in Teruel. I haven't heard from him since.
-Now I understand.
They keep looking at each other, still motionless. The young woman searches for the words.
"He wasn't my partner." It was only…
-Clear.
Bascuñana nods, thoughtful. Then slowly raise the fist of your left hand closed,
in a republican salute that the eyes and the smile seem to deny.
"Good luck, soldier."
"Good luck, Comrade Captain."
The military man leaves. As she watches him go, Lieutenant Harpo appears at the door and stops
next to Pato, looking at him too.
"You shouldn't talk to him," he suggests, "at least until he takes his python."
She turns, surprised.
-Why?
Harpo runs his fingers through his curly gray hair, indecisive. What if I delay the
answer, he takes off his glasses and checks the cleanliness of the lenses against the light.
"I've heard the Russian and the others ... The commissioner accuses him of not demanding enough of his men."
Of being lazy with them.
After saying that, he puts on his glasses again and looks again at the captain, who as he passed by the
Shed has knelt next to one of the wounded to give him a cigarette.
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"If another attack on Lola fails," he adds, "they are capable of shooting him."
Duck shudders, alarmed.
"You're kidding, aren't you? ... You're exaggerating."
"What an exaggeration, you say?" Harpo looks back and lowers his voice. With the Russian in the middle?
... My daughter, you can tell you don't know that son of a bitch.
"Hey, Rogelios! ... Do you hear us, any of you? ... Stop a little, Rogelios!"
Crouching behind a window over broken glass and shot-chipped furniture remains, Julián
Panizo loads ammunition into a magazine of the submachine gun. Hearing the voice coming from the other side of the
street, from the House of the Doctor - he takes time to do so, deafened as he is by the
recent— pauses and pays attention.
"It's the fascists," Olmos tells him.
-What?
"The fascists, damn it." They seem to be calling us.
"Don't fuck around." Thats weird.
—I tell you yes, they want to talk to us.
—But if we have a lot of people from that house ...
"They still want to surrender."
The dynamiter thinks about it for a moment and shakes his head.
"They are bleaches." Those never give up, for the account that brings them.
Across the street the voice sounds again. Andalusian accent. Stop the fire, you hear it again.
We have something important to tell you. Panizo listens, runs a hand over his sweaty face and
dirty, it fits the magazine into the left side of the submachine gun. Clac.
"I'm sure it's a trap," Olmos says.
"Maybe so, and maybe not ... Tell the others to stop shooting."
"Do I notify the Cancela brigade?"
-Needless.
The petition is run and the weapons are silent. A silence. Panizo gets a little closer to the frame of the
window, being careful not to stick his head out.
"What do you want, fascists?"
"There is a pregnant woman here," answers the distant voice.
"Well, you bastard rapists got her pregnant." Or one of your priests.
"I'm serious, you idiot ... She's in the basement and about to give birth."
Panizo and Olmos look at each other. Other colleagues have approached them and listened curious, in
squatting and leaning on rifles.
"What are you telling me, shit bleach," the dynamiter responds.
"It's a woman, man," the voice replies. Don't be stupid.
"Bruto will be your father."
-Voucher. But here you can not continue this unhappy. You will have doctors, I imagine.
—The People's Army of the Republic has everything.
"That's why I'm saying it ... It's breaking waters and we can't take care of it."
"Well, give up the fucking time."
-No man. Of that, nothing. We have bullets and tobacco, so we prefer that you come to
convince us personally.
"We'll go, don't worry," Panizo promises.
—Well, you are already taking time… And try to be many, so that we can get on with it.
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Panizo and his people laugh softly. They have rennet, those fachistas motherfuckers. The dynamiter was
Lean out of the window a little, just enough to take a look. There are fifteen meters wide of street
between them and the house the enemy occupies, stung by bullet holes. Think about it for a moment,
he consults his colleagues with his gaze: hirsute and dirty faces, eyes heavy with fatigue. He sees it
nod, so he turns back to the window.
"Hey, fascist."
"Tell me, rogelio."
"How do we do with the pregnant woman?"
—Well, you'll see… We let her go out and cross the street without you pulling.
"Can it walk?"
"Another woman and an old man are with her."
"The old man is yours."
"He's a fucking grandfather."
"I don't give a damn what it is." To the man who shows the face, grandfather or grandson, we fry him
like a torrezno.
—Look, you are beasts.
"Look, you are julandrones."
"Your dead will be."
"No, yours."
A silence. The fascists must be deliberating, or bringing the woman up. But
it can also be a trap. So Panizo supports the orange tree on the wall, unhooks
he straps a Polish WZ pineapple grenade and leaves it on the ground, by hand, just in case.
"Okay," the distant voice announces. They are going out now.
"Only the pregnant one and the other one… Is that clear?"
"Clarinet, rogelio."
"Be careful, we only stop while they cross the street." And then we will continue to do our thing.
-Agree.
"Come on, it's getting late and we have to pickle it before dinner."
"Except wolves, figure ... But thanks for the detail."
"Go fuck yourself, fascist."
"That's what I was going to do, Rogelio." But with the fear that you give me my asshole tightens.
"We'll expand it for you, don't worry."
"Maybe ... But first you're going to suck my cock."
Republicans get ready, finger on gun trigger. Panizo takes the submachine gun,
it rests on the window frame and with a click of the lever mounts the latch. Then put
the selector in burst shooting and, sticking his head out as little as possible, watches the street.
On the other side, in the fascist position, someone begins to sing with joke and bravado.
For your love, militia,

three things I offer you, three:
refuse to march to the front,
study for lieutenant
and even wash my feet.
"I don't trust those terns, Julian," Olmos whispers.

-Shut your mouth.
The House of the Doctor has a bullet-riddled door, on the other side of which is a
Page 85
mattress parapet and broken furniture. For a long minute nothing happens, until in the
dark hallway there is movement.
"There they appear."
Panizo points with the orange tree. For a moment I glimpsed a male figure - soldier with
hat and holsters but no weapons in sight — which removes some obstacles from the parapet. Single
he lets himself be seen for a moment and disappears immediately, giving way to two women who come out into the street:
they dress in mourning like half the women of Spain, they are dirty with plaster dust and they advance
uncertain, dazzled by the clarity outside. They look exhausted and terrified. One of them
looks young. He walks awkwardly, with difficulty, legs spread wide while supporting his hands, as
wanting to hold it, in the very bulging belly. The other one helps her, older, who shakes
faintly a white handkerchief.
"Damn," Olmos mutters.
He makes a move to get up to go help them, but Panizo holds him by one arm.
"Let them come alone ... You never know."
Out of the corner of his eye, the dynamiter follows the progression of the two women, but without neglecting
the door and windows of the house opposite. Sometimes a furtive head pokes out to look and
disappears immediately. The women are already on this side of the street and Panizo loses them
of sight.
"Let me know when they're inside," he says to Olmos.
He wipes the sweat from his eyes with the back of one hand and continues to face the orange tree toward the
enemy house, finger brushing the trigger guard. For the shadows that begin to lengthen, calculate
still a couple of hours of light. Enough, he thinks, to attempt a new assault if ordered by the
bosses. Despite the lanterns that are marked, the legionaries of the House of the Doctor must be
quite broken, with what they have embedded. And there won't be many left. It will be interesting to hear
what women tell.
"They're already inside," Olmos announces.
"Okay." Panizo raises his voice. Hey, fascist!
"Tell me, rogelio!" The same voice from before responds.
"They're both here, no news."
-I'm glad. And look: if a child is born, give him the name Francisco, like the generalissimo
Frank.
"Okay ... And if she's born a girl, we'll give her your fucking mother's."
As he says that, Panizo squeezes the trigger and releases a burst, which is answered from the other
House. Then the fire runs from side to side of the street, in a succession of booms
intense, furious. And the war returns to normal.
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SAW
The new Republican attempt against the Levante python comes an hour before the
to become night. They laboriously climb the reds, cheering each other on with shouts, after their
artillery has been crushing the ridge and that Ginés Gorguel, embedded between two rocks,
clenched a bush twig between their teeth so they won't collide with explosions or
eardrums burst, lived through a hell of popping, jolting and echoing of splinters of
stone and shrapnel. A silence followed until the voices of "there they come, there they rise again,"
toured the national positions, and Gorguel, like everyone else, peeked a little from his shelter and
started shooting.
And so the old carpenter of Albacete continues, facing the rifle at times and hiding
others scratch their mouths with thirst, lowering their heads or shooting and turning the bolt
while the carpet of gleaming empty pods grows at their feet. With a feeling of
unreality that makes you feel like you are in a foreign body and mind.
The truth is that he tries to lean out as little as possible, stealing the bullets that groan,
they buzz, bounce with sinister clicks. This can't last, he thinks wearily. What with
so much chinazo loose for a day and a half, some did not end up touching me. Sooner or later
good luck runs out, and mine was used up long ago.
Feel desperate and cold fear at the same time. A strange fear. Not a feeling of panic
irrational, as you have seen in some who suddenly drop their weapon, stand up and
run down the slope, to the rear, before being struck down by the shots of their own
officers. Yours is a thoughtful, conscious, calm fear. The almost mathematical certainty that
in this or that part of his body - head, shoulders, chest, arms - he can receive from
from moment to moment the sudden blow that mutilates or kills him. And the odds are every time
greater.
Ping, ziaaang, there is an impact on the rock to his right, very close.
Startled, Gorguel notices the dry contact of the metal brushing the left side of his back,
it is palpated with precipitous anguish and finds nothing but a tear in the shirt and flesh
numb, but unscathed, underneath. The bullet has ricocheted off another stone and is now before your eyes,
bent at an angle. He reaches out to touch it and quickly withdraws it, as after a touch
electric. It's still hot.
Hurt, he thinks with icy lucidity. There is no other solution. A good wound, not too much
serious, get him out of there. That allows you to get away from the shooting, go down the counter slope without
that the sergeant with the bandaged leg, who follows behind with his pistol, or any other officer - the
Commander Induráin, still alive, passed before the attack, checking the positions, encouraging
and handing out grenades and ammunition — I shot him for deserting in combat. A bullet
to save his skin in exchange for whatever it is; a little mutilation, even. Knows very well that
a self-inflicted wound is always discovered by doctors because of the burn, and that
means fixed ballot for the firing squad; but a bullet from the reds can be,
paradoxically, the passport to life. The only one possible under those circumstances.
And this is how Ginés Gorguel breaks down again. He does it because at that moment he is
thinking about his wife and son, whom he hasn't seen for two years and twenty-seven days. In its
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widowed mother. In the letters sent through France, of which none had a reply. In the
atrocious nonsense where, despite himself, he is involved and yearns to find a way out.
Then raise your left hand. He does it by clenching his teeth, waiting for the impact that
destroy it. Eyes closed, tense from head to toe, he holds her up while he hears
buzz and bounce the bullets, trusting that one will hit him. Willing for the hit and the pain. Y
continues like this until, amid the roar of gunfire, he hears the voice of the wounded sergeant who is
To his back.
"Put that hand down, motherfucker ... Or I'll hit you."
Gorguel stands still for a moment, his arm still raised. Without speaking or turning. Then
He lowers it slowly until he rests it on the rifle again.
"We all want to be somewhere else," adds the sergeant.
Gorguel is still motionless. Now he feels nothing but infinite fatigue. The same urgent need for
snuggle right there and sleep long hours at a time.
Pum-baaah. Pum-baaah.
They are proximate explosions: offensive and defensive grenades.
"Shoot, shit!" We have the reds on top!
It is true. Paying attention amid the obscuring darkness, Gorguel warns that the
Enemies climbing the slope are less than thirty meters away. Come up with
much courage, prompted by his officers. Jumping, seeking protection from rock to rock, he
They stop, they shoot, they are discovered again to throw hand bombs uphill,
the white ribbons of the grenades unrolling in the air. Some attackers fall and advance
others.
The ridge and its vicinity are now heavy gunfire; a deafening crash dotted with
booms, bouncing bullets and shrapnel splashing through the air. Of men who ask
ammunition, who insult the enemy, who shout their courage and fear.
With mechanical gestures, Gorguel lifts the rifle to his face, squeezes the trigger, and feels the
kick recoil on the shoulder. Hit the bolt palm up, put another bullet
in the chamber, take aim and fire again. Something fleeting and warm, like a breath of hot air,
passes within inches of your head.
"Come, take these!" The sergeant yells at him.
Gorguel turns without understanding what the other means, and sees that he is still sitting on the
the ground, his back against a stone, the pistol on his belly, and he strikes the gray box
of grenades, labeled in German, that Commander Induráin left when he was there.
"Take a few and hit Seliman too!"
Dazed, clumsy, Gorguel puts his rifle on the rock and, crouching, walks over to the NCO. He
leg tourniquet appears to have stopped the bleeding, as fresh blood is no longer flowing through the leg.
trouser leg. He is very pale and clenches his teeth stubbornly.
"Hit those little red bastards hard," he mutters. Throw these out.
As he says it, he places several German stick grenades in his hands, of a model that
Gorguel had not seen before. After contemplating them for a moment, indecisive, he puts two in the
strap and hold the others against your chest. They are heavier than the usual ones. Almost half a kilo
each.
"To Seliman, and hurry," insists the sergeant.
Still crouched, hearing the bullets whip over his head, Gorguel retraces the short distance to
the miseries.
The Moor is where he was yesterday, lying down, shooting like a machine. The
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red tarbus to be less conspicuous, and his curly hair and gray mustache are drenched in
sweat. Seeing Gorguel appear with the grenades, he makes a fierce face.
" Arumi isén, " he says, pleased. You know way.
And without waiting any longer, smiling like a child with a new toy, he takes one of her hands away, the
hold by the wooden handle while unscrewing the base and pulling the pulling cord.
Then, half getting up, he picks up momentum and hurls her down the slope.
"Four or a few seconds," says the Moor.
A boom, twenty-something yards away. Smoke and dirt in the air.
—Bomba misiana pretty, paisa… Güina for arrogant bastards.
After a moment of bewilderment, Gorguel puts the rest of the bombs on the ground, sticks his stick
from another on the strap, he takes a fourth and with it in his hand returns to his stone, next to the
rifle.
Now feel an extreme urgency: an urgent need to throw all that hillside
below, on the hostile figurines that keep approaching in short leaps seeking protection
of the land. Suddenly you feel powerful. It has something that can slow them down, if you use it right. What
can return in the form of shrapnel the anguish and uncertainty that for a day and a half
they grip the stomach, the heart and the head. So unscrew the base of the stick, pull hard on the
ring with the cord and throw the grenade. Then, without stopping to see the result, do the same with
the other three, very quickly, one after the other. He throws them out in hatred and rage, wanting to do harm.
Wanting to erase from the face of the earth everything that threatens his life.
Along the ridge, the other defenders begin to do the same. Grenades rain
down the slope, the booms multiply, and a string of flashes backfires on the slope. Their
brief red and orange glows appear most alive in the fading light of
vanishes, among the shadows that begin to crawl over the rocks where, above the din,
the war cry of the regulars rises primitive and savage, the corporal shouts defiantly
Seliman.
This is also war, thinks the greatest of the militias Gambo Laguna. Or this, above all, is the
war: walk and retrace, run and wait.
And this evening, he concludes, what we have to do is walk.
There is still some light left - a gloom that darkens in the east and in low places
of the ground, revealing a column of dark smoke over the rooftops of the town - when,
silhouetted in the last backlight, two of the three companies of the Ostrovsky Battalion
they leave the cemetery and cross the road among the vineyards. The order, received an hour ago, is
relieve the Second Battalion in the Pepa python, the western one, so that unit can flank
Castellets, thus surrounding the fascists who still resist down there.
Gambo goes with his men. Binoculars hanging from his chest, standing on the bridge next to the
people of his staff, see them pass: sound of footsteps without voices, long succession of shapes each
darker as the last light of the day fades. Smoking, speaking in
loud or get out of lines even to urinate. And all of them comply strictly. Even the mules that
load material, ammunition, heavy mortars and Maxim machine guns move
silently carried from the halter by the acemileros, with no other sound than that of their hooves in the
gravel from the road.
"Good guys," says the second in command, Militia Captain Simón Serigot.
The battalion chief nods, convinced of that. Disciplined and silent warriors,
proletarians forged by the people's struggle and by Gambo himself, he considers his men
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the best of the People's Army of the Republic: not a desertion, not a bad gesture, not a problem,
Never. They fight, they suffer, they are wounded, they die, new select men arrive, they return to
fight. They are all legit, they are all communists, and among them there is not a single suspect of
opportunism or lukewarmness. Their commander takes care of them, and they take care of him. That's why they follow it without
complain and he really appreciates them. A while ago he took care, watching him in person, that
Before setting off, each man ate a hot ranch, filled his canteen, and
was ammunitioned with one hundred and fifty rifle cartridges, four hand bombs and a quarter
of tobacco chopped by square.
"There is hardly any light left," says Ramiro García, the battalion's political commissioner. To see if not
get confused in the dark.
"They know what they're doing," Gambo replies.
It is true. They know it because they learned with hard training, first, and at the expense of their
own blood later. Half of those who formed the original battalion a year and a half ago no longer
are there to tell about it: many stayed on the banks of the Alfambra, six months ago, when the
The Campesino's military ineptitude - a cruel and cowardly hustler whom Gambo despises - destroyed
the 46th Division under his command against the fascist defenses. Before that, the Ostrovsky had already
tested its toughness in Brunete, where, after splitting the backbone to one of the best divisions
enemies in the Vertice Llanos, held firm in Quijorna under the aviation and artillery, without yielding
a span of ground while Lister, the anarchists, and the International Brigades flirted and
they ran for tobacco. And again, in Teruel, they had to be the top scorer of the day when the
1,205, the hardest bone, they got gnawed on: attack after attack through the trough
lined up by the murderous machine guns of the Tercio, bayonet fights in the trenches
enemies, hundreds of men killed, wounded, terrified in a savage carnage in which,
faced with the unprecedented and inordinate value of some, he faced something different: mastery in
Fascist defensive organization, balance of well-made military artwork.
"What are you thinking about, Major?" Serigot asks.
"In the Alfambra valley."
"Don't remind me ... I hope we never see each other in another like that."
That is what Gambo has since tried in his battalion: to apply the lesson of
Teruel, without ever forgetting it. May the Ostrovsky also be a work of art, reliable, disciplined,
communist. A steel machine. He told the men before crossing the Ebro, standing between
them, their thumbs hanging from their belts, as he usually speaks to them when it is convenient to do so: face to face,
without delegating that task to the political commissioner. You are, comrades, the vanguard of the proletariat
international. We are not only Spanish, but part of the world revolution; the one that
anarchists and other brains want to rush anyway, but let the
Communists, more patient and effective, we know it will not be possible until this war is won. Y
We are not fighting only against Franco; We do it for our brothers imprisoned in the prisons of
Hitler and Mussolini; by the proletarians who in France and England are unable to shake off the
bourgeois yoke that oppresses them; by the black Americans and the persecuted Hebrews. We are a
bayonet wall supported by scientific truth and reason, while those in front are
mercenaries or outcasts forced to fight for a cause that is not their own. We, however,
we are the people in arms. The poor, battered, hungry people; the famished legion that at last
touch with your fingers revenge and victory. So long live the Republic and prepare your team,
because once again it is up to us to show what we are and what we are going to be.
The darkness is more intense, and the line of men and animals has become a parade
of shadows between the blackest lines of the vines. The hoarse wheezing of a mule sounds.
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"It carries an excess load," says Ramiro García, the political commissioner.
-How do you know? Gambo is interested.
"I grew up among them before I became a hairdresser." My father took me to work at
field since the age of seven… Mules are long-suffering animals, like good soldiers. Single
they complain when they are punished too much.
The major of the militias nods and keeps walking. Funny about the People's Army, he thinks. Y
encouraging. Unlike the fascists, whose officers come largely from a military caste
reactionary and bourgeois, the combatant cadres of the Republic come from the most diverse
sections of the people in arms: Ramiro García is of peasant origin, Captain Serigot -
Ostrovsky's only officer with true pre-war military training — was a soldier in
Morocco and then corporal of the Assault Guard, and among the company chiefs of the battalion,
promoted by war merits and through military and political training courses, there is a
Madrid tram conductor, a young man from a Cuenca drug store and a shirt clerk
Cordovan.
"Who goes?"
A voice in front, emerging from nowhere. Silhouettes that freeze between the vines, in the
last breath of daylight.
"Republic, hell."
-Watchword!
Sound of bolts as they mount, while everyone crouches in case someone misses a shot.
People alert to both sides of the shadows. This is not the time for carelessness.
"Gorki played chess… We are the relay."
"Wasn't it Bakunin?"
"No, shit." Gorky.
-Ah okay.
They get up and walk again. The sky is all black to the east, on the side of
Castellets. The terrain now climbs steeply and the vines are getting weird. They step on the python
Pepa. As he advances, Gambo notices the numerous presence of men around:
metallic sounds, murmurs, poorly concealed cigarette embers. Once the relay has arrived, the
Second Battalion prepare to move to flank the town.
"Gambo?" Asks a voice.
-Yes.
A lump stands out in the dark, approaching.
-Health. I am Fajardo.
He is the largest of the militias commanding the Second Battalion. The two know and love each other.
"I won't shake your hand because I'm itchy and I can't stop scratching," says the other. I think
I got scabies.
"Wow, man." I hope it's nothing.
"We'll see ... My orders are to move with my three companies as soon as you arrive." So
hello and goodbye, comrade.
-You need something?
"No, everything is in order." I have to get to the right of the fascists before they
dawn.
"How have you been doing so far?" Gambo is interested.
-Good. Taking the cemetery was harder: I lost Curro Sánchez, the captain of the 3rd, and I
they made eleven dead and thirty wounded.
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-Sorry.
—Yes… The Curro thing is a bitch. Did you know him?
"A skinny one with a beard?"
-That.
"Just by sight."
"He was a fetén uncle, one of those who dress by the feet." But her number came up: a shrapnel, the
femoral open like a bullfighter and bled out in three minutes ... This place, however,
we took it easy, with only six injured and no deaths.
Gambo looks up at the python. Above the black mass of the slope the
first stars.
"How about up there?"
"The ground is too hard to dig, but we have made stone parapets and the post
command is a little behind the ridge. You have a telephone line with the brigade ... What you don't
there is water nearby.
"I'll manage."
"How many people are you bringing?"
"Two companies."
"With heavy equipment?" Fajardo asks. 81 mortars?
-Four.
"Well, what luck, hey." Mine have not crossed the river ... Do you take some advice?
-Tell me.
—I would place them between the python and the cemetery, where you have a great location:
a small trough that protects a lot. Anyway, I leave a sergeant to guide you and
Mark the positions for you… His name is Hernández and he is trustworthy. Asturian, like you. As soon as
don't need it, send it back to me.
They say goodbye, shadow to shadow.
"Good luck in town, comrade."
"Good luck, Gambo ... Salud, and long live the Republic."
-That's. May he always live.
Followed by the company practitioner, who carries the bag of emergency cures,
Julián Panizo makes his way through the soldiers who are grouped on the basement stairs.
-Let's see. Make way, hosts ... Let us pass.
There is no other light than a candle lit below, and the dynamiter pushes the
silhouetted men in the gloom, crowding to watch.
"Get out of there at once," he insists, shoving. You should be up in your
posts ... If the fascists fight back now, they will catch us with the chorra out.
At last Panizo and the other reach the basement. It is a narrow, dusty room that the light from
wax does not illuminate too much, but enough to show stacked ears of corn
against the wall, broken jars and a military blanket spread on the floor, on which the woman lies
pregnant released by the legionaries a couple of hours earlier.
"Damn," the practitioner mutters upon seeing her.
The woman is naked from the waist down, the black dress pulled up to her torso, the stockings
dark legs low and wrinkled at the ankles, her legs spread as the old woman
accompanies rummages among them. At times, the woman in labor shudders and screams. Are yours some
deep, hoarse moans, sometimes low-pitched rales, and other howls of anguish, like
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those of an animal that was tortured tied up, without the possibility of defending itself or escaping.
"Breathe and push," the old woman is telling him. Breathe and push.
Sitting on the ground next to the woman, with the orange tree resting on his knees, Olmos holds him
a hand. Or rather it is the woman who seems to cling to him desperately, as if in the
male contact found relief, consolation, the memory of another man who should be
there and it is not.
"I have never done this before," the practitioner stammered.
"Well, now you're going to do it," Panizo answers emphatically.
The other swallows, undecided. He has turned very pale.
"But do what?"
"No fucking idea, hey." What comes to mind.
"The old woman is the one who seems to know."
"Well help her, man." Let her tell you.
-I will not be able; I swear I do not.
His hands and voice are shaking. Panizo pushes him forward.
"Come on, you idiot ... Move."
Finally, taking the satchel off his shoulder, the practitioner goes to kneel next to the
women. Panizo glances at the door that leads to the staircase. The men are still there.
"Go upstairs, milk." This is not La Criolla.
Nobody pays attention to him. They are silent, they smoke, they lean out to observe. The dynamiter ignores
them and his gaze meets Olmos's, who remains seated, the woman's hand between his
his. Panizo had never seen that expression in him: a kind of absent gravity. Hair
scrambled and dirty, the blue jumpsuit covered with dust, his companion attends the scene of the
part with a distracted air, as if his thoughts were far from there. As if traveling in the
time and space to some remote place in his own head.
He's thinking of his own, Panizo guesses. In his wife and children.
He knows it because it happens to himself. And understand that it also happens to those who look and
They smoke quietly at the door of the stairs, hard and solemn, with the meager light of the candle
drawing shadows on their dirty and unshaven faces, on the rifles and grenades that are their gold,
frankincense and myrrh in such a strange scene. All of them, concludes the dynamiter, capable of the worst and
also the best - the worst of the war are men, and the best also men-,
they have the echo of a scene similar to that in their memory or instinct. They were all born of one
woman, just as from one moment to another they can die at the hands of a man. And that female
shaking with pain, screaming and sobbing as the old woman and the practitioner toil to
illuminate what you carry in your gut, tell your own story and that of women and children to
who love, loved or will love. It is the oldest human rite that now competes with death:
with what awaits above as soon as the truce ends that everyone seems to abide by, because they do not sound
shots, and night and war, in their brief and deceptive calm, give a breath to life.
Breathe and push, the old woman continues to exhort. Breathe and push.
Breathe and push.
Push. Push more, very good. So. Push.
Suddenly, with a heartrending cry, the woman tenses her body in a spasm that seems more
violent than the previous ones, and the yellowish light of the candle slides like oil down his belly
swollen and bathed in sweat. And the dynamiter sees Olmos bending over her, squeezing her
hand with more force while caressing his forehead with an unsuspected tenderness in him, and the old
and the practitioner pull hard on something dark, reddish and bloody: a foreign object, a body
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that the practitioner, prompted by the old woman, clumsily holds up, head down, while
she gives him gentle blows, one after another, blow after blow, until at last a very slight moan sounds
and then a sharp, loud, violent cry, the first of a lifetime, that bristles Julian's skin
Panizo while the men grouped at the door burst into shouts of joy.
Camped by squads and immobile under their blankets, their rifles were placed in the flag, the 157
men from the shock company of Tercio de Montserrat rest from a long walk.
Throughout the afternoon they passed groups of fugitives, women, children and the elderly who came
on the road - they looked at the requetés with suspicion, since it was surely a local population more
sympathizer of the Reds than of the Nationals - and at dusk they were allowed to light fires
for half an hour to heat up the ranch. Now they sleep or try to, knowing that
they should start before dawn. Everyone is aware that they are near the
Sierra de Mequinenza, although no one knows the final destination except Captain Coll de Rei, and such
once the section chiefs and the páter Fontcalda; but not a word has come out of these about him
particular. The troop ignores everything, except that the artillery boom heard to the east
indicates that the Ebro is near.
Lying among the companions of his squad, who snore like piglets, Corporal Oriol Les
Forques has his head resting on his satchel, his eyes are open, and he contemplates the sky full of
stars. Despite being tired, he has trouble falling asleep. It occurs from Elbow, when the Tercio was
annihilated and he was saved with a few, desperately crossing the republican lines:
prolonged insomnia and short dreams full of nightmares. It's not the only one.
-Are you awake? Whispers Agustí Santacreu, who is very close.
-Yes.
-What are you thinking about?
"In the same way as you."
Les Forques hears the companion stirring under the blanket and then staying still.
"If we could get out of Elbow," Santacreu says after a moment, "we'll get out of this, right? ...
That was the best.
Les Forques closes the eyelids. Referring to Elbow, the maximum seems, of course, the
proper term. But you never know.
"I suppose so," he replies. That it was.
"We already have a habit of escaping from bad places," Santacreu insists. As of
Barcelona Artillery barracks, although it was also a small one… Remember.
"How can I forget?"
- Quod durum fuit pati.
-If you say it…
They are quiet for a while. Les Forques sees a shooting star fall in the sky, although
at first he takes it for a flare or a tracer missile. A wish, think suddenly. I must
make a wish. But he can't imagine any before the star dies out. Live, conclude
urgently when the lights of the sky have become motionless again, perhaps too late
so that the wish is fulfilled. Live without mutilations, or sequels, or nightmares, he thinks
rushed. Live with peaceful dreams and the ability to forget, begetting children and
grandchildren who never get a word of resentment from me about what I have experienced these years.
-Does anyone know what time it is? A voice whispers.
It is another of the squad, a boy from Vic named Jorge Milany. Les Forques looks at his watch
bracelet, but there is not enough light to see the time. And he's not willing to spend one of the nine
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beautiful matches you have.

-I do not know. I guess two or three in the morning ... What's up? You can not sleep?
"You woke me up with your chatter."
-Sorry.
-It's the same.
Milany, thinks Les Forques, is a good boy. It has not yet entered the fire, but the
eighteen years old has experience in capsizing and frightening. His father, a baker, was murdered
the Generalitat's escamots with other farm owners, small business owners and
peasants whom they considered rightists: one of the people was in charge of denouncing them to a hundred
pesetas per head. So a little later and after five friends of his from the
Catholic Youth, with a priest who lived hidden in the mountains and some guides to whom they paid
how much they had, Milany, the priest and three or four others went through the hill of Tosas and Puigcerdá
to Osella and the border, stealing from the carabineros who in those days killed many
Catalans trying to pass to France.
"Do you think we'll go online tomorrow?"
"I don't know," replied Les Forques.
"People say yes."
"Well then, yes."
"Before God, you'll never be an anonymous hero," Santacreu says, zumbón.
After saying that, he grunts and fidgets under the blanket again. Les Forques continues
looking at the stars: the Big Dipper, Cepheus, the Polar. You feel like urinating; so after a
While struggling with laziness, he throws the blanket aside and stands up.
-Where are you going? Santacreu asks.
"To piss."
—I accompany you… Catalana pirindola never waters alone.
It is not too cold. The two requetés take a few steps away from the lying men,
trying not to trip over them. Everything is very dark, and they stop to unbutton
fly when finding some bushes. For a moment only the sound of the double jet is heard
on the floor.
"We even do this together," Santacreu says. Like in school, do you remember? TO
see who went further.
"Yes ... ours seems like a marriage." We just need to shake each other off.
—If we start with fagots, I'll move on to remigios.
"They would return you."
They laugh together, in a good mood. Dissipating tension and dark thoughts with the heat of the
friendship that was forged when they fought in the schoolyard with children who bragged about parents
Republicans and spoke ill of any king; and later, standing guard with other young people
Carlists in nunneries to prevent mobs from burning them; or escorting with a
pistol in Bishop Irurita's pocket during Holy Week of the year 36 so that the FAI and
the CNT did not attack him in the streets, in that bitter and sad Republic in which, as long as
To remain in power, the politicians of Madrid paid the separatists with pieces of Spain.
In Barcelona, remembers Les Forques while closing his fly, the Uprising had been
a disaster. With their experience as grandparents and great-grandparents in three civil wars of the previous century,
the requetés predicted that it would be difficult to triumph with the Popular Front and Republican Esquerra
having the Assault Guard, the escamots and the militias. That is why they advised to
mount and fight guerrillas. However, the UME military and the Falangists - almost
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all college boys, nice guys although somewhat bullies in ways— they thought they were quite
strong, and that spoiled everything. The anarchists put their guts into it and held the pulse,
and the Civil Guard sided with the Government. With the whole city turned on the hunt for the
fascist, Les Forques, Santacreu and two hundred other requetés were able to reach the
Artillery; and when the commanding general decided to surrender - get out of your way, he said,
because here they are going to be killed—, they joined the group that fought their way through. Only those few
they managed to escape from the barracks, because the rest were assassinated while they were leaving. Then,
hiding in a farmhouse, after listening to General Mola's "Todos a Navarra" on the radio,
they managed to flee to France together, and together they entered national Spain. And here they are again, two
years later almost day by day. Treading Catalan soil again.
A shadow stands out near them.
"What are you doing, requetés?"
"Piss, my captain."
They almost square up even though they are in the dark, because they have recognized the voice of Don Pedro Coll from
Rei.
"You should get some rest."
Always the you. The captain treats everyone about you, even the reds. There are those who say
which is out of respect and because he is a gentleman, but Les Forques suspects that it is his way of
keep your distances. Can't see her face in the dark, even though she guesses her eyes
piercing, beard and mustache curled at the ends, which give him an air of distinguished, vaguely
archaic, as if it came out of a daguerreotype of the ancient Carlist. It is told of him that he had
great-great-grandparents with Cabrera, fighting in 1838 against the liberals of the whore queen and her mother, in the
Ebro and the Maestrazgo.
-Names?
—Cabo Les Forques and requested Santacreu, my captain.
"The Elbow guys?"
That's how they are known in the company: those of Elbow. The town where eleven months ago was almost
annihilated the Tercio de Montserrat during the battle of Belchite. There are other survivors in the
Third, but only the two of them in the crash company. It is, for both, a paid pride
at a very high price.
-Yes my captain.
Behind the sturdy shadow of Coll de Rei, another smaller one can be seen, that of the assistant. Canovas,
his name is: a small, silent peasant, older than mature, who is always attached to his
heels carrying the hunting shotgun that the head of the shock company uses as a
war. It is said that the farmer worked on the family's land and acted as a secretary in the
hunts; and that when the anarchists put Don Pedro's father and two brothers in the
the seminary, to assassinate them a few days later, Cánovas accompanied him on his escape to
France, and after entering through Irún he enlisted with him in the Navarrese Tercio de Lácar, where they were
fighting until that of Montserrat was formed.
"A cousin of mine, Ensign Alós, died in Elbow ... Did you know him?"
Les Forques nods.
"Sure, my captain." He shook hands with those of us who accompanied him to try to break the
siege of the reds. We had four cartridges each, and the bayonets.
"The last we heard from him was his voice when we ran," Santacreu adds. Screamed
"Forward, forward" ... We had seen him stay behind, his shirt stained with blood.
A silence. The two requetés remember while Coll de Rei imagines.
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"He was a brave boy," he says at last.

"Why it was, my captain."
A muffled roar, from distant artillery, attracts everyone's attention. Brief glows after
the dark hills to the east.
"Is it Atilano or is it ours?" Santacreu asks.
Atilano is the name given to the artillery by the nationals since the battle of Teruel
republican, in reference, it is said, to an enemy artillery officer who there was very
effective. Now, every time a red cannon is fired, their name is remembered, usually
accompanied by some epithet related to his mother or the honesty of his wife. Even between the
troop a couplet is sung:
God commands in heaven;

on earth, gypsies,
and in the trenches in front
the two horns of Attilano.
"Without a doubt they are ours," the captain replies. Two days ago we were caught off guard
low, but we're fighting back.
-We too? Les Forques dares to ask. The ones from Montserrat?
A brief silence, as if Coll de Rei considered the opportunity to answer that. But
the two requetés in front of him are Elbow's. Even him, tough and unyielding with discipline
and hierarchies deserve respect.
"The rest of the Tercio is already online, or must be," he says at last. We were going to meet with
him, but we have been claimed for something else.
He leaves it there, without specifying what it is about; and Les Forques thinks that, just as he said,
the rest of the Tercio will not envy those of shock. If an elite unit like that is
puts aside, is that the tomato is going to be awesome. There are already many shots taken and received, and that
enliven the intuition to see them coming.
"May our destination be known, my captain?"
"No," is the dry reply. It can not.
Calla Les Forques while his fatalism as a veteran requeté digests, as best he can, the
hole that just opened in his stomach. After a short silence, as if he himself
considered to have been too abrupt, the officer comments, in another tone:
"Whatever it is, we'll do well." We are Catalans and there are those who look at us with distrust in
our own side ... We are required twice and we are forced to do triple ...
you agree?
-Yes my captain.
"Then go rest." The next few days can be tough.
And after saying that, Coll de Rei walks away into the night, with the quiet and faithful shadow of Cánovas
glued to the heels.
Mortar blasts dot blue and orange glows in the uncertain dawn.
Each dry and resounding boom between the rifle fire spreads through the streets making
shake the walls of the houses, the chests and temples of the legionaries who fight in the
building of the Cooperativa de Aceites. The night is not yet behind, and the last houses of the
town make up a ghostly landscape of thick shadows illuminated by the flashes of the
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shots. It smells of burnt wood, of explosive nitramine, of airborne dust giving the
penumbra an almost physical consistency. In the distance a house burns, surrounded by a sinister halo
of reddish light.
Crouching next to a window, Santiago Pardeiro unzips his leather jacket.
leather. His eardrums hurt, he's hot and thirsty. Then change the almost empty magazine from
his Astra for a full one and clicks it into the grip, before leaning out
peek, teeth clenched with tension, until the patter of bullets in the
wall forces him to protect himself again, discouraged. What he senses he does not like.
"Vladimiro!"
"Is there anything known about the House of the Doctor?"
"Nothing, my ensign ... The same thing is that they couldn't get through."
Pardeiro bites his lower lip while the images of the corporal cross his head
Longines and de Tonet: the shorts and the legionary chapiri on the skinhead of the
kid.
"Well, I don't think they're coming anymore," he concludes. The reds are running that way, to
our left ... We have them on the walls of the corral; they also make fire from there.
The Russian sergeant says nothing. They both know what that means. Once fenced no
there will be other than a numantine resistance until the last cartridge, with no alternative but
sell the skin expensive, in the same way that the legionaries have made pay, with much blood, each
span of the land ceded in Castellets. That goes in the salary of the troops, of course, and in the
orders received by the ensign. But there are other reasonable options. The hermitage of Aparecida, a
a kilometer from there and at a slight height, it offers the possibility of establishing a new and perhaps
best resistance point. A final stronghold.
"What do you think, Vladimiro?"
"I think what you send me to think."
That said, the Russian remains silent, waiting. Motionless black lump, smelling of dirty clothes,
earth and weapons oil. His is a disciplined silence, although Pardeiro knows that the
NCO understands the situation. They and the corporals have spoken it, so that everything was said
if it was time to move in a hurry and in the dark. They detailed every step to take, including
before a mass of red infantry launched the final attack on the church at midnight
after dynamiting the bell tower, killing those of the Hotchkiss who were above, and
up to the walls of the building with great determination and great courage, throwing grenades through the windows
and entering through the main gate while the legionaries, after jumping between fallen beams and
debris escaped through the sacristy. Then everything happened as planned: withdrawal
up company steps under cover of darkness, supporting each other with fires
to become strong in the cooperative.
"We can't stand here if they take us over," Pardeiro says. You have to go.
"Also as planned, my Ensign?"
—Also… Arrange the crowd: three short blasts of the cornet. And that the machine that
It is left to take her already, with the machine guns.
-It is understood.
"We'll do covering fire for two minutes after the bugle." Keep two
squads and a Bergmann at the beginning of the olive grove, in the farrowing pen, to cover us until I
I arrived. I want reliable people with you, who do not chatter when they see others running by or
cold shot to the last when we appear ... is that clear?
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-Very clear.
"Let everyone arm bayonets, in case the reds are already haunting the olive trees." And if I don't get to
farrowing, you take charge, and you retire with the others to the hermitage.
-To the order.
"Find me a submachine gun."
"Have mine."
"No, bring me another."
"Keep it, my Ensign." Take the full twenty-five charger ... I'm looking for another one,
that at this point there is someone without an owner. And when finished, he returns it to me.
Vladimiro puts the light Beretta 18/30 with a curved magazine in his hands and Pardeiro leaves it
on the ground, very close, leaning against the wall.
"Make sure people take the ammunition and equipment," he says, holstering the pistol.
Here we must not forget a grenade, or a cartridge ... Nothing at all.
At that point, the ensign hesitates for a moment. Then he deliberately hardens his voice.
"Also warn them," he adds, "that anyone who abandons his weapon is ordered to be shot."
A brief silence. A hesitation on the part of Sgt.
"There are wounded who cannot walk, my lieutenant."
-How many?
"Five or six… Legionnaire Körut is one of them."
"The Hungarian?"
-That one.
"And you can't move?"
"He has shrapnel on his legs and smashed kneecaps."
Pardeiro sighs deeply, bitterly. As if the sigh ripped through his chest. Sometimes is
too much, he thinks. Excessive responsibility. Too much weight. Since yesterday, in the absence of others
means, men hit by enemy fire have their wounds treated with wine and cork
of burnt plugs.
"We also had wounded in the church," he answers dryly, "and there they stayed."
-It is true.
"Well, tell these that we're leaving, and good luck."
The Russian hesitates.
"My ensign ...
-Tell me.
"Krut and a few others can still defend themselves, and the Reds don't take legionaries."
-Y?
"Can I leave you grenades and ammunition?"
"No, we're going to need everything." Leave them only the poplar, a five-bullet comb to whoever can
use them, and machetes ... And those who can walk, go out to the olive grove.
It does not say anything else because it is not necessary. Without replying, the NCO's bundle moves
slowly, crouched, and disappears into the shadows.
—Turuta!
"At your command, my Ensign," a voice comes out of the darkness.
"Be careful to blow when I tell you ... Links, forewarned!"
Two other voices declare themselves attentive. Pardeiro instructs them to notify the legionaries
posted in the courtyard and around the building.
"Three short touches, remember ... Three short touches and run."
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That said, he unhooks his canteen from his belt and takes a sip of wine. A very sip
brief. He has not tasted another liquid for twenty-four hours and is afraid it will affect his ideas and
behavior, like some legionaries who are fighting with a half chestnut, or with a
whole, which makes them bolder and sometimes costs them their lives. But that's what there is. Thats why he
respectfully use the canteen: the essentials to remove dust from a dry throat
and shout orders that are understood.
A unit, no matter how small, that owns its fire, can sustain and fight in isolation
during several days…
Turning away from the window, with the pages of the Infantry Tactical Regulations - which has
been rereading at each pause in the fight — turning it over in his head, Pardeiro hangs on the
shoulder the eight pounds the Beretta weighs, he stands up and walks in the dark with his
left hand outstretched so as not to trip on the wall.
A force that surrenders without having exhausted all means of defense is disgraced and its
boss is responsible ...
The sudden glare of a mortician fallen very close, in the street - the ensign does not shrink
with the boom, of the many that has been embedded since yesterday—, it hits shards of shrapnel
on the outside wall and briefly illuminates the room, illuminating the
broken furniture, the corner where the cornet and the assistant Sanchidrián crouch, already two
legionaries who, kneeling, are in the adjoining window, sheltered with sandbags.
All covered in dust from head to toe, they look like a fleeting vision of ghosts
pulled out of the night.
Even if a troop runs out of ammunition, fight with the bayonet ...
Groping again, following the wall, Pardeiro goes out to the landing of the staircase, goes down it and,
upon reaching a door that opens into darkness, he passes among a group of men stationed there -
neither of them utters a word — he stands next to the one in the doorway and peers outside. TO
Although the reds advance to close the flake and surround them, there is still no
shots and the first light of dawn is far away, circumscribed to the eastern sky. Between
cooperative and the olive grove everything is still in shadows, and there is still for a quarter of an hour, he calculates:
adequate darkness for his men to retreat under the protection, and enough time to
that, if the reds come behind, there is some light when the coverage stationed in the farrowing pen them
plant face. It's now or never.
"We're leaving in a moment, in squads," he says. Warn those above.
He is answered by a murmur of low voices, followed by the metallic clanging of machetes at the
fit into the barrels of the Mausers. And while the legionaries gather, Pardeiro envies
his comfortable and silent espadrilles, which will allow everyone to run better than he will
with their high official boots: suitable for walking around the Espolón de Burgos or the Plaza Mayor
of Salamanca, but absurd at the front, especially when you consider that you have not ridden
since he's been at war, nor in his entire life. Then, resigned, he zips up the
jacket, leaving the Zeiss inside, and check that the belt and holster are sufficiently
adjusted so as not to bother you when running. Finally he takes off the chapiri, folds it and puts it in a
pocket.
"Sanchidrian."
"Say, my ensign."
"Are you carrying my satchel?"
"I carry it."
"Take my canteen and put it inside ... Turuta!"
Page 100
"Here I am, my ensign."

"Attentive to my order."
He takes a few steps, followed by the cornet and the assistant, and goes out under the stars, where he can hardly see
nothing but darkness and shapeless shadows. He walks like this to a low fence, adjacent to the olive grove.
Still no shots on that side, he checks with relief. The shooting, more sporadic, only
sounds now on the north side of the cooperative. Behind him he feels the steps of the legionaries who
they leave the house and spread out behind him.
"Up to the hermitage without stopping," he whispers to them. There is a path that crosses the olive grove: the same
the one we came from… If you lose it, stay with Polar at five o'clock.
A kilometer, he thinks, is a lot of room to run and little to feel safe. But calculate
that, if the Reds are not already among the olive trees, the hundred men who remain will be able to travel
that distance without problems. It's all about moving quickly and not making mistakes. To be
faster and bolder than those trying to encircle them.
The links are presented back, and Pardeiro orders them to stay close to him. A vague
clarity begins to define the tops of the olive trees, whose black trunks seem to emerge
slowly over a sea of shadows. The chill of dawn feels more intense outside, and the ensign
congratulates on having put on the jacket. It is not a matter of trembling at this moment and that it shows in
the voice. In any case, once the decisions have been made and with no alternative but the present
immediate, long ago assumed the certainty that his flesh and bones, his body of almost twenty years,
They are as vulnerable as any of those he has seen torn and broken, which the young
officer feels is more apprehension than fear. Fear of not doing your duty. Of not doing it right.
"I am Vladimiro, my ensign," a voice rings out. The company is ready and at your service.
"Well, go to your post."
Pardeiro takes the submachine gun from his shoulder, and leaning one foot on the fence makes it rest
on one thigh while pulling back the latch. Each movement is done conscientiously and very
slowly, as if it wanted to delay the inevitable moment. And take me alive, my God, think of
soon aggressive, almost like a reproach. Take me to the hermitage so I can continue to guide
my men, so that I can kiss the hand of my war godmother, to see the sun rise another
time.
—Turuta.
"Three short touches."
Pardeiro was almost startled when he heard the cornet. The signal comes out sharp, like a groan, vibrating
at night. Then, from the upper floor, the expected cover shooting sounds and the shadows that
They surround begin to run towards the olive grove. Leaning against the fence, the ensign watches them go quickly and
hears the noise of the race that takes them away from the cooperative. It is a hundred trained men,
professionals who only flee to continue fighting, he thinks. And he is her boss. There is nothing in it
Infantry tactical regulations that reproach you for that.
The two minutes of covering fire seemed like two seconds. Almost the entire company
It is already in the olive grove, and it is a good sign that no one shoots from that side. Leaning on the fence,
accompanied only by the cornet, the assistant and the two liaisons, Pardeiro observes the
increasing clarity - the cooperative is already cut out at dawn and a grayish haze silvers the leaves
of the olive trees - while waiting impatiently for the last two squads to rejoin
he. The nine men arrive at that moment, rifle in hand, leaving the building on the run.
"Come on, hurry up! ... Don't stop until the farrowing pen!"
It is his group, the last, with whom he plans to wait a little longer at the entrance of the olive grove,
Page 101
relieving Sergeant Vladimiro to make sure the enemy is not on their heels. And
is about to go with them - last to leave the position, as it should be - when one of the
Links emits a cry of alert. People are running from the red lines, he says.
With death in his soul, Pardeiro looks forward and notices, in effect, some shadows that
they move swiftly, closing in on the indecisive edge of night and day. Then raise the
submachine gun with his finger on the trigger and is about to order the others to run while
he shoots before running in his turn, when the shadows that are already very close begin to scream.
"Spain, Spain," they shout. «To me the Legion, up Spain.» Baffled, fearing a ruse
of the Reds, Pardeiro keeps aiming until he recognizes the voice of Corporal Longines.
"Up Spain, don't shoot! ... Up Spain!"
He arrives panting, exhausted, as at the limit of his strength as the two legionaries who
accompany. They are the only ones who have been able to escape from the House of the Doctor.
"Zusordenes, my ensign," Longines mutters breathlessly, recognizing him.
Pardeiro remembers Tonet.
"And the baby? ... Did he get to you?"
"Back and forth." Eventually her voice breaks with weariness. It is he who has guided us
up to this point.
Pardeiro feels an immense joy.
"Are you there, Tonet?" He asks, admired.
In the gloom, a small figure advances.
"Here I am, Ensign."
Page 103
102
The obstacle appears around a curve, unexpectedly. The road, which runs between hills
thick with holm oaks and holm oaks, it is cut by a Friesian horse made of barbed wire
and railway sleepers. With a blasphemy from Pedro, the Spanish chauffeur, the braking makes
sliding the Alfa-Romeo's tires on the loose gravel of the road.
"Easy," Phil Tabb says. They are assault guards.
Vivian Szerman believes it on the spot, as the New Worker correspondent has a quick eye
for those things: he has been in Spain for two years and has seen everything. That reassures her, since
the last ten kilometers they did while dawn, still with little light, and although in Mayals they
They assured that there are no fascists on this side of the river, between reality and what is usually assured
have a stretch.
"Don't show the cameras yet," Tabb says to Chim Langer.
"I wasn't planning on doing it."
Vivian now also recognizes the dark blue uniforms and soft caps of the guards
approaching relaxed, with their rifles on their shoulders. There are four: two remain seated on the
the gutter, indolent, by a small fire on which there is a coffee pot, and the two
They approach the car, one on each side.
"Documentation," says the one on the left.
They hand out the press cards, the waybill and the passports with stapled photos; Y
While the guard studies them, Pedro —loquacious, gesticulating— engages with him in a
Spanish conversation so fast and lively that Vivian has a hard time following it. They talk about the car,
concludes. Why an Italian one, asks the guard. It was captured in Guadalajara, replies Pedro.
Six-cylinder, 68-horsepower engine: a marvel even though it was made by the fascists.
It belonged to a CTV general named Fantochi or Cabroni, one of those. They nailed it in the
Sigüenza highway when the front fell apart and the general was leaving with the suitcases and
a flamenco dancer who was benefiting. The motherfucker.
On the other side of the car, the second guard leans over to look inside. The visor of the
The cap casts a shadow on the dark, inquisitive eyes that glance at Tabb, then Langer, and
They stop at Vivian with a mixture of curiosity and suspicion. Then he knuckles the
window glass, to be lowered.
"English?"
"North American," Vivian answers with her best smile.
-And them?
"English."
It is not entirely accurate, as Chim Langer is Czech. But he works for an agency
British, which simplifies things.
The assault guard nods, still suspicious. He's a big-faced, mature guy with a beard.
two or three days, and he wears the jacket unbuttoned over a wrinkled and very dirty shirt. Then
He indicates the bag Chim has next to him in the backseat, between him and Vivian.
"Open it," he says.
The you is abolished in the Republic, but sometimes exception is made with foreigners.
Page 104
The photographer obeys: two Leica and several rolls of photographic film. The gaze of the
guard.
"Do they carry weapons?"
From the front seat, Tabb has turned to look at him.
"Not at all, friend," he replies in his more than reasonable Spanish. No weapons to
on board… We are journalists.
The guard points to the folded Michelin road map on the seat.
"And that map?"
-Tourist. So as not to get lost.
Tabb smiles as one should always do with Spaniards: looking them in the eye. They are
proud, and with them any misplaced grimace, an equivocal gesture that suggests mockery or
disdain, it can cost a dislike. English knows them well. They are brave to the point of madness and
generous to the point of nonsense, he often says, but unpredictable if you hit the wrong spot. Was with
them in Madrid during the winter of '36, when the city came close to falling into the hands of
Franco, and then in Jarama and Teruel.
"And what are they carrying in the back, in the trunk?"
"A demijohn with wine and a backpack with cans of Russian meat ... Do you want one, comrade?"
Without responding, the guard walks around the car and goes to talk to his partner, pointing to the
Chim chambers. The other shows you the documents to prove that everything is in order:
foreign journalists friends of the Republic, papers in order, signatures and stamps of the Office of
Press in Barcelona. Authorized to contact the Jackson Battalion of the XV Brigade
International, if they can find it.
"Free way," Pedro says at last, while the documentation is returned to him.
The guards call their companions, who reluctantly get up, and between the four of them withdraw
the Friesian horse. Pedro puts in first gear, starts the car and when he passes them
sticks his clenched fist out the window.
"They say the river is ten kilometers away," he announces.
"And how are things going there?" Tabb asks.
with—They have
material, no idea aabout
including that
couple of...tanks.
TheyBut
toldsince
me that these days
yesterday, there
when was truck
an infantry traffic passed, no
battalion
have seen anyone.
"Do you know anything about the internationals?"
-Nothing.
Head bowed between the high collar of her gray denim Harris jacket, Tabb
He lights two Camels, one for him and one for Pedro. Then he puts his Spanish in the
lips and he appreciates it as he drives firmly grasping the steering wheel, watching for potholes
off the road and skillfully shifting gears on slopes. He is a good driver and excellent
car mechanic. Socialist of the PSUC, over thirty-something, lean, gray,
awake and friendly. He speaks English and French and is used to journalists.
"I want to plant a pine tree," grunts Chim.
The Alfa-Romeo stops. The photographer and Tabb go down, and while the former walks a little
beyond the gutter with two pages of the Treball newspaper in hand and out of sight between
the bushes, the other stretches and smokes his cigarette. Vivian stays with Pedro in the car,
watching him: tall and thin with skinny legs and hair a little longer than normal,
slow in his movements and as serene as if he had just left a London club. So is Phil
Tabb.
Page 105
"You can see the river," says the Englishman, pointing into the distance.
Vivian gets out of the car. The sun is already high and his sweater is starting to be annoying, so he takes it off,
discovering the large-pocketed military shirt that he wears over his baggy pants
twill, fastened on the hips with a leather belt. Redhead, petite, wears her hair
cut to the nape of the neck and has light eyes that, depending on the light, turn from blue to gray. Although it is not
pretty, the eyes, the freckles on the nose and cheekbones, the shapes suggested by the belt and under the
shirts are a kind of safe conduct among the Spanish, and not only with them. The others
The only young foreign journalists on record in the Republican zone are
Martha Gellhorn, Virginia Cowles and Gerda Taro; but the first is not in Spain, the second is not
It is in the Ebro and the third is dead.
Tabb was right, check. From a little beyond the gutter, a distant
stretch of river between two wooded hills: a wide, sinuous ribbon, reflecting like a pool of
molten metal in sunlight. There is no movement in it, but something further away, over a place
Hidden from view, a column of smoke rises that the absence of wind widens above, almost
motionless, like a huge gray mushroom.
"Could it be Castellets?"
"Maybe." The Englishman takes one last drag on his cigarette, drops it, and crushes it with his sole.
of a boot. It must be more or less in that part ... And listen. Do you hear it?
Pay attention Vivian until you notice the muffled, distant rumble. Like the beat of a drum
cold.
"Artillery," Tabb confirms.
"Republican or fascist?"
"That I don't know." They are equal.
The American woman smiles.
—You remind me of something a militiaman said in Madrid, when I asked him why they dressed the same
them than the Francoists ... He was left thinking and replied: «Come on, because we are all
Spanish people".
Tabb smiles too.
"And he was right."
"No ... I guess in a way, no."
Chim Langer joined them, still buckling up: short and stocky, hands
fast, nervous eyes of a distrustful Central European and always on the lookout. Fighter backs
under a grimy suede jacket with the dust of some battles. Messy hair,
kinky, very black, curls around his narrow bovine forehead, wide and flattened nose in
gyms and rings.
"I'd fuck up when it's all over," he says.
He also looks into the distance and seems restless. Tabb shrugs, phlegmatic, and not saying
nothing is heading towards the car. Chim watches him with a frown.
"That bastard," he says, "has in his veins what the Spanish do with tiny roots ...
He remains silent, undecided, searching for the name.
"Horchata," Vivian points out.
-That. The whore horchata.
They go back to the car. They left Barcelona two days ago and since then they have not changed
of clothes, made a decent meal or slept in a bed. They are tired, irritable. The mode
to express it of Tabb are his sullen silences, and of Chim, the exasperated outbursts of tone.
Only the chauffeur Pedro's humor remains unchanged, oblivious to everything.
Page 106
Vivian Szerman also feels dirty, uncomfortable and very tired. However, the vision of
river lifts your spirits. She, Phil Tabb and Chim Langer are the first three journalists to whom the
The Press Office authorizes a visit to the Ebro front, and is not willing to waste it.
Tabb and Chim have covered other crucial moments of the war; but she hasn't gotten up
now but rearguard chronicles published in New Magazine and Harper's. Since it is in
Spain has not lacked deaths from bombings, trenches in Madrid or hospitals with wounded;
but he never had the chance to attend a real battle. He could not get close to that of Teruel
because her car was blocked by the snow, and the republican disaster of Aragon surprised her
during a trip to Paris. The Ebro is your opportunity; and your fellow travelers, a guarantee:
they know how to move and have good contacts. Watching the Jackson Battalion volunteers fight will be
very interesting, as he has never written about the International Brigades in the line of fire.
Naturally, the American has no illusions about why Tabb and Chim
let you go with them. Neither of them has said it out loud, but they know how to calibrate that class
of things. Chim himself once commented, without hiding at all, that he had to be accompanied
for a woman in a war is to bring complications; but Tabb, more subtle in perceptions and
more intelligent, he also knows that, in a place like Spain, a redhead with light eyes opens more
doors of which it closes. They verified it at the beginning of the year in Madrid, when a colonel from
artillery fired cannons near the French bridge to impress her.
Also during dinner with the official of the Press Office who in Barcelona authorized the
trip to the Ebro. And when yesterday, in Lleida, in exchange for a helpless smile and a fan
eyelashes, a captain of the quartermaster provided thirty liters of gasoline for the Alfa-Romeo.
"Do you want chocolate?"
-Thank you.
Vivian accepts the four ounces Tabb offers her and eats them slowly, leaving them
melt in the mouth. The road now descends with many curves between branch trees
almost naked, as if overcome by the heat.
"What species are these, Pedro?"
-Species?
"Class of trees."
"Ah." Hazel trees… There are many around here.
The rammed earth and gravel road surface is in poor condition, and the potholes make the shoulder
Vivian's right collides with Chim's left, who gazes at the landscape with distracted eyes.
The Czech is a good photographer - his images of the Spanish war compete with those of Robert Capa
on the covers of Life and Voilà - but the American doesn't like him; maybe because the
The first time he saw him, just arrived in Madrid, it was in Chicote, drunk and hugging two whores
Spanish women with whom she ended up staggering away, and the next morning they looked at her with
haughtiness in the corridor of the Florida hotel. Daughter of a Hartford math teacher, coming to
Paris a year ago with the same portable Remington you now carry in your car, ninety dollars
in her pocket and determined to be a journalist or writer, Vivian is no puritan; but hates the
sexual promiscuity and alcohol excesses. This places the photographer's habits in the
opposite end to yours.
The other is different, he thinks, looking at the back of the Englishman's neck, with that slightly long hair that
rubs the collar of the shirt. Phil Tabb is quiet, discreet, self-possessed: a journalist from
left that does not hide his commitment, he does well among the military commanders and
Spanish politicians, he is ingenious in bar talk to how inclined are the
correspondents, and treats women, journalists or not, with a polite camaraderie that
Page 107
leads to misleading situations. Vivian had intimate relationships with men in Paris, the first
of his life and rather disappointing; and in Spain, five months ago, a more satisfactory one with
a Frenchman from the Bayard squad whom he met at the Miami bar on Gran Vía. However,
although among the avid colleagues of the press a female journalist is often coveted trophy
hunting - the boastful Hemingway had to shake off twice - has never
wanted to complicate life with them. Of those he knows in Spain, Tabb is the only one with whom
I could let my guard down; but this has never been hinted at. The truth is that he has not seen it either
never make an equivocal aside with any woman, Spanish or foreign. And even though nothing
ambiguous in his appearance, Vivian wonders if the New Worker correspondent is not
homosexual. It reminds him of other Englishmen he met in Paris, of similar style.
The car leaves awkward curves behind and heads straight across a burned plain
by the sun, approaching a double column of soldiers walking on both sides of the
highway.
"Are they internationals?" Vivian asks, seeing them hopefully.
"They don't look like it," Tabb says.
"Spanish infantry," says Pedro.
They catch up with the last, who turn away when they hear the Alfa-Romeo's engine and look curiously
the car and the passengers as they pass between them.
"Stop," Chim orders the driver, in the middle of the double column.
When the car stops, the photographer takes a Leica out of the bag, opens the door, and
after going ahead with a short run he begins to focus on the soldiers. They must be, calculate
Vivian, about three hundred. Someone raises a clenched fist or smiles when facing the target, but in their
most of them are still serious, sweaty. They are seen fatigued from a long walk, and not
very brave. Uniformity also leaves something to be desired: a few wear steel helmets, clothing
military or blue and brown jumpsuits, but the rest wear civilian clothes, corduroy or twill pants,
rolled up white shirts and espadrilles. They advance with plywood blankets and rifles.
appreciate three or four different models— hanging from the shoulder, some with cords instead of
regulatory straps. And by way of holsters for ammunition, they carry heavy bags of
cloth or scarves tied around the waist. There is a lot of improvisation in them, warns the
North American. Even fragile.
"How young they all are."
She, Tabb and the chauffeur have also got out of the car, and leaning on it they watch the
the soldiers.
-What are you doing here? Asks the Englishman. Are they going to the Ebro?
Pedro nods, spits into his boots, and nods again. Look askance at Chim, who follows
Making photos. Always so talkative, the driver is now reluctant to speak. It seems uncomfortable.
"They are the boys born in 1920, whom the Republic has just called up," answers the
end.
"My God," Vivian exclaims. Look at their faces… They are children.
When he turns to Pedro, he sees that the chauffeur's face has turned grim. She
I've never seen him like this before.
"They are eighteen," he confirms. Some, only seventeen.
Sighs the American, moved.
"Poor mothers."
"And poor Republic."
"Is it the one they call fifth of the bottle?" Tabb is coolly interested.
Page 108
The driver twists his face, as if his own words made his mouth bitter.
"That same one, yes ... The fifth with the bottle."
Harinera command post: tobacco smoke, sweat-wet shirts, men who

rifles come and go on their shoulders bringing and carrying orders. When Monsoon Duck looks up
from the field switchboard, the commander of the XI Brigade, Lieutenant Colonel Faustino Landa, is standing
next to her with a hand scratching his belly under his shirt and a cigar between his fingers.
the other. He is accompanied by Major Carbonell and the commissioner they call Ricardo or el Russo.
"I can't speak from my table." Landa points with his cigar towards the corner of the ship.
covered in maps, where Margot and Sergeant Exposito toil with screwdrivers and pliers
in two field terminals. Can you connect me from here while they fix it?
Duck takes off his headphones.
"Of course, Comrade Lieutenant Colonel ... Who do you want to speak to?"
"Command of the Fourth Battalion, Captain Bascuñana."
The name causes Pato a slight inner vibration.
-Right now.
Striving to concentrate on her task, the young woman inserts a peg into one of the
ten jacks on the control unit. Then he picks up the phone connected to it and spins three times
the crank. After a click, a male voice rings out on the other end of the telephone wire that connects
the Flour Mill with the Levant Python.
- «Command of the Room, point Lola.»
"Commander of the unit, please."
-"Who calls?"
"Brigade command, Elehache."
-"Just a moment."
While you wait in an impeccable professional attitude, you fix your eyes on the switchboard and pretend not to
Noticing the gazes of the three men, Pato keeps the phone close to his ear. Delay
pass it on to the head of the brigade, as he wants to hear Bascuñana's voice first. You want to hear it.
"They are going to warn you, Comrade Lieutenant Colonel," he says to Landa.
For a moment she is afraid that it will snatch the headset from her, but she just gives a long
sucking on the cigar and exchanging impatient glances with the others.
"He'll be on," Pato adds to reassure them.
Among the noise of parasites on the line, he can hear distant booms. It is fought near the
command post of the Fourth Battalion.
- «Here Bascuñana.»
Duck almost flinches, but says nothing. Her lips are tight and her phone is glued to
her ear, listening to every inflection in the male voice she just heard. Pretending that
no one responds yet.
- «Yes, say? ... Here I command the Fourth.»
The internal vibration becomes more intense in the young woman's chest. Suddenly he realizes that
he holds the headset with clenched fingers, and the palm of his hand is wet with sweat.
"I'm Bascuñana," the voice insists, almost irritated. With whom I speak?".
"One moment, comrade," Pato finally reacts. I'll pass you to Lieutenant Colonel.
Landa picks up the phone and throws himself into a torrent of orders and instructions, while Pato
gazes over the cables and plugs at the listening headphones that he now regrets not having
posts. At last he manages to pay attention to what is being said. The squad leader is not shown
Page 109
satisfied with the results in the python Lola, whose crest is still in the hands of the fascists. To the
Bascuñana seems to respond that his men do what they can, but the resistance above is
It lasts and the Fourth is suffering heavy casualties. Some because of their own artillery, whose
105 guns fire short too often.
"There is no alternative, Juan," the lieutenant colonel wants to settle. The python has to be ours
before noon… No, I can't send you reinforcements, mate. Neither have tanks
crossed the river; and when they do, they will not be able to climb that steep slope ... Yours is
infantry work, pure egg, and you know it. So fix them as you can, because there is no
possible excuse.
While saying that, Landa glanced at the Russian, who gestures for him to pass the
phone; but she shakes her head.
"Hey, Juan," he adds. Here are those who question the combativeness of your people. And that is not
good for nobody ... Do you understand me?
The commissioner insists on his gestures. Finally, resigned, Landa hands him the phone. Duck observes
the thin blond hair, the pale and hairless skin of the cheeks, the bulging eyes
squinting behind glasses. Also the red star inside a circle, sewn on
the peaks of the warrior. Despite the heat, the political leader of the brigade is the only one who does not go
in shirt sleeves. There is something about him that makes you think of a wet skin like that of a fish,
an icy blood that runs slowly cooling the veins. Watering a very dangerous brain.
The Russian has held the phone to one ear. Two vertical wrinkles are marked between his eyebrows,
as if he had Bascuñana in front of him and his presence irritated him.
"I'm Ricardo, curator of the Eleventh," he says dryly. And yes, of course ... I know that
do you know who I am.
After saying that, he pauses. A deliberate silence, sound like a gunshot to the back of the neck.
"And I," he adds after a moment, "know very well who you are."
Next, Pato listens to the Russian - now he thinks he detects a slight foreign accent -
direct to the commander of the Fourth Battalion a torrent of exhortations and little disguised
threats between allusions to patriotic duties, republican conscience and need for discipline.
And, of course, a requirement of responsibilities in which everyone, from the last soldier to
the military and political command, will end up giving an account of what it does. And what it doesn't do.
"So follow orders and take that python, comrade," he concludes. Or pay attention to
consequences.
That said, deliberately ignoring the look of censure directed by Faustino Landa, the
Russian cuts the call and hands the phone back to Pato.
"Damn, Ricardo," says Landa.
The squad leader is upset: he exchanges a quick glance with Major Carbonell, gives him another
sucked on the cigar and repeats the outburst.
-Fuck.
Hard, defiant, the commissioner holds his pulse.
"I'm fed up," he says sourly, "of cowardice and maybe betrayal."
—Bascuñana does what he can, with what he has.
"Well, do more." Lola has to be in the hands of the Republic today.
The other shrugs.
"Things don't always go as expected." This is not a political rally - look at Carbonell
as in demand for support. This is war. And I know Juan Bascuñana.
"Well, there you." But I don't trust that bird. Barrunto a traitor.
Page 110
-Do not say foolishness.

"He was in the military before the fascist uprising." The commissioner slaps his breast pocket
where a thick notebook bulges. I have your file: Marine Corps.
-And that? Landa points his cigar at his second. "He was also a military man, and here he is.
you have.
"With great honor," confirms the other.
The Russian does not listen. The frown lines accentuate his stubborn expression.
"Bascuñana is not a communist," he insists. The only battalion commander of the brigade who
it is not.
-And that? Landa replies. He is a socialist.
"Closer to those of Largo Caballero than those of Negrín or Prieto, so it is worse for me.
you put.
"I don't know about that."
-Well. To me, yes.
The lieutenant colonel looks at him skeptically.
-And how do you know?
"My job is to know."
The other clicks his tongue disapprovingly.
"Or imagine it," he says grimly.
The Russian's nuance slips.
"In matters of republican loyalty I have very little imagination."
Conciliator Carbonell intervenes.
"They named Bascuñana Modesto and Tagüeña," he says. And those are communists.
—Yes… But, look at the detail, they gave him all the scum possible: traitorous poumists,
unreliable anarchists, ambushed bourgeoisie, mob without profession or benefit ... And so it goes,
they don't gain a foot of ground up there.
"You're exaggerating," Landa objects.
"What am I going to exaggerate."
The commissioner removes his glasses to clean them with a very wrinkled handkerchief. Without them,
bulging eyes look even colder and more dangerous. Suddenly he seems to remember something that
dwarfs the pupils.
"Besides, another coincidence." They have been left without a political commissioner.
Landa sighs in annoyance, as if the conversation drains him. Then he scratches his
stomach under his shirt and glanced at Pato, uncomfortable, before turning to the commissioner.
"Hey," he says finally. You are not hinting ...
"I'm not hinting at anything," the other replies coldly. But Cabrera has been charged. That's
an objective fact.
Lieutenant Colonel bites his cigar.
"It was the fascists, dammit."
-Or not.
"That's unfair… We have the casualty report." The Fourth Battalion has lost a lot of people.
After checking them against the light, the Russian has put on his glasses. Now look at Pato as if by
first notice its presence. She looks down, puts on her headphones, and finger
pegs, troubled.
"I don't care about casualties," says the commissioner. As he says, and he says well, the comrade
Stalin ...
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"Come on, don't fuck with Stalin," Landa cuts him off.
The other shakes his head, serious and dry.
—May Bascuñana lose the people he has to lose. If not…
"Damn, Ricardo." You fix everything with your and if not.
The three of them walk away arguing, back to the corner of the maps. And Pato manages to hear some
last words.
"In the 42nd Division there is little shooting, Faustino." I've been telling you and you don't listen to me ...
he teaches and is shot little.
You can hear Atilano coming, and that's even worse for the nerves.
Raaaaas, they do. Raaaaas. Raaaaas.
105 rounds arrive in rounds of three or four, with cracks that rip through the air
as if it were cloth. Then they burst with deafening booms, veiling the python's crest
with a dust that smells of explosive and burned vegetation, from which screams of
invisible men who die, are injured, curse, or panic when the
explosions, vibrating the ground, expand fragments of shrapnel that bounce off and
they multiply by tearing out shards of stone.
Puum-bah.
Cling, clang.
Clack, clack, clack.
Curled up on his rifle between two rocks, with his hands on his head and the bush twig
Ginés Gorguel hears shards of stone and shrapnel striking between his teeth. TO
Sometimes a projectile falls very close, everything rumbles around, the stones that protect it seem to
about to crush him, and for an agonizing moment his lungs suck in the acrid dust that tastes like
smoke and dirt.
Puum-bah.
Puum-bah.
He had never been so terrified and helpless. Never your fear of mutilation and death
it was so egregious. His tongue is dry, attached to the palate. His muscles ache from tension, and
head as if blood were going to burst from nose and ears. If not for the continuous
explosions and clatter of shrapnel, in the conviction that if he moves he will be destroyed by the
hell beating the crest, long ago he would have fled down the slope like others did who he heard
scream in panic, get up and run before the gale of iron and fire stopped them,
quartered like a butcher's cut.
Suddenly silence comes.
Gorguel count: one, two, three, four.
Five six seven eight.
Surprised, he stops protecting himself with his hands.
Fifteen seconds and no new explosion.
In reality, silence is not such. As the smoke slowly dissipates, between the rocks
weak moans of the wounded, the wailing of the dying. A blasphemous voice. Another voice, more
far away, moans like that of a child. Oh, mother, he says. Oh, mother, mother, mother, mother.
Gorguel's hands are shaking as he leans to one side to remove the rifle from underneath and
the dirt on the bolt shakes him. Suddenly those broken voices are scarier than the
bombs. Or perhaps it is the background silence that gives it. You know what comes next
because he's been on the crest for two days. He knows it very well, and he does not know if he will be able to
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bear it. Probably not.

That makes him wonder if the Moor Seliman and the sergeant wounded in the leg are still alive or not.
the bombardment will have killed them, and if the other men entrenched among the rocks shake him
the dust to the rifles, like him, or are those who blaspheme, call their mothers or simply
theyFollow
are dead.
the Or they of
silence runthe
down the slope.
bombs.
At least thirty seconds, he calculates, and maybe a little more. However, the last two days
have become a veteran of the Levante Python; so the old carpenter waits a bit for
raise your head fully. The Red Gunners have done it before: they wait for the defenders of the
python believe that the bombardment has stopped, and when they relax and peek out of their shelters, confident,
they cannonade again. The very pigs.
Almost a minute without bombs, Gorguel now calculates.
He has made a decision: he is not going to stay there. Refuses to wait for you again besides
the blasphemies and the moans, the silence is filled by the rumor of the enemies going up to the assault.
Although badly and by force, he has complied with Franco and with the country. To Spain the
it has put the highest of what it is capable of. It's okay for that day, for that year, for that life.
So go away.
"Where the hell do you think you're going?"
Like a nightmare that does not stop, despite the bombs and shrapnel and everything that has fallen,
exploded and broken around, the sergeant is still there. When Gorguel dragged himself back
incorporates, finds the NCO lying on the rock, dirty with smoke and dirt to the point of
that the gray hair is no longer distinguished from the rest, with the eternal and threatening pistol of the 9 length
on the belly. Motionless, hard, invulnerable as a bronze statue, miraculously alive and
no new wounds other than those already on his legs: the most serious, bandaged with shreds of
his own shirt and some gauze that the Moor Selimán brought last night with a half-full canteen,
stolen to know what dead, friend or foe.
Gorguel stammers the first thing that comes to mind, to say something.
"I'm going for hand pumps."
The other looks at him, skeptical, and then indicates the box next to him. Inside there are only chips.
"They are gone."
"Wow."
-Yes.
They look at each other as Gorguel desperately searches for another pretext. A solution. The soldier
calling his mother among the nearby rocks offers a remote possibility.
"That fellow needs help," he says.
The sergeant keeps looking at him very intently. Now twitch your lips a little, in a grimace
that does not reach a smile and perhaps does not even pretend.
"There is no one who can help him anymore." And you stay here.
A nearby noise startles Gorguel. When he turns his face, he sees Corporal Selimán, who appears
crouched between the rocks. The Moor is as covered in dust as they are: the tarbus cloth
it looks brown instead of red.
"Are they coming up already?" The noncommissioned officer asks, uneasy.
The other shakes his head, looks at Gorguel for a moment and goes to kneel next to the wounded man,
keeping the flies away.
"How can you be the bastard leg, sergeant?" He asks solicitously.
"Bad, but used ... Take a look at me, come on."
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The Moor feels her leg, lifts part of the bandage, and brings her nose closer to smell. Then come back
To cover the wound, he scratches his mustache with two fingers with dirty nails and shakes his head gloomily.
" Suaia-suaia, " he says.
" Precise , milks ... How soft is it ?"
"Swollen and ugly, I see a lot," Seliman admits.
"How ugly?"
"A little black."
-Already.
"Because of my father's eye that doesn't like it."
"Yeah, yeah."
"Does it hurt big?"
"Of course it hurts."
The Moor puts his hand on his forehead, but the other pushes it away.
—Have a lot of fever, sergeant.
"And hunger and thirst and heat… It doesn't screw you."
"It would be good to get you out of here." Go to heal faster than faster.
The noncommissioned officer points to Gorguel.
"Don't give that maula ideas, because he's looking for a reason to leave."
"I can take you to a nearby aid station," the man in question offers.
-Aid station? Screeches the sergeant's harsh laugh. Near here? ... Don't make me
laugh, man. That I choke.
"There will be some, I suppose." The disaster cannot be that great.
"What will you know?" Shut your mouth.
Another noise among the nearby rocks. When Gorguel turns to look, he sees the commander
Induráin, head of the almost disappeared tabor de regulars, who travels the ridge to count
of men and ammunition. Comes as dirty as them, torn shirt, ruffled hair, black
the bandage around his temples. Gorguel remembers him two nights ago, organizing the defense
from town. And he doesn't seem to have rested since.
"How are you guys around here?" -question.
His reddened eyes behind a mask of dust and gunpowder look at them one by one, without much
hope. The sergeant makes an effort to get up, which ends in a drop and a
wince.
"Well screwed, my commander," he replies. No hand bombs and short on ammo.
"Well, there is no more." Nor who can bring it to us.
"How many are we left?"
The head of the tabor points to Seliman, who smiles from ear to ear.
-What about this one?
-Legit. A chivani of those who do not flirt.
"Ah."
"The one I'm not sure of is the other."
After taking a quick glance at Gorguel — I must not be the only one you are not sure of.
up here, he thinks, “Indurain comes to see the sergeant's wound. Kneeling, the
look and say nothing. Then he gets up and makes a resigned gesture.
—Among regulars, survivors of the Monterrey Battalion and the platoon of legionaries,
There are about thirty of us left, ”he finally answers.
"Is there anything known about reinforcements?"
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-Nothing yet. I sent a liaison to the rear, but it hasn't returned.

"We've done what we could," the sergeant sums up.
-Yes.
"How is your head, my commander?"
"Better than your leg." The wound is ... Good. I guess you know.
"Of course I know."
Induráin looks at the canteen on the floor next to the empty box of grenades. Then I know
runs your tongue over dry, chapped lips.
"Do you have any water left?"
The sergeant points to Seliman.
"A little, thanks to the chivani ... Have a drink."
"Good health," the Moor encourages him.
The commander touches his face, as if in doubt. At last he shakes his head.
"Maybe later," he says.
" Inshalah, " Seliman points out.
Hear Gorguel squatting, leaning on his rifle. You feel hungry, thirsty and fatigued, but also
growing indignation. Those guys seem to live on another planet. They speak as without giving
account of the situation, of the trap in which they are; or what if this seemed the most normal of the
world. Suddenly they look like ostriches sticking their heads into a hole. Becoming the heroes,
like in the movies. Great assholes.
"If we don't give up, the Reds will be furious," he dares to venture. We have made them
many casualties.
They look at him carefully: the Moor surprised, the sergeant indignant, the commander grim.
-What have you said?
Induráin seems not to believe what he has just heard. Scared of himself, Gorguel is not
answer back. His own recklessness takes his breath away. It mutes it.
"What's your name, soldier?" Insists the head of the tabor.
The Albacete swallows saliva, finally says his name, and just does so he regrets not having
invented another: José García or something like that. Let them look for it later.
Induráin continues to stare at him.
"How many cartridges do you have left?"
"Just two combs."
"And a bayonet, right?"
-Yes.
"Well, you know what there is."
"Don't worry, my commander," the sergeant says, glaring at Gorguel.
If he doesn't know, I'm going to stick that bayonet up his ass.
"God is great," Seliman laughs, showing a lot of teeth. He knows and looks at us.
Down the slope, from the enemy's side, voices and whistles are beginning to be heard. They sound
a few shots, still isolated.
"There they go up again," Induráin comments.
He has said it very calmly, resigned, while he extracts the magazine from his pistol, he checks
with a critical eye the ammunition and re-fit it into the stock. And the Albacete, who observes it very
Attentive, he thinks that the head of the tabor seems relieved by the new attack. As if that
discharges responsibility and wishes, deep down, that the enemy reaches the crest and all
finish at once.
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Ginés Gorguel thinks he understands the commander. He too longs to rest, sleep or
To die.
From the top of the Pepa python, the western one, the greatest of the Gambo Laguna militias observes the
assault of the Fourth Battalion on the python Lola. With the Russian binoculars pressed to his eyes, the head of the
Ostrovski focuses on the slope that rises from the pine forest. The distance is almost four kilometers,
but in the brown and yellowish height you can see the dust of the explosions and the
orange glow from the flashes. The sound comes distant, like a muffled rumor that
requires attention to listen to it; and a closer one often intervenes, a shooting
sporadic, full of echoes, which comes from the outskirts of the town between the two pythons:
where the fascists, after retreating through the olive grove, still resist around the hermitage of the
Appeared.
"Bascuñana keeps trying," says Gambo.
He passes the binoculars to his second, Simón Serigot, to invite him to look. Taking them to the
face, the captain carefully observes the distant height.
"They've gotten very high," he finally says, satisfied.
-It seems.
"There's a mess of noses."
-Yes.
"I'm sure they get it this time."
-Hopefully.
Beside him, the battalion commissioner, Ramiro García, thumbs on his belt, nibbles on his
pipe off.
"Bring it on, man." He takes the pipe out of his mouth. Let me take a look.
Serigot hands him the binoculars and Garcia, impatient, moves the wheel to adjust the focus.
Then smile.
—The explosions are very high, right?… And there are many.
"That is because they are already fighting on the same ridge."
"Well then, colossal." García gives Gambo the binoculars back. In the end, the Fourth
is behaving.
"We already told you that it was not Bascuñana's fault," Serigot specified. He is a good man. Does
what you can with the people you have.
"Which are waste of tempta, as we all know."
"They will be whatever they are, but there you have them, almost at the top of the python." Serigot pauses.
joker. And now, without a political commissioner to touch them.
Garcia growls with false severity, raising his pipe admonishingly.
"Let's not start, comrade."
While his deputy and the commissioner chat, Gambo runs his binocular strap through the
neck, letting them hang over the chest, and pensively observes one's positions. Until now
believes they have done everything right: the 1st Ostrovsky Company, ready to face the most
probable - a republican victory - and prevented in the face of the most dangerous - a counterattack
fascist—, he has sheltered himself as best as possible on the slopes and crest of Pepa, with the town at
back. Since the rocky ground prevents trenches, the men have dug just enough to
protect a body-to-ground rifleman, or built stone parapets taking advantage of the
terrain accidents. The 2nd Company is in reserve, in the shade of a grove of
fig and carob trees that are on the counter slope of the python; keeping on that side, thanks to
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the honda trough —the Rambla, they call that place— that crosses the road under a bridge of
wood and passes near the cemetery, the communication with the 3rd Company, well entrenched there.
In this way, the 437 troops of the Ostrovsky Battalion occupy the entire right flank of
Castellets: the machine guns have good firing lines, and the mortars located in the
troughs cover the entire line, even beyond the vineyards that extend to the northwest.
"It's so hot you're dying," says Garcia, who has taken off his cap to dry his
sweat with a shirt sleeve.
"And more he's going to do," Serigot agrees.
In that regard, Gambo is also reasonably calm. Your men have the
canteens full and there is a reserve of water cans in the grove on the counter slope.
They are all well ammunitioned and have received chustas of bread and cans of sardines, tuna and
Russian meat. Even in case of enemy counterattack, the battalion could withstand forty-eight
hours without receiving supplies. Or more.
Thinking of all this, the largest of the militias wanders the view from the distant riverbed to
the positions his men occupy and he casts another glance at the second python, where the
combat. Then he looks over the rooftops of the town, where some houses are still smoking
—The church bell tower no longer exists—, to the olive groves near the hermitage.
"There seems to be movement at the end of the vines," Serigot points out, making a visor with a
hand.
"Ours or yours?" Garcia is interested, imitating him.
-I have no idea.
"The same are comrades who have reached there."
"That far and that way? ... I doubt it."
Raising his binoculars, suddenly uneasy, Gambo has turned to look at that
direction. Dual optical lens blends into a single round vision blurred by blur,
so adjust the thumbwheel with the index until the images become sharp in refraction
billowing from heat and intense light.
That's when you see them. Red spots, similar to poppies. They seem like many and they move
in the distance, very slowly, approaching the edge of the vineyards.
"Damn it," he exclaims. They are requetés.
Page 117
II
The hand bomb explodes so close that Ginés Gorguel thinks it has burned his face. He
popping explosive shakes him, stuns him and empties his lungs, crushing him against the rock
immediate as he feels around, rather than hears, the clatter of shrapnel and stone that
they bounce everywhere. Suddenly he is sitting, spitting out the rough dirt that fills him
mouth, and when he puts a hand to his nose, which he feels numb, he removes it stained with
blood.
An instant later the sounds return, breaking through the haze that obscures his
brain: explosions, gunshots, shouts of men who insult, who blaspheme, who fight. Y
while shaking his head to try to clear it, the Albacete remembers the moment before
The blast: the bullets whistling on the ridge, the enemies climbing half crouched,
cheering each other on with commands and shouts that gave a shiver of how close they sounded; so much
that the attackers could see sweaty faces, rifles armed with bayonets,
grenades they were holding, sitting up with their torso thrown back to gain momentum and
throw them out. And the dread of seeing them so close, without the horrible routine of hitting again and again
with the sore palm of the hand the bolt of the rifle whose barrel burns when touched, put another bullet
and shoot again, it was enough to stop them.
The rifle, he thinks suddenly.
With a shudder of panic he palms around, looking for his missing Mauser.
The absence of the weapon makes him feel even more helpless and vulnerable. Then urged
in panic, he tries to get up to find her, but his arms and legs refuse to
obey.
Pam, pam, pam, it sounds very close.
They are pistol shots, in a row. One after another.
Then he sees the sergeant wounded in the leg holding the pistol aloft, lengthening the
arm, as he fired at something above the rocks, out of Gorguel's sight.
Pam, pam, pam. Clac.
In this way the weapon sounds again and again until the last cartridge and the carriage of the
The bolt is stuck and motionless, the sergeant's feverish eyes staring at him almost in amazement at
through the mask of dust and dirt that covers his face.
Gorguel opens his mouth to yell something at him, but his vocal cords are blocked. Does not emit
no sound. He wants to tell the sergeant that he can't take it anymore, that he needs to get out of there, run and
escape, but he is unable to speak, and from his throat only a ragged,
deep. A hoarse sob.
At that moment, some men jump over the rocks and come between him and the sergeant:
They wear espadrilles and wear dirty blue jumpsuits and khakis, peeling shirts,
damp with sweat. Some wear steel helmets and carry rifles with long bayonets. Have
their faces puckered as if they were arriving drunk with gunpowder and anger. One of them approaches the
sergeant, he kicks the gun out of his hands and hits him with a rifle butt in the
head. Another points his bayonet at Gorguel's chest and pulls back his rifle, as if to
nail it.
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-Not! He raises his arms in supplication, suddenly recovering his lost voice. No, for
charity!… No, no!
Their screams make the soldier doubt, who remains motionless - his chest rises and falls, breathing
haltingly— while tired, bright eyes, until just now crazed,
they seem to calm down a bit. Then he rectifies the movement of his weapon, and instead of sticking the
bayonet to Gorguel, he approaches it brusquely, touching his shoulder.
"Stand up, fascist," he says.
"I'm not a fascist!"
"Stand up, I tell you ... And take off the strap."
Gorguel obeys with clumsy hands, trembling with dread. While his captor is pointing the
bayonet, another soldier searches him and sends him close to the sergeant with a push. Do the same
with others who are brought in to add a dozen broken, dirty, undone men, who
they come scared and with their heads down. Some are injured. Gorguel does not see the
Cape Seliman; but yes, staggering and limping, Commander Induráin: messy, dirty hair
dirt, and bloodshot eyes. He must have a broken arm, because it hangs inert and is
hold with the other hand. He has lost the bandage on his head and the wound looks dirty and
discovered.
As the prisoners arrive, their captors force them to sit grouped among the rocks, the
hands resting on the neck who can do it. The shooting has ceased on the ridge, and now only
an isolated shot is heard, distant moans of the wounded and shouts and orders from the victors
that ensure the position conquered.
"Any officer?"
The one asking is a short, stocky individual in shirt sleeves, with the bars and
lieutenant star on the cap. Gorguel looks at Induráin, who keeps his eyes downcast and does not say
nothing. But there are several who also look at the commander, and the red one notices it.
-You say.
The questioned person raises his face.
"Are you an officer?" Asks the other.
-I am.
The Republican lieutenant stares at him to make sure.
"Name and rank?"
-You do not even care.
"His name is Indurain," says Gorguel, seeking to ingratiate himself. Commander Induráin.
Induráin and red look at him. The latter with curiosity and the other with contempt. After the
Lieutenant grabs Induráin by the collar of his shirt and leads him out of the group.
"This here is a sergeant," says another of the Republicans, who has bent to shake his
dust to the gallon of the wounded man.
"And there are two Moors," says another. And one of the Tercio.
"Put them together," orders the lieutenant.
They force two regulars to get up, one young and the other old with a beard, who submissively obey,
resigned to their fate, and to a small, blackened legionnaire whose head bleeds and wears a
eyelid cut in two. They push the four together next to the sergeant, who is still in a daze.
from the butt hit, his eyes are glassy and he doesn't know what's going on. Holding on to the broken arm
the commander makes visible efforts to stay upright and dignified. The Moors and the Legionnaire
they clasp against him, he lowers his head, as if that might protect them from the inevitable.
"Up Spain," says Induráin, loud and clear.
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The red soldiers shoot them without order, first at him and then at the others, single shots that
they kick up dust on the head and chest, causing them to collapse on top of each other. Then,
terrified, Gorguel sees how the red lieutenant draws his pistol and, approaching, hits each
one the coup de grace.
Raaaas. Puum-bah.
A heartbreaking moan rips the air unexpectedly. A nearby blast shakes the
ground and rocks and a cloud of dust and splinters leaps into the air. Screams of men sound
hit by shrapnel as everyone, captors and prisoners, run for cover,
they crush to the ground, trample the corpses soaked in blood.
Raaaas. Puum-bah.
"They are ours!" Shouts the Red Lieutenant, desperate. It's our own artillery! ...
The sons of bitches!
Gorguel runs like everyone else, he crouches, crawls between the rocks, hurting his elbows and
arms. A new explosion, very close, throws pieces of bloody meat on him that
looks and plays in amazement. They are torn viscera of a human being who, by a harrowing
Instantly, he fears they belong to his own body. And finally, shaking them in disgust from his face and
hands, blind with terror, he gets up again and runs aimlessly until he steps into the void and falls
Rolling down the slope
"Vladimiro!"
Trails of sweat run down his gunpowder-stained Tartar cheekbones. The sergeant was
He sits up a bit, looks at Santiago Pardeiro and lowers his head again. From time to time
Enemy bullets whiz low, ripping branches and leaves from nearby almond trees, and slamming into
the walls of Aparecida, which seem pockmarked.
"Mande, my ensign."
"Go see why he doesn't throw the Hotchkiss away."
-To the order.
As Vladimiro crawls away with the submachine gun slung across his back — Pardeiro
has returned it—, the young ensign leans over the edge of the trench where he is on his knees,
it was hastily dug up and is barely seven meters long by one meter deep. The
situation is not good, but not hopeless either. The height of the hermitage on the terraces
staggered provides some advantage: parapeted around it and behind its walls - the small
bell tower provides a good observatory, although it has already cost two wounded—, the remains of the 3rd
Company stick to the ground in holes made with shovels and bayonets, firing tenacious
against the republican waves that advance through the olive grove towards the first of the two terraces
with stone walls that follow the contour lines of the slope, where there are some
almond trees. Legionnaires have conceded three attacks since daylight, but they hold out
firm, within what fits. Professionals of war, considered by the red mercenaries
and unscrupulous murderers, they know what awaits them if they are defeated. Even so, some have
saliva and arrests for singing, as Corporal Longines does; that, on his knees and sticking out the bagpipes
just, hums a song leaning his chin on the butt of the rifle:
Bad end have the postman

what little letter does not bring me
Of the woman I love the most
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Vladimiro returns, ceasing to crawl as the shooting rages, tight and motionless against him.
ground, moving forward again as the fire loosen. Suddenly he gets crushed more when they fall on him
pellets of earth and pieces of shrapnel: a 50 mortar shell has just hit next to the
hermitage, splashing the walls with splinters. Even Longines has stopped singing.
"My ensign ...
At last the Russian crawls into the bare trench. Pardeiro stands aside to leave him
site.
-Tell me.
The other takes off his chapiri and runs a hand through his short, damp blond hair.
"The machine had overheated from so much pulling." So in the absence of water, they are pissing in the
cannon to cool it down… With what little they have left after all day without drinking and sweating.
Pardeiro breathes, relieved about the Hotchkiss.
"Do you have enough ammo?"
"For now, yes." The petty officer puts on his bonnet, lifts his head to take a look, and
He bends her down again, calm. The Rogels have gotten a little closer, haven't they?
-It seems.
—Those who attack from the west python to the farrowing pen do not dare to continue; from the
The location of the machine can be seen lying down and not moving ... But those who come for the
olive groves are already two hundred meters away.
"Unless," Pardeiro calculates.
"And they keep moving, from what I see." Slowly, but they do. They will give us the assault of a
moment to another.
-Yes.
A new boom makes them bow their heads. The impact throws a cloud of earth and stones,
cutting an almond tree whose fruits, still green, shoot out like shrapnel.
"At least they don't bring Atilano with them for now," Vladimiro growls. Only those
mortars.
The ensign nods, without answering. Calmly, the sergeant feels a pocket of his shirt and
He takes out a crumpled package of Tre Stelle. He only has one cigarette left. He looks at it, doubtful, and with
With a resigned gesture he puts it back in his pocket.
"May I tell you something, my Ensign? ... Just a minute."
-Well of course.
The Russian still doubts.
"I've been in the Tercio since Tizzi Azza," he finally decides, "when General Franco was my
commander in the I Flag; and before I was in the Great War and with Glujov's cavalry,
fighting against the Bolsheviks ... Some shots I have dice.
-Y?
A couple of bullets make ziaaang, ziaaang, as they pass by, and they will hit the wall of the
hermitage. At a nearby wolf pit, one of the Falangists stands up, gains momentum, and throws
an Oto-35 as far as it can go. Before Pardeiro, upset, has time to
Reprimanding him, the sergeant lifts his head a little.
"They're too far, damn it!" He voices. Let no one throw grenades or shoot, or I will
shit on all their dead! ... Save, we're going to need it!
The voice of a hidden legionnaire responds to something that is not well heard from the trench. Without at doubt it is
a chufla, because some laughs chant it.
"Anyway ..." The noncommissioned officer's clear oblique eyes look at Pardeiro, indecisive. Of
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Would you allow me to speak honestly to you?

"As long as you don't go overboard."
"I'm not going to go over there, don't worry ... What I mean is that at the beginning of the year, when
you arrived, so new, so ...
Smiles Pardeiro.
-So young?
The Slavic eyelids are lowered until the irises almost disappear.
"That's right," he nods slowly. You hardly shave yet. And some old alligators from
the company thought he was going to quit smoking soon, you understand.
-Ample. Provisional ensign, corpse etc., the first pay for the uniform and the
second for the shroud ... A true Sin and Sin, as they say: no past and no future ...
The usual.
"Right there." But hey. At the Cinca, when we ran out of bosses and officers and you
he held the order, the troops took respect from him. And I also.
Pardeiro is comforted by what he hears, but by now he knows how to take it. What should be
his attitude, or rather what is expected of him. So look at the clock, dismissive, pretending
think about something else.
"Finish, come on."
"I'm done, my Ensign." I just wanted to tell you that, well ... Reds appoint officers
more characterized in politics, or the smartest, or the most beast, even if they are illiterate ...
"We have that advantage, you mean?"
-Clear. Young educated boys, people like that, give us an advantage… Talent and advantage. To the
Rogelios have plenty of balls, no one doubts that; but in war not everything is a question of that.
-Y?
"Well, you, well ... You have what it takes and you also have talent." The two days in the
town, then in the fold and here today… That's what I wanted to tell you, my lieutenant. That, according to the troop,
Is doing well.
Pardeiro looks to one side and the other with a casual air, as if not caring. Barely visible in
the trench and the wolf pits, the legionaries await the enemy with rifles at the ready,
arranged on the edge of the parapets the hand bombs and ammunition combs that Tonet
—With his legionary chapiri on his head, the boy goes back and forth between them like a squirrel—
spread out along the line. Serene and disciplined despite hunger, heat, thirst; Y
even some wanting to joke, despite what is falling and what is going to fall. The cause why
they fight hardly has anything to do with it; By now, the ensign knows, they do it with the coldness of
warriors aware of themselves, without fear or pretending not to have it, which is the same for that matter.
Not in a dream, he concludes, did he imagine at the Avila academy that he would command a troop like
this. Soldiers with the service record of Sergeant Vladimiro Korchagin.
"And why are you telling me now?"
The Russian shrugs his shoulders.
-Well I dont know the truth. I feel like it. ”He raises his chin and points to the olive grove. Maybe
because those are going to attack again ... Or because you have been alone for three days, without superiors to
say.
Pardeiro looks at his watch again.
"Your minute's up, Vladimiro."
"Yes, my Ensign." The legionary tassel swings at the Russian as he nods. And forgive the bluntness.
"Nothing to forgive."
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They both look towards the enemy. The reds have stopped packing and no longer throw their mortars.
This is not a good sign.
"Do you hate the communists, Vladimir? ... I suppose you have reasons, with your biography."
The Russian smiles.
"I thought the minute was up, my Ensign."
"Yours… now it's mine."
The other bows his head a little, thinking about it, without taking his eyes off the enemy.
"At first, when I was in Russia, I hated them," he finally replies. Now it's something else.
I kill the facts, not the people ...
Nods Pardeiro, who understands very well.
"Few on our side fight to defend a specific political idea," he says.
-. Most of us fight their ideas.
"That seems to me ... Although perhaps hating your ideas is already an ideological act, isn't it?"
It seems?
-Could be.
A short silence. Flies buzz, tormenting them, but neither of them move.
"What brought you here, Ensign, if I may ask?"
"Fed up," the young man replied without thinking. The tiredness of seeing how they destroyed
Spain. I never considered anything else.
"Like most of our volunteer people, right?"
"Except Falangists and Requesters."
"Well, those do… Sure."
—We can agree with them in what unites us: the reds are a mob to exterminate, period.
There is no more debate on my part. Nor is it possible to be disappointed in what results from this.
"The only thing would be for us to be defeated."
"Exactly, and that's our advantage." We do not seek to revolutionize the world; just kick those
undesirable ... And then, when we have won, we will see who disappoints us and who does not.
As he speaks, Pardeiro continues to watch the Reds, who are a little closer.
They continue to approach in leaps, with great caution, barely allowing themselves to be seen from olive tree to olive tree. Is
Of course they have learned their lesson from the immobile bodies seen among the trees and above
the first stone wall, as far as they came in the last attack.
"Do you think we can stop them again, my Ensign?"
He looks askance at Pardeiro, noticing the unease on the sergeant's impassive face. Interest only
professional.
"I suppose so," he replies. We are the Third, right?
The Russian chuckles.
"Yes… we still are."
"Well, that." And even the five remaining Falange boys ...
Vladimiro raises an open hand with four fingers extended.
"Four, my lieutenant ... I forgot to tell you: the short curly-haired one just got
glancing at the neck, when ammunitioning the Hotchkiss.
"Oh dear ... I shit on everything."
-I also.
-Serious?
-Enough.
-Good. I told you that even they behave like wild boars.
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The sergeant points to the olive grove, where a whistle blows and more men are seen running under cover
of the trees.
"I think they're coming."
-It seems.
Vladimiro takes the submachine gun down and mounts the bolt with a loud click.
"The truth is, those sons of bitches are fucking him," he says evenly.
Actually, in the bottom and in the form it is about that, thinks Pardeiro. A matter of balls. Of
them and us, who dares and who endures more than the other. Very Spanish, everything. Very
typical of both sides. A bestial pulse for a few meters of land whose possession
it will change the course of the war. The hermitage lacks strategic and hardly tactical value; it only works
of refuge to the only national force that still resists in the sector. But the reds want to finish off the
task, and the legionaries are not willing to make it easy. So there they are all, under the
sun and heat that permeate everything like a layer of oil; exhausted, dirty, sweaty,
one and the other thirsty for water that neither has, because the enemies are too far from the
people, the people here ran out of wine a long time ago. The only well is at the foot of the
terraces and to the right of the olive grove, in no man's land, and in its vicinity they blacken and
half a dozen corpses swell under the sun: those of those who, nationals and republicans, have
tried to fill the empty canteens.
Three new whistles in the olive grove. Vladimiro supports the Beretta on the edge of the
trench, makes the sign of the cross — orthodox, from right to left — and rubs his nose.
"There we have them, my Ensign."
A clamor of throats sprouts from among the olive trees: shouts of orders and voices of encouragement. The
enemies, who were advancing slowly protected behind the trees, have abandoned their caution and run
bravely towards the stone wall of the first terrace. They do it now bare-chested,
cheering each other on: blue and khaki jumpsuits, steel helmets, barracks hats and bonnets,
rifles where the sun flashes on bayonets. Some run in a zigzag to offer less white and
others do it in a straight line, wanting to shorten the distance to the protection of the wall. Neither
neither they nor the defenders fire yet, except the red machine guns that shoot high to
cover them from their flanks. Rapid gusts fan the hermitage pounding the walls,
breaking branches and leaves of almond trees. After a moment, the legionary machine gun
joins the roar with short, highly calculated and precise bursts that raise little clouds of
dust between the attackers and make some fall. The finally cooled barrel of the Hotchkiss returns to
be operational.
—Turuta!
From an extreme angle of the little trench comes the voice of the cornet, crouching there with the
assistant Sanchidrián.
Pardeiro takes the Astra 9 length out of the holster, pulls back the hard cart, puts a bullet in the
bedroom and remove the safety.
"Listen to my voice to break the fire!"
And then, with a stoic sigh, hiding the tension that grips his groin and twitches his
muscles as if he were going to tear them, the provisional ensign Santiago Pardeiro Tojo,
Naval Engineering student, runs his tongue over the palate of his dry mouth, affirms well in
head the chapiri with the lonely six-pointed star, think for a moment of his poor parents
and stands in the trench; because traditions are traditions; and that of the Tercio is that
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The officer will always go five meters ahead of the troops, in the attack, and will remain undaunted,
upright and serene, during the defense.
—Give him eggs, legionaries!… Long live Spain!
He screams hoarsely when he sees the first reds appear on the stone wall. And from
trenches, wolf pits, and hermitage bell tower is answered by a collective howl of
anger and fighting.
Fascist bullets hit the olive and almond trees, snapping the branches and making the
leaves. With his head down, Julián Panizo crosses the last stretch to the stone wall and
He lets the orange tree sit there, panting, on his knees, catching his breath. Y
Olmos, who comes running behind, almost falls on him when he does the same.
"They're giving us Gal oil," Olmos growls. Cagüendiós.
It is true. They whiz bullets everywhere. The attack of the First Battalion, with the company of
shock sappers in the lead, progress slowly under heavy enemy fire,
fires from Aparecida intensely beating the first bed of the two that rise
staggered up to the hermitage. After being severely punished in the last stretch of the olive grove, the
Republicans are gathering along the low wall, where frontal rifle fire and
bursts from a machine gun that pull obliquely from the right tear off jets of ground and
stone fragments.
"We have to continue," says Panizo.
"Goodbye."
"Okay, man ... Save your breath, we still have a long way to go."
"Goodbye."
The men keep running through the olive trees, stumbling and leaping to be
fall to the shelter of the step close to each other, instinctively seeking the protection of the
group: clenched hands gripping rifles, sweaty faces disengaged by tension or
fear of those who feel the bullets buzz, hear the cracks of these when hitting the flesh and
breaking bones, the screams and blasphemies of those who fall dead or wounded, the pleas of
unhappy crawling, leaving trails of blood, in search of the trunk of a tree behind which
protect yourself or die.
"What about the Second Battalion?" Asks another who is attached to them, one who
They nickname the Fakir because he is so skinny. They also had to attack from the north of the hermitage, right?
"Those don't move," Olmos says. Can't you hear from his side?
"I don't hear shit."
"Well, that's what I say." Nobody throws that part ... They're touching their balls.
The other nods. El Fakir is from Santander, and from the tough guys in the company. He is not lacking in reasons.
On July 18, the revolted fascists shot two brothers affiliated with the UGT. Is from the
they do not usually take prisoners.
"A lot of turncoat is what there is."
"And say it, comrade."
Follow the enemy fire, intense. Olmos's fingers tremble as he checks his weapon and
better accommodates the six leather holsters full of hand pumps that surround her waist.
"They are murdering us, Julian." And those of the Second, without moving.
-Shut your mouth.
Almost all the men in the company are already glued to the wall, except those who have fallen
in the olive trees and those who, frightened by the shower of bullets, do not dare to continue and
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they remain sheltered among the trees with the people of the 3rd Company, which is the second
echelon of attack.
"Ready to go!… Ready to go!"
Crouching, walking through the long line of men crouching at the edge of the terrace, the
Lieutenant Goyo, Commissioner Cehegín, and the Cancela brigade - a broad, strong, browed man from Granada,
former beast shearer - pass by cheering people on for the new jump. Turned to
olive trees, Cehegín energetically signals to a group of eight loitering there; and not like these
They obey, he holds up the Star to them and shoots into the air. That decides the stragglers, who are
they look at each other in anguish; and finally, cheering up, they gain momentum and race across the field
smoothie. One falls after a few steps, face up and with arms raised and wide open, as if
If I protested about something Another comes without a rifle, his scalp so cleanly torn by the
rubbing of a bullet as if it had been struck in the middle, landed on the ears, and passes out
arriving with glassy eyes, face, neck and shirt stained with blood.
-Come on! Everyone up! Shouts Lieutenant Goyo. Long live the Republic!
The Republic is going well screwed up today, Panizo thinks hastily. Because we are not going to arrive.
They say that there are few fascists left up there, but they are killing us by heart. Like
animals. This is not how we will arrive. His eyes meet those of Elmos, reddish and wild with
tension, and understands that comrades think the same.
The lieutenant must have a different opinion, because at that moment he blows the whistle,
He stands up and shakes those close to him.
"Come on, men!" Up all!… Let's go for them, damn it!
And as he screams, he climbs to the top of the low wall, amid the bullets that buzz everywhere like
metal bumblebees. Brigade Cancela claps Panizo on the shoulder and pushes him to
let it go up too.
"Come on, let's go!… Run to the other wall, run!… Take cover in the trees!"
Holding the orange tree, Panizo grits his teeth, gets to his feet, climbs, and runs after them.
As he does so he has a fleeting glimpse of the line of men to his right and left
they launch with their bayonets in front of the fifty meters - it seems kilometers - that
separates them from the protection of the second stone wall, from the low tops of the almond trees
Among which, above, you can see the hermitage building and the entrenched line of the fascists,
where dozens of flashes flash as the enemy machine gun beating obliquely
from the right he waters the terrace with sprinkles that crack like lashes on the hillside.
"Don't stop to shoot!" Howls the political commissar, who advances next to Panizo. Run,
run!
Suddenly Cehegín drops the gun, staggers a few steps as if losing
balances and brings his hands to his face, out of which gush of blood. In the short
The moment he spends looking at him before going ahead and running, Panizo sees that the commissioner
his entire nose is missing and he spits out broken teeth through a torn cheek.
More buzzing. More bullets. When the dynamiters reach the last low wall, the din of
Fascist riflemen resound in echoes that shake the hillside. Panizo - his pulse beats so strong in
the eardrums that muffles the noise of the shooting— he protects himself on the stone step feeling
how Olmos, the Fakir, and those who have made it there huddle close to him. Then lift
a moment the head and see within grenade shot the first fascist parapets, in which you confuse
Figures appear and disappear, flashing them.
"To them, we're almost there!" The voice of Lieutenant Goyo echoes over the shooting.
Go ahead, go on!… Go on!
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Without the need for words between them, the three dynamiters look at each other, they take out the Limonkas F-1
Russians from the covers that surround their belts, they extract the pins and throw them up
halfway between the skein of bullets that seek their bodies, before crouching down again.
Puum-bah. Puum-bah. Puum-bah.
Three dry metallic explosions throw dirt and stones on them, and when the dust is not yet
vanishes, the three of them rise to their feet and climb the low wall, like the rest, to launch themselves against the
first fascist trench. But now grenades are raining down from that side, thrown like stones
black and dangerous, arcing through the air to fall and explode between the attackers,
punctuated by the constant hammering of riflemen and the dry lashes of the machine gun. To what
along the entire line, between those who try to go beyond the wall there are flashes
blinding, deafening booms, screams of men struck by shrapnel, smoke and
confusion.
-Go Go! Shouts Lieutenant Goyo.
"Back off, let's go back!" Others shout, terrified or undecided.
The dynamiters hesitate, they stop, they crouch under the criminal fire that crushes them. He
The harsh, dry hum of the fascist machine gun seems to mock them. Another grenade
It explodes nearby, and a shard of hot iron brushes against Panizo's face, who flinches in fear. The
first trench is close, twenty meters away, but it seems unreachable. Or rather understand
which is unattainable. The few colleagues who still have momentum and intend to reach the
enemies fall one after another, until no one tries. Doing so is equivalent to committing suicide, and that's it
good suicide for today.
A bullet puts the lieutenant down, who dies with his mouth open for an order to attack or
withdrawal: impossible to know already. A grenade shrapnel bursts another man's belly, who
falls to the ground stepping on his guts and starts screaming like a boar trying to get them inside
again.
It is enough, Panizo concludes, for that day and almost for a war or a lifetime. So
swears, raises the orange box, fires a long burst that empties half a magazine,
steps, shoot the other medium and run where it came from. So do everyone else,
jumping the low wall and rushing between the almond trees of the terrace while from his back the
fascists hunt them like rabbits.
"They hit me, hell, they hit me!"
It is Olmos who screams. Panizo turns and sees him behind, as if stumbling.
-Where?
-In the leg!
When the other reaches his side and leans on him, he wraps one of his arms around his shoulders.
The Fakir also comes to their aid, and between the two of them they lead Olmos to the wall. The fire
enemy is now more sporadic and imprecise, almost an indolent packing, and the machine gun
has stopped pulling. Had they maintained their intensity, few would have made it across the
patch; but fortunately the fascists have no ammunition to spare. They save shots, and
Republicans, lives.
Lying behind the wall, Panizo looks at Olmos's leg.
"You have fucking nothing!"
"No? ... Well, it must have been one without strength, or a rebound." But an egg hurts.
"I shit on your fucking mother."
"I swear it hurts."
-Shut your mouth.
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Al Fakir, glued to the two dynamiters, his hands tremble as he takes half a cigarette from a
he flasks and tries to put it in his mouth; so much so that it falls to the ground twice. Get it on the third
I try, and when he slaps the wheel of the chisquero with his palm, he suddenly stops, lending
Attention to the voices that sound behind, in the enemy lines.
"Do you hear the fascists screaming?"
Panizo, who also hears them, pokes his head out, curious. On the terrace, among the almond trees
dusty, a dozen bodies lie - some move weakly and groan without anyone
dares to go looking for them - and they are even more appreciated between the last wall and the trenches,
foot of the hermitage whose bullet-riddled wall stands brown, massive and defiant while in the
enemy positions there is a rhythmic, lilting shouting, palmas tango style; As the
that is heard in the afternoons of bullfight when an animal comes out that gives little work.
-What are they saying? Olmos asks.
Panizo listens a little more and finally shakes his head, runs a hand over his wet face
sweat and his mouth twitching in a bitter grin.
"Another bull ... Those bastards are asking us to throw another bull on them."
By simple instinct, Ginés Gorguel heads in the opposite direction to the setting sun, in search of
from the shelter of night and darkness.
He is so tired that he moves as if his will did not intervene in it: he walks, he starts to run
Suddenly, for no reason, he stops and walks slowly again. He does not know what time it is, although the sun
it is low and very close to twilight.
Looking for the land that best hides it, the Albacete moves away from the python taken by the
republicans. Miraculously, his own panic came to his aid during the bombardment, when
victors and vanquished ran for refuge and he threw himself blindly down the slope. The fall
bothered his left shoulder, which hurts a lot, and scratched the palm of one hand, but nothing
plus. He can flee, and this is what he does despite the destroyed espadrilles that hurt his feet when he steps
on the stones.
His stomach is empty, but it's thirst that drives him crazy. To calm her, he chewed stalks of
herb that have left a bitter taste in your mouth. A moment ago, when going up a hill
trying not to be silhouetted against the sky, he caught sight of a farmhouse in the distance. Ignore if
it is in the power of reds or nationals, or abandoned; but the idea of finding water and something to eat
overcome their misgivings. So he has resolved to approach with caution. He knows that the road to Fayón
he is close, although he cannot see it. That increases the risk, so exercise caution
when he walks.
A narrow and deep promenade, with thick stretches of reed beds, offers greater security,
so he goes for it. The reeds are populated with horseflies that are enlivened and martyred at the
pass. It defends itself by slapping its bites on its neck and arms; but better that, think,
than to gamble in the open.
Along the edge of the boulevard there is a fig tree with twisted gray branches and green leaves. Gorguel
he approaches her with hope that turns to joy: among the foliage there is a fig, only one,
pecked by birds and open in a slit that shows the reddish and fleshy interior.
Rushing over it, she rips it off, parting the dark skin and eagerly brings it to her mouth,
sucking, swallowing with pleasure the sweet, warm and ripe fruit.
" Ibn charmuta, " says a voice behind him . I kept the güino figs for later a lot.
Turning around with a start, Gorguel sees a Moor from Regulares looking at him three steps away.
very serious: chickpea colored candrisa in the shape of zaragüelles, military strap, calves
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bandaged over dusty espadrilles, tanned leather and a gray mustache. Wields a long bayonet
and shiny. Even if he wasn't wearing the tarbus with the rope braid, Gorguel
would recognize right away.
"Damn… Seliman."
The other stares at him and soon his face relaxes.
"You, soldier upstairs."
-Yes.
The Moor sheaths the machete.
- Jandulilá… God is great. Lucky for you more than me.
He turns around and heads to a hollow in the ground: a shallow cave where he is
leaning a Mauser with a canteen hanging from the ramrod. He sits there while Gorguel,
After thinking about it for a moment, he approaches her, and crouches beside him.
"You don't have the rifle, paisa," observes the Moor.
-I lost it.
"That's not cool." Selimán pats the butt of his gun proudly. You punish the bosses
them if you lose the shot.
"Fuck the bosses."
The other looks at his scratched hand without comment. Nor does he say anything when Gorguel
rub the sore shoulder.
"I didn't see you leave," he says. Did you escape before they arrived?
"I left when the gay fags arrived, God willing ... And you?"
"Prisoner, like those who remained." But I was able to run away.
"What about the sergeant?" Do you know how lucky you are?
"They shot him."
The Moor clicks his tongue.
"Bad pain, right? ... Sirgento was a whole man." He knew way.
"They also executed the commander, and two of your people who were caught."
Seliman's gaze darkens.
"Are you really telling me?"
"I'm really telling you."
"Communists are the children of a Jalufo who impregnated his mother."
-At least.
Stalin was a bastard.
-That too.
"That's why I left earlier, paisa." I am wise ... I know what they do with the Moors.
Gorguel looks at the canteen hanging from the Mauser without hiding his anxiety.
"Do you have any water left?"
-A little. There was a dead one with the canteen on the way and I saw ... I do my best,
I swear to you, but nothing food, no, no, no. Only the canteen - points to the fig tree - and
four figs there. I ate three and keep another that you eat when you arrive.
-Sorry. I was hungry. And I still have it.
—Normal in guirra, right? ... Hunger, thirst and also you kill.
-I suppose.
"What do you call your name?"
"Ginés."
"Me, Seliman."
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"Yeah ... I remember."

The Moor picks up the canteen, shakes it so that the little that remains inside rings out and
pass.
-Taking. I do your big favor for you, remember. A little water, eh? ... Water is a rare gift from
God.
Gorguel unscrews the cap and obediently, suppressing the urge to drink it all, swallows a
short sip that he leaves in his mouth for a while, moistening it as much as possible before swallowing. Seliman what
stares, indifferent at a fly that, after hovering around them, walks on his nose
and the mustache.
"We fought misian güino upstairs, right?" Says the Moor when he retrieves the canteen.
"Good or bad, they gave us hair."
A fatalistic smile.
—It was written quite a lot, arumi… God is the one who knows.
-Can be. I'm not saying yes or no.
Selimán hangs the canteen on the drumstick and takes a bundle out of a pocket; a knotted herd
with a filthy handkerchief. After undoing it, show Gorguel its contents: two alliances and five
gold teeth, three wristwatches, national and republican money, a silver chain with a
medal, a Bamboo rolling paper booklet, a box of matches from the Metropol hotel in Valencia
and the crumpled packet of French cigarettes.
"Do you have good national shirts? ... If you do, I smoke you."
"I don't have a penny."
The Moor thinks about it for a moment and then shrugs his shoulders, puts a cigarette in his mouth and says it.
light with a match.
"Where are you from and are you born, paisa?"
—From Albacete.
The other frowns.
—That's area, isn't it?… By my face I think.
"Well, you see," Gorguel agrees sourly. Here I am.
"Do you have the families?"
-Any.
The Moor stares at him thoughtfully.
"Do you ever think of stopping by?" He asks. Many pass for the families to be together all
assembled complete: from there to here and from here to there.
-Already. But if they catch you doing it, they shoot you.
The Moor scratches his skull with dirty nails and smiles wryly.
"Is that why you don't? ... Why do they shoot?"
Gorguel does not respond. Selimán takes another drag on his cigarette and squints his eyelids,
evocative.
"I am a Moroccan from Morocco."
-Do not tell me.
"Yes, I say."
-And what are you doing here? Did they bring you or did you come?
"I came to my liking."
"Fuck ... You have to be a zote to come here for your pleasure."
—You don't know my güina stories, Ines.
"Ginés."
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—Cousins, brothers, relatives, friends, enlist together with me and me: seven t-shirts a day, the
uniform, he shoots ... The bastards are not of Mohammed, they are not straight: burn
marabouts, kill saints. They are Jaramis, the bad people. We come help Hach Franco to
save Spain.
- Hach?
-Holy. Franco has the blessing of Mulay Idris and they say that he will make a pilgrimage to Mecca when
being young.
"Don't fuck around… Does that count in your land?"
"By my face, yes."
"Send eggs."
After thinking about it for a moment, the Moor passes the cigarette to Gorguel. He takes it and inhales with
delight a deep breath. They both stay like that for a while, quiet and smoking while
they pass one to another. At the end, Selimán uncovers the embers and carefully stores the butt in a
tin box.
Gorguel glances up at the sky. The sun sets behind the edge of the boulevard and the shadows of
the reed beds get longer. Mosquitoes take over from horseflies, they buzz nearby
and they become more aggressive. He feels a peck on his neck, and when he hits there he withdraws his hand with a
blood point.
"There is a farmhouse nearby," he says.
"I know, arumi." By my face I know. You have thought what I think myself.
"We can get closer when it's dark." Gorguel looks at the Mauser. Do you have ammo left?
"Four Missian bullets."
"Better not have to use them." The shots make noise.
"Virdad speaks through your mouth, Ines." The machete is better, you say.
Gorguel huddles in the cave to sleep for a while. Suddenly he lifts his head a little.
"Is that why you approached with your bayonet? ... To cut my throat without making a sound if it was red?"
A broad smile reveals the Moor's teeth, which stand out on his brown face.
"Your man who knows, paisa." You know way.
When foreign correspondents arrive at the Ebro, the river is a wide strip of waters
earthy where twilight is reflected. Beyond it rises almost vertical the column of smoke from a
distant fire, that the last light of the day turns reddish.
Now almost in shadow, the left bank is a quagmire of broken reeds and trampled mud where
orderlies sink up to half a leg to unload the wounded who, aboard boats of
oars, come
urgency andfrom the bandages,
bloody other side.on
There are many
the way to theand they are
hospital thattreated in a bad
has settled in a way, with
nearby cures of
hamlet.
Some complain when they are moved, but most are resignedly silent.
Shaken, Vivian Szerman stares at their faces pale and thin with pain, their eyes blank.
shine, the broken bodies whose arms hang from the gurneys. Anguished, absent or
dying of so many young men to the extreme of suffering and life.
"Don't take pictures of this," Pedro says grimly.
"I couldn't even if I wanted to," Chim Langer mutters badly. There is nothing left
enough light.
There is a walkway, Vivian observes: mounted on boats and cork floats, narrow to
allow only one pass at a time. The current of the river bends to the left, and a group of
Pontoneros takes care of keeping it anchored and that it does not drift more than is convenient. A long line
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of men, of which most are covered with brown berets, they cross it trying to keep
balancing on the deck of boards. Near the shore, an antiaircraft battery points toward
up two Bofors canyons while their servants scan the still blue sky, where it already shines
the first star.
"There are tanks," Tabb says.
-Where?
The other indicates the direction, hiding the gesture.
"Under those pines." Camouflaged with branches and tarps.
"They're Russian T-26s," Langer confirms. And I see two.
"Three… There's another one a little further on."
"Will they cross the river?" Vivian asks Pedro.
"I suppose so." The chauffeur gazes doubtfully at the fragile walkway. What I don't know is how.
Leaving the car behind, the four of them approach a group of officers wearing clothing
different origins, rolled up shirts, blue or khaki overalls and jackets, and they wear
berets or on the chest red stars and graduation bars. One of them, tall, skinny, with a face
freckled and aquiline nose, who wears steel glasses, looks at them with curiosity, comments something with the
others and look back at them as they approach. He wears a faded blue button-down shirt
up to the neck under a prominent walnut, briche riding breeches, high leather leggings,
a small binoculars holster and a Mauser submachine pistol on his belt, in its long holster
of wood. Sewn into the beret, Vivian sees the red star and thick major bar.
"It's Lawrence O'Duffy," says Phil Tabb.
Vivian has also identified the head of the Jackson Battalion. Met him at the end of the year
having dinner in the dining room of Telefónica in Madrid, and then they were together in the group of
internationals and journalists who crossed the street to have a few drinks at the hotel bar Gran
Via. She remembers that night as a correct and pleasant man.
"I hope he doesn't send us back," Chim says.
"I don't think so," says Tabb. Larry is a good guy.
O'Duffy has recognized them. He welcomes you courteously, although without excessive heat. A little forced. Jump
in view that three foreign journalists are not his ideal company at the moment.
"Phil, Chim, what a surprise… Hello, Miriam."
"They lived," she corrects him.
-Or that. Excuse. They lived. What brings you here?
Tabb has taken control of the situation. With his outspoken correspondent ways,
in dealing with men at the front, shakes hands with him, greets the other officers, promises not to
disturb too much. Then he shows the pass with stamps from the Press Office and the
authorization to accompany the battalion, as long as this does not mean hindrance or
meddling in military activity.
"I wonder they let you go that far this time," O'Duffy says.
—The Republic is at stake a lot in the Ebro. It is interesting to publicize it, as in Teruel. And the
three of us are trustworthy.
O'Duffy peruses the documents, turning them toward the last light. The head of
Battalion Jackson is Irish and commands three hundred men of which almost the
half are North American and British, and the rest are Canadians, French and Central Europeans. They lived
Szerman knows that nationalities did not tend to mix as much among foreign volunteers;
but the high casualties of the last battles and the world situation - it is rumored an early
dissolution of the International Brigades— they turn the battalion into a mixed bag where
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survivors of other decimated units have ended up. Even the last casualties are covered
already with Spanish soldiers.
"I can't guarantee your safety." O'Duffy hands the documents back to Tabb. Me
people and I have a job to do.
-Do not worry about it. We will be a couple of days, trying not to disturb.
"Do you bring your own food?"
Tabb points to Pedro, who is carrying a well-stocked satchel.
"We bring everything."
O'Duffy indicates to the wounded, who continue to disembark. One of the boats has flooded nearby
from the shore, and the orderlies splash to rescue those who come aboard and shout for
help them. The reddish sky begins to blur and the first shadows lengthen over the river.
Frowning, the battalion chief looks up. Then he takes out some elegant
mother-of-pearl-plated opera cufflinks and scans the horizon.
"At this time I don't think the fascist planes are coming."
"Have you been attacked?"
-A couple of times.
"What about Republican aviation?"
O'Duffy keeps looking up at the sky, not answering.
"He's being tough," he finally says. And it's not over yet.
"We've seen your tanks… Are you expecting a counterattack?"
"Of course." O'Duffy puts the cufflinks away and looks into the distant plume of smoke. For
that we go there.
"How many men do you have, Larry?"
"Three hundred and eighteen, counting me." Two companies.
"Anglo-Saxons?"
"Only one hundred and twenty-three." Almost everyone is already on the other side of the river ... It remains to cross the 1st
Company.
"Rossen's?"
—Tobias Rossen was killed in Segura de los Baños, in March.
"Wow." Sorry.
"Now that one over there is wearing it," he points to a short, blond captain with a flat nose and
walrus mustache. He is Canadian and his name is Mounsey. My second in command… A good man.
Tabb is surprised.
"I thought Canadians were a separate company, with the French."
"That was before ... At the Caspe retreat, where they cut us off five times and each
one of us had to fight to make our way, of the forty-two that there were at dawn only
there were seven left for the night.
-Sorry.
The Irishman nods slowly. A tired smile brushes her mouth.
"They don't tell you that in the press offices, do they?"
"No," Tabb admits.
"We're a bit mixed up now," O'Duffy points to his officers. Here, for example,
besides Mounsey, I have a German officer, a Hungarian and an American ...
"And how do you do with languages?"
"We manage." The basic orders in English and Spanish, and the oaths each in
your language.
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The battalion commander checks his watch and makes an impatient gesture.
"Well, you are welcome," he adds. And try to disturb a little. We'll see you later
I suppose. Now I have to get back to my business.
"Can we find out what your mission is?" Vivian asks.
O'Duffy gives Tabb a reproachful glance, as if he were responsible for the question.
Then he shakes his head.
"No, you can't," he answers dryly. At the moment there is nothing you should know. Only my
Orders include crossing the river. We are part of the reserve of the attack that is taking place.
-And how's it going? Langer is interested.
"It's not my business to tell you either." For that kind of information, go to the
command of the brigade. Lieutenant Colonel Faustino Landa is in town.
"I know Landa," Tabb says. I interviewed him in Teruel.
"Well, make up with him ... Now come, let him introduce you to my officers." Then take your
things and cross, if you want.
Ten minutes later, the three journalists and the driver walk along the catwalk interspersed between
the last foreign soldiers heading to the other shore. While trying to keep the
Balancing on the swinging boards, Vivian watches the river current, the sky growing
dark, the shadows that thicken in the low places of the landscape. War seems
Fade away with the remnants of the day The column of smoke that rises above the town barely
distinguishes in the silent twilight and no distant noise is heard; just the rumor of the
current between the floats on the catwalk and the spiked boots of the soldiers,
long Russian Mosin-Nagant rifles on their shoulders and loaded with their combat equipment walk
in front of and behind them.
There is something that worries the American. A strange uneasiness, as if something was wrong with the
all. Perhaps, he thinks, it has to do with the time of day and the light; with the landscape that is seen in stripes
gloomy as contours and colors slowly disappear; but also, he concludes, with
the silent men among whom he walks. It is not about the long-suffering Pedro, who precedes them loaded
with the bag, not from Phil Tabb and Chim Langer, impassive as they usually do, but from the
international brigade members.
"What do you think, Phil?" She asks Tabb in a low voice, trying to reassure herself.
The Englishman, who walks ahead with his hands in his pockets and the collar of his jacket turned up,
does not respond. He just shrugs his shoulders.
"They look different," Chim confirms from behind.
That's exactly the word, Vivian thinks. Different. At another time the journalists
they would have been greeted with friendly curiosity; and herself, woman among men alone, object
of the usual comments and looks: look, a girl, etcetera. The ordinary, the usual.
Kind jokes. However, the brigadistas contemplate it today with indifference, sullen even,
barely stopping his blank, empty eyes on her. Neither have his two companions been
welcomed with excessive sympathy. The men they walk with accept them as strangers
perhaps untimely; and not, in the manner of other times, witnesses to the world of his sacrifice and his
combat.
"They've gone to far away places," Tabb finally remarks, without turning around. And there are places of the
that no longer comes back.
The American is amazed at the accuracy of the comment. Not for nothing is Phil Tabb a good
journalist. He knows how to look and he knows how to count it, and he just told that well. Those volunteers
foreigners do not seem the same as the previous year they saw confident, smiling, even
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optimists, in the worst moments of Brunete and Belchite, when they went to combat sung
Jarama Valley, before the terrible bleeding of Aragon, the withdrawal of Caspe and the national offensive
about Levante. Now something inside seems to have been broken in them; and that break appears in the
unshaven faces of veterans, in the hollow cheeks of deprivation, in the clothes
patched and poorly darned that cover the bodies tired of walking and fighting. Taciturn, skinny and
even short of size, many of them, many with glasses, no longer seem avant-garde of the
international proletariat coming from all over the world, but only tough and
tired of those who were demanding too much and no longer expect victories, but survival. And that
it causes Vivian more uneasiness than the night that slowly takes over everything.
The three requetés approached the river when it was still light and now they are cautiously looking for the path of
Return. Beyond the pine forest, which is already a confused mass of shadows, they notice the dark silhouette
of the west python silhouetted in the last crimson light of twilight, which makes it seem
huge.
"I think we've gotten lost," whispers Oriol Les Forques.
-Do not bother.
"I'm afraid of that."
Attentive to where they put their feet, Les Forques, Agustí Santacreu and Jorge Milany walk with
the Mausers at the ready, stopping at intervals to listen. The three young men wear espadrilles and
They have nothing on them that can make noise except rifles and bayonets. They were sent from
patrol in the late afternoon to survey the terrain between the pine forest and the river, in the
vicinity of the cemetery. No contact with the enemy, was the order. Just look, hear and
go back to tell it. The watchword for that night is Juan and Jarama.
"I'd say we're done," Milany says.
"I'm not sure," Santacreu answers.
There are reasons for that. For the uncertainty. The nearby river helps to orient oneself; hear the rumor
of the current and at times they glimpse the smooth and dark extension of the channel. But the distances are
difficult to calculate. Les Forques, in command of the patrol, often stops to look at the
stars, which begin to be clearly defined, and calculating the distance from the car of the Bear
Mayor locates Polar. He knows that by keeping it to the right they will return to their lines. He
The problem is that it is difficult to know how deep they have gone into the red zone: if the
return gives them free rein or if it takes them to enemy positions.
"Let's think for a moment," he suggests.
He sits leaning on the rifle and the others imitate him, getting very close. Although they almost touch
their heads, faces can hardly be seen. They speak in low voices and the tone betrays tension.
—We expose ourselves to a bad encounter… The cemetery must be nearby, infested with
remigios.
"They said between the vineyards and the pine forest."
"Well, we haven't seen vines." And pines can be anywhere.
-And so?
"Either we gamble and head west, or we continue upriver."
"But in that case we can pass by and leave our own behind."
-Of course. And we do not know what lies beyond, whether red or national.
"Besides, in the dark, anyone can shoot us without asking."
"That that's another one."
"What a shit."
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-Yes.
They are silent, undecided. Suddenly, all the shadows take on hostile outlines.
"Anyway," Milany thinks, "if they sent you, it's because you have
experience, right?… You are veterans.
"Veterans get lost too."
" Errare malo cum Platone, " Santacreu agrees.
"I'm for bananas."
The last trace of clarity fades quickly, but still identifies shadows.
The requetés remain silent and still, calculating pros and cons.
"A decision will have to be made, right?" Santacreu says at last.
Les Forques stands up.
"Come on… Let's go a little further, and then west." Without grouping us much. Separated, but at the
voice.
"You command, corporal."
"Stop joking."
They take up their rifles and continue walking in the immediate gloom of the night. Les Forques
it advances with the index finger brushing the trigger guard of the Mauser and the safety removed. A distant flare
ascends to the sky downstream and descends, outlining the dark shapes of the
trees.
"You took an egg," a voice says suddenly. Where were you?
Les Forques sighs, relieved. The voice sounded very close. A silhouette stands out among the
trees, four or five steps away.
"We were lost," he replies.
—Well, we too… As we stooped down to shit, we lost sight of you.
It is the voice of a young man, and it sounds calm. Confident But Les Forques bristles
skin and freezes, stopped in his tracks. Something is not quite right.
"Juan and Jarama," he says, slowly raising the rifle.
"No, I'm Pablo." And with me is the Peñas.
As he says that, the shadow approaches and another stands out behind, so close that the requeté
the smell of sweat, dirt and dirty clothes arrives. He feels the barrel being touched and pushed away.
"Quit, man." See if you miss a shot and we screw it up.
"What the hell ..." Milany begins behind Les Forques.
Too close to pull and to back up, this one thinks wildly. Too late
for all. So with your heart leaping in your chest, take a step forward, put your hand away
right of the rifle, gain momentum and fist into the shadow.
"Remigios!" Exclaims Santacreu. Damn, they're red!
They fight with fists, scrambled with each other, between blows and curses, gasping in fear.
and fury: in the dark, groping for each other. Les Forques loses the weapon when he tries to raise it to
butt, gets
while a blowfortothe
reaching thebayonet
face thatonmakes him see sparks and stumbles back
his belt.
"Leave it, leave it!" He hears Santacreu scream. Stop!… This is idiotic!… Stop!
Les Forques stands still, like the others, pumping his blood as if they were going to burst
the veins. They all stop, panting. You only hear that now. The ragged breaths.
The gasps.
"We are four cats, damn it!" Santacreu insists. Do you realize? We are nobody!…
Are we going to kill each other in the dark for nothing? ... Some for jiñar and others for getting lost?
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A long silence. They just keep gasping. Finally one of the reds speaks.
"You're right, I shit on God… It's not worth it."
"Leave God alone," Santacreu replies, "and keep the other thing."
A new silence. Les Forques's heartbeat calms down very little by little.
-Who are you? Asks the voice from earlier.
"It doesn't matter who," Santacreu answers. We, nationals and you, red ... We are
three.
-Both of us.
"Does anyone want to come over?" Les Forques is interested.
-No kidding.
"Well, neither do we ... Do you want to come prisoners?"
A sullen laugh sounds.
"Not at all, man."
"Neither do we." Do you understand it?
-Perfectly.
—Then the best thing is for everyone to go their own way, and if I've seen you, I don't remember ...
seems good?
This time the silence is even longer.
"Aren't you going to shoot while we're leaving?" One of the others finally asks.
"The same I ask you."
"No problem for us… I swear not."
-So do not talk anymore. Air.
"Are you sure you don't shoot?"
-Insurance. What I say.
"Well ... but hey, fascist."
"Tell me, blush."
"Do you have tobacco, by any chance?" We are short of that.
"We have something." Les Forques feels his shirt for his flask. Take a dick
bundled each one, but wait until we are far to turn them on.
-Thank
"You canyou.
give them now, yes." It is Canarian chypen tobacco.
-Hears…
-What?
"Do you have a Catalan accent, or do I think so?"
"We are Catalan."
"Don't fuck around."
-Yes.
Les Forques lengthens the cigarettes and feels the touch of the other when you pick them up. Rough fingers,
callused. Peasant hands.
"Hey, fascist."
"What the hell do you want now?"
"We have rolling paper."
-Seriously?
-Well of course. We know you are in short supply.
-That's true. Bring it on.
Les Forques receives a booklet. Then he crouches down in search of his rifle and stands up
Page 137
hanging it over his shoulder.

"And now," he concludes, "each owl to its olive tree." We will kill each other tomorrow like God
command.
Page 138
III
The two planes are coming from the east, downstream, and one is chasing the other. The first, which is a
biplane, seems in difficulty, as it flies low and alters course with violent drifts to one and
the other side, trying to get away while the pursuer, glued to his tail, fires tenacious bursts at him.
"The one in the back is ours," Lieutenant Harpo says. A Chato.
Making a visor with one hand, Pato Monzón follows the evolution of the devices in the clean
blue sky in the morning. The scene has surprised the broadcast group carrying a
cargo of telephone cable and Czech T30 batteries just unloaded to the post
command. Pato, the Valenciana and two other teammates carry the equipment. The lieutenant has gone with
them to ensure that it is the correct shipment, as another received yesterday contained material
incorrect.
—Look at how ours shakes him… The fascist is one of those called Angelitos, and he's screwed.
It is true. The two planes are now very close, so close that you can hear the dry echo of the
chaser machine guns. Suddenly, the pursued raises his nose and ascends rapidly,
leaving well visible the black blades on a white background painted on their wings. A sudden
small dark cloud, like an explosion, erupts from its engine with a brief flare, becoming
in a thin trail of smoke that the plane leaves behind on its upward curve.
"Colossal," Harpo exclaims.
A shout of enthusiasm runs along the shore, where everyone follows the evolution of the aerial duel.
Also from the catwalk through which a long line of soldiers now crosses. The chasing plane
follows the trajectory of the other without stopping shooting, and finally makes a lateral movement, lets himself fall
on a wing and turns away. The fascist's smoke trail has grown thicker, and the screams
of the soldiers turn to cheers when they see a dark speck come off that, a
a moment later, he becomes a man swinging on the end of a parachute.
Everything has happened very close to Pato. Like Harpo and his companions, the young woman sees that the plane
enemy loses height again, falling in wide spirals, as the morning breeze brings
the paratrooper on this side of the river, descending slowly under the white silk umbrella. He
plane crashes out of sight, silently, and the only thing left of it is a black mushroom
ascending into the distance. As for the pilot, he lands next to where Pato is,
that runs towards him, like everyone.
"They're going to crush him," Harpo fears. They will tear it to pieces.
When the young woman approaches, the pilot has freed himself from the harness and, seeing what is coming
Above, he tries to draw the pistol on his belt. He wears a flight jumpsuit and a
leather, he wears a white silk scarf around his neck and still has his aviator glasses on.
Several soldiers surround him, pointing their weapons at him.
- Zurück, Hurensöhne! He is heard yelling. Zurück!
They all stop for a moment as the pilot draws the pistol, waving it
semicircle. His hand is shaking.
-Behind! With a strong German accent. Or I kill!… I kill!
The warning does not hold back those around you for long. Dirty, hirsute, in their overalls
discolored in contrast to the neat appearance of the aviator, the Republicans follow
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approaching, now slowly. There is much hatred on their faces: desire for revenge towards those who kill
from the sky, without sweating or staining your hands. Eagerness to settle accounts, to balance
balance.
memory. To Ofavenge the countless
the families bombed photos of children,
and murdered in thewomen
rear. and the elderly that everyone has in the
"Finish off that pig!" Someone howls.
There are already a score of people gathering around the aviator, and Pato is among them. Undecided,
he sees them approaching, finger on the trigger of the pistol, pointing dazedly at each other.
You can almost smell the sour smell of her fear.
- Zurück! She says again, her voice breaking. Or I kill!
The threat has turned into a plea. And when they notice it, they all jump on him, snatch his
pistol, they shake him and begin to beat him with their fists and rifle butts. Scared,
Duck watches as someone rips off his hat and goggles, revealing blonde hair and
blue eyes wild with fear. He's a young man, maybe handsome, although that lasts
only until the first blows blow his nose, split an eyebrow, make him take a
Sword of blood from the mouth.
"Kill him!" Kill him! Shout several.
While trying to protect his head with his hands, the aviator falls to his knees pale and
bleeding, on the verge of fainting, looking around with glassy eyes. They tear his monkey now
flight, leaving him half naked. Striking between horror and fascination, Pato sees how
one of the soldiers brings his own pistol to the German's head.
"I can't allow that," Lieutenant Harpo says.
He goes ahead and tries to push the soldiers away, but they ignore him.
-Remove!
One gets to push him away with a violent shove. Harpo insists, and they reject him again. Duck
she finally reacts and tries to help him, but they also push her away.
"Stay out of it," La Valenciana says, holding her by one arm.
Suddenly, deafening, a nearby shot sounds, leaving them all motionless.
"All still!" Shouts a voice. Give it up, damn it!
An officer pushes his way up to them. He wears the captain's bars on his cap,
he holds one hand up, and in it the pistol he has just fired.
"He's a prisoner!… Do you understand, animals?" A prisoner!
"He's a fascist!" —Answers one of those who beat the German, who has him grabbed by the
neck-. And even worse, he's a Nazi son of a bitch!
Holding the pistol high, the captain pushes the speaker away and stands next to Harpo and
Duck, in front of the aviator. He is a middle-aged man, heavyset, with sallow skin and a beard.
black.
"He is a prisoner and prisoners are respected, comrades." I tell you.
"And who the hell are you?"
He touches the other with one finger to the insignia on his cap and then points to the young soldiers who
they continue to cross the catwalk. Some have congregated on this side of the river and are watching the scene
with curiosity.
—Militia Captain Gregorio Madonell, commanding those boys. And in front of me I don't know
lynch anyone.
"Well, they kill us." And they bombard and shoot us.
"Surely this one will also be shot." But in due time, and how the
things: after a military trial.
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—It's better that we are the ones who…

"Fuck you, shut up!" Do you know what an order is?… Well, what I'm giving you is an order!
Are we anarchists? He calls one of those who have approached with his men. Let's see,
Casaú!
The other approaches. He's a skinny, agitated sergeant. He has a third the old one hanging from the
shoulder.
"Tell me, Comrade Captain."
"Take this wretch away and don't let anyone touch his hair." You answer me personally.
-At your command.
The officer turns to those who still surround the German.
"And you, scatter." As another fascist plane comes and finds us grouped together, it will make a
butcher shop. ”He holsters his pistol and claps his hands twice. Everyone to their place, come on ...
show.
The sergeant calls some soldiers and they take the airman under guard, whom they have to
hold so you can walk. As they walk away, the captain looks briefly at Harpo, Pato, and
the other women. Then light a cigarette.
"Thanks," Harpo tells him.
The other shrugs his shoulders as he lets smoke come out of his mouth and nose. Now it seems
look better at Pato and his companions.
"I didn't know we had women here," he says.
"Broadcast section," Harpo reports.
The captain looks Pato up and down.
"Ah… are you many?"
"Only eighteen on this side of the river," she says.
Look at the other at the Valenciana and the others, one by one.
"My boys," he says at last, "belong to the Fifth Coastal Defense Battalion ...
Suppose we are the reserve
Pato watches the soldiers continue to come down the walkway and disperse next to the
shore. Some still wear civilian clothes. Some have a rustic, peasant look, and others
people from the city are seen; but all with something in common: most of them still don't know
shaves.
"How young they are," she says, surprised.
The captain looks at her blankly as he sucks on his cigarette. At last he shrugs the shoulders of
new.
"Bottles from first to last, except officers and NCOs."
-Ah, I see.
"Fifth of the year twenty."
-Clear.
—In my company I have one hundred and thirty-four children of seventeen and eighteen years old,
for a month they were still at home: Catalans, Valencians, Murcians ... They were ordered to appear
with spoon, plate, blanket and shoes. Some mothers accompanied them by the hand to the door
The same from the barracks, with sandwiches wrapped in newspaper.
"Do they have training?" Harpo asks as if afraid of the answer.
—You can imagine: a week of closed order, and many have not even fired a
rifle. The carabiners were delivered to you five days ago, and some are so old that every two or
three shots jam.
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After saying that, the captain looks thoughtfully at those crossing the gangway.
"And on top of that," he adds, "we have been walking from Poblet."
A roar of engines comes from the river. They all turn to look and see that by
The slope rising from the shore shows the turret of a tank. It is a T-26 and has the
republican flag. The steel monster climbs the hill spitting a gray cloud of gasoline
burned, and soon another appears and then a third. Seeing them go by, the soldiers
they are nearby cheer them, and the observers seated in the turrets respond by raising the
fist.
"At last," Harpo says.
With the cigarette in his mouth, the captain has taken the magazine out of his Star and replaced the bullet
fired.
"It was not known if they could cross," he says, "because the planned iron bridge does not appear for
nowhere ... But our pontooners have gotten a floating platform enough
solid to pass them one by one.
"They'll be fine for the last effort."
"I'm not sure what to expect from that effort, although it may be." Besides my
boys and tanks, there is a battalion of internationals out there ... I imagine we are going to take
All the meat to the grill.
-It will come out well.
The captain puts the magazine back in and engages it with a blow from the palm of his hand. Then
holster the pistol.
"I hope so, it comes out." He touches the brim of his cap, looking at the women. Now I have
to go. Salud y República, pretty.
The resol is so intense that the stones around the hermitage dazzle as if they were
covered with snow, and the almond and olive trees that stretch from the terraces
a dusty haze.
A gunshot hasn't been fired for forty-five minutes.
Standing on one of the most advanced parapets, with the Zeiss close to his face, Santiago
Pardeiro watches the six legionaries returning from the right. They are guided by Cape Longines
and they come loaded with canteens, all that have been gathered, after having filled them in the
well at the foot of the terraces, two hundred meters below. They walk without hurrying,
just as the half-dozen Republican soldiers do that walk away on the other side,
way of their positions. It is the third and last trip that one and the other make.
There was no choice, thinks the young ensign. And when the time comes, trust your superiors
understand it. The lack of water was atrocious for the defenders of the hermitage; but also for
olive grove attackers, distant from the town. The only well, located in no man's land, cost
too many lives to each other. So in the middle of the morning, taking advantage of a break from
combat, the proposal circulated loudly: a breath to get closer to the water, and then back to
gone. The idea came from the legionaries; but the reds, as thirsty as they, accepted it.
Six men from each side with as many canteens they could carry, a maximum of three washes
and the guarantee of not pulling for an hour. So it has been, and will continue to be for fifteen
minutes more.
Pardeiro has used the pause to dig deeper the trenches, reinforce the parapets and
reorganize your men. He's thirty-eight still fit to fight, seventeen
wounded in the hermitage and fourteen dead in the makeshift open-air cemetery on the other side
Page 142
of the building, blackening swollen in the sun and among swarms of flies, piled high with
anyway. As for those who are still alive, they have not eaten since yesterday, since the
last cans of sardines, opened with bayonets, the oil used to grease the weapons,
they ended twenty-four hours ago. Luckily there is enough ammo left; and the problem of water,
which was the worst, is resolved for now.
Moving the binoculars to the left, Pardeiro observes the reds who, uncovered
on the two terraced terraces from the olive grove, they move, withdrawing their dead among the
almond trees stripped of their leaves by gunshots and explosions, whose tops are covered in dust.
They use the truce, and to Pardeiro it seems normal. Marxists or not, they have fought bravely and fallen
with great decency. That is why he ordered his men not to bother them. With satisfaction, the
Ensign verifies that there are many corpses that the Republicans take with them. Between
Those who carry the bodies can see two Reds who, somewhat ahead, take advantage of
recognize more closely the positions of the hermitage. They look official, and Pardeiro watches through
from the binoculars to one that appears to be looking at him. Almost automatically, without moving the
eyes of the double lens, the lieutenant raises his right hand to the frill, by way of greeting, and after a
moment the one in front imitates the gesture, raising a clenched fist to his temple.
The squad from the last gouache is back. Legionaries walk the last few meters,
suffocated from walking in the sun. None of them carry a rifle, but they walk hunched under the weight
of the dozen still-damp canteens each one carries. At the head comes the cape
Longines, the chapiri cocked sideways and with the tassel brushing his eyebrows, his sideburns dripping
of sweat.
"Zusordenes, my ensign ... All right down there."
"How about the others?"
"Well, to be Rogelios." The truth is that we haven't talked much. Some comment like that,
on the way. From the looks of it, we've beaten them up.
"What did they look like?"
"Good, as far as possible." Chest hair guys.
"Communists?"
-I suppose. A couple of them wore red scarves. Of course they are not children, but
hard-working people like us ... When you see them closely, it is understood that they come from the terraces
as they come, bare-chested.
Pardeiro looks at his watch.
"They're coming back, I imagine."
"They haven't said anything about that, but I think they have." They looked at us with curiosity and a bad host,
as if to say then we will settle accounts ... Only one has asked if we were all up here
legionaries.
"And what did you say to him?"
—That we are a complete flag and that we are going to make them hypophosphites as soon as they appear
again ... Then the uncle said that we are going to do it to our fucking mother; and I have
answered that good, that is worth, that in agreement. And if you come up here we will introduce you to your
father.
Smiles Pardeiro.
"Normal, come on."
"Well, that, my ensign." The normal.
Pardeiro points to the canteens.
"Take these to Sergeant Vladimiro as well, and let him administer them." Everyone, even the
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wounded, just one sip. We don't know how long it will have to last us this time.
—Zusorders.
The corporal leaves with the others. Pardeiro gives a last look at the Reds, who are beginning to
retreat to the olive grove, then hangs the binoculars on his chest and looks at the
watch. There are seven minutes of truce left, so he approaches the legionaries who are standing or
sitting on the parapets and trenches, cleaning their weapons or smoking, the few who still
they have tobacco.
"Go under cover, the tea with pastries is running out."
Men obey slowly, taking last glances at the olive grove between whose trees
the last enemies disappear. The sun is at its zenith, beating hard, and the dusty haze
makes the landscape ripple.
Ready again, Pardeiro thinks, to kill and die. With a resigned inner sigh, he looks at
either side, he comes down from the parapet and goes into the trench.
—Turuta.
-At your service.
—I don't think they'll attack again right away, but it could all be… Ready to touch us?
beautiful?
The cornet smiles, spits and licks his lips.
-Well of course.
Pardeiro nods, satisfied. Have you noticed that men like to hear the cornet
when they're hitting shots, and the reds seem to be a bit impressed. Not as much as the
Hotchkiss, of course, but something does too. It sounds like there are more in the hermitage. And such
as everything goes, anything can be worth. Even, if necessary, the wounded.
"Hey, Sanchidrian."
The assistant stands up.
"Mande, my ensign."
"Go take a look at the wounded, make a list of those who can hold a rifle, in case
if necessary, and give it to Sergeant Vladimiro.
-To the order.
He then takes a careful look at the terraces while reviewing what of that landscape has
Learned in the Last Enemy Attempts: The Tactical Conclusions of Five Repelled Attacks
since yesterday, three from the olive grove and two from the western python.
The terrain, he remembers, is an important element in the struggle, and one cannot
do without, as it has a powerful influence on the course of the combat ...
They are going to tell him, he concludes sarcastically. He is going to explain it to him, at this point, the
Infantry tactical regulations that Sanchidrián continues to carry in his bag. The conclusion
it is only one: on another kind of terrain, he and his men would long ago be rotting
to the sun.
"Mr. Ensign."
It's Tonet, who pulls his sleeve. He turns to look at him. The boy continues with his chapiri
legionary on the head, dirty skinny legs under shorts, full of churretes the
face and with dry runny nose. It has a cross strap from the shoulder from which it hangs
a bayonet; got hold of it while helping to transport a wounded man, and there was no way to
take it off.
-What do you want?
"Can I drink water too?"
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"Of course, man."

-Thank you.
Tonet is about to leave when Pardeiro catches his eye.
"What do you have in your pocket?"
"Nothing, Mr. Ensign."
The kid tries to hide an object that bulges on the side of his pants. Pardeiro grabs it for
an arm.
"What do you mean, nothing." Come here… Bring.
The boy is struggling.
"No, really." That is nothing.
The ensign reaches into his pocket and takes out a hand pump: an Italian Breda, with its
nice red color.
"What are you doing with this?"
"I found her there."
-Over there? Pardeiro slaps him on the back of the neck. I have told you that nothing of the things that
shoot or explode. You've understood?
Tonet rubs his head, sulking.
"I understand, Mr. Ensign."
"All right?"
-Altogether.
"It's the third time you've been caught with something."
"It's only the second, Mr. Ensign."
"No, it's the third ... And the next, I'll take your bayonet."
Ginés Gorguel covers his head with a handkerchief with four knots. Cape Seliman and him
they walk in the sun, which weighs on their shoulders like lead. The terrain is uneven,
with a lot of mountains and valleys, and that hinders the march. To the right they see the sierra, which in the
shining with light raises its rocky and brown cliffs. Luckily, in the abandoned farmhouse
where they spent the night were half a loaf of stale bread, an onion, dried beans, and a jar of
water, and with that they made a frugal dinner that at least warmed their stomachs. Now they head to
be following the road from afar, careful not to let yourself be seen too much. By much disaster
national and much that the Reds have advanced, Selimán argues, somewhere there must be
friendly troops.
"I don't care if they're ours or yours," says Gorguel. "The prison camp in
some or the jail of others, I swear. I already have plenty.
The Moor listens in silence. He goes ahead, the rifle ready, awakens his gaze on the
details of the terrain. Suffering, stoic in the manner of his race, he has not once complained. In the
breaks he sits very still, squatting, leaning on the Mauser and sucking on a sprig of
any bush, without being scared off by the flies that land on its face. Economizing forces and
words.
The two fugitives have been walking for a long time.
"It's just that I'm a carpenter," Gorguel insists. My thing is to make furniture, doors and windows,
do not hit shots ... nor that they hit me.
"Dirty being fucking," Seliman says without turning around. Bad for Spain and for people
holy.
Gorguel passes from one side of his mouth to the other the stone that the Moor has taught him to have
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there to generate some saliva. Then he rubs his shoulder. It still hurts, although less
than before.
"I hang holy people on the cimbel."
"You never talk about yourself like that, Ines." Holy people, holy name, holy Franco, you laugh or
punishment from God.
"More punishment yet? ... Come on, don't bother."
The Moor does not respond. Has stopped and remains motionless staring straight ahead, forefinger close
of the trigger of his rifle. After a moment he bends down very slowly.
Gorguel imitates him.
-You've seen something?
The other remains very still, without saying a word. Moving on his knees across the floor, Gorguel
he stands beside him and looks around, noticing nothing.
-What happens? He whispers.
Seliman's narrowed eyelids barely reveal his black pupils through the slit,
vigilantes. His dark, wrinkled face is taut.
"People," he says.
"I don't see any… Are they soldiers?"
The Moor runs the tip of his tongue over his graying mustache.
"People, I say my pilabra," he points with his chin forward. By my face yes.
-A lot?
"I see some."
"Ours or the others?"
"You don't know, I don't know." Arrojo, Cristiano, Aljuri Hibreo… Good luck.
"Have they seen us?"
"I don't know that either."
-Shit.
"Yes or no shit, ia erbbi… God only knows."
They stay like that, still. Undecided After a moment distant, intimidating voices sound. They look like
addressed to them, and soon there is no doubt. Get out of there, they yell. Come out.
"Now be seen," Seliman says.
Anguished, Gorguel does not take his eyes off the Moor, waiting to know what to expect, but he
remains impassive.
"Leave the poplar here." Gorguel's voice trembles. If they see it, they will shoot.
The other gives him a disapproving glance.
- Muhal ... It doesn't seem to me that I make the object, paisa. The gun never leaves. I am ascari
Moroccan of the best to be, don't you know? ... He always shoots with me.
-And so?
The Moor thinks so. Drops of sweat fall from his hairline, down his temples,
following the course of the wrinkles on his face. In the end, making a decision, manipulate the Mauser
to remove the bolt. Then he stands slowly with his arms raised, the rifle in a
hand and the bolt in the other.
Gorguel imitates it, also raising his hands, his soul in suspense. In doing so he sees some
Soldiers approaching pointing their weapons at them. At first it is impossible to know if they are
Friends or enemies; but when they are closer, he can see the details: shirts
Rolled up khakis, steel helmets, good boots. There is a certain uniformity in them that
reassures.
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"Nationals," he sighs almost into a sob, relieved.

" Jandulilá, " says Selimán.
-Go Spain! Gorguel shouts, after making sure of everything. Go Spain!
The soldiers come to them, surround them. It's a squad, almost all of them young, and they're
nervous. But the presence of the Moorish soldier appeases them. They don't even take away his rifle.
"Water, please," Gorguel begs.
They are handed a canteen from which they drink eagerly, and then all are questions: who are they,
where they come from, what is happening in Castellets. Fugitives respond to the best of their ability:
seizure of the sector by the reds, the fighting in the eastern python, the executions, the flight.
"Well, you're very lucky," says a corporal. We have been on our way since last night, and you are the
the only ones we've seen so far.
"I don't know how far we are… how far we have traveled."
"There are seven kilometers to the town." And even that python you say, about four.
"I swear it looked like twenty."
The soldiers are gunners and are part of the reinforcement troops that come from the crossing
from the Fayón and Maella highways. They scout the flank to protect a section of
antitank covered with tarpaulins and drawn by mules. And around them, they count, by the foot of
the mountains and the river bank, two or three infantry battalions advance. After three days of
surprise and bewilderment, the national command is managing to stop the Reds and accumulates forces to
strike back. The same occurs along the entire right bank of the Ebro, almost to the
sea. Apparently a very tough battle is being fought downstream.
"They say the red ones fall like bedbugs," the corporal concludes.
"Well, it will be there," says Gorguel. Because the ones I have seen fall like bed bugs in
Castellets is ours.
They are led up to an officer, an artillery captain who rides a mule in front of a cannon
37mm German antitank, with a reed whip in one hand and wiping his sweat with a
soaked handkerchief. He welcomes them with curiosity and for a while peppers them with questions. To the
Finally he orders them to give them water and something to eat. But when Gorguel tries to find out how far
can go down the road and ask permission to follow the opposite path to Castellets, the captain
closes in band.
"We are not in retreat, but in advance." Also, you already know the terrain and can be me
tools. You stay with us.
The world is on top of Gorguel.
"We have fought and it has been terrible, my captain," he protests.
"Well, all the more reason." You have experience.
-But…
The other looks at him from the chair with the face of few friends.
—No buts or pears ... Until further notice, by article fourteen, you are incorporated into the
Baler Battalion antitank company.
The old carpenter blinks, confused.
"Article fourteen?"
"My holy eggs."
The corporal and the other gunners who listen to the conversation laugh, and even Seliman outlines a
fatalistic smile. But Gorguel does not give up.
"The Moor and I have been walking since yesterday," he protests. And you see, for charity ...
My espadrilles are torn and my feet are covered in wounds.
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"We'll find you something." The captain points to the cannon behind, pulled by two mules.
Now you can climb on that gun carriage and sit, resting, until you recover.
"But my captain ...
Without listening further, ignoring them, the officer strikes the flank of his horse with
the junk and move on.
"I shit my milk," Gorguel murmurs.
" Mektub, " says the Moor , resigned. Luck.
They remain motionless until the line gently pushes them toward the barrel, making them
climb onto the closed arms of the gray-painted gun carriage.
"Give me a cigarette, at least," Gorguel asks.
-Taking.
The two of them sit with their feet dangling, smoking, rocked by the passing of the
cheat them that drag the piece, while one curses their black luck and the other, whom they have
allowed to keep the rifle, put the bolt back in place. Desperate, Gorguel
he looks back at the cannons, the guns with ammunition and the soldiers walking by one and the other
side of the road.
"I can't believe they're taking us there again," he growls, spitting out a hard strand of
tobacco.
"Good luck," repeats the Moor.
"Mine is like a curse, don't you think? ... Four days on the run, and I'm still in the same place."
The other shrugs his shoulders philosophically.
"Worst of the bad thing is walking dead dead, I say you."
Gorguel spits out another strand, thick as a toothpick. The cigarette they have given you is
infamous. A dirty killer, pure scaffolding flower.
"Well, don't rule it out, hey." Both the pitcher goes to the source…
"Only God is the one who knows, paisa."
"God, you say."
-Yes.
—Well, we are going to do something, Selimán… You pray to yours and I to mine, and see if among the
two agree and get us out of this fucking shit.
From the top of the python Pepa, a worried Gambo Laguna observes with the binoculars the
enemy lines. Although there is no combat on the Castellets right flank, all day
has been warning movement of men and material beyond the vineyards, in front of the small
cemetery hill. The requetés who arrived yesterday occupy suitable positions to attack, and
he knows of patrols sent to scout the place. It is evident that the fascists are preparing a
counterattack, and the head of the Ostrovsky Battalion senses that it will be strong and in the direction of the cemetery,
in search of what he himself would try: take that position to flank the town, threatening
communication with the river. And your officers are of the same opinion.
"Why don't they attack now?" Asks Captain Serigot, second in command. They have been there since
yesterday, and they don't move.
"I guess they're getting stronger." And they expect artillery.
"Well, the longer they take, the tougher they'll come."
"Zugazagoitia is well prepared."
"We better do."
Militia Lieutenant Roque Zugazagoitia, Gambo Laguna's henchman, commands the
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Ostrovsky's 3rd Company: 139 communists, well-trained shock people with high morale,
that has been preparing the cemetery for defense since yesterday. They have even tended a row of
barbed wire between it and the vineyards. They have ammunition, food, they are communicated by a
phone line and now they just wait for everything to start. Gambo knows all that, but also
he knows that fascists don't easily drop a bone when it is between their teeth. The
war is being too often the stubbornness of one and the other around a
point that is taken, it is lost, it is taken again and lost; and both contenders bleed out
clinging to it even when it ceases to have strategic or tactical value. When everything turns
in a simple and bloody clash of rams.
"I'm going to take a look at the cemetery," Gambo decides.
Serigot looks at him, anxious because he is concerned.
"I can go if you want."
"I'd rather have a look ... Who knows if, when the music starts, I'll be able to go downstairs."
-Voucher. I accompany you.
"No, stay here." Two men and one link are enough for me.
"Take an orange tree."
-For what? The fascists are half a kilometer away and it is too hot. I prefer to load
Lightweight.
"Take at least one canteen." It's fucking hot.
—Yes… Do we still have that bottle of Anís del Mono that we carved two days ago?
"There is a little more than half left."
"Give it to me."
Followed by three soldiers and with the bottle in one hand, Gambo descends from the ridge by the
counter slope. Halfway down the hillside he finds a large group that has made shadows with
blankets and branches to protect from the sun. He prefers to have them there as a reserve, rather than in the
crest, in case the fascist artillery begins to disturb. Those who are sitting looking for shade
have, dedicated to what any soldier does when he is not shooting or
stick to him: cleaning weapons, mending clothes or shoes, writing letters, hunting for lice in
shirt seams, dozing with your headgear or a handkerchief over your face.
"No news, Comrade Major," says a veteran sergeant, getting to his feet.
Gambo smiles to himself. The sergeant is a former civil guard named Vidal; Y
Although certain hierarchical manners are abolished in the People's Army, when you see a few stripes
he skips the automatic.
"Sit down, Vidal ... Rest."
"At your orders, Comrade Major."
Further down, in the small valley where the Valero 81 mortars are found, about twenty
of men are seated in a semicircle around Ramiro García, the political commissioner of the
battalion. Everyone has a sheet of paper and a pencil that they rest on their knees or on their lunch boxes,
and they write to dictation what García reads aloud from the book in his hands:
- Our only recourse was to mine the redoubt to blow it up the moment they entered
in it the French ...
Read the didactic and patient commissar, vocalizing a lot, while the men, illiterate
Until recently, they toiled conscientiously at writing. They are young and also mature, and their
The grim faces of peasants and workers, dark in the sun, dirty from war, show a
extreme concentration on the way they move pencils turning into words
correctly written what days ago were clumsy sticks.
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- However, it was not like that, because, not daring to make an assault without taking the precautions and
possible assurances, they continued their undermining work ...
Gambo contemplates them a little more approvingly, with a touch of legitimate pride. When
proclaimed the Republic, of 24 million Spaniards, twelve could not read or write. Y
the truth is that García, the old Alcoy hairdresser, is good for that. Would have been,
think, an excellent schoolmaster: thanks to his efforts, seven out of ten soldiers of the
battalion can already read and write fluently. A figure higher than the average of the army of the
Republic and, of course, far above that of Franco's soldiers, for whom the troop is
cannon fodder that does not need books and teachers, but masses and priests.
Gambo has just left the ditch and crosses the path between the vineyards, following the cable of the
campaign phone line linking the python and the cemetery - some girls from broadcasts the
they tended yesterday — when you hear the noise of engines in the sky. Looking up he sees in the distance six
dark spots.
"Fachistas?" Asks one of those accompanying him.
"If so many come, surely they will," says another.
The older man hands the bottle of anise to one of them and faces the binoculars. The sun makes it shine
the fleeting circles of the propellers. They fly in a formation of two Vs, one after the other, approaching
from the northwest.
"They're biplanes ... Romeos," he confirms. Two pumps each.
"Those are a lot of bombs."
-Twelve.
"Well, I hope they don't throw them here."
"It doesn't look like it," says Gambo. They go to the river.
"Well, goodbye to the catwalk."
"Don't be ashes."
They keep walking without taking their eyes off the sky. Now the planes break formation and
they descend one after another towards the river, which is out of sight of Gambo, beyond the vineyards
greens and the hill of the cemetery. Small clouds dissolve in the air and the distant sounds
anti-aircraft hammering from the Bofors. Then a chain succession of loud booms echoes
in the distance, the planes take flight and flee undaunted.
"Jiña and go," says one of the soldiers.
"And our aviation?" Asks the other, exasperated. Where is the Gloriosa?
"Don't complain, man… They shot one down this morning."
"One of our fighter did it." Only one, and they were already giving each other a candle from afar. I dont know what
it will happen in other places; but here we only see fascist planes.
-Everything will go.
—Well, as long as it takes to walk ...
Gambo turns to look at them with a sullen face. He appreciates even the last of his men,
but sometimes it is convenient to put the turkeys in the shade.
"Those mouths, damn it."
They obey, as they always do. Only once, recalls the head of the Ostrovsky, the thing was
close to getting out of hand. It happened in Teruel, in January, when one of his officers, who already
had lost almost half the company, refused to take the survivors to a third
Attack in eight hours to the Muletón. The men, badly punished by cold and enemy fire, did not
they wanted to return to the assault and were on the verge of mutiny, and the officer took their side. To Gambo
He had no choice but to relieve him of command; and was about to have him shot on the spot with
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four other leaders of the revolt when, luckily, the order arrived to suspend the attack.
The rioters went to a disciplinary unit, and the officer - a brave man, whose only
tacha was backing his own — sent to the rear for a council of war.
"At your command, Major."
The Zugazagoitia militia lieutenant, head of the 3rd Company, saw him coming and went to his
meeting next to the wall of the cemetery riddled with bullet holes.
"How are you around here, Roque?"
-Well you can see. Quiet and waiting.
The older man hands him the bottle of anise.
"I've come to bring you this and see if you need anything."
-Thank you.
"I'm sorry it's not whole."
They greet each other with affection, as they are old comrades. Roque Zugazagoitia, a big Basque,
bearded and one-browed, flattened nose and shovel-like hands, he has spent the whole war
fighting on the front line, first on the northern front and then in Aragon and Catalonia. Old
metalworker, a communist since 1934, often says that the autonomous government of Euzkadi does not
was something else, during his actual existence, than a gang of meapilas and camouflaged fascists who
they went about their own business, to whom the proletarian international and the unity of Spain
loose. They didn't even shoot priests, he laments. That is why in 37 the People's Army of the
Republic rather than surrender with those gudaris of daily mass, respect for private property
and the tip nothing more. With whose commanders and politicians, he maintains, as with the bourgeoisie
traitors of the Catalan Generalitat, it will be necessary to settle accounts very seriously when everything returns
to its channel.
"They're going to attack you, Roque."
"I can smell it already."
"They are gathering on the other side of the vines." Requetés, as I told you. And maybe others
troops ... I suppose if they haven't started yet it's because they expect artillery support.
"What about us?" What is the situation?
-It is not bad. We have not yet taken the Aparecida, but the town and the pythons are
insured. An attack with tanks is prepared towards the highway of Fayón, to link with
our bridgehead ... But, as I told you, the fascists seem to be trying to
this side.
"Well, we're fine here." I have the two Maxims lined up, covering the whole
approach, and the mortars behind there, ready to do their thing.
-And the people?
"Ammunitioned and eager." They have brought us water and hot ranch, so there is nothing but
ask.
"Show me everything, come on."
-Come.
The lieutenant guides him along the niches, some of which were demolished by the fighting on Monday 25. More
there, men rest naturally among the crosses and the stone and marble tombstones,
entrenched in the disturbed earth where there are broken coffins, remains of shrouds, skeletons and
bones thrown everywhere. Upon reaching the wall, which is half demolished, Zugazagoitia points out
northwestward.
"When they come they'll do it over there, from the trough and through the vineyards." They are low as well
that the protection they will give is relative. And if they try to move on ...
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"Those motherfuckers are queer." They will try.

-Good. Each one is what it is ... If they continue, I tell you, then they have the line of barbed wire.
They will have to pass it to get to my first trench. And then there is the graveyard itself
saying. Look you see He points to one side and the other. I have knocked down the wall in some places to
that people better protect themselves in the pits.
The older one wrinkles his nose.
"It smells like it stinks."
—You get used to everything… After a while, you don't even feel it.
"Well, I'm fucking sorry."
"Only at the beginning, as I told you." My people were grumbling, but I told them there's no more hole
surely one of these, and they also have the advantage that if you clap, you are already inside and with the
made grave ... They laughed a little, they split in my dead for the bajini, and everything in order.
They are good guys.
Gambo observes the terrain with the binoculars: half a kilometer of flat field, vineyards of a
scattered green. Bad for attackers, good for defenders. But you know that the fascists
they will come around. There is no other possible way.
"I don't have to tell you ...
Leave it at that. Zugazagoitia nods gravely.
-You're right; needless. If I lose the cemetery, they sneak us into the river.
-Exact.
"And you get caught in the python."
"Also very accurate."
The lieutenant points to his men. Some heat kettles over fires made from splinter
coffins. A dozen half-mummified bodies are stacked at an angle to the wall. Sitting in
the edge of a pit, with their feet dangling inside and their rifles at the side, two soldiers play
letters next to a dry, dusty corpse, dressed in a torn and dirty suit. In a trait
in a macabre mood, a dried carnation has been placed in the skull's ajar mouth.
"Take it easy, look at them," Zugazagoitia says. They are the same as always. They will endure what we
Throw away… They have more military personnel than Corporal Machichaco.
They walk to the company's command post, a trench that connects two graves
contiguous with a small pantheon presided over by an angel with gunshot wings. Inside
there is miscellaneous equipment, boxes of ammunition and a field phone.
"If you run out of line, send me links." I want to know everything that happens.
"Don't worry." Zugazagoitia sets the bottle of anise on a box of cartridges. I count on
reinforcements if things get ugly?
"Not from the python, because I must keep my reserve." Maybe the town can send you
something, but I don't guarantee it.
—I understand.
"If necessary I can support you with the large mortars, although not for long ...
Do you understand
-Clear.
"I must economize."
They look at each other, understanding each other without further words. At that moment the phone rings. Zugazagoitia
He picks up the headset and taps it to his ear.
"It's Serigot, who wants to talk to you," he says to Gambo. Apparently they called you
from the Harinera.
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"Bring."
The battalion chief listens to what his second tells him, hangs up the phone and looks at
Zugazagoitia, gloomy.
-Bad news.
"Tell me."
—The planes have destroyed the catwalk and the floating platform ... Surely the pontoners
They can repair the gangway, but the platform is completely lost. That means no
they will cross more heavy media.
"And how many have passed so far?"
"Three T-26s."
"What about anti-tank guns?"
-One.
"Just?… Is that all?"
-I'm afraid so.
"And medium-caliber artillery?"
"Zero patatero."
"Shit ... What the hell is Faustino Landa thinking?"
"You know him." The lieutenant colonel is a man of good character.
"Yes, of the live and let die."
-Affirmative.
The lieutenant shakes his head, discouraged.
"Three tanks and an antitank for a whole brigade, with the fascists about to fight back,
It's not a big deal, Gambo.
The older one smiles, stoic.
"It's not the first time either."
—Yeah… But after repeating ourselves so much and repeating ourselves, some may be the last.
After saying that, Zugazagoitia sighs and stares at the bottle of anise, as if hesitating. To the
He finally makes up his mind, takes it, removes the stopper and puts it to his lips.
"Just in case we can't later." To your health, Major.
He takes a sip and passes it to Gambo, who raises it as a toast before drinking in his turn.
"Yours, Lieutenant… And those of those comrades out there."
The sun is about to disappear behind the horizon. Half a kilometer northwest of
Castellets cemetery, on the other side of the vineyards, the requetés of the shock company of the
Tercio de Montserrat have just prayed the rosary and, as is their custom afterwards, sing the Virolai:
Rosa d'abril, Morena de la Serra,

from Montserrat estel,
il·lumineu la catalana terra,
guieu-nos cap al cel ...
After leading the prayer, Páter Fontcalda has moved away a bit, under a tree, and there he confesses
to the long line of men waiting their turn to kneel and, beret in hand and bowed
head, stay in peace for what awaits you tomorrow. As for the rest, he is about to pass the
night. Some take advantage of the last light to write letters that will be delivered to the priest before
to stand up at dawn and advance towards the enemy.
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"Do you have any oil?"

-A little.
"Pass it on, come on."
"Be careful, huh? ... It's for the whole squad."
-Quiet.
Sitting between his companions Santacreu and Milany, Corporal Oriol Les Forques cleans the
carabiner and wipe each of the bullet combs in the holsters.
Then, after operating the bolt of the weapon several times, leaving it open, one of the
combs, press with your thumb to insert the five cartridges and remove the metal clip before
of turning the bolt again, satisfied with the crisp, dry sounds of polished steel. his
Rifle, like that of its companions, is a reliable and effective Mauser Oviedo, weighing four kilos if it goes
armed with the bayonet of almost forty centimeters of blade. And it is better to have it ready so that
do not jam or fail tomorrow.
"Here, Oriol." Santacreu returns the small can of oil.
It is shaken by Les Forques. Empty.
"You'll be a Mamluk."
"No, man ... There was very little left."
Durruti, the company's pet dog, wags his tail going from group to group, licking
hands and waiting for a caress or a rest of food. Each of the requetés has had a dinner
hot ranch — chickpea and cod stew — and two fingers of brandy, and has been provided with
one hundred rifle cartridges and four hand bombs. Everyone knows what will happen tomorrow. He said it
Before the rosary, Captain Coll de Rei, standing among the hundred and a half seated men,
explaining in detail, as he always does, the work to do and how to do it. Is planned
that a company of the VII Tabor de Tiradores de Ifni that just arrived from Maella attacked
simultaneously, in order to cut off enemy communication between the west python and the
cemetery and divide the fires. As for the requetés, they will advance through the vineyards under cover
artillery, and the first squads will be provided with pliers to cut the barbed wire. The order
It is to take the hill from the cemetery and stay on it.
"At all costs," the captain finished explicitly.
Those three words are not new to Oriol Les Forques or the oldest requetés,
because the tagline at all costs is common in his rude biography. After all, they are all
volunteers; someone older, such as Joan Gabaldá, enlisted at age forty-nine with his
son Sergio, and other very young people, such as Pedrito Regás, the youngest of the unit, who enlisted in
January claiming to be eighteen even though he had not yet turned sixteen. Disciplined,
Stoics, accustomed to dancing with the ugliest, all assume without fuss what is coming,
pretending not to see the toilets who, in a separate group, prepare medical supplies, stretchers and
artolas to evacuate the wounded on mules. And the newest recruits, fugitives from
France or past enemy lines, they look askance at veterans to imitate their
Apparent indifference, even if concern shows on their tense, pale faces.
Santacreu, who has finished cleaning the weapon, fits the ramrod and elbows Les
Forques.
"What are you thinking, Oriol?"
"In Núria."
-You go. I was thinking about her too.
"I do it every time there's a tomato in sight ... On her and on my mother."
- Mater semper certa. The mother thing is normal.
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—And about Núria.

"Well yeah… Quoque." She too.
He points to Les Forques at the other requetés, sitting or lying on blankets.
—At times like this, almost everyone has a Núria to think about.
"Well, ours is very pretty."
-Of course.
They remain silent, accomplices. Remembering.
"I want to die taking the Ramblas, collons," Santacreu finally sighs. And with her
seeing him leaning out of a balcony ... Not in the middle of the field, eaten by bed bugs.
"You are a romantic, Agustí."
Another silence.
-Who is she? Milany is interested.
Santacreu, who has fallen down to rest his head on his satchel, draws with his hands a
female silhouette in the air.
—A chocolate that we both pretended to and that gave us pumpkins.
"Both of them?"
"Both of them."
"Temporary," Les Forques points out. Only temporary pumpkins.
"And where is he now?"
"It will still be in Barcelona, I suppose… We haven't heard from it again."
He also leans back on his bag while squinting, remembering. Núria Vila-Sagressa,
He and Agustí Santacreu: flirtations and friendly rivalry, furtive hands rubbing, kisses stolen from
socks, summers in Puigcerdá, winter mornings in the Turó Tennis, dances of the Equestrian Circle,
dinners for three at La Font del Lleó, Leslie Howard and Merle Oberon at the Astoria cinema, discussions
policies on the terrace of the Colon. A whole youth, a world shattered. Something similar to
music of an orchestra slowly fading into a vast empty ballroom, the floor of which is
covered in trampled streamers and confetti.
"Do you have a photo of that Núria?"
-Not.
"Me neither," Santacreu says.
"We were at it a little before July 19," Les Forques clarifies, "and we had to
leave everything parked until further notice. There was not time to say goodbye.
—I would have liked her to say goodbye to us in a white dress and waving her handkerchief
while we were leaving, ”Santacreu points out.
"Like Luisa Fernanda."
"That's it ... But I just wanted to."
-We stayed.
Milany laughs.
"Was she pretty?"
"It was a cannon," Santacreu confirms. And I guess it still is.
"There was a third in contention," Les Forques points out.
-It is true. A boy named Ignacio Cortina: a handsome man who looked a bit like Rafael
Rivelles.
-The actor? Milany is interested.
-That.
"And was he luckier than you?"
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—No, less, because the Reds took him out of the competition. They shot him at the end of July, in
Antúnez House.
"Wow." Was he also a Carlist?
-Falangist. In those days many of them and ours fell. Like brothers
Joy ... Do you remember, Oriol?
"Of course," confirms Les Forques. And Pepe Colom, with his blue eyes. And Fontanet,
always optimistic. And the heroic Puigros, and so many others.
"The best, yes." All our age. They would have come here wonderfully.
—And that you say it. They were good people, hardened in the street fight against Azana and Companys,
as before, Lerroux, Ferrer Guardia and Mendizábal were fought.
"They were killed like dogs."
"We also had our thing in my town," Milany says. Including my poor father.
Les Forques raises his head a little and points to the other requetés.
"In yours and anyone's." Parent brothers…
Santacreu nods, grim.
"There will be a chance to settle accounts."
"That is precisely why I would like to stay alive," Milany snarls. To adjust them.
The nights at war are different. There is not one equal to another, even if they look alike. Makes two
years that Julián Panizo fought, and he knows it well. As Karl Marx said, which is his only and
true god, man belongs to the environment that surrounds him. The routine of fatigue, dirt,
pain and fear combines at the end of each day - one more day lived - with the sensations and
memories of the day; darkness refines the senses with uncertainty and reflection, and that
elicits a special lucidity: the perception of mysterious, perhaps geometric rules —he read
ever that word, and it fascinates him—, that govern the cosmos and dispense life and death.
None of that would be raised by the dynamiter out loud. His comrades, and Olmos the first,
they were going to tease him if he did. On the other hand, the grandson of a man whom the Civil Guard
with his rifle butt for picking up, to feed his family, carob beans from a field owned by a
Marquis, Panizo is a rough man, self-made drilling through dust, steam and
hundreds of meters underground. In your case, and you are aware of it, these are simple intuitions,
not of intellectual approaches. Spend your life looking to eat and feed your loved ones
reduce certain spaces. The former miner, however, always strove to train himself
politically. Learning to read and write, something unusual in the mountains of Cartagena, helped him in
that. He went to rallies at La Unión, read newspapers and some books, joined the Party. Put what
he could on his part, did what he could in the world that was given to him, and that is why he is not ashamed of
their limitations or their lack of culture. Where it does not arrive with books that others have read, it arrives
with sufferings and dangers. With the time that he has been facing the front, killing fascists
for real, instead of walking the monkey and the rifle raising the fist in the bars and brothels of the
rear.
The stealing of church and hospital assets, the fraudulent alienation of
domains of the State, the theft of communal lands, the terrorist transformation of the
feudal property in modern private property. Here are the idyllic bases of accumulation
primary…
Like a schoolboy repeating a lesson, the dynamiter mentally reviews that paragraph, one
more, of the book that for fourteen months he has been in his bag, worn out from reading it so much, with
pencil underlines on each page. Try to memorize one piece per week to,
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by deciphering it, better understand what he is fighting for and against what. "Here is everything," said the
Political commissioner who gave him that small volume in a trench in the University City.
Panizo believed it, and that is why he reads its pages over and over again underlining them with a pencil point that
wet on the tongue. Knows, or rather intuits, that in those lines of letters and words there are keys
that will make possible a world in which factories replace churches and tractors to
the cars of the landlords; and he strives to learn them. In making them intelligible, transparent,
before it's his turn to die.
That's what he thinks about while smoking a cigarette with the ember hidden in the hollow of his hand,
leaning on the stone parapet on which the orange tree stands. Sometimes it shivers a little. Does
a little cold, and the wool sweater is with the bag and the blanket, far from there. There is an order to keep
I wake up a man by squad, watching the edge of the olive grove so that the
Last night when the men in front tried a coup. Nothing serious: they came down from the hermitage
A couple of guys with grenades gave the scare and left immediately, but they killed a sentry.
It is their way of saying that they do not collapse.
Taking another drag on his cigarette, Panizo is a little careless. Just a moment. He realizes and the
hidden on the spot, but not enough that a distant cry cannot reach him from the
fascist positions.
"Red, see you!"
The dynamiter smiles, cautious, half crouched.
-Thank you!
-You're welcome, sir!
Panizo finishes his cigarette, leans over, unlocks the embers and puts the butt away. The night is
quiet and not even isolated pacos sound. Behind him, beyond the olive grove, the town and the
two pythons remain silent. Just a flare thrown every now and then and descending
silhouetting black outlines in its milky light, remember the war is still crouching, waiting
its time again. From the enemy positions, on top of the terraces with converted almond trees
In fabrics of shadows, now comes the song that, with a good voice, a legionary is singing:
I have a brother in the Tercio

and another I have in Regulars;
and I have the smallest
prisoner in Alcalá de Henares.
"He doesn't sing badly, the motherfucker," Olmos says.

It has approached in the dark without Panizo noticing. He leans on the parapet beside him,
silhouette by silhouette, hidden under the dense canopies of the olive trees.
"We should sing something to him," he adds.
"Then ... Now quit." It's nice to hear it, the fascist.
"What did you yell at before?"
-No, nothing.
They are silent for a moment, listening.
-What are you doing here? Panizo asks at last. You should be pawing like a bishop.
—I'm hungry ... And the green olives, which is the only thing I have eaten today, are bitter
for the trilita and they give me shit.
Laughs Panizo.
"Sufferings for the country, they call that."
"Well, here I would like to see those who call you." They send you to the front and everything is slogan:
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courage, endurance, tenacity, patriotism ... But the plate of lentils with bacon, no word.
-It is true.
"If the Republic were given a rifle and an empty stomach like me, it would not be secular." Would have
all day God in the mouth to shit on it.
"Don't be a bad blood, Paco." Do you want a cigarette?
"No, I just had one… And, oh, I forgot." I bring you this.
He hands her the sweater. Dirty, smelly, but warm.
"Thank you, compadre."
The dynamite removes the straps, puts on the sweater and adjusts them again.
-What do you think? Olmos asks.
-Raw. They are well entrenched and they do not lack a park.
"There can't be many anymore." We have given them strong.
"They also give us strength."
"They say we will try again tomorrow ... That tanks have arrived and there is going to be a
our advance towards the highway of Fayón. Maybe that helps.
-Hopefully.
—This reminds a bit of Santa María de la Cabeza, right?… We and the internationals
below and the others above.
—Clavadito. Or almost.
—The civil guards in the church, defending each stone, and we paying dearly for each
subway we were climbing.
"They knew how to shoot."
—Well if they knew. And so on until the end, hey. They did not give up, the guys ... What happened to that
captain we caught wounded but alive?
-Cuts.
"That, Cortés." I suppose they did shoot him, right?
"I think he died alone." He was well aviated.
"Do you remember when we took him out on a stretcher? ... All skinny, unshaven, with those eyes."
burning with fever and clenched fists. What an animal! He looked at us as if to say «I would return
to do it if you would let me ».
"I remember very well."
"What a bastard he was, huh? ... And the others, the filthy rebellious guards, minions of the
Andalusian exploiters, the oligarchy and capital. I do not understand how the Republic forgave the
few that we leave alive.
"There were foreign observers and journalists watching."
—Well, they could have gone to look elsewhere and left us with our things ...
ass they give with the non-intervention and all that shit, which only benefits the fascists.
"High politics, mate."
—Well, I get involved in high politics, in low politics, and in the whore who gave birth to them ... In the young ladies
Falangists and in the requetés cagasantos that mean holy water.
They are quiet for a while. In the enemy trenches, the legionnaire continues to sing:
While she bathed,

I hid the clothes.
I didn't cry for the clothes
I was crying because I saw her.
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"We should sing something to him," Olmos insists. There, to the right, he is on guard
Pepe el Curiana ... Let him drop something.
They call out to him, until he answers in the dark. The Curiana is a Malaga, old
shoe shine from the Café de Chinitas, which has a lot of art. Soon, in the first pause of the enemy,
his voice is raised in the shadows of the olive grove.
It was you who said

sets fire to the chaparral,
and now that you see it burning
you want to turn it off.
Silence on the other side. At the end the legionnaire is heard singing again:
If you are a clenched fist

listen to this fandanguillo.
I shit on the red,
in the hammer and sickle
and in the milk that you have sucked.
The last stanza is chanted by several voices in the enemy trenches. Olmos laughs.
"We're already making it up."
Now several men sing accompanying the Curiana, and the hymn of the dynamiters is
extends throughout Republican positions.
Drop the bomb that spits shrapnel

place the firecracker and grasp the Star,
have no respect for those scoundrels
until you get to have freedom.
Panizo can't see where the first shot comes from. A lonely pac-cuuum sounds, a
lash at night; And as if it were a signal, that unleashes a string of flashes in the
enemy positions and run like wildfire along your own line. Bullets whistle
stripping olive branches and even machine guns briefly join, with some dry
a blast whose tracers pass like fast and disciplined fireflies.
Panizo, who doesn't shoot, shakes his head and smiles, crouched in the dark.
"These fucking fascists ...
He knows that if he survives the war, one day he will remember those moments. It is not easy to forget
voices of brave enemies.
Page 159
IV
The noise of boots crossing the trough. Metallic sounds, low voice commands, breathing
choppy with men moving fast in the still uncertain light of dawn.
- Ego I absolve you to peccatis tuis ... Ego I absolve you to peccatis tuis ...
The monotonous voice of Pater Fontcalda whispers acquittals while, with his hand raised,
bless the requetés who pass in front of him, on the way to the vineyards. In the first light of the
Tomorrow, the far hill of the cemetery turns slowly from gray to brown and then to pink as
the sun insinuates itself beyond.
- Ego I absolve you to peccatis tuis ...
As they line
Montserrat reachupthe
onedge
theirof the trough,
knees groupedthe
bymen of the
squads andTercio Shock
platoons. Company
Everyone looks straight ahead
trying to foresee what awaits them; studying the terrain they have to cross. Some kiss
medals and scapulars or they touch with reverence the detainees bullet caught with safety pins at
shirts. No one wears a helmet, and the berets seem to sow the line of red flowers: officers and
petty officers have removed their badges and stripes and removed the chest patches, to
make the task difficult for enemy shooters. Only Don Pedro Coll de Rei keeps the three stars
in the beret. He is the only one standing on the edge of the trough, leaning on his cane as if
take a walk in the country, with Durruti glued to his boots. As always, its good
plant, tall, stocky, calm, with curly beard and mustache, the Astra 9 length at the waist,
it impresses whoever looks at it: carlist with gallows and knife. Behind him, next to the other two
officers, liaisons and Sergeant Buxó, who carries the flag, the assistant Cánovas has in the
hands the captain's shotgun; and crossed to the chest like a Mexican highwayman, a
cartridge belt with post cartridges.
On his knees and leaning on his Mauser, Corporal Oriol Les Forques adjusts the harness, the
individual cure pack and holsters with ammo and grenades so they don't bother you
run. On the right you have Santacreu, Subirats and Vila, and on the left Milany and Dalmau. How
his companions, carefully observes the vineyards that separate them from the objective: the vines are
geometrically planted, and their green branches with grape buds spread across the ground or
they support with stakes and reeds a few feet high. That offers no protection, and
advance five hundred meters in the open. It will be a tough nut to crack, and the requetés know it.
Last night, like almost everyone, Les Forques left a letter in the hands of the pater. A short note, just in case
perhaps:
Dear parents, tomorrow we enter into combat. I am in the grace of God. You want yours
son.
Captain Coll de Rei looks at his watch, and as if that were a sign of something, some quick
Booms sound from behind, far away, and above the heads of the requetés they tear the air
artillery shells striking the graveyard with a rapid thunder.
"They are our Ottos with Otto," says Les Forques, recognizing the sound of the 88 mm
Germans. At least there are four shooting.
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"Good thing," Santacreu says.

Over the enemy position rises a column of dust that hides the cypresses and in which
the orange glows of impacts glow. After one minute of bombardment, the
cannons are silent.
-That's it? Milany wonders.
"They'll shoot again," says Les Forques.
"Well, they take time."
They look at the requetés with surprise and concern. Little artillery preparation seems, if it remains
only in that. But time passes, there are no more shots and the dust dissipates in the cemetery.
"I can't believe it," Santacreu says. Just a few cannon shots to cover the
proceedings.
"The remigios will be falling apart."
"Don't fit ... As if I saw them."
Les Forques observes that Captain Coll de Rei looks back, as if he also expected something else,
and then to the right, where a company of Ifni shooters is supposed to be in line to
join the attack. Then he turns to Lieutenant Cavallé and Ensign Blanch, changes with them
a few words, these are balanced and each one is directed to take the front of his section. When
Blanch walks past Les Forques and his companions, gives them a pale smile.
"To that, my children," they hear him say.
Les Forques is amused about my children, because the lieutenant - bony and hairless face,
innocent eyes, first fight — he's twenty-two; just one more than him. But each one
manage his style. For his part, the Barcelona player is ready for whatever comes next: a bullet locked in the
Mauser's breech, the safety on, the beret on, the Navarran espadrilles - five pesetas to him.
cost - tightly tied at the ankles. Everything else, bag, blanket, canteen, he has left
back in the bivouac. Everything in the way to run fast is going to be plenty today.
"Arm bayonets!" Coll de Rei orders harshly.
The sun, which has just risen, strikes steel blades with its horizontal rays. With dry mouth
and his heart beating in his chest, Les Forques wedges his machete into the guide under the barrel of the
rifle and fixes it there with a bang and a snap. The clack, clack, clack, short and metallic, extends to
along the trough. Coll de Rei passes the cane to his assistant, who hands him the shotgun and the
another is holding her on his forearm, as if he were about to look at partridges. Circling in
Durruti wags his tail around his legs happily, sensing a nice walk.
"Long live Christ the King!… Be who we are!"
A hoarse fighting cry runs through the trough. Then the captain starts walking, Sergeant Buxó
he raises the flag, and the requetés rise to their feet and advance among the vineyards.
The sky is already so blue that it almost hurts the eye. The sun has not yet taken off the horizon, but
Les Forques's hands are sweating as he holds the rifle, whose weight, with that of the cartridge belts
full, the hand pumps and wire pliers that he wears on his belt as a squad leader,
it blocks his steps on the uneven clods of the ground. He walks surrounded by his companions,
keeping a meter of distance between them.
"And the Moors?" Asks Milany, looking worriedly to the right.
-They will come.
"Well, you can't see their hair."
Also restless, Les Forques looks in the same direction. Ifni shooters should already
be there, advancing like them; but on that side you can't see anyone. Neither artillery support nor flank
law. The shock company appears to be heading alone against the enemy.
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-What the hell is going on? Asks Jaime Dalmau, who, as he is the largest, carries his shoulder
the platoon's Chauchat submachine gun.
"Keep going," says Les Forques. Separate more and continue.
Sweat begins to wet the pad of his beret and shirt on his shoulders, under the belt,
and his heart beats so hard that it almost drowns out the sound of footsteps around him. It has, like all its
Companions, he fixes his eyes on the hill in front, and from time to time he observes Don Pedro Coll from
Rei looking for any clue; but the captain walks upright and indifferent a few steps ahead
of all, the shotgun at the arm and Durruti at the side, as phlegmatic as if he were walking around his farm. Does
For just a few days, Les Forques heard him say that despising enemy fire in combat is not
as much a question of value but of good manners.
The first mortician falls far to the left. A boom and a spout of soil and vines
shattered that jumps through the air. Many requetés instinctively shrink and some
Young recruits stop indecisive, glancing at their comrades.
"Don't group together!" Shouts Les Forques. Separate!
The second hit is meat. A couple of men collapse among the vines, caught
by shrapnel shards. Captain Coll de Rei makes an exasperated gesture, as if
will bother in the middle of a walk or a reflection; and passing the shotgun from the arm to the hands,
he starts to run as Durruti takes a joyous trot to keep close. They run
also the lieutenant and the ensign, pistol in hand, and Sergeant Buxó carrying the flag aloft, and
they all follow as endless flashes of flashes simultaneously in the cemetery, the
Red machine guns stutter dry bursts and bullets whir through the requetés, ring out
sink to the ground or snap into vines by blowing their leaves.
-Run! Shout officers and sergeants. Run!
They fall requetés. Many. He sees them left behind Les Forques, torn apart by mortals or
by the bullets that arrive flush heading the vineyard. The Barcelona man advances dodging the plants,
feeling the buzz of lead that passes fleetingly, gets lost behind their back or hits the bodies with
sinister sound of hitting flesh or broken bones. He does not think, he does not feel. Not even the dread that
it curls into his groin reaches his head. Just look. Run and see. To a requeté that goes
ahead, an impact snaps his leg with a crack similar to that of a branch breaking, and he falls
with an anguished oh my God! while Les Forques, in order not to trip over it, jumps over it.
Miraculously still alive, Don Pedro Coll de Rei continues the advance at the head of all, without
even turn to look if they follow him or not, with the undaunted Durruti by his side, the assistant
Cánovas behind, and another requeté who now carries the flag high because Sergeant Buxó no longer knows
you see it nowhere.
"Run! ... Run!"
For an instant, sidelong, Les Forques spots Santacreu and Subirats, running for their
right side skirting the vines, grasping the rifles with the useless bayonets. The rest of the
squad advances behind or to the left, with Dalmau, who continues to load the Chauchat, and the
others. By that time, the curtain of enemy fire is so intense that it seems impossible that even
there are people standing and running. Smells of hot air of flying shrapnel and passing projectiles,
to charred vines, to sulfur and to earth removed by the impacts of mortar. Some men
have enough, they hesitate, stop and throw themselves to the ground looking for the shelter of the vines,
If they do not protect from shots and explosions, they allow, at least, to hide a little behind them. Others
they keep falling, but not by their will: there are more and more immobile bodies, limbs
shattered, bleeding guts hanging from the branches, among the still green grapes on the
the dust of the explosions settles. The wounded scream without their voices being heard, drowned
Page 162
by the thunder of mortars and the buzz of bullets.

He looks for Les Forques with his eyes to Captain Coll de Rei, without finding him, and suddenly he finds himself
before a line of hawthorn. He almost tripped over her. Without knowing how, the shock company has
reached the enemy barbed wire. They are found a little high, on a slight slope, and
under that step of barely half a meter, the requetés are sheltered as they arrive,
those who arrive. They throw themselves there glued to the ground as if they wanted to dig the earth, bury themselves
alive in it. They pile up one on top of the other, making room among the companions with the
elbows and rifle butts. Every now and then someone groans and falls backward or rolls over
on the ground, injured. Next to Les Forques head to head, almost on top of him, dirty with earth the
Carlist sideburns, Santacreu whispers my Lord Jesus Christ. Nor does Milany appear for any
part.
"Pliers, pliers!" Shouts Lieutenant Cavallé. Cut them off, for God's sake!
They hit the bullets over their heads raising brown jets, plucking arpeggios
metal to the iron pickets where the barbed wire is fixed. Nervously looking for Les
Forques on his belt, he opens the canvas sheath and grasps the shear, between whose steel jaws
imprisons one of the barbed wires, the lowest of all. Press hard until you hear a
clack. Then he moves the wire aside, gets up a little more and captures a second wire; but
a bullet hits right in front of his eyes, blinding him to the ground. He crouches in anguish, tearful,
trying to clean himself when Santacreu's hands snatch the shears from him.
"Bring it on, man."
The fire made by the reds is hellish. There are hardly any brief pauses, and in them the
cries of the wounded. Les Forques manages to take off his eyelids and sees that Santacreu has opened a
step on the fence. For his part, Dalmau, leaning the bipod of the machine gun on the
ledge, indifferent to the bullets that graze his head, fires deafening bursts as the
sweat drips from the butt of the gun. Ensign Blanch comes crawling with the pistol in a
hand and a pineapple grenade in the other. His eyes no longer look innocent. Bring the torn beret
over his right ear and from there a trickle of blood drips to his jaw. When arriving together
He gave them an elbow on Santacreu's shoulder.
"Very well, my children… Let's go upstairs!"
The young ensign takes the ring off the grenade, stands up, imitated by three requetés.
Forques and Santacreu stay where they are—, move the cut wires apart to pass between them,
and at that moment a bullet rips off the left half of his skull, making him fall backwards
over the wire. One of the requetés also falls, and the other two fall back to the ground. The
grenade rolls down the slope and the men pull away in terror. Les Forques sinks his face
on the ground as the blast lifts dirt, stones and shrapnel shards, and when he opens the
eyes see one of his squad, Andreu Subirats, looking puzzled, very pale, the three
missing fingers from
tearing clothing at theone hand.leaving
spikes; Another requeté
a trail grabsand
of blood thebrain
ensign by the foot and pulls him down
mass.
"What a disaster," Santacreu's gasping voice rings in Les Forques's ear.
And the Moors, they have not moved ... They have left us alone and hunt us like ducks.
Les Forques nods, confused, rubbing his still irritated eyes, and looks back:
the vines and burning bushes smoke next to the red specks of requetés berets
dead, wounded or immobilized while the constant fire of the enemy has them all
nailed where they are. Not even retiring is possible, because whoever joins and tries, even
crawling, he is struck down on the spot. To the survivors of the shock company of the Tercio de
Montserrat has no choice but to adhere to the terrain, without moving until nightfall, and
Page 163
then seek a retreat under the cover of darkness. But it's only 07:45 in the morning.
Subirats groans into a ball, clutching his mutilated hand. Keep pulling Dalmau with him
Chauchat, and the noise hammers the eardrums. When shooting, move your lips as if speaking.
Les Forques pays attention between blasts and blasts, and checks that he is praying.
He tugs at her sleeve.
"Leave it alone ... They're going to give you a blow, and it's not worth it."
On the third pull the other crouches down, lowering the gun; and when you change the empty magazine for another
out of thirty rounds, the hot barrel brushes Les Forques's hand, burning the back.
-Cone.
-Forgives.
The Barcelona man sucks the burn, which is light, and then rests his head on his arms,
snuggling up the best you can. After the tension of the first moment, now he is tormented by a
thirsty atrocious.
"It's going to be a long day of noses," gasps Santacreu, who has just bandaged the wound to
Subirats.
-Yes. But we are still alive.
-For now. Have you seen Milany?
-Not.
"Shit ... me neither."
Ensign Blanch's half-open, glassy eyes - the right one, strangely deformed -
they are fixed in the sky where perhaps at that time his soul walks; but here on earth, the
The first flies begin to buzz over the shattered skull. So Les Forques pulls out a
pocket handkerchief and covers the dead man's face.
"Poor you," Santacreu says, and that's the whole epitaph for a twenty-two-year-old requet.
From the cemetery they stop shooting: a while ago the morterazos stopped and now they are silent
machine guns. It only sounds sporadic now, the packing of the loose shooters who stalk the
that moves. And then, from the red trenches twenty meters beyond the
barbed
"Youwire,
guyscomes the cry
gave him at the same time mocking and admiring of an enemy.
balls!"
The phone line with the Lola python does not work - it was probably damaged by one of the
air strikes—, and Pato Monzón and Vicenta la Valenciana have been sent by Lieutenant Harpo
to solve the problem. Loaded with the repair kit, the two women follow the wire
stretched out among the pines, looking for the point of failure. In some places the line is hung from
hooks stuck in trees or wooden poles, and in others it runs along the ground,
camouflaged among the vegetation, protected with stones and branches in the most exposed places.
"There we have it," says Valenciana.
A section is broken, and the nearby funnel of a fascist bomb shows why: the cable
black is sectioned with loss of one meter in length, and under the rubber coating
frayed copper and steel peek out.
"Give me two meters of my pollan," asks Pato.
With an expert hand clean the two ends of the broken line, install the intermediate section and join it
to each whip with a curl knot before linking the copper webs, tighten with pliers
the splice bushings and cover each with insulating tape.
-Done.
"Is this the only broken section?"
Page 164
Look out over Pato, toward the rocky mass of the python looming through the pines. The post
command of the Fourth Battalion will be close, he calculates. Less than ten minutes. The temptation is
too strong.
"We're going to follow the line to the end, to be sure."
-Agree.
They carry their backpacks on their back and continue forward. As they walk among the pines
Duck checks that the landscape has changed. Now you can see trees fallen or barked by the
bombs, funnels of disturbed earth and a strange mixture of smells, resin from wounded pines
by the shrapnel and dirt of the hundreds of soldiers who pass through here: ditches turned into
latrines, empty tin cans and ammunition boxes, trampled and dirty clothes. And about the
stinking corpse of a swollen mule with its legs in the air, pecked by a couple of birds
blacks, a swarm of flies buzzes enjoying such succulent loot.
A few steps further the two women stop, impressed. A glade in the pine forest houses
some thirty piles of freshly turned earth, each the size of a human being. On
some there is a piece of wood with a name, a branch with a soldier's hat, a helmet of
steel.
"Bloody bitch," says Valenciana.
"It must have been bad up there," says Pato.
-Poor people.
No shots are fired near or far, and no one is in sight. And that, so close to the line of fire,
it can mean anything. Five days on the Ebro have made them veterans. So,
Suspicious, Pato unsheathes the Tokarev on his belt and locks a bullet. Chas, clack, does. By
if anything. Not even republican comrades can one trust completely, in that dirty and
sad loneliness.
Behind him he hears the Valenciana do the same.
"Are you sure this is the way?" She asks uneasily.
"Sure." Duck points to the ground. Look at the cable.
A few steps later they meet a squad of seated soldiers each with their rifle, who eat the
field ration: a can of tuna and a loaf of bread on which they pour the oil trying
that it soaks well. Everyone looks up as the two women appear, but at first
no one makes comments. They have a weary expression, dusty hair, soiled with dirt and
gunpowder unshaven faces. Some wear red and black scarves around their necks.
"Easy, girls, we are one of yours," says one when they pass in front of him.
Put your irons away, don't miss a shot and let's screw it up.
Duck uncocks and holsters the pistol. The speaker has a sergeant's braid sewn to the
chest.
"Where's the battalion flat?"
"A little further, garments." In a shack of boards at the foot of the python.
"Thank you, comrade." Health.
The other one smiles and indicates the disheveled appearance of his companions.
"Cheers, little." As you see.
Pato and the Valenciana go ahead without responding. The command post is in the
counter slope, taking advantage of a natural cave and camouflaged with planks and branches. To your right,
surrounding the rocky height, a wide gravel path runs that crosses a small ravine
using a wooden bridge. The ravine is full of boxes of ammunition and material; and one
The newly dug trench, from which a machine gun peeks out between sandbags, stretches
Page 165
zigzag along the road. The men inside seem relaxed like those in the pine forest.
Almost everyone rests or sleeps. It is evident that after taking the python that has become
In a quiet place.
"Wow ... What a surprise."
That's what Captain Bascuñana says when he sees them appear. The commander of the Fourth Battalion is sitting at the
the shadow of the shed, his plaid shirt open over his chest, soaping his face and
shaving before a piece of broken mirror: basin with a water-scarce finger, brush, razor.
He also looks tired, and a dirty bandage is wrapped around his left forearm.
"What a handsome guy," whispers the Valenciana.
-Shut up.
Bascuñana wipes the soap residue from his face with a cloth, buttons his shirt and puts on the
tilted cap.
"We've repaired the line," Pato tells him.
-Great. What was the problem?
"It was cut off by a fascist bomb."
-Good. Let's try it now.
He points to a campfire, around which several men are sitting.
"We have something like coffee." His thin movie actor's mustache twists into a pleasant
smile-. Do you feel like it?
-Yes thanks.
He stands up, goes to the campfire, and returns with two tin cups. Duck sips
short. It is fresh and very hot. It's not the best coffee in the world, and it's not even
real coffee: chicory and roasted and ground chickpeas. But remember the taste a bit, and
less is nothing.
Bascuñana watches her very carefully and that makes her feel vaguely uncomfortable. A little
flustered.
"Let's see the phone," she says.
The device, a Russian Aurora, is under the shed, on an ammunition box labeled in
Polish. Bascuñana opens the Bakelite box, picks up the phone and turns the handle of the
magnet. When they respond from the staff of the brigade, he exchanges a few words and frowns.
frown. He only seems half satisfied.
"There's a noise like frying when I speak."
"Bring it on, comrade."
Listen Pato carefully. Then check the terminals where the line is connected.
"It's probably the microphone capsule," he concludes. The membrane of this model is
charcoal and usually spoils.
While talking, unscrew the lower part of the headset and exchange the capsule for another
with an aluminum membrane that the Valenciana passes to it.
"This one will be better." It's from an Eneka, German ... With his little Nazi eagle and everything.
"Don't let a commissary hear you, comrade," Bascuñana says. That of the German material
be better than Russian may not be frowned upon.
La Valenciana smiles, but Pato ignores the joke. Very serious, finish screwing the piece,
he tests the line and has the captain test it.
"Perfect," he says.
"Anyway, I'm going to check the entire device." You never know.
"Leave it," says Valenciana. I will do.
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While taking from the backpack a screwdriver and a voltmeter, the Valenciana directs Pato a
look Complice. Take advantage and take a walk around, he suggests without words. Duck raises his eyebrows,
sneaking up on him.
The captain takes out a crumpled pack of Russian cigarettes, the kind with the long mouthpiece and something
of tobacco on the tip.
"Do you smoke, comrades? ... I've run out of the other one, but this is a Fethen Bolshevik."
The Valenciana shakes her head, already busy dismantling the phone. Duck does accept.
With two fingers, he squeezes the cardboard of the mouthpiece, the captain sets it on fire.
do it — and they walk a bit, away from the cave. The vertical sun crushes the shadows of the
nearby pines. The python stands to the left, rocky and brown. Up its hillside
laboriously a line of men laden with a machine gun, sandbags, and boxes of
ammunition. The people of Bascuñana fortify the ridge.
"What happened to your arm, Comrade Captain?"
-Nothing serious.
They walk along the edge of the ravine towards the gravel road and the bridge. A long line
of soldiers with rifles, blankets and bags are crossing it. Duck knows who they are and where they are going, well
he has intervened in the telephone conversations from the command of the brigade. They are the boys of the
Coastal Defense Battalion, heading for the Fayón highway.
-What do you thing about all this? Asks the captain.
She hesitates before answering.
"Amazing at first," he says at last. Now, overwhelming. Nothing like what a
imagine from afar.
He takes a drag on his cigarette, savoring the strong aroma of Soviet tobacco.
—I realize that there are two worlds on each side, because I suppose that on the fascist
the same thing happens: those who fight in the front and those who fight in the rear.
-Y?
"I'd rather fight in the world here."
-Why?
"There is more camaraderie, more ...
Duck hesitates, searching for the word.
"Honesty," he concludes. When you ask a soldier what Russia means to him and
answer "work and bread", you realize that.
"That's not honesty, but naivety."
—I'm not explaining myself well ... I mean that I am touched by that ideological simplicity,
even the best. They do not waste time in debates and theories of coffee, as in the rear.
"There is no coffee here." And for most, their main ideology is to stay alive.
She takes another drag on her cigarette and slowly lets the smoke out.
—What amazes me is how everyone gets used to putting up with this horror: students,
peasants, workers, employees, office workers ... How in the end they end up finding it natural.
She is silent as she considers whether the natural word is appropriate. And she nods, convinced.
"The dead, the wounded, the dirt," he concludes.
Bascuñana, who listens attentively, seems to chuckling.
- The war è bella ma uncomfortable, say the Italians.
"There is no beauty here," the young woman vigorously shakes her head. Not even the
heroism is beautiful.
"Did you think it was?"
Page 167
—Yes, a little… That's why I joined the Party.

"Movies and pictures in illustrated magazines have done a lot of damage, I'm afraid."
-It's possible.
Bascuñana mechanically palpated the bandaged arm.
"It is not even heroism, Comrade Patricia ... The same person can fight as one
beast and half an hour later running terrified like a hare. Heroes don't exist. Only the
circumstances.
"But you got it up there in the python." You and your people.
"And do you know at what price? ... Of the four hundred and fourteen men I had in my battalion when
we crossed the river, I have lost a hundred and thirty between dead and wounded. And I will lose more when
fascists counterattack, which they will inevitably do, and I am asked through that phone to
you just made me defend this place at all costs.
They have stopped near the bridge, which the soldiers continue to cross. After a moment he
he hears the roar of engines and a T-26 tank squeaks past with chains under its ten
tons of steel, an officer in shirtsleeves and biker goggles sitting in the turret.
The soldiers move away, and soon they do the same for two other tanks that come behind. The
three armored vehicles rustle away, crunching the gravel, leaving behind a smoke of burnt gasoline.
The soldiers pass over the bridge again. They are badly uniformed, observes Pato. Almost all are
very young.
"They look like children," he says.
"They really are," confirms Bascuñana. The Republic claims its children, and there go those
poor baby bottles, save her.
She looks at him with sudden attention.
"Do you have children?"
-Not.
"And partner, or wife?"
"He died of typhus a year and a half ago."
-Sorry.
His hands in his pockets, his cigarette smoking in his mouth, Bascuñana continues to contemplate
the soldiers.
"Look at them," he says at last. They are identical to those who have died and will die in the next
hours or days. Each of them means a wife, a mother, a few children. Of almost all of these,
the mothers. A family ... How many of my battalion do you think went up python thinking that
were they sacrificing themselves for a better tomorrow for humanity?
-I believe in that. And you are here too.
"I am because I think I should be." Because there are things that one cannot keep
margin. When the fascists rose up, I knew instantly my place ...
It breaks off, leaving the rest in the air. And when Pato looks at him, he just shrinks
shoulders.
-But? She insists.
"But I've seen things."

"Things that make you doubt?"
—What makes me think… Being a soldier of this Republic and thinking is not a combination
comfortable.
"It must be worse for fascist criminals." Some of them will have a conscience.
"Consciousness, you tell me."
Page 168
-That's.
Bascuñana contemplates the rest of the cigarette.
—There is a difficult moment, when you discover that a civil war is not, as you think at
beginning, the fight of good against evil ... Only horror faced with another horror.
Pato looks at him, almost startled, uncomfortable with the drift of the conversation. Consumed up to
the last strand of tobacco, the captain drops the cardboard to the ground and crushes it under a boot.
"Two years ago I saw a poor bastard beaten to death at the door of a church," he adds.
-. And do you know why?
-Not.
—Because it was the sacristan… They had gone after the priest, he escaped them and they started it with him.
Confused, Pato doesn't know what to answer to that. Finally open your mouth to say something, whatever
thing, but Bascuñana raises a hand, interrupting her.
"I've seen a lot of people murdered," he continues. And not for revolting against the Republic,
but only for having voted for the right. Children shot for being from the Falange, women
those who shot themselves after being accused of being fascists and raping them ... I have seen criminals
released from jail, dressed as militiamen, go to kill and rob the judges who sentenced them.
"Gentlemen are everywhere," says the young woman.
-You said it. Everywhere, and also among us. That is what sometimes makes you doubt
not about the justice of the cause, but about whether we really deserve to win.
Pato looks at him with renewed attention, wanting to see beyond the tired eyes and the
of smile that does not materialize at all.
"Why are you telling me that, comrade?"
"I suppose I like you." The smile comes at last, open, softening the directness of the
commentary-. Any lucid man needs a witness, I imagine. And if that witness is a woman,
even better ... There are things that are only in you.
-What things?
—Approval or sanction. There is no medal, there is no award comparable to that, when it happens. Neither
so final condemnation, in the opposite case.
"You are a strange man, Comrade Captain."
"You're weird too, Comrade Patricia."
They stare at each other, motionless, without taking their eyes off each other's eyes. Duck is the first
flashing.
"I just want to help," he says.
-Clear. That is why it is admirable that at your age… ”Bascuñana hesitates for a moment. Good,
you are young enough to be asked your age without being impolite. How many years
you have?
-Twenty three.
-Well, at that age you are here, instead of taking pictures or releasing rallies in cinemas and
theaters ... Instead of going around on the arm of a deputy, or a patriot of those who are dedicated to
black market in the rear, or one of those intellectuals whose anti-fascism consists of
pistol in restaurants and denounce those who criticized his novels or did not applaud his
poetry ... All that says a lot about you.
"I'm just doing my duty."
—I like that you fulfill it. I like that you wear a dirty jumpsuit and smell like sweat, like me. Y
that you wear that hair so short that you look like a handsome boy. That you wear a Tokarev on your belt and know
repair a field phone. And I like that you look at me.
Page 169
Duck tries to control the strange shudder that runs through her, almost on the verge of
moisten her eyes.
"You must feel very lonely, comrade."
-Alone? Bascuñana responds lightly. Not at all. I have two hundred and eighty left
four men.
"You know I'm not talking about that."
The captain looks at her with extreme fixation, impassive and silent, without moving a muscle in his face.
"Let's go back," he says at last. There is a war that we must win. Or at least, make it not
the fascists win.
After saying that, Bascuñana directs a last glance at the soldiers who are walking away after the
tanks and bows his head, as if nodding to thoughts only he knows. Then break to
laugh and this time he does it openly, without reservation.
"How Spanish does that sound, right? ... If you don't win, at least make sure the other doesn't win."
Let everyone lose.
Nervous screams, orders and counter-orders. The gunners run from one side to the other placing
guns and opening their gun carriages as a line of riflemen spreads thirty paces down
Ahead, he digs sniper pits and emplays heavy weapons behind makeshift stone parapets.
Near an oak grove, hastily camouflaged with bushes branches and some of
others, the three antitank pieces point towards the road that is lost between a ripple of
small hills covered by scrub vegetation, stunted pines and bushes.
"You two come here!"
Ginés Gorguel and Selimán, who were helping to dig an emergency trench, put down their shovels and
they go where the captain demands them.
-At your service.
The captain wipes the sweat from his face with a handkerchief. In the other hand he holds the jonquil with
that prodded the mule. He points to one of the cannons.
"Do you know anything about those?"
"Nothing, my captain." We are infantry.
"You were."
-As you say.
"Well, they're German antitanks, fucking great." They hit a target at nine hundred meters. And that
from there - he points to a separate box under some branches - is the ammunition: armor-piercing, 37 mm.
It goes through armor pretty well.
Gorguel and the Moor look at each other, puzzled. They do not understand why the captain explains
that.
—Each piece has its chief, its prompter and its servants. But the ammunition is spent, you have to
provide it and I'm short of people. So it was your turn to fire that one over there. As soon as i start
the fuss, you take care ... Corporal!
A tall blond guy with bright eyes and pockmarked face comes along. Upon arrival, the
gorrillo.
"These two are going to ammo your Pak," says the captain. I assign them to you until new
order. Don't take your eyes off them.
"Hey, my captain…" Gorguel wants to protest.
Without paying any more attention to him, the officer walks away hitting his boots with the jonquil and starts to give
orders to the servants of another cannon. Arms on hips, the corporal looks at Gorguel and Selimán
Page 170
from up to down.
"You don't have to do anything complicated," he points to some armors with boxes of ammunition between
the holm oaks. The projectiles are there, somewhat apart, so that if a cucumber falls on it, it will not
Let's all go fuck ourselves… What's your name, paisa?
"Seliman al-Barudi."
"Do you know the way?"
"I know, you calm down," the Moor slaps the butt of the Mauser that he carries on his shoulder.
-. I'm good at shooting with the rifle. By my face yes.
"I mean the cannon."
"It has no sycreto cannon, arumi." Moro puts the bullet up the ass and you serve in front.
"Very funny, jamido."
"Selimán, I say you I have said."
"Okay."
"I The corporal
don't know the wayturns
and Itodon't
Gorguel.
have aAnd your idea
fucking friend?
of anything."
The other looks with vague curiosity at his torn espadrilles, his dirty clothes, his face
emaciated and bearded five days.
"I ask your name, man."
"Ginés."
"Ginés and what else?"
—Gorguel.
The corporal takes a notebook and pencil out of his pocket and writes down the names.
"And don't you have a rifle, like jamido?"
-Not.
—It doesn't matter, because at the moment you don't need it… I'm Corporal Lucas Molina, head of the piece
He points to the cannon. And that's mine, number three. For the rest, nothing, what was said. Sit in the
carrascal, in the shade, and when the reds appear and you see that we shoot four of the six
projectiles that we have nearby, you bring me another two each per trip. Crouched down, so I don't know
see you a lot. They are not big, as you can see.
"Are they going to attack us seriously?" Gorguel asks.
"So it seems." With a gesture, the corporal indicates the men to dig in all over the place.
parts. Apparently they have tanks and infantry. And we have to stop them in this place.
Gorguel looks at the road that gets lost between the hills.
"Will they come that way?"
"Of course, man." Where are they going to come from? ... Don't you see where we're aiming?
"I shouldn't be here."
He wipes the sweat out with a sleeve, sulking.
"None of us should."
"I've been shooting since Monday." And receiving them.
The other watches him again, more closely. His expression seems to soften a bit.
"He's been screwed in town, hasn't he?"
-A disaster.
Look at the cape to Selimán. With a smile, the Moor puts a friendly arm around the shoulders of
Gorguel.
"By head, my father, I swear, my friend the corporal. My paisa, very brave ... Ascari güino, and
even better if I say.
"Brave my balls," Gorguel mutters.
Page 171
Selimán lifts him a finger at the end, as if he were putting heaven as a witness.
—My friend likes the joke and he does not say virdad, I say you. There in the mountain above, when
They attacked brawls, he and I killed a lot of bastard communists ... He wins one midalla and I another.
AndGorguel
this willshakes
never off
haveSeliman's arm.
happened. I'llmoro
This wakejerk
up from
is notone
realmoment
either. Itoam
theimagining
next, he thinks.
it.
"I've never seen a tank… I mean see them in combat."
"Well, now you're going to see them." The corporal points to his cannon. And it depends on that beauty that no
you see them too close.
"Inshalah," said Seliman. I put my missiana bullet and we blow up the motherfucking tank.
"You don't put anything in, jamido."
—Seliman.
"I already told you, host," the rope of the gorrillo touches the corporal. Do you know what this is?
"I know, friend." A gallon from the cape.
"Well, that." So you bring the projectiles and you are up to what I send you. And period.
"Okay ... God increase your good."
The gunner returns to the piece, which the other servants have fully prepared. Have
two large wheels on each side, a steel guard and a narrow barrel and not too much
long.
"This is nonsense," Gorguel laments.
"Come on, buddy." The Moor pats him on the shoulder. Let's go to the shade now
güina, I tell you.
"I'm very tired, Seliman."
—That's why güino you rest a while. Come and take advantage.
"I want to fucking get out of here."
Gorguel almost sobbed. The Moor looks at him compassionately.
—You don't leave anyone now, because of my face. You only help with the cannon ... We have to win the
guirra for Franco santo, if God wants.
"I shit in the milk."
"Better you shit in the shade than here in the sun."
Selimán takes it by the arm and leads it under the thin branches of the holm oaks.
"You are my brother, Ines."
"Ginés."
"I swear I do." Like the brother, you say.
"Let go of my arm, damn it."
They sit next to the shell boxes, labeled Panzerabwehrkanone Pak 35/36 37mm .
After a moment, Gorguel looks at them apprehensively.
"Hey, Seliman."
"Tell me, paisa."
"The corporal said that the boxes are here in case a cucumber falls."
"And what happens then if you tell me?"
—If something really falls, the ones who are going to take the ass are you and me.
He considers it the Moor and soon shrugs his shoulders.
"Good luck… God forbid, he knows everything."
"Well, I'd like to know too."
"Don't say the holy name like that." God punishes.
"More still?"
Page 172
The other rummages in the zaragüelles and takes out the bundle of his treasures.
"I have exchanged a red gold tooth for Misian tobacco, very cheap ... Do you smoke?"
Gorguel sighs, resigned.
"Do me."
Selimán is undoing the bundle when a distant boom sounds towards the hills, followed
rifle shooting.
The Moor's face is animated.
"They're coming," he smiles happily.
Gorguel's blood runs cold. It's back to them, he thinks. Or they to him. The nightmare does not stop.
They are there again.
Lieutenant Colonel Faustino Landa likes the press, especially if it is foreign. So don't
the presence of the three correspondents makes it uncomfortable. On the contrary, after welcoming them with
sympathy and offer them some chorizo sandwiches and a bottle of Jumilla wine, he takes them in
a visit to the front line positions. After showing them the traces of the fighting in the village,
driving around in his own car - a decrepit Chevrolet van seized from the
retreating fascists - now points to the eastern python from the path between it and the
olive groves. And out of the corner of your eye, while laying out the general details of the situation,
Stay tuned for the photos Chim Langer takes of him.
"Our mission is not to advance any further, but to cut off the fascists in this place." Make of
lock between them and our bridgehead at Fayón, do you understand? ... Protect your flank well.
For the photos, Landa has exchanged his usual cigar for a proletarian cigarette that smokes
between his workman's fingers as he gestures pointing to positions. The group, which includes
Political Commissar of the XI Brigade - a cold blond guy Vivian had never seen before, but
of which he heard about - is next to the van, on a hill on which the burned and
Bullet holes in a hamlet indicate the toughness of the fight.
"Are you expecting an enemy counterattack?" Phil Tabb asks.
"Probably," the lieutenant colonel replies. Although the Spanish troops continue
advancing victoriously downstream with boldness and method, there are logical counteroffensive attempts
fascist ... But bear in mind that the Ebro is the best of the Popular Army of the
Republic, with high morale and high fighting spirit.
"The fascists just flick their tail furiously," says the commissioner dryly.
political.
Vivian watches him with disguised curiosity. He knows that it is about Ricardo aka the Russian, from
who is claimed to be one of Stalin's envoys to advise the republicans militarily
Spanish people. He speaks Spanish well, but his thinning blond hair and cold, clear eyes behind his glasses
slightly smoked barely conceals the Slavic. He's a sinister character, he confirms. Of which i know
they tell unkind things.
"The two pythons and the town of Castellets are ours," Landa continues, "and they
I assure you that we will retain them ... Only a few hours ago we have rejected a fascist counterattack
in the cemetery, causing many casualties.
"Can we take a look there?"
-Not yet. Maybe later.
Vivian and Tabb take notes. Chim Langer has changed the reel of a Leica, calculates the light and
Focus the group for a general shot. Raising a hand in disgust, the commissioner steps away
not to appear in the photo. For his part, developed before the proximity of the camera, Landa supports a
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hand on the holster of his pistol and gazes fearlessly toward the horizon.
"What role does the Jackson Battalion have in this sector?" Tabb asks.
The lieutenant colonel makes a vague gesture, continuing to pose.
—Understand that I do not elaborate on that ... What I can say is that our brothers
internationals, covered in glory on all the battlefields of Spain, will fulfill
that is required of them.
"Some people think that maybe they are being pushed too hard," says Tabb.
Vivian likes how the Brit handles the situation, calm as usual, formulating
ask questions with adequate caution so as not to arouse suspicion in your interlocutors. Giving the
impression that it is on their side, which is usually true among prominent journalists in the
Republican side - "That shit of objectivity" is his fetish phrase - but without it
imply unconditional approval of what you see or hear. Vivian knows that the Spanish,
welcoming to journalists, they don't like to be taken for fools. That's why the american
admires Tabb, always cool and respectful unlike braggarts like Hemingway,
who love to advise the Spanish how to wage war.
Even so, the Briton's latest comment has bordered on suspicion. Lieutenant Colonel Landa
he looks briefly at the political commissar, giving him the floor, and he is the one who intervenes.
—The foreign comrades came to Spain to give what they can give. And they fulfill their
effort and his blood.
He says it harshly, quickly, suspiciously. With a contained and gloomy look. And of course,
Vivian suddenly thinks, I don't want to have that man as an enemy, or sitting across the street while
they interrogate her. Those pale eyes behind the blue glass evoke political purges and basements of
the Lubyanka; nothing to do with the heartrending joy, tinged with innocent humor and fatalism that
she thinks she sees in many Republican fighters. The Russian and how much it represents are very far
of the filthy and kind boys who, the last time he was in the trenches of the
Ciudad Universitaria, they looked for a box of ammunition for her to sit, shared with her a
piece of salchichón, a piece of bread and a boot of wine, they sang patriotic songs and
They offered a rifle in case he wanted to indulge himself in firing a shot at the rebels.
Chim's camera clicks again. The commissioner turns to him sharply.
"Stop taking photos."
They return to the van, and along an uneven road with uncomfortable potholes, they leave the hill behind.
Remnants of the fascist retreat remain everywhere: empty ammunition boxes, equipment
abandoned. Between two downed telephone poles is a bullet-riddled Ford car and
inside something vaguely human in shape; no doubt a corpse covered with a blanket
Dirty where the flies crowd. They thus reach the start of the Fayón highway, along the
A long double line of soldiers advances. A bit further, road ahead, three T-26 tanks
they drift away leaving smoke and dust behind them.
"This is why I brought them here," says the lieutenant colonel. As you can see, our
Troops are not limited to maintaining positions conquered, but advance. Check it out.
-What's your objective?
"Clear the road and secure it."
"We saw those boys two days ago, before crossing the river." Vivian turns to Tabb.
-. Is it possible that they are the same?
-Perhaps.
"There they are," Landa comments, pretending to be excited as Chim photographs the gesture.
-. They are the fifth of the year twenty ... The youngest and most enthusiastic of the Republic.
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Vivian contemplates the soldiers who walk away with the slow, weary step, of one who carries
walking a long time. They don't seem enthusiastic, he concludes. Rather puzzled by the
landscape in which they enter. On their faces they manifest, still without the equalizing varnish of the
war, the student, the shop assistant, the peasant.
"Poor boys," she murmurs as if to herself, hardly noticing. And in doing so, like
a student caught at fault feels the Russian's cold gaze fixed on her.
When the visit is over, Landa and the commissioner return to the command post and the van carries
reporters back to the Jackson Battalion. The internationals have settled in the part
the eastern part of the town, in some houses that were thoroughly looted: the street is full of broken glass,
trampled rags, papers and pieces of brick. Sitting or lying on chairs and mattresses
taken from the houses, the brigadistas eat their field rations, clean their weapons and wait
orders. On a wall there is painted, in large letters and next to the yoke and the arrows of the Falange, a
Long live Franco, up Spain that nobody has bothered to erase.
"How was your walk?" Larry O'Duffy asks when he sees them appear.
The battalion commander is under the shade of a porch, consulting the map displayed on a
table. He rests his elbows on him, his glasses are raised to his forehead and he leans a lot over the
scale 1: 50,000.
"Interesting," Vivian says.
The older man sits up as his freckled face relaxes into a smile.
"Has Landa treated you well?"
"Wonderful," Tabb says. He even bought us some sandwiches.
O'Duffy puts on his glasses. His blue shirt is damp with underarm sweat.
"Journalists are his specialty." Its natural environment.
"You were really kind." And it has taught us almost everything.
"He's a boss very much like him," the Irishman smiles. "Peasant's cunning, discipline
communist, Spanish tricks.
"We have seen him very confident."
—You will have your reasons.
"What do you know again?"
The battalion commander makes a vague gesture and puts his hands in his pockets.
breeches.
"No more than you." Five to six divisions of the Republic have passed the Ebro ... The
ours continues to attack the entire downstream front and fights very hard for Gandesa. Some say
that it is already ours, and others, that it is not. ”He looks at them with sudden interest. Has the lieutenant told you
colonel something about that?
-Nothing worthwhile.
"There was also this Ricardo," Vivian says. The one they call Russian.
O'Duffy's gaze goes dull.
"Ah, that one."
It says nothing more.
"What are your orders?" Tabb asks.
-Wait and see. My boys and I are still the reserve. The fascists begin to
react and try the first counterattacks. I guess we'll get online soon, in
somewhere.
"Great," Vivian escapes.
He regrets having said it when he sees O'Duffy wrinkle his brow and perceives the disapproval
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Silent of Tabb. The older man now looks at Chim, who is sitting on the ground, indifferent to the
conversation, clean your Leica lenses.
"What is your plan?"
"It's about telling how you fight internationals in the Ebro," Tabb responds. Us
we'll stay while we can.
"At your responsibility," O'Duffy says.
-Of course.
"Then I would rest a little." Things can move fast, and the same is there
to go somewhere tonight ... I think your driver has found you something at the end of the street.
I said bring you water and something to eat.
Vivian watches the brigade members sitting or lying in the shade of the houses. Follow him
looking different from the first he met in the trenches of Madrid. They have lost part of
its original brilliance, its arrogance. They have not yet entered the fire this time and they already seem tired,
as if they had been fighting for several days.
"Larry."
He says it without thinking. An unthinking impulse, not really knowing what to say. Or how to put it.
O'Duffy turns to her.
-Tell me.
-What has changed?
-In which?
Vivian points to the men.
-In them.
He looks at her for a moment fixedly, without answering. Its prominent walnut goes up and down a couple
sometimes, as if swallowing hard while considering what to say. At last slowly move the profile
aquiline from left to right, as if something that passed behind the North American attracted
your attention. Then he raises his glasses on his forehead, leans over the table, leans
elbows and bring your eyes closer to the map.
"Nothing has changed," he says sullenly. It's just too much war.
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"Hey, fascists!" Requetés!… You can go, we don't throw away!
Crouching under the gap in the fence, twenty meters from the cemetery, Oriol Les
Forques does not believe what he hears. They shout it from the red trenches. Glued to him, Agustí
Santacreu grabs his shirt soaked in sweat and dirty with dirt.
-Are you listening?
-Yes.
Les Forques and all those who, lying on the ground on the slope and scattered across the
vines, which look like balls of dust, have been motionless for seven hours under the relentless sun, tortured
by thirst, tormented by flies, hunted like rabbits by republican pacos
when they want to move. The cries of the wounded for help have faded away.
as they bled, because the orderlies who tried to evacuate them were killed
one after another. From where he is, stuck to the ground with a group of companions and unable to lift
head, Les Forques finds it impossible to calculate how many casualties are in the company. But
They must be huge.
"They say they won't shoot if we retreat," Santacreu says.
"It could be a trap… I don't trust the Reds."
-Me neither.
They insist from the enemy trenches. Retreat, we do not throw away, says the voice. We give you average
time to go.
The requetés listen, distrustful and astonished.
"They're serious about the same thing," says the one by Ensign Blanch's body. Know that
they have given us good.
"And they want to keep giving us," says another.
"I think they really mean it."
"Well, his fucking Mauser is going to lift his head."
Les Forques and Santacreu look at each other, doubtful. The truth is that, as they are, it remains
at will of the Reds to let them go or force them to stay like this for the rest of the day, until
try to retreat under cover at night.
"You can go!" They shout again from the graveyard. You have half an hour, and in that time
we will not throw!
A voice arises from among the requetés.
"Are you serious, rojillos?"
Les Forques recognizes Don Pedro Coll de Rei, and that causes him intense joy. Despite what they
has fallen on top, the captain reached the barbed wire and is still alive.
"Of course I do!" Replies the Republican. For how lazy you are you have fought
good!… Take advantage and take your wounded!
"Is there a word?"
"Yes, damn it!"
"Whose word?"
A short silence. Then the voice sounds again.
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—Militia Lieutenant Roque Zugazagoitia!… Who are you?

"I am Captain Coll de Rei."
"That sounds like a fascist shit! ... But hey, I said!" You have my word that during
half an hour we are not going to shoot!… Okay?
-Agree. And thanks.
—You can give them now!… Come on, shake your ass before we regret it!
From where he stands, Les Forques sees how, from among the men lying under the unevenness, he
holds up a stocky figure, still imposing despite the dirty and torn clothing on the barbed wire by the
who wanted to break through. Don Pedro Coll de Rei has his head uncovered and in his right hand
holds the hunting gun. His left arm has a bandage over his shirt sleeve
stained with dried blood. Standing still as if to check if the promise is true
enemy of not firing, she remains like this for a moment, looking around at her men
crouched, injured or killed. His bearded face shows an impassive expression.
"What eggs do you have," Santacreu murmurs, admired.
After verifying that the Reds do not shoot, the captain calmly climbs the slope and
he rescues the company's flag, fallen between the barbed wire with the requeté that carried it.
Then he looks at the men who begin to get up on the slope and among the vines as if a
field of red poppies come to life. Lieutenant Cavallé stands between them. Too
Les Forques, like all those who can do it; and after looking at the positions
enemies from the graveyard, where some Reds are coming out of the trenches to watch,
He hangs the Mauser over his shoulder and helps Subirats, whose mutilated hand has been bandaged, move.
Santacreu and Dalmau imitate him, loaded with the machine gun.
"The ensign should be taken," says Les Forques. We can't leave an officer here.
Between Santacreu and two others they lift the body and carry it through the vineyards, where the requetés
who retreat pick up those who are still alive. Dozens of sweaty, dirty, exhausted men
staggering, they turn their backs on the red positions and walk in the blinding sun that makes them shine
the steel of the innumerable bayonets thrown on the ground with the rifles of the men who have
fallen. The silence is ominous, deadly. Not even the wounded are complaining anymore. Among the vines and next to the
barbed wire, Les Forques manages to see too many immobile bodies. Much of the
company, he calculates, has fallen by the wayside.
"I'm glad to see you, Oriol."
To the consolation of Les Forques, Jorge Milany has suddenly appeared, the rifle in one hand and
the other holding a bloodstained handkerchief to her jaw. Hardly anything, he says.
A bounce, more blow than anything else.
"They have killed Esteban Vila," he adds. And the Vendrell brothers.
Les Forques is breathless.
"All three?"
"Only two." The oldest and the youngest… And also to Pedrito Regás. I was carrying the flag when
fell into the wire.
Think Les Forques en Regás: the only child of a widowed mother and a volunteer since January.
Just turned fifteen, after fleeing to France and the national zone, he lied about his age to
enlist.
-What a mess.
—And that you say it. With hardly any artillery support, and Ifni's shooters didn't even move ...
left more alone than the Cumparsita otario.
Joan Gabaldá, the company's grandfather, passes by, his face twitching, asking for his son from
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nineteen years.
"Have you seen Sergi? ... Have you seen Sergi?"
He finally finds him, helped by another partner, with no more damage than a broken ankle. They hug
very strong.
"Blessed be God," his father whispers. Blessed be God.
In front of everyone, shotgun on his good arm, Don Pedro Coll de Rei walks through the vineyard,
feudal and quiet. Sometimes he stops to help pick up a casualty or to recognize one of the
dead. Les Forques also looks at them, recognizing many: Calduch, Roca, Pepín Gimpera,
Jordi Ruscalleda. Others are difficult to identify because of damage to the face or face.
blood that covers them. Hours of sun exposure begin to blacken them, swelling their
bodies, raising arms and legs in sometimes grotesque postures. They buzz over them thick
swarms of flies.
The truth, the young man thinks as he walks through such a cemetery, is that there is nothing beautiful
nor romantic in a dead soldier. That remains for the museum paintings, the verses of the
poets and the demagoguery of politicians. The immediate reality is just dead meat, carrion
rotting in the sun.
Behind Don Pedro Coll de Rei and Lieutenant Cavallé goes the assistant Cánovas, whom the
captain has passed the flag. Les Forques is by his side, and he is surprised not to see the dog
company mascot.
"Where is Durruti?" —Is interested.
The other makes a desolate gesture and points back with a thumb, without turning around.
"Fallen for God and for Spain."
Three hours later, when roll call is called, a third of the crash company's requetés
does not answer the call. Recorded after the action of Friday, July 29, 1938 against the
Castellets del Segre cemetery, the death toll is 33 dead, 29 wounded and one dog.
The first tank appears around a bend in the road, between the undulation of the hills
located about three hundred meters. It stops there for a moment and backs up again. Until the
men sheltered comes the distant sound of their engine.
"There we have them!" Shouts the voice of an officer.
Kneeling under the holm oaks, next to the ammunition boxes, Ginés Gorguel doesn't take his eyes off
from the road that again seems deserted. The image of the mechanical monster looming behind the
bend is not erased from the retina. Beside him, sweat dripping down the wrinkles on his face
Frowning, Corporal Seliman runs his fingers through his gray mustache and smiles with expectant ferocity.
"Already fucking bravado," he says.
Fifteen steps further, uncovered but camouflaged with tree and shrub branches, the
three small anti-tank guns line the road and the scrub fields that flank it.
Crouching behind his protective shield, the servants of Pak number three remain vigilant. He
Corporal Molina is on the left, with binoculars pressed to his face; the pointer and the
loader, kneeling between the open masts of the gun carriage. All three are covered with helmets of
steel.
"Those bastards wear helmets," says Gorguel, spitefully.
- Mektub. Luck.
"They could have given one to us."
—You stay calm, paisa. Make the heart and hold a little, that I know way ...
how much they kill one, I bring you.
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-Fuck.
Next to them there is an open box with twelve projectiles. The brass pods are gleaming and
the stylized warheads end in a copper-colored cone. The projectiles, of only two fingers of
diameter, they appear to Gorguel too small to pierce armor.
"Do you really think this pierces a tank, Seliman?"
"By my face, yes," the Moor reassures him. The cannon is Misian, I tell you ... Everything
Very güino de las trinca alimán, I swear by my head and my eyes, Inés.
"Ginés."
"Well, that's what I say: Ines."
They keep looking, attentive. The officer's voice alerts the gunners again. The tank just
poke out again, and this time it doesn't stop, but just keeps going.
"Russian," Seliman says.
-What?
—The tank, Russian bastard… I've been seen before in Teruel and Brunete.
Mesmerized, Gorguel sees the tank move a little along the road and then
it moves to the left, across the field, while a second armored vehicle appears around the curve,
followed after a moment by a third. Simultaneously, the nearby hills begin to
swarming with tiny, slowly moving figurines.
"A tank without infantry is screwed up a lot," says Seliman. Inside you don't see, you don't hear
gualo, you don't know. And if you give, you grill like a lamb shank, I say you. You have to be big
crazy to go in one if you don't care outside.
Next to the Pak, Corporal Molina says something to his companions, holding the
binoculars in front of his eyes as he points the other at the tank on the left. Manipulating with
quickly the flywheels of the piece, the aimer moves the barrel about twenty degrees in that direction
and slaps the wide shutter button.
" Bismillah," Seliman mutters, as if praying.
The shot sounds hard and dry, like a short whiplash. The carriage wheels jump
and the quick flash turns into a brief gray smoke. A second later, something beyond
a column of dust rises from the tank. The echo of the impact reaches the moment, far away, like
lost in the void.
"Shit," Gorguel exclaims.
Around the same time, the other two guns open fire. A projectile disappears into nothingness
no apparent effect, and another raises a dust similar to the first shot. Figurines
tiny now move faster. They are men running, and they are many.
"Shit, shit, shit."
The loud clatter of a machine gun cracks across the holm oak, and from the trench
excavated in a zigzag in front of the canyons, at ground level, an intense crackling of riflemen arises
it doesn't stop advancing enemies. Kneeling behind the shield of Pak number three, the
Corporal Molina's gunners eject the empty pod and insert another projectile into the butt, which closes
with a snap.
Pac-paaah, it does.
A new, hard, dry lash. Then another. And other. The cannon leaps back on the wheels
and the shots start, simultaneously with those of the other two pieces. The booms, the echoes
far from the impacts and the firing of the machine gun and the rifles are already mixed in a combat
In all rules. Tanks continue to slowly approach as Red infantry deploys
behind them and the flanks. Corporal Molina has turned to Gorguel and Selimán and yells something that
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with the noise they cannot hear, but whose meaning is clear.
- Iallah, Agnes.
Says the Moor. And with a projectile under each arm, head lowered, he runs towards the
antitank. Gorguel imitates him after a moment of indecision, and so they both reach the canyon,
whose smoky loading mouth has just ejected another pod.
"More!… Bring more!" Shouts the loader gunner.
Gorguel hands him his two projectiles, turns around, runs back towards the holm oaks, already
halfway there he hears a heartbreaking sound, a raaas approaching, bursting through the trees and
it throws a cloud of dirt, stones and splinters over it. He throws himself to the ground as the noise leaves him
out of breath, determined to stay there. Suddenly he feels Selimán's hand feeling his back.
"Are you cool, friend?" Are you güino?
-I think so.
- Jandulilá ... God protects you, I say you. Now you will work for your life.
"What was that?"
—The bastard tank, paisa, the bastard communist red tank. It is closer and also pulls.
The Moor helps him up and together they reach the ammunition boxes, covered with dirt and
broken branches. They push the dirt away and take two projectiles each. Gorguel sees that Seliman
wipes his on his shirttail, but he doesn't. Let those clean them
they shoot, think. Let them all be given.
The antitank continues to fire. They return to him with four more projectiles, and at the moment
kneeling to deliver them, the Pak opens fire and a distant metallic sound, a
a kind of clang of steel against steel, it comes from the armored vehicle that advances down the road.
"Damn… they bounce," Gorguel says.
The loader gunner refuses, moving his gunpowder-smudged face. He's a plump, browed guy
thick.
"He touched it glancingly." But we will give it, now.
His chin trembles when he speaks, and that does not reassure Gorguel at all. Above all because
the tank on the left is less than two hundred meters away. It is now possible to distinguish the
details of the turret and chassis, and the cannon that fires a flash every time the tank is
stops to shoot. Some of their projectiles pass high, getting lost among the holm oaks, and
others fall nearby, like one who hits the trench, raising a dust cloud from which Gorguel sees
go out to two orderlies evacuating a wounded man.
Finally, the antitanks manage to hit the target. From the armor further to the right springs a
flash as if he himself had just fired, but a second later it becomes
flare, as if lighting a matchbox in the turret; then it stops and a column
Black, oily smoke twists skyward from its steel frame.
"God is great," Seliman exclaims. Alahu akbar.
The gunners shout for joy, but the joy is short-lived. Gorguel and the Moor are back
with four more shells when another tank's cannon hits the Pak located on the
center of position, knocking him sideways and killing or wounding his servants. Screams sound
of pain in the dust and the orderlies rush towards it while, stunned, Gorguel crouches and
deliver your cargo. The tank on the left looks so close it's scary to see. Behind them
Red infantry, heavily punished by rifle fire and miss-hitting the tank
but they explode among themselves, they begin to seek protection on the ground and to fall behind.
"He stops and goes to shoot!" Shouts the antitank loader. Watch out!
The tank has, in effect, stopped. Its barrel moves slowly sideways, spits out a new
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flash, and this time the shell explodes right in front of the Pak, the shrapnel clattering into the
protective shield of steel, and, if they weren't crouching behind at that moment, Gorguel and
Seliman would have gone to hell together. Who does not have the same luck is the loader of the piece,
the soldier with the bushy eyebrows, who falls with a hoarse, liquid moan from the air and the blood that
sprout from his severed throat, stamping on the ground as the Moor tries to plug his
wound with his hands. Fifteen seconds later the gunner rolls his eyes, stops
kick and freeze. Then Seliman departs and the blood runs free, pooling the
land.
"God knows everything," says the Moor.
When Gorguel looks away, Corporal Molina is right there with them. Has the face
dislodged and his hands tremble when he looks at the fallen, but he pushes Selimán towards the boxes
of projectiles and grabs the Albacete by the collar of his shirt, sticking him to the butt of the barrel
where the pointer, yellow as old wax, opens the loading port and blows up a pod
empty.
—You stay here as a charger, glued to us!… And you, jamido, keep bringing!
"Selimán I'll call you, I tell myself."
"Come on, fucking!" Bring more ammo!
The Moor comes out running towards the holm oak, Molina glances at the viewer and moves with
nervousness of the steering wheels and elevation.
"Come on!… Another one, come on!"
Gorguel hastily seizes a projectile, and it falls from his hands. Pick it up again,
removes the dirt with his shirt sleeve and passes it to the other gunner, who shoves it into the chamber and
lock the bolt. Molina has turned his face away from the viewer.
"Hit it," he says.
A slap on the trigger, a boom, a high-pitched metallic clang, a shot that fires back.
glancing at the steel of the tank and bouncing back without exploding, among the red infantry each time
further behind.
"Another, come on, another!" Molina urges them, glancing at the viewer.
The voice sounds distant in Gorguel's deafened eardrums, which are nevertheless capable of
Capture the sinister and forthcoming screech of the tank chains. He begins to break it down
panic. Without knowing what he is doing, out of sheer and horrified inertia, a new projectile passes the
gunner, and he shoves it into the smoking chamber. At that moment Selimán arrives with two
projectiles under each arm, leaves them on the ground, removes the dead gunner's helmet and puts it on
Gorguel on the head.
"I said you, paisa." By my face yes ... Take your helmet.
Gorguel looks at him with wide eyes, stunned, without understanding.
-Go ahead! Orders the corporal.
Pac-paaah, do the cannon. Another dry crash, another leap on the wheels. And this time the
Nearby tank stops with a crash as an orange glow flashes on its side and
blue, and one of its chains, broken, runs uncontrollably until it falls to the ground. The hatch of the
turret and a man comes out of it and jumps to the ground, and then another tries to do it. But the one
still in the turret he is struck down by the innumerable bullets that echo as they hit the steel -
all the rifles in the trench are now primed on the armor. And, a moment later, too
the one who runs across the field is hit and falls when trying to join the red infantry; what,
like the third tank, it now backs up in disarray.
"God is great and knows the way," says Seliman.
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Behind the smoking barrel surrounded by empty shell pods, wet with sweat, blackened
of earth and gunpowder, Gorguel and the Moor embrace with the gunners.
They are the living stamp of defeat, Monsoon Duck verifies in awe. Nothing can reflect it
so well, thinks the young woman, like those dozens of boys who stagger back from the
Fayon road, dragging their rifles, exhausted from running towards the enemy and retreating
then under fascist fire. They are, he warns, the same ones he saw passing in the morning on the
bridge when he was there with Captain Bascuñana. They walk back with a disoriented air,
wandering, and there are those who sit on the ground to remain with their heads in their hands until
that their bosses, looking as tired as they are, force them to get up and carry on. Some injured
they go on their own feet, supported by comrades, and others pass on stretchers, hanging inert
arms, dripping blood in the dust of the road. And some cry.
"Damn it," says Sergeant Exposito. Those kids have been hit hard.
It is mid-afternoon, and the women smoke American Luquis in the shadow of the hamlet turned into
outpost of observation, reinforced with sandbags and loopholes in the walls, where they
have ordered to install a field telephone and a Mark V heliograph. They accompany Pato and the
sergeant two others from the section: Vicenta la Valenciana and Rosa Gómez, a short Extremaduran, from
friendly green eyes under the tassel of the barracks gorrillo. They have laid four reels of cable
from the village, trying to protect the line with stones and bushes, and they have just connected a
Dawn.
"I don't like to see this," Valenciana says.
Exposito looks at her harshly.
"Say something we don't know, or shut up ... We don't like it."
"Moscow ways," La Valenciana murmurs, and Pato and Rosa giggle.
"I heard you, child," the sergeant growls. And you, less giggles ... A season in the
Krupskaya Academy would be good for you too.
He stares at them with the cigarette between his fingers half-smoked. The very black eyes shine
on her bony face, of a dry and hard female.
—Some of you believed that war was to come out well combed and made up, with the jumpsuit just
ironing and high-heeled shoes, on the cover of Graphic World, as Juanita Montenegro -
He points to the soldiers on the road. Well, as you can see, you were wrong.
The Valenciana shaved head is played.
"We've already figured it out."
"Not enough, comrade… not yet."
There is an explicit promise or threat in those words, and Duck knows the
Deputy Head of the Broadcasting Section to know she's serious. Sergeant Exposito,
forged in the Agrupación de Mujeres Antifascistas, in the headquarters of the Mountain, the Alto del León and
the bridge of the French, survivor of Brunete and Jarama, is in conditions of
lucidly interpret external signals. And from his grave, grim expression, Pato understands
that the NCO has no illusions about the outcome of everything. Moscow ways or not
they.
"How do you see it, Comrade Sergeant?"
Exposito looks at her without responding, takes a drag on the cigarette and throws it away with a blow of the
thumb and forefinger. He looks back at the soldiers walking away down the road and finally shrinks
shoulders.
—We are going to win ... I don't know if this particular battle, because I've seen others fight with a lot
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courage and lose them; but this war is. We are going to win it because reason and history are
our part. Have no doubt of that.
She remains silent, as if her dialectical conscience is wondering whether to keep talking or not.
And finally the dialectic wins.
"There were worse moments, I assure you." And not always because of the fascists. Even between
ours, traitors and ambushed aside, there was always incompetence and bad faith. That's why it's so
the role that communists play in this is important. In opposition to libertarians
anarchists and revisionist and traitorous Trotskyists, we are the only reliable argument.
"Said in pretty," Rosa intervenes, "the iron column of the Republic."
-Exact. You yourself, for example. Why are you here?
"Oh, well." Rosa blushes a little. I guess by pure logic. My father was
mason, illiterate and CNT. He was left limping when he fell from a scaffold. He did not want any of
their children were baptized, and my name is as I am called by Rosa Luxemburg… My two brothers
They went to work since they were children, but my mother made sure that I had some studies. Don't be a
pack mule like your grandmother and me, he insisted.
"Your mother was a wise woman."
-It was. On Sundays, my father taught us La Internacional and A las barricadas, because
singing, he said, is the poor man's entertainment. And every May Day we went to snack at
celebrate it. Since I was seven years old I know by heart the fight for the eight hours and the history of
Sacco and Vanzetti, and for a long time I believed that Federica Montseny was a female bullfighter, because
I heard that it filled the bullrings.
-Where's your father? Duck is interested.
Rosa's face darkens.
"They shot him and one of my brothers in Badajoz."
"Wow."
"They fought in defense of the city and were taken by legionaries."
-Sorry. What about your other brother?
—He was doing his military service in Ceuta when the uprising, and they enlisted him with the fascists ...
I do not know anything about him.
"Have you thought we might have him in front of us?"
"Of course I've thought about it." If it can be passed, I imagine.
"I hope it continues well."
Rosa sighs, soft and sad.
"I wish he knew I'm here." Fighting.
Sergeant Exposito has been listening carefully.
"Being women and being here is a duty and an honor," she finally intervenes. Demonstrate to
fascists, and also to our comrades, that doing laundry and cooking is not just ours. Y
that there are jobs, even military ones, that we can do better than them.
"You can swear it," La Valenciana confirms. None of us get ready to die with a
kitchen ladle in hand.
"Or to be called whores, and not just the fascists," Rosa points out.
Pato smiles bitterly.
"From heroines to whores it goes easy," he says.
—And that you say it.
"Men," says La Valenciana, "are communists, socialists or anarchists at the waist
up… From the waist down they differ little from a gentleman or a capitalist.
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Rosa agrees.
—Even Largo Caballero said that our position is hospitals, kitchens and factories.
"That's what Indalecio Prieto said."
-What difference does it make. What morons.
"And remember, Valenciana, that guy, right? ... Your little friend from Igualada."
"How can I forget?"
None of them forget. La Valenciana harassed by a carabinero who would have raped her
not to be drunk - I'm going to show you what we combatants need, he argued, because
I bet a Serrano ham that you're still a virgin— Lieutenant Harpo, little friend of
complications, he wanted to fix it with good words; so it was Sergeant Exposito who took
letters in the matter: first he went to look for the guy at his barracks and, in front of his companions,
He put a gun to his forehead and gave him two slaps that the other one accepted without question - I bet
the cunt, she said as she gave him, you're a fascist. Then he made him stop, subdue him
to court martial, and at that time the carabinero was breaking a stone in a disciplinary battalion.
The sergeant spoke again.
"When I was in Somosierra with the first column of the JSU," he says suddenly,
swallowing what everyone, I had to wait for the night to, without my companions seeing me, throw
to the fire the cottons stained with blood of the rule ...
It says nothing more. She has done it in a thoughtful tone, and the other women are watching her carefully. Not
It is frequent, thinks Pato, that Exposito lends himself to confidences, neither of that kind nor of any other.
"We have known how to throw ourselves into the streets like nobody else," the NCO adds after a moment.
Teachers peeling potatoes, nurses scrubbing floors, fishmongers learning to read and write,
maids attending hospitals, dressmakers sewing uniforms ... And besides all that, we went to
shoot alongside the worker and the peasant, whether they were our companions or not.
"Yours was," says Duck.
The hard eyes that fix on her are absolutely Bolsheviks. There is no emotion
there, the young woman thinks. Those eyes are dry from what they have seen and suffered.
"And there he stayed, like the whole man that he knew how to be," says Exposito. But in everything
Anyway, we too have earned respect, don't you think?
Keep looking at Pato. She nods, convinced.
"Of course," he replies. I'd rather be among a battalion of men than in the
rear guard, walking arm in arm with an ambush. Here I feel safer.
"Despite the shots, the bombs, and the misery?"
"Maybe because of all that ... I don't know if I explain myself."
"You explain yourself."
Exposito sketches a sour grimace, which is the closest she has to a smile.
"You have to keep earning that privilege every day," he adds. Here and wherever.
"We earned it more than enough," Valenciana intervenes.
"That's why we have to hold out longer than they do," the sergeant insists. We are not
can see falter. First, because we are women; and then because we are communists. We know
what awaits us if fascism, that uneducated and perverse machismo, wins this war.
He stops, runs a hand through his short hair, and then rests it on the holster of the pistol that
He wears his belt, tightening his loose blue jumpsuit.
"I'll take care of the one that backs out personally, because I'm not going to let you flirt
As she says that, she looks at them sullenly, one by one. None of you ... do you think
Enough Moscow ways, silly of mine? Did I make it clear?
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Pato nods, not looking away.

"Very clear."
"Well, don't forget, comrades." All the women of
Spain and the world, including the fascists ... Even those who neither understand nor know it.
They jump out of the trucks, their uniforms from Zaragoza dusty, and they are grouped by
centuries: 1st, 2nd and 3rd. There are three hundred and fourteen men dressed in brown twill trousers,
boots, leggings, and a blue shirt whose left pocket, at the level of the heart, are
embroidered in red a yoke and arrows. They wear Czech steel helmets and carry boxes of
ammunition, Mauser rifles, Italian grenades, Chauchat and Hotchkiss machine guns, and
Fiat Revelli machines. Even bottle corks to burn them and heal wounds with them
light. They are a chosen, elite troop; shock force hardened in the defense of Huesca and the
March offensive: the XIV Flag of the Falange de Aragón.
-To form! Take cover!
Worried, the Falangists see the vehicles drive away. It is not a good sign. By
The road has been overtaking other troops who were marching on foot: legionnaires, riflemen,
artillery and even tanks. And that they have taken them there in trucks, saving them fatigue and
boot sole, not too reassuring. They know from experience that these kinds of luxuries usually
finish in fine cinnamon.
"Left! ... Head on, sea!"
The column sets off across the field, following the cavalry commander Bistué,
who walks accompanied by the medical lieutenant and the chaplain. All components of the flag
They are Aragonese. Some old shirts, mostly officers and NCOs, fight volunteers
since the July uprising or the formation of the unit at the end of 1936, after having acted
with extreme harshness in what is euphemistically called "cleansing of disaffected personnel in
the rear ”. Others have been joining since then, called by their fifth or
recruited to cover casualties in the towns of the region: they are neither Falangists nor volunteers, but
as if they were. The XIV Bandera is a homogeneous, veteran combat force with a high degree
cohesion and strongly politicized at the level of upper and middle management. A tool
near perfect warfare.
-Sing! —Orders Lieutenant Guillén, head of the 2nd Centuria, who is called Zarallón but
never on your face.
The century, disciplined, sings. And instantly, the song spreads to the entire flag.
Our longing is your greatness,

that you are noble and strong;
and to see you feared and honored
happy your children
they will go to death.
Obedient, the Falangist Saturiano Bescós sings with his companions while walking loaded
with his equipment, the helmet hanging from the strap. Blond-haired, hunk of character, shepherd of
profession, illiterate who can barely scribble his name, has just turned twenty although
his big, stocky physique makes him look older. Under the blue Elizabethan frill with red strawberry tree,
sweat drips down his face and wets his shirt.
That you still have the faithful infantry,
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that knowing how to die knows how to win.
It is very hot and the terrain is rough, stony, with hawthorn bushes, ups and downs
that return the exhausting march. That is war: walking, running, waiting, getting wet, starving and
cold. But Bescós supports it well. Like many colleagues, he is only a Falangist in uniform.
Until he was recruited with other young people from Sabiñánigo, he took care of goats in the mountains of
Serrablo since he was nine years old, with the only luxury of a blanket to protect himself from the cold and
The rain; that's why deprivation and hard life were nothing new, and the eighteen months that
It has on the flag they have used to everything. Humble, tough, compliant, brave when
Asked to be, Saturian Bescós —Satu, his comrades call him— is a good man and a
good soldier; one more of the suffered Spaniards who for centuries fought under different
suns, climates and flags.
"Sing another one and pick up the pace!"
The shrapnel, the shrapnel
makes a noise that climbs.
The Falangists advance through the barren fields and rocky valleys, seeing in the distance the
heights of the Sierra de Mequinenza and, somewhat closer, two golden pythons in the afternoon sun,
rumored to be his destiny. They don't even know the name of the place. And when after an hour of
march the troop stops, Saturiano Bescós makes a run with his comrades, who open cans of
canned and condensed milk with the bayonets, and they dine cold while passing the
wine boot.
"Pass me the morapio, Satu."
-There it goes.
"Shall we have a cigarette or what?"
"Then come on."
The petacón and a Zig-Zag booklet are circulated hand to hand and the sparklers of
campaign, made with empty bullet pods.
"This burns awful, ridiela." It has more stakes than the Cristobites.
—Don't complain… At least there's smoke and something to soak the garganchón with.
Everyone in the unit except a captain, a lieutenant and a dozen Falangists from Zaragoza -
Almost all those from Teruel died there when the Reds took it - they are natives of the province
from Huesca; and in the Bescós squad, 5th of the 2nd Century, even more countrymen among themselves: Jesús
Tresaco and Domingo Orós are also from Sabiñánigo; Sebastián Mañas is from Tormos; Lawrence
Paño, from Gurrea, and Corporal Elías Avellanas, from Tardienta. The youngest, Mañas, is nineteen
years, and the grandfather of the squad, who is the corporal, twenty-three. They are all together since
They enlisted and know each other better than their own parents and siblings. Or as Bescós thinks, that
he never had males, these are really his brothers: the comrades with whom he fought in
the Huesca asylum against the Lenin Division, defended Almudévar against the Carlos Marx and
fought the knife from May 26 to 29 - he still shudders at the memory - in the
Balaguer bridgehead.
Lieutenant Zarallón passes near the group, checking weapons. He's in his early twenties
rosy cheeks and a nice face. That cheats.
"They say that tomorrow we will enter the fire," says Corporal Hazelnuts. "Did you hear anything?
My lieutenant?
Tutelage of comrades at the controls: despite their strict military discipline, the Falangist units
they are the only ones where it is tolerated. The officer stands up, holds out a hand and they pass him the wine cask.
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"There's going to be chandrío," he says, winking. Then throw your head back, put your hands up
and fits a long stream of the boot.
-And we? —Aventura Sebastián Mañas.
"The first, as always." What you have to do
—Cagüenlá.
The officer returns the boot to them, winks again, and continues on his way. The six young men
They look at each other gravely.
"Cagüenlá," Mañas repeats.
"Zarallón likes the party," says Domingo Orós. You would say that he enjoys when he sees her
come.
"Lick it."
"It's not the only thing he's smacking about."
No one says anything else, but everyone knows what the other comrades think. They respect the
Officer, who is brave and treats them decently, but they don't like it. Or not at all. Old
student affiliated with the SEU, participant in the Zaragoza uprising and the liberation of Alcañiz,
Calanda and Híjar, it is said that his pulse did not tremble at the time of settling accounts, and before
graduating as an officer at the Las Veguillas academy, he was baiting gutters and walls of
cemeteries all over Aragon. And they say, with reasons: a brother of his, a fifteen-year-old Falangist
years, he was shot twice in the back by CNT fans when he put up posters announcing a
José Antonio rally at the Principal Theater.
"I always wonder," says Orós when the lieutenant is away, "if what is said about
the ears is true or is a trifle.
What is said about Zarallón is that, while he was debugging the rear, he carried
glass jar with alcohol several ears of dead reds, as if they were peach slices in
syrup.
"He never talks about that time," Hazelnut says.
"Things won't go too far, anyway ..." Jesus Tresaco said. Do you
have you seen a prisoner wearing stripes leave alive, from sergeant up, ever since
are we in this? ... what not?
-Negative.
-Not.
-To nobody.
Tresaco lower your voice a little. He is a tall pale boy with glasses, a former employee of
town hall: the only volunteer in the squad. He enlisted before they called him because in his
The people were considered left-wing and feared that they would take him out of the house any morning,
like so many. And also, as a volunteer, his mother receives three pesetas a day.
"Do you remember that red man who wanted to surrender on Mount Oturia?"
"The Catalan mountaineer sergeant?"
-That.
"Of course I remember." The wretch came out of the trench with his arms raised, and in
that Zarallón saw the bar and the red star sewn to his chest, he shot him ...
the commanders had been taken alive, for questioning.
"What a row the head of the flag gave him," he points out at Cloth. He heard them.
"Well, I heard them," says the aforementioned. Commander Bistué's veins burst
neck ... "Here they are shot with method, Guillén," he shouted. That we're not anarchist rabble, damn it.
Here they are shot with method. "
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"He passes it for the eggs."

An awkward silence follows. The entire squad, like the rest of the comrades of the flag, carries
on the left shoulder or on the cap the angle of front-line Falangists; the distinction of
true combatants that differentiates them from the opportunists and ambushers who wear shirts
blue in the rear: of those who, sometimes doubtful individuals determined to justify themselves, detain,
They murder, shave women, and engage in shenanigans and politics with no risk other than
choking on a glass of Tío Pepe. But as for Lieutenant Zarallón, the
of the squad because of the bajini, he was or was a bastard despite his rosy cheeks, still
there are classes. At least he beats the copper. What they don't understand is that sometimes I speak almost like the
red. Spain cannot be Europe's maid, he says, nor can it be casinos and hunting grounds for young men.
It's okay to be a Republican because kings are trash, but you need a real
social revolution, and so on. It seems to everyone that such things mess up their heads; so
when he begins to foist those speeches on them, they disconnect.
"Otherwise he's a fetish guy," says Corporal Hazelnuts. And he takes good care of us.
Tresaco sighs, equanimous.
-One thing does not remove the other.
"Apparently before the war he was studying to be a philosopher."
"I heard you discuss it with the captain the other day." From the university and all that.
"So shoot with the philosophers."
Orós is interested, his forehead very wrinkled.
—That's studying for wise, u what?
"U what."
Listen to Saturiano Bescós, without intervening. He is not very talkative. His life as a goatherd, loneliness
of the field with no other sound than the wind, the sound of the rain, his own footsteps in the snow,
Shearing males or the howling of wolves have made it silent. But he likes to listen.
His squad comrades and the time he has spent with them are the window to a world that until
recently I saw distant, very distant. With them, with shared hardships, mutual aid
in daily miseries, the tacit loyalty that is tied between human beings subjected to identical
tests, Bescós has discovered the singular happiness of camaraderie. Of course not even
He raises it. It is not something that reasons or concludes; just intuitions and feelings. As much to
Sometimes he thinks about the future, when the war is over, if he survives it, and his return to the
solitude of the mountains and silence. In the hardest moments, and there have been a few,
yearns for real. But often, like now, he thinks of it wistfully. Those young people
that shrapnel and death have so far miraculously respected are, in effect, his family.
"Another cigarette, Satu?"
-Come on.
The one who has spoken is Sebastián Mañas, who passes Bescós an already rolled cigarette. Mañas is a
very dry and hard young man, also one of those austere Aragonese who at most speak to
ask, they say ridiela or cagüenlá and then they shut up. He has three other siblings in different
national units spread across the front — luckily, all four are on the same side; Y
all of them, like Bescós and most of the others, were recruited by the brave when
A truck of Falangists came to their village and they made the waiters get into it. You are going to save
Spain from the Marxist hordes, they were told. And after putting on a blue shirt they taught
sing the Face to the sun. Other than that, none of them have a clue what twenty-seven is.
points, luceros and union corporatism.
Page 189
"I've run out of stone," Bescós rubs the wheel with his palm, but they don't jump
sparks. Pass me your chisquero, Sebas.
"Here."
A cigarette, a half-full belly, some comrades. Bescós leans back on the bag, satisfied
of life, looking at the sun that slowly descends towards the west. Sometimes he wonders if, had he been
others who came to their town in the truck, now would not be singing La Internacional. But
Anyway, Lorenzo Paño - the funny man of the squad - usually says, the good thing about the shirt
blue is that, as despite the washes it is still dark, in it you look better when it comes to
find the lice.
It is Corporal Longines who has seen them first.

—Out of the ravine that leads to the east, my lieutenant ... With the flag up and I smelled your eggs.
Look at them, what a glory to see them.
Observe Santiago Pardeiro in that direction. He brings the binoculars to his face and goes back to
look at. His dirty face with a couple of days' beard - last time he shaved with wine - relaxes
in a smile of relief.
"They teach the flag so that they are not taken for red," he says, "let's not throw them away."
"We would have to throw stones at them, my ensign ... I have seven cartridges left."
Exhilarated, the exhausted legionaries - thirty-four are still in
conditions of combat - they prudently join the trenches and behind the walls of the
Appeared to observe the line of men ascending from the eastern side, that the light
decreasing slowly darkens. An entire company is coming, Pardeiro calculates; and for the
green uniforms and the chapiris, legionaries like them. It was announced by a link reached at
dawn after crossing the enemy lines: the nationals prepare a counterattack, there are troops in
path and Pardeiro must remain firm until he is relieved. As if they sensed the turn of the tables,
perhaps as tired and thirsty as the defenders of the hermitage, the Reds have had a day
reasonably quiet: a midmorning, low-enthusiasm attack that was no more than
first bench, and mortar shots that made two casualties. The most uncomfortable are a couple of
shooters who managed to infiltrate the farrowing pen at night, and from there they pack
who can be seen.
"Hey, Longines."
—Zusorders.
"Those who climb will be in the open when the almond trees pass, and the others will shoot."
"Sure,
"Well, my Ensignis ...
someone They're
going heading
to warn themstraight
so theythere."
can be careful on that stretch."
He scratches the cape at his sweaty sideburns and looks at Tonet, who is sitting by the wall of the
hermitage, dirty with dirt and grime, playing with his bayonet in the ground.
"Command the pistolillo? ... He moves and runs like a deer."
"Don't be an animal, damn it." Do not go to give him a blow at the last minute.
"Then I'll go myself, if that's okay with you."
-It seems to me. Come on, air.
—Zusorders.
—And be very careful, don't take the chinazo yourself.
-Do not worry. The rogelio who will give it to me has not yet been born.
"Get out of here."
Longines hangs his rifle on his back, crosses himself, bows his head and begins to descend between
Page 190
the miseries. And at that moment, Tonet, seeing him go, leaps to his feet, holsters his bayonet
and runs behind.
"Tonet!"
Ignoring it, the boy jumps over the trench — a shot sounds from the farrowing pen and a
bullet buzzes and is lost in the void— and it moves away between the rocks behind the cape. Pardeiro sees them
reappear shortly after, together and well below, approaching the line of legionaries who
continues its ascent.
"You did it, my Ensign," Sergeant Vladimiro says.
The young man turns to look at him.
"We have achieved it together," he answers.
There is a hint of a smile on the Slavic and usually impassive face of the NCO,
illuminated now by the setting sun. His eyes somewhat oblique, bleary, laden with fatigue,
they observe with respect to the superior.
"The living and the dead," Pardeiro adds.
The sergeant is thoughtful. At last the submachine gun is shifted and he sighs quietly.
"On one occasion ...
That begins to say, but is silent as if he is considering continuing, or not. Soon he makes a gesture
of indifference.
"On one occasion," he continues, "a captain asked for volunteers ... It was fourteen years ago in
Morocco, in a place called Kala Bajo. You had to reinforce a fenced position and it was bad
ballot, as the Riffians had annihilated two aid workers. The captain made us line up and shouted:
«Volunteers to die» ...
Vladimiro leaves it there, undecided, and the ensign urges him to continue.
"There were?"
The other shakes his head.
"No one moved ... We all knew it was suicide."
-Y?
"That then a lieutenant turned around and said, 'Volunteer to die with me.'
Pardeiro smiles, understanding.
"And was there a step forward?"
"Help was made that night, and the position was saved."
"Were you with them?"
"Yes, I was ... But that's not the point." What I mean is that if you had been the one
officer, the men would have taken that step forward as well.
The two look at each other in grave silence.
"Thank you, Sergeant."
"There is no reason to give them." It is the simple truth.
"And what happened to that lieutenant?"
-They killed him.
Vladimiro rubs a sleeve on his bearded face, wiping away the sweat. Then he makes a
gesture that embraces the men of the trenches and the hermitage.
"In the Tercio there are always doubtful people," he adds. Especially now, that to cover casualties
there is so much past republican and so much scum that he enlists with degree or force ... Since the
Monday began the rubber and things got ugly, I was afraid that some of us would go with the reds.
-I also. It wouldn't have been the first time.
"But none have."
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-It is true.
-There must be a reason. Like I told you, you ...
"Okay, Sergeant."
-To the order.
The line of legionaries that rises from the ravine is closer, guided by Cape Longines
and Tonet. There are already two officers walking in front of the flag, at whose sight some
Reds pull sporadically, without enthusiasm or efficiency. Of those officers will be the responsibility
at the Aparecida in a moment. Dazed with happiness at such a prospect, Pardeiro feels
He wants to shout his glee, but fights back. Decorum is decorum, and in the end everything is
conforms to the legionary creed that he learned as soon as he entered the Tercio: The Legion will always ask,
always fighting without a turn, not counting the days, or the months, or the years.
"I trust they bring water." Vladimiro licks his lips over scabbed lips
-. He would kill Tsar Nicholas for one sip.
Although Santiago Pardeiro's thirst is also atrocious, at that moment the water does not matter to him.
He fulfilled his duty defending the town tenaciously, retreating in an orderly manner to a second
defense line and then to the hermitage, where he has repulsed six hard enemy attacks. Yours is
the only national force that has not stopped fighting in Castellets del Segre since the Reds
they crossed the river. And of the one hundred and a half men of the 3rd Company with whom he makes almost five
days went into fire, including those he sent to the python to raise, one hundred and fifteen are dead or
wounded. 78% casualties and a position held at that price are something no creed
Legionnaire or infantry tactical regulations can make the least reproach.
—Espabila, Julian, we're going.

-Shut your mouth.
Removing Olmos's hand that touches his shoulder, Julián Panizo finishes camouflaging with
branches of bushes the fine wire stretched taut between two olive trees, a foot above the ground, and then
about to check that the trilite charges hidden at the foot of each tree are well
connected to baits, detonating cord, electric battery and clothes pegs
perforated with metal studs that will close the circuit. All very handmade, but enough
so that when a fascist hooks a foot on the wire, the separator cardboard will pop out and the
clamp, on him and those who accompany him in a ten meter radius are projected three or four
kilos of shrapnel for fillets.
-It is done.
"Well come on."
After a last look to check that everything is well hidden, Panizo hangs himself on his back
the bomb gunner's backpack, he takes the submachine gun that was leaning against a tree and walks behind the
comrades who are withdrawing from the olive grove towards the village.
"I don't like crabbing," Olmos says.
"It's the orders."
—A lot of ambush, a lot of shit and a lot of traitor we have giving orders, that's what
pass.
Panizo tries to downplay the matter. In his heart he agrees with Olmos,
but the old communist discipline gives it a solid grip at times like that.
"What has been done has been done," he says. The Second Battalion bled out and we
we have fitted ours. The fascists up there are well placed.
"Still, we've lacked everything," Olmos opposes. Support, artillery ... Even without ammunition
Page 192
we stayed yesterday. Not to mention the water.

The dynamiters move in the last light of the day, diminishing clarity that the glasses of the
trees stain in ash tones and where shadows already creep. Panizo walks slowly and from time to time
every now and then he looks back in a bad mood, knowing that Olmos is right. It's the first
time since they crossed the Ebro that they retrace the path they have traveled, and he does not like that. Evokes
withdrawals dynamiting everything that was left behind to delay the factional advance: railways in
Toledo, buildings in Brunete, bridges in Belchite, ammunition depots in Cinca. As if to
army of the Republic put him every so often a gypsy trip, all own offensive
begins with strokes of the hand, courage, enthusiasm and sacrifice, to end by retreating in the face of
dog, with the bosses leaving the first - some are specialists in that, last to arrive
and first to go - as Panizo and his companions cover retreat after retreat, blowing it up
everything and sometimes blowing themselves hopelessly.
"With his tail between his legs," Olmos growls loudly in disgust. So many lost people
on the terraces, for nothing. Even poor Lieutenant Goyo and the commissioner stayed there.
"It's never for nothing," Panizo objects.
-I'm not sure. Do you remember that bridge near the Alfambra?
"As if to forget ... The fascists at rifle range, getting closer and closer, and we there
hanging, putting firecrackers.
"I thought we weren't counting it."
"The truth is that they left us in the mousetrap." Or we did not know how to get out of it.
Olmos clicks his tongue contemptuously.
"Well, the Peasant knew how to get out, eh?"
-Do not start.
—He left us stranded and ran like someone who removes wasps from his neck ... Hold on, I'm going to get
tobacco, he said. And he took those of Villadiego. You have lost a thousand men, they told him. And he: I have not
lost, I know very well where they stay buried.
"Come on, stop it." Comrade Valentin would have his reasons for leaving.
—I tell you the reasons: jindama turns into capital, capital into surplus value of little
shame, and the little shame in the germ of true sons of bitches.
"It's not that either, Paco." You went over the board.
"What happened to me? ... Don't defend him, shit." Remember Teruel, I tell you: hundreds of
abandoned men and us dynamiting everything to last until the night and escape river
down.
-Y?
"Well, that." That I do not like to leave the places.
"We're old guard, aren't we?"
"From the old one, already a lot of honor." What does it have to do with?
—Well, we are at whatever there is, hard or mature. And if you have to hump yourself, then you hump one. Y
tomorrow will be another day.
"It will be for whoever arrives tomorrow."
"Don't overdo it, man." We leave when it touches and we return when it touches.
"Go the milk." It's amazing that you never get demoralized, Julian.
"What's the use of that? ... You and I are also the Republic." And if she flicks it all goes away
fuck it.
—Well, now we are gambling: the Republic, us, and the mother who gave birth to us. Cast
that Modesto, Tagüeña and Líster are the best we have… I will leave Landa aside for you.
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"That's why they're bosses, Paco." Because they know.

"Sometimes they make you boss not because of what you know, but because of what you say." And many are gone
gunpowder through the mouth. And I don't want to point out that it catches us close.
The Cancela brigade, who has approached and is walking alongside them, intervenes in the conversation.
"Leave it alone, milk."
Olmos, farruco, faces him, although he knows that Cancela is now in command of what remains of
the company.
—And why do we have to leave it?… Free intellectual discussion is healthy for him.
combatant, as our political commissioner said, may he rest in peace.
"Less joke, damn it."
-I'm serious.
"Backing up a bit isn't that bad," says the squad. The enemy is reinforced and goes
to counterattack: you have seen those who were climbing on the way to the hermitage. And they say they come for all
parts ... In the olive grove we are in a precarious state, so it is normal that we go to the town to
entrench ourselves better.
Olmos chuckles very jokingly.
-Received. Now tell me pretty.
"Well, I'm telling you: tactical withdrawal to previously established positions."
-Do not bother. Are you serious?
-Clarinet.
Panizo intervenes, mocking.
—You are making the face of a comrade commissioner, Cancela… From now on we will see you with the
little round star, now that there is vacancy.
"Don't go overboard either, Julian."
"In short," Olmos says bitterly. That we go from offense to defense, and I shoot
because it touches me.
-More or less.
"Well, at a good hour, the tactical withdrawal of the balls." Our controls could have
thought a few days ago and we would have saved ourselves the pain and the blood.
The brigade shrugs his shoulders and says no more. They continue walking through the olive grove that
blur their shadows. The first houses of the village can be seen behind the trees, dark and
silent. A flare rises in the violet sky, along the river side, and descends
slowly outlines the buildings in a backlight of milky clarity.
"A lot of rat shit in the rice is what there is," says Olmos.
"Okay, that's fine now," Cancela is impatient. Lower your voice. Or rather, talk about something else.
"Yes, in a Marxist synthesis, we are going to talk to the fascists glued to the ass ... It doesn't screw you."
Page 194
SAW
La duermevela raises confusing images in Pato Mozón. You see yourself in a strange city
walking through unfamiliar streets with the uneasiness of not remembering where it comes from and where
it is directed. His is an intermittent sleep, not very restful, altered by his own sensations and
also by the snoring of the men who rest nearby, in the hamlet of La Harinera:
motionless lumps in the gloom of a kerosene lamp whose light they work, at the other end
of the estancia, two officers at the map table. Smells of closed, male sweat, clothes
grimy and stale cigarette butts.
Pato is on duty tonight — almost dawn, already — at the switchboard at the
command, lying on a blanket next to the phone connections. An hour ago, unable to
sleep, went outside to smoke under the window, in a place where he could hear the switchboard if
a call was coming in. He looked at the stars and everything seemed peaceful in heaven and on earth. No
distant gunshot noise, no flares. Only the calm night. Then she thought about who she
It was the same when the world did not fall apart: the girl who worked at the Standard
Eléctrica, its reflection in the shop windows of Gran Vía or Preciados, the terraces of the bars, the
weekends with friends by the river, picnic baskets, dances, music, laughter,
ignorance of what was to come, the political consciousness that had not yet clouded everything
above, as if the path of freedom could still run along happy roads. Later thought
in his family, in the companions, in the man who disappeared in Teruel and also in the captain
Bascuñana, his attractive movie actor's mustache and his sailor's cap stranded on land; and only that
Last memory gave him a soft smile. I thought about that and all of them very slowly,
lingering in every image and every sensation, feeling very far away and very alone. Then he turned off the
cigarette, she hugged herself as if the humidity of the river penetrated to her heart and returned
next to the switchboard to try to sleep.
An annoying, screeching, prolonged ring. The control unit comes to life and a point of light is
lights on one of the ten jacks. Duck stands up quickly, suddenly clear,
sit down at the plugs, pick up the headset and mic and connect that line. Needless
read the piece of paper pasted on top to find out which one it is. And that makes her heart race.
"Here is Elehache," he answers.
A short silence follows followed by a crackle of interference. At last a voice sounds
calm, owner of herself.
- «In Lola we are receiving attack.»
Pato cannot establish whether it is Bascuñana or another official. As background sound, more
beyond the voice, explosions and distant shots are heard. Pato turns to the officers of the
map table and prevent them.
"The fascists attack Lola!"
Then, in the log book you have at hand, write down the exact time of the communication:
5 hours 14 minutes Saturday July 30 LL command reports enemy attack. Hearing her scream, some
of those who slept have raised their heads; and of the officers who were with the maps, one comes out
from the room and another rushes quickly to Pato. It is Major Carbonell, who wears the
phone that the young woman gives him after activating the switch.
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"Second in command Elehache speaking," he says.

- «This is Lola. We are receiving heavy attack from the eastern side of the python. "
Pato is still wearing headphones and plugged in, listening. In this kind of
communications, your obligation is to write down each incident. Keep trying to identify the voice by
other side of the line, but can't.
"Tell me if your situation is stable, Lola command," Carbonell demands.
- "We are evaluating it."
At that moment Faustino Landa arrived, followed by the political commissioner of the brigade and others
two officers. The lieutenant colonel comes tucking his shirt into his pants, his hair tousled
and greasy the face of interrupted sleep. With a brusque gesture he snatches the phone from Carbonell.
—Hey, Lola, I'm Landa… Shall I speak to the battalion chief?
- «Negative, negative. I'm Captain Bosch. Number one has risen to the crest for
organize defense. We communicate through links. »
"How far is the enemy?"
- "Close contact, glued to our parapets above."
"A serious attack?"
-"It seems. They went up taking advantage of the darkness, without making a sound, and they are dropping bombs
hand."
The heads of the brigade look uneasy. The Russian points to his watch and Landa nods.
"We need you to hang on until the light is on," he says into the phone. Do you think it is possible?
- «I don't know ... The fascists push a lot. We need reinforcements. Gunner support no, because
they are too close. We can't even shoot with our mortars. "
—I understand. We'll see what I can send you… Report when there's news, Lola sent.
-"It is understood."
The lieutenant colonel returns the phone.
"Don't unplug it, comrade."
He tells Pato. Then he turns to the others and the gloom traces grave furrows in his
face. He's busy.
"They have gone
"Something in thetopast
ourwill
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broughtthethem
Fourth
up Battalion."
to date," Carbonell points out.
-Can be.
The Russian intervenes, moody and sour. I've been telling you from the beginning, he growls. You
I have been saying. Landa listens with annoyance and makes an impatient gesture.
"What you said doesn't matter now, Ricardo." We will not.
"Those traitors Trotskyists and anarchists would have needed a lesson," insists the other.
"Stop traitors or hosts." We will see that later ... Now there are more urgent things -
Landa looks at Carbonell. You have to send something there.
"Yeah, but what?"
The lieutenant colonel sighs.
-That's the problem.
"I don't trust Bascuñana," the commissioner charged again. Who knows what he will be doing.
"They said he's upstairs, organizing the defense."
"Still I don't trust it."
Landa runs both hands over his face, wanting to clear himself more than he is. An official
he brings a cup of steaming coffee - that does smell like real coffee - which the lieutenant colonel rushes
a drink.
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"Damn." He returns the empty cup. Burning

-Sorry.
"If Lola flirts, we're screwed," says Carbonell. It will cost us to recover it.
The Russian proposes to resort to the Jackson Battalion. To internationals.
"We have them close." They could be there in an hour, if they move already.
Landa looks at him sarcastically.
"Do you trust those, Comrade Commissioner?"
"More than Bascuñana and his mob."
"It's risky in the dark," Carbonell objects. We do not know if there are other fascist attacks in
march… We would clear the road and the village, and the day could be long.
Landa reflects on the pros and cons. Duck awaits motionless, nonexistent for them. To the
Finally the lieutenant colonel addresses the young woman.
"Do we have a line with the Jacksons, comrade?"
Shortly after, Landa is talking to Major O'Duffy, from the International Battalion. That, by
what Pato can hear, he is handled in reasonable Spanish. The conversation is short and practical:
orders him to go to the attacked position, even if it is in the dark, and the chief of the brigadistas
responds that it will be launched immediately.
"Good people," Landa says, hanging up the receiver.
Thoroughly, the young woman looks at her watch and writes in the register: 5 hours 31 minutes. Battalion
Jackson receives order
The telephone rings.to reinforce Lola position.
- «Here is Lola ... Do you hear me, Elehache sent?»
This time Captain Bosch's voice seems altered. With a growing din of gunfire and
explosions as background, the second commander of the Fourth Battalion reports that by the
counter-slope of the python, many wounded and fugitives descend, that chaos reigns on the ridge and that
melee combat.
They approached the python stealthily, the bayonets whose blades had covered with mud pierced
to hide the glare, looking for the shadows in the trees and bushes near the slope.
Before dawn broke, two centuries of Falangists crossed the road and fanned out
noiselessly beyond the pine forest, holding my breath, stomping first with the heel and then with
the sole of the boots, taking care that in the upper parts of the terrain their silhouettes are not cut out in the
backlight of the starry sky. They climbed the skirt of the python with less and less silence, each
ever more hasty. And a moment later, when they were almost up, someone screamed in the
ridge, a string of flashes ran up the height and the bullets began to buzz the hillside
down. Then the one hundred and ninety-six shadows left their precautions behind and rushed into the
assault.
He fights Saturiano Bescós in the dark, like everyone else, guided by instinct and radiance
fleeting shots and explosions. Tracer bullets pass very low, starting sparks at the
bushes and stones. They fight three or four meters from the enemy, and sometimes mixed with him.
On the ridge there are no trenches but stone parapets, men hiding behind the rocks,
chase each other, almost groping in the dark, and from there they shoot or are
achieved. The wounded cry out in pain and those who fight with desperation or courage scream. I know
throw hand bombs at each other, their splinters bounce everywhere, and the
The brief light of the flashes illuminates shadows that are shot, bayonets are driven in,
rifle butts or fight with fists.
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Bescós does not know if his people are losing or winning, nor does he know where Mañas are,
Tresaco and the others in his squad. If they live or are dead. Neither think of them nor think of
nothing. He prayed an Lord's Prayer as he approached the ridge, and that was his last act of lucidity
before sinking into madness. Enough now with staying alive while stealing the body from
the enemy blows and feels the ziaaang of bullets that pass without reaching him. It moves between
ridge rocks tripping over bushes as he slashes what comes in front of him,
hearing the screams that sound four feet from his face when shadows intervene and
stick the bayonet in them.
Close voices, screams, gunshots coming your way. Friends or enemies, are you
pulling at him. To avoid killing each other, the Falangists shout Arriba España when they can,
they can't always. Those who shoot do not yell at all, so Bescós unhooks the
The last grenade left in his belt, he removes the pin, throws it in front, and crouches behind
a boulder two seconds before the flash cuts out human figures, stones and bushes.
He still stands motionless against the rock for a moment, catching his breath, seeking to introduce
breathable air in your lungs, burning with fatigue, dirt dust and acrid chedite smoke,
nitramine and gunpowder.
Suddenly, everything ends. Silence reigns suddenly, or almost, on the crest. Wounded moan
Invisibles and terrified voices shout "Don't pull, we surrender, please don't pull, up
Spain". There is now only some loose, sporadic shot, and one last grenade thrown down the hillside
below it explodes and illuminates disorderly shadows fleeing down the slope. The voice of the lieutenant
Zarallón, hoarse but recognizable, stands in the dark.
"Kill no more, stop! ... Take prisoners and secure the position!"
Bescós stands cautiously, his heart still racing, swinging his armed rifle in a semicircle
with the bayonet. Feeling the beat of the pulse that seemed to burst his temples and
it caused a severe headache.
"Clean everything up well!" Group the Reds back here!
Dawn has already broken towards the east, and a faint blue glow begins to extinguish the
stars. This incipient clarity outlines silhouettes of rocks and men with rifles against the light.
bayonets lengthen sinisterly, or raise arms while being pushed by others
towards the counter slope.
Two huddled shadows stand before Bescós.
"We surrender, don't shoot!"
It takes a moment for the Falangist to react, pointing alternately at one shadow and another,
a bullet locked into the chamber of the Mauser and the index finger inside the trigger guard, grazing the
trigger. A close voice takes him out of doubt, in which he recognizes Sebastián Mañas:
"Drop what you have with you!" He orders the reds. Move slowly, with your hands
up and clapping on the head!
Those who surrender obey. Two silhouettes silhouetted in the light of dawn clap hands
aloft. Bescós pushes one of them with the plane of the bayonet and turns towards the shadow of the
comrade.
"Are you okay, Sebas?"
—Dump her, Satu. What a joy to hear you ... Are you still whole?
Bescós's body is felt, still dazed, to check it.
"I think so," he says. And the others?
-I do not know. They will walk nearby.
Everywhere, amid the laments of the wounded, the voices of the Falangists now ring out.
Page 198
they call each other seeking to identify the comrades. The dawn light increases rapidly and its
grayish clarity illuminates details and foreshortenings of faces, armed men scrutinizing the
cavities in the ground or take shelter in the rocks pointing their weapons at the slope by which
the enemy has fled. The prisoners pass their arms up to the counter slope, where they are
sit in a group after patting them down carefully. They are in their thirties. Bescós and Mañas register the
theirs - two vigorous young bodies that tremble like mercury - and lead them past the
rest. Dawn is almost dawn and he discovers bodies of Falangists among the rocks and bushes
fallen in the assault on the ridge. The orderlies begin to arrive, guided by the cries of the
wounded.
"Let's see, red sergeant commands up! ... Identify yourself!"
For Lieutenant Zarallón, hatred is also a virtue. His voice cracks dry, with omens of
judgment. The prisoners roam around and some Falangists get among them, distributing
rifle butts. Someone takes out a flashlight and closely shines hats and shirts looking
red stars, stripes and chevrons. Dazed eyes squint into faces that dislodge the
fear, with fresh, unhealed wounds, dripping tears of blood.
"You and you, get here!"
The lieutenant moves back and forth among the captives, grabbing one by the arm to
take him aside, pushing him into the new, slowly growing group.
"Is there a commissioner among you? ... Any foreigner?"
The seated men bow their heads, submissive as animals in the bluish backlight of the
sky that is already blue for the east. The seats to one side are five, and in his heart he is
Bescós is glad that none of those he captured a moment ago are with them. In the
selected notices the insignia of a lieutenant, an ensign, two sergeants and another individual who
shows on the shirt the frayed tear of the chevron that was ripped off before giving up.
Pistol in hand, his filthy blue shirt rolled up, Zarallón squatted
in front of the red first officer, who is short and stocky. He has an ear torn off and the blood
stains the jaw and neck.
-What is your name? The lieutenant asks him.
"Salvador Patiño," the other replied, very pale, his voice shaking.
"What unit do you belong to and who are your commanders?"
The prisoner gulps, staring at the yoke and arrows embroidered on his chest
of the lieutenant. Then he closes his eyes and shrugs.
"Go fuck yourself."
Zarallón shoots him in the forehead and crouches before the lieutenant. Asks for name, unit, bosses
and mission, and the other tells him everything.
"Don't kill me," he concludes.
The lieutenant raises the pistol and half a skull is shot at him. Then he gets up,
he points to the NCOs and turns to the Falangists who are guarding them.
"Dispatch these to me," he says.
Bescós and Mañas are next to each other, shoulder to shoulder. And they don't move.
"I don't do that," Mañas whispers, very softly.
"Me neither," confirms Bescós.
The lieutenant, who is four or five meters away, looks at them as if he had heard them.
"If we weren't where we are," he says, "and I didn't know you well ...
After saying that, he turns to the other Falangists.
"Are there volunteers to get rid of this mob?"
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Sergeant Eleuterio Pochas and two corporals of the 2nd Century advance. They wield an orange tree
and two rifles.
"Son of a bitch," moans the petty officer with the torn gallon.
The rest of the Falangists look uncomfortable, embarrassed. Sneakily, Bescós gives
Tricks with the elbow.
"Let's get out of here, Sebastian."
And while the two young men hang their Mausers on their shoulders and turn their backs behind them
three shots sound.
Around the same time, a howl tore through the air and the first enemy artillery shell
explodes on the ridge.
"We are ordered to retrieve the eastern python," says Lawrence O'Duffy.
Vivian Szerman, Phil Tabb, and Chim Langer stare at Battalion Chief Jackson in surprise.
"But if the fascists just took it ...
-Because.
Holding a mug of tea and a Sunshine tin cookie, the American correspondent
watch the internationals who are preparing to attack: dirty, poorly shaved, dressed in
diverse garments, only their weapons are impeccable. They carry Mosin-Nagant rifles and rifles
Czech ZB machine gunners, and at this time they are supplied with hand bombs, they leave
macutos on the ground, the straps are adjusted, the cartridge belts are filled with
bullets and buttoned pockets that have buttons. What impresses Vivian is that everyone
They act in resigned silence, as if they had nothing to say or express their
empty glances, their weary looks, the sidelong glances - as if they didn't want to
aware that it is there - at the rocky height that rises five hundred meters, behind the pines that
they lost their branches to artillery fire and are blackened and bare stumps. Every five
or six minutes, in quick salutes, the republican artillery fire shooting from the other shore
of the river - canyons located three kilometers away - hits the crest and the booms make
rumble the earth. A thick cloud of dust rises above, backlit by the sun
nascent.
"You can't come with us," O'Duffy objects.
"You're kidding, Larry," Tabb protests. We haven't come this far to
miss the important thing.
The Irishman shakes his head, dissuasive.
—There are Falangists up there, and it's going to be tough… It's dangerous for you.
"We already know that." But we cannot miss this opportunity.
"I tell you no."
"Come on, man," Chim insists. You know us. We are not newbies and we know how to move
Okay, ”he points to Vivian. Even her.
"Even me," the American agrees.
O'Duffy reflects briefly. His men claim him and he has something to think about. Has been removed
the glasses to wipe them with the skirt of the shirt and turns to one side the freckled and aquiline face
to look at the group of orderlies preparing emergency kits, fitting the poles and
they adjust the tarps.
"Okay," he finally agrees. But not with the avant-garde ... You can go with the 1st Company,
Mounsey's, which is the second step.
"What about my photos?" Chim asks.
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O'Duffy denies impatiently, insists the photographer. They finally agree that he accompany the 2nd
Company, who will go ahead, and Vivian and Tabb go with Mounsey's.
"But I'm not responsible for anything," Ditch O'Duffy.
And he says goodbye. The three correspondents stare away at his tall, skinny figure. Almost
all the men greet him when they pass him.
"They respect him," Vivian observes.
—The internationals always gave more importance to value than to political speeches
"Says Tabb," and also to let live. In battalion internal affairs, Larry is
easygoing… And when it comes to bravery, he's built a good reputation for coolness under fire.
When he was a simple officer he sent his people insulting and encouraging them in the purest style
Irish, with his devilish Cork accent. But even after every beating, there wasn't one who
Don't say, "Larry is a great soldier."
Chim nods, who prepares his cameras.
"That includes being a dangerous man to be close to when fighting, for he attracts
bullets and shrapnel like shit to flies.
"He's not going on the attack now?" The American asks.
-I do not think I'll go. A commander coordinates from his command post.
"And who's in charge of the unit you're going with?"
The photographer looks at the python with distracted eyes.
-No idea.
Chim calls Pedro, who will remain in the rear, hands him his unnecessary objects and
shoves six rolls of 35mm film into his pockets. The two Leicas hang from the
chest.
"See you around," he says.
Then he gives Tabb a half smile that clears his boxer face, he winks at
Vivian, scratches at his frizzy hair as if pondering if he forgot something, and walks away in search of the
2nd Company.
Look at the American around. Orders have been shouted, and through the pine grove the
The metallic click of rifles locking bullets into the chambers. The internationals begin
to move slowly towards the python, on whose crest the artillery fire continues. Now yes
They look very carefully, recording in their heads every detail of their topography, each area
lined up by the enemy and every possible protection of the terrain through which they will move while
they fight and die.
"Let's find Mounsey," Tabb says.
The booms come from above dry and dull, in intense volleys, and the American does not
he can less than wonder who will survive of those who occupy the height. Taking out the notebook
of rubber covers that he carries in a pocket, he writes a few lines. He already has in his head the start of the
chronicle that he will write when he leaves there: «Silent, resolute, in solidarity, men come
around the world to defend freedom are ready to fight and die for freedom again
Spanish Republic, as they did in Jarama and Brunete… ». His heart and his
feelings, and that no one asks for anything else. The serene analysis leaves it to those who speak clean,
neat, in newsrooms, restaurants and cafes. Even those who write equanimous
editorials. She is a filthy, sweaty reporter, and her period is about to come.
"Do you think they will succeed?" He asks Tabb.
The Englishman walks with his hands in his jacket pockets, elegant despite how dirty he is.
the wrinkled clothes you saw are already there. As if even the war could not break its usual calm.
Page 201
"I don't know," he replies.

After saying that, he makes a vague, fatalistic gesture and takes a few steps in silence.
"You see them," he adds suddenly, indicating the men they pass.
Vivian watches the soldiers. Some look at it with curiosity when they see that it is
a woman, but most of it lets indifferent glances slide over her.
"They are not the same, of course."
"It's difficult for them to be, don't you think?… Most of the others have already been killed."
That's right, check Vivian again. Outlaw rebels in their land, unemployed workers,
university students, vagabonds, men of dark past and uncertain future turned into
soldiers under fire and through fire, the brigade members of the first hour whom he met in
previous battles had little to do with those of now. Thousands of dead and wounded later,
cannon fodder from each slaughter, decimated both by the enemy and by desertions,
venereal diseases, typhus, alcohol and repression by commissioners trained in orthodoxy
Stalinist, international volunteers who have not yet fallen in the struggle are fed up with a
useless past, bloody present and stateless future in a Europe where there will be no place for
they. Idealists see their convictions shake and adventurers discover that it was not this
the adventure they imagined.
"From the Cerro del Puerco y Valsaín," Tabb comments, "it's difficult to recognize them."
He has stopped to light a cigarette and looks at Vivian as he makes room between his hands
to protect the flame from phosphorus.
"Do you remember, Vivian?"
-Well of course. Those of the Telefónica did not let us send a single line ... What was the name of the
official who denied us the phone?
—Barea.
Vivian remembers the skinny and nervous Spaniard who was in charge of the Censorship Office in
Madrid. Having drinks on the terrace of the Gran Vía hotel bar with an officer of the Brigades
Internationals, she and Tabb had learned that, during the Battle of La Granja, a
disciplinary company of the XIV International Brigade had refused to attack for the fourth time
after being nearly wiped out in three frontal attacks. So a captain named
Duchesne, a former noncommissioned officer in the French army, selected five men by lot - the
chance made the five Belgians - and executed them one after another to the Soviet, with one shot
on the nape.
"That same one, yes," Vivian confirms. He did not consent to us sending that, nor did he stop
ask how we found out. And that we did not tell everything.
With the cigarette dangling from her lips, Tabb keeps walking.
"I think he was right," he thinks after a moment. We were right not to tell it.
Smile Vivian.
"Fuck objectivity?"
Tabb nods wearily.
"Yes… This is no ordinary war, my dear." Fuck objectivity.
They catch up with Captain Mounsey, who, no doubt warned by O'Duffy, barely twists the mustache of
Walrus seeing them appear and welcomes them without comment. His company is on the knee
land on the edge of the toppled pines, along a smelly dry ditch full of
excrement - the whole battalion seems to have passed through there - watching how the comrades of
the first wave of attack approach the python's skirt. The internationals advance very
separated from each other, seeking the scant protection of rocks and scrub that the terrain offers, and
Page 202
Vivian sees Chim, who moves between them, farther and farther away, taking pictures. The fire of
heavy artillery has been interrupted, from the vicinity of the pine forest now rises the tump, tump, tump de
mortar rounds, and in the dust that covers the ridge flashes flashes of the projectiles
that impact with their peculiar noise of piles of broken dishes. The steep slope returns and
multiply the echoes.
"Who commands the first wave?" Vivian asks Mounsey.
—János Voros, a Hungarian.
"Veteran, I guess."
-A lot.
The Canadian has responded without taking his eyes off the comrades already ascending the
first third of the hillside. The scattered figurines, the same color as the terrain, are only
they notice because they move. Now also the mortar fire has ceased on the ridge and cloud
dust begins to dissipate slowly. The silence is absolute and the flies are buzzing again.
Viviando
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For twelve hours, without interruption, Santiago Pardeiro has been sleeping lying on a bench
dusty of the hermitage with the legionary sparrow covering his eyes. His is a torpor
lethargic, devoid of dreams. Your consciousness lies plunged into a shapeless, black hole.
background.
"My ensign!" He is awakened by a whisper. My ensign!
Open your eyes the young man. He does so with almost painful reluctance, and takes a while to get into the
time and space. At last he recognizes the place, the ceiling of wooden beams and broken tiles through which
You can see the sky, Sergeant Vladimiro's face bent over him.
-What happen? He murmurs sleepily.
"They claim you at the company."
-What company?
"The one who relieved us." The sergeant hands him a piece of paper folded in four. A link ends
to bring this from the command of the flag.
Pardeiro gets up until he is seated, rubbing his eyes. Your whole body hurts and
throat and tongue feel like sandpaper.
"Give me water, Vladimiro."
-Here you go.
The ensign takes two sips, rinses his mouth, swallows, and returns the canteen to the sergeant.
Then unfold the paper, which is handwritten:
Due to his prior knowledge of the scenario of operations at Castellets, Ensign

Pardeiro will take command of the 4th Company, which he will reinforce with the troops at his disposal,
proceeding with the previous orders of that unit.
Signed: Commander Gregorio Morales, XIX Flag
Stunned, Pardeiro tries to fit that in. When he went to sleep, the 4th Company had
taken over from his sector and advanced down terraces to dislodge the Reds from the town.
Other national units arriving during the night must also be in the
proximities.
Page 203
"Do you know what this is about, Vladimiro?"

"The liaison told me something, my Ensign."
"Well, tell me about it."
And Vladimiro tells him. Castellets is under full attack and the 4th operates in the vanguard.
The resistance
Cooperativa deofAceites
the reds is Iglesia,
y la tough; and the casualties,
or what remains ofmany.
them.There
In onehave
theybeen
haveattacks andcaptain
killed the counterattacks
who between the
the company ran.
Pardeiro is stunned. Last night he and that captain were shaking hands when the
reinforcements arrived at the hermitage.
"Has Carrión been killed?"
But Vladimiro still has bad news. Also, he adds, a lieutenant and a
Ensign, and another is seriously injured. It is a sergeant who is now in command. Y
In addition to being left without officers, the company has lost many people.
At this point in the story, Pardeiro has completely cleared up. And he prefers to attribute the emptiness to
it has made him in the stomach that since he fell asleep he has not eaten anything. Open your mouth to
call Sanchidrián, his assistant, when he remembers that Sanchidrián and the cornet were killed by a
mortar impact yesterday morning and now they are buried in the makeshift cemetery in
the back of the hermitage. Who he does see is Corporal Longines, who among other men who
They sleep or rest he is sitting with Tonet on a fallen beam from the roof, chewing something.
"Longines."
The legionary stands up, standing at attention as in the courtyard of a barracks.
—Zusorders.
-What are you eating?
"Sardines, my ensign." And they are dead.
"Is there one left for me?"
"And even if they didn't stay."
The legionary takes out a sardine from the can, puts it on a piece of stale bread and squeezes it
so that it soaks the oil well.
"Good luck, my Ensign."
"Thank you," Pardeiro indicates to Tonet. How about the baby?
The old clock thief and anarchist shows the yellow teeth. Smile with so much
pride as if he were the child's guardian.
"Well, you see, the tern." Small and with balls hard and stuck to the ass, like the
tigers ... He says he wants to be a legionary when he grows up, and I tell him not to worry about that,
it is more than many.
Pardeiro goes outside, squinting under the midday light. Less than two
miles, beyond the ash gray patch of the olive grove and between the two rocky pitons that
flank, the roofs of Castellets can be seen. From somewhere towards the center of town it rises
a column of smoke and the noise of distant shots is heard.
"There is thick rubber on the Levante python," Vladimiro says.
The young man brings the binoculars to his face. On the ridge to your right you can see dust
of explosions and some isolated flash.
"Is it ours or one of the Reds, my Ensign?"
"I have no idea."
Pardeiro chews the last bite of bread and sardines, thoughtfully. Although in reality there is
a lot to think about.
Page 204
"Tell me the last count, come on."

"In addition to you and me, thirty-one men fit to fight, my lieutenant ... Two
they are at the limit, so we can leave it at twenty-nine - the Russian squints, which is his form
to smile. And with Tonet, twenty-nine and a half.
Pardeiro drops the binoculars on his chest.
"Do we have enough park?"
—There's something, my lieutenant… Before leaving, the comrades of the flag left us five thousand
cartridges and six boxes of hand pumps.
"Well, that's what we manage for now." Deliver one hundred cartridges and four grenades to each
man. They bring food, but do not get in the way of the task. We will fill canteens in
Well. ”He glances at his watch. We leave in ten minutes ... What's up?
He's staring at the sergeant. The Russian's face is usually impassive, but something
in it he now sends signals. Study Pardeiro the slightly oblique eyes, the cheekbones of Tartar
on cheeks with a gray, dirty six-day beard. In the time they have been together
learned to play the veteran NCO. To know him in his words and silences.
"Dump, Vladimir."
"It's okay, my ensign."
"Dunk, I'm telling you."
The other thinks about it for a moment. At last he makes an evasive gesture.
"Men have fought like wild boars," he says. Now they think they are safe for a
season, after the slaughter they did.
Pardeiro holds his gaze inquisitively.
-Y?
"Well, nothing ... that he's going to ask them to come back down there."
"To order them, sergeant."
The young man has marked the graduation. Blink the other slightly.
"Yes, of course, my ensign." To order them to fight again.
"They are legionaries, aren't they?"
-Of course. They will growl under their breath, but no one is going to protest loudly. I take care of that
I ... Although you should tell them something.
Pardeiro rubs his nose.
"Something, you say."
-Yes.
-Like what?
"Well, I don't know ... The officer is you."
"Suppose you were the officer."
Vladimiro thinks so.
"Anything," he concludes, "that doesn't make them feel like cannon fodder."
The young man modulates an almost cruel smile.
"They're cannon fodder, Vladimiro, like you and me." This is the Third, right?… We all are.
"Well now." You understand me.
"Yes, I understand you." Pardeiro raises the binoculars again and focuses them on the town.
Come on, tell them to get ready, we're leaving.
-To the order.
Ten minutes later, the legionaries ready to march gather in the small
esplanade, next to the bullet-riddled wall of the hermitage.
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-To form! Vladimir yells. Line up, steady ... Ar!

The men stand an elbow apart from each other, in three rows. The ensign contemplates the
bearded faces, weary and dirty with dust and gunpowder, reddened eyes, shirts
grimy openings across the chest amid belts loaded with ammunition and hand bombs, the
Canteens almost empty again, pockets bulging from tin cans or pieces of bread
Lasted. Counting rifles and bayonets, the survivors of the 3rd Company carry everything
possess in the world. The rest, blankets, bags, complementary equipment, have been left behind
in the fighting of the last days. Some have light wounds covered with dirty bandages
and others have reinforced their shattered espadrilles with string and rags. Until Tonet, inseparable from
Cape Longines, seems to have made several times, round trip, the trip to the edge of the
hell: even skinnier, bare and dirty legs under shorts, torn shirt
and the bayonet hanging on the shoulder strap. The tassel of the legionnaire sparrow swings on its runny nose
and the bloodshot eyes, cold and distant, in which every trace of childhood seems to have
dissipated.
"Rest!" Vladimiro orders. Ar!
The legionaries relax, their hands resting on the barrel of the rifle. Pardeiro thinks so a
moment, undecided. Volunteer to die, remember. To those men at the limit of their strength,
even the child who stares at him with obedient fixity cannot go to them with milongas of homeland and flag.
They are too close to the dark shore for that to work. Among them are people bounced from
prison and former anarchists like Longines; It is miraculous that in six days of combat not one
only tried to go over to the other side.
"I've seen you fight like wild beasts," he says loud and clear. You have taught a lesson to
enemy, and you deserve to rest ... However, our companions down there do not
they fix well. They are not vulgar pistolos, but people of the XIX Flag; but they don't know the town
and they pay dearly for it. That is why they ask for help. We know Castellets because we have fought every
subway and each house ... In addition, the reds forced us to leave, leaving behind many colleagues
dead. I'm a legionary and I don't like being kicked out of the sites, so I'm going to give them back
task.
He pauses. He does not look at Sergeant Vladimiro, but feels the eyes of the veteran of
Morocco fixed on him. Approvers.
"I could ask now," he adds, "as we usually do in the Tercio, volunteers to die ... But
we are comrades in combat, blood brothers. And I'm going to ask you in another way.
He pauses and looks at them almost one by one. At last his eyes stop at Tonet.
"Firm!" He orders. Ar!
Legionnaires square up, faces erect, jaws clenched. Even the little boy
does.
"Volunteers not to leave me alone!"
Shouts. And the twenty-nine and a half men step forward.
Dust of plaster and brick covers Julián Panizo's face like a mask streaked by
tracks of sweat. Crouched behind a barricade of cobblestones, sandbags, furniture and mattresses
from nearby houses, he curses as he struggles with the lock on the MP-28, which has
jammed.
"I shit on the bitch that gave birth to God."
"Find another weapon, Julian," Olmos suggests.
"What the hell another ... This is mine, damn it."
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The fascist bullets whiz very close, hitting the facades of houses, embedded with
clicks on the parapet. The orange tree continues to manipulate Panizo with impatient hands,
trying to unlock the clasp with the tip of the knife. But it is useless.
"The extractor claw is screwed up and there's no way to get the cartridge out."
"Well, look out and tell the fascists."
-Shut your mouth.
Olmos holds out a hand.
"Come on, bring me to look at it." That is why I am good at it.
"I have a fondness for this stutterer." Panizo hands him the submachine gun. If you fix it, you make me a
man.
"You need that." Make you a man.
Look at the dynamite around. At the barricade, popping out from time to time to shoot or
doing it through makeshift embrasures, a dozen companions exchange fire with the
enemy, located a very short distance. With the support of light armor, Panizo could see the
least two Panzer of what they call negrillos -, the fascist attack was from the beginning very
violent, and you could tell they are fresh troops. That forced the Republicans to abandon the
Cooperativa de Aceites and la de Vinos, too exposed. Defense position remains
now having behind the church, the main square and the main street of the town; and what
remains of the shock sapper company, reduced to a third of its strength, has
sheltered in the narrow streets near the church.
Crouching down, Panizo walks through the barricade to the entrance of a large house whose shield
stone nobleman has been smashed to pieces as he fell to the ground, and gazes into the gloom of the interior. There are
there three wounded awaiting evacuation, and their rifles and belts are found apart, against the
wall: a French Berthien from the year of the polka, an old Mexican carabiner, and a spiky Mosin-
Russian nagant. Without hesitation, Panizo seizes the latter, checks that the holster with the
bayonet has enough ammunition of the proper caliber and is girded at the shoulders and waist.
Then he puts a comb of five 7.62 rounds in the magazine and bolts one. The metallic sound
he makes one of the wounded open his eyes, who weakly asks how things are going outside.
"They could be worse," says the dynamiter.
"Do we win or lose?"
"Neither yes, nor no ... Do you need something?"
The wounded man raises a hand, showing a bandaged and bloody stump.
"A new hand is what I need." It was destroyed by a dumdun.
"I don't have that, comrade."
-I imagine.
When he goes outside, Panizo sees a line of men approaching from one side of the street
who advance with their heads down, glued to the facades of the houses. With them comes the brigade
Cancel. Panizo also leans against a wall and waits for them.
"Reinforcements," the brigade says when it reaches their height.
Panizo gazes at the newcomers with a critical eye. They are about twenty, all very young, and
They seem scared, unsure of the terrain they are moving through.
"Bottles," he says, disappointed.
The squad nods.
"It is what it is, Julian." Yesterday they were beaten well on the road to Fayon, and on top of that they killed
a captain and a lieutenant. It was their baptism of fire and they are disoriented. So they send them for
sections to reinforce other units. We get these. The sergeant they bring is not bad
Page 207
people… ”He turns to the troops. Casaú!

A small, skinny, agitated noncommissioned officer comes forward, with water-colored eyes and skin so brown that
He almost looks like a mulatto. It looks like a fairground barrage. Cancela makes a short presentation.
—Look, Casaú, this is Julián Panizo, who doesn't have a degree because he doesn't feel like it. Believe
that wearing stripes is fascist.
"Cheers," says the newcomer, and they shake hands.
"Panizo," Cancela continues, "is one of those with shells in their eggs." So forget it
that you are a sergeant and he is not, and pay attention to everything. As if it were me ... Got it?
The other nods.
-It is understood.
"Well, that's where I leave you." Cancela pats them on the shoulder before standing up. What
good luck, and take care of those kids, there are not enough.
Panizo holds him for a sleeve.
"The fascists have some black men behind there." At least two. Every now and then they pop out and
give us a sprinkle. Luckily they only have a couple of machine guns in the turret, but they fuck it
yours. At the moment they are satisfied with that, but if they come, they will annoy us ... We only have one
anti-tank rifle.
"What rifle?"
"A Mauser Tegé."
"With that you won't pierce a can of anchovies."
-That's why I tell you that.
-And what do you want me to do?
"We could use a few bottles of gasoline and a couple of boxes of hand pumps."
"They don't fit anymore?"
"Few."
-I'll see what I can do.
-Voucher. And who is in charge of the antitank?
"Myself, when I return."
As Cancela walks away, Panizo and the sergeant look at each other.
"Do you bring tobacco, comrade?" Asks the dynamiter.
"I have something, yes." And also, already bundled.
"I smelled the men."
They smoke squatting, exchanging impressions. Sitting against the wall, the bottles await
expectantly with the rifle between their legs. The origin is guessed at first glance: some are
of the middle class and it shows that they are there with little desire; others, surely children of workers and
peasants - you just have to look at their hands - they seem more made to fall. But this
Of course, both of them would throw the poplar and run if they left them. Almost all shrink
head at the buzz of bullets or a nearby explosion. They recruited them for a battalion,
says the sergeant, who in principle was going to limit himself to guarding the coasts in the eastern zone.
Don't worry, you won't hear a shot, they repeated. And from one day to the next they were put on a train and
they saw in the Ebro.
-And you? Asks Panizo.
"I also believed about the coastal defense." I managed to get plugged into that
drive, and you see.
"Don't be offended if I ask… Are you a gypsy?"
The water-colored eyes give him a suspicious look.
Page 208
-Why do you want to know? Do I have the face of stealing chickens?

"No, man, just out of curiosity." He had gypsy friends in La Unión.
The other's expression clears.
-Miner?
"Barrenero First Class."
"Well, I am a bit gypsy, on my mother's side." What I was also was a banderillero.
-Yes. In the Algabeño gang, to make matters worse.
"What a phenomenon." I have seen you fight anyway.
-Can be. But you see ... The teacher was a fascist, and here you have the subordinate.
"And how did they make you a sergeant?" Did you pass a course, and all that?
"I did, of course." But it is also that he had a good record ... The summer of '36 we did
among several compadres a brigadilla, we commandeered a truck to go town by town, and even to
a bishop we got loaded. There was no fascist alive between Castellón and Valencia.
"Some would remain."
Casaú smiles with proletarian pride.
"Not one, hey ... The Sons of Lenin, our unit was called."
"From Lenin, no less."
-Yes.
"So you have experience in triggering."
-What I say.
"And in combat?"
"I have less of that." But with yesterday's I could write a book.
-It was bad?
The other gives him a deep drag on what is left of his cigarette, so much so that the embers almost
burns nails. Then it retains the smoke and lets it out very slowly.
"It was worse than bad," he says at last. They sent us behind three tanks without telling us
that we had in front of us. The tanks went far ahead and blew two of us. The third took the
of Villadiego and the infantry hunted us like partridges: of the two hundred and ninety-four
We were two hundred and seven, and many were caught by the fascists ... We lost
Captain Madonell and a Lieutenant; and the political commissioner, who had a lot of speech but a
perfect queer, came out of stampede and we have not seen it again.
Panizo shakes his head, taking over.
"Now let me explain that your creatures bring those faces."
"The poor do too well." Or we carry it.
The dynamiter puts his cigarette butt in the tin box, slaps his rifle and stands up.
So take a quick look over the barricade. Then he crouches down again. Enemy fire
has loosened a bit. They hardly shoot now, and that can be as good as it is bad.
"Tell me what to do," Casaú demands.
"For now, he's putting the brats in that house and that other," Panizo points out. tell them that
don't crowd. In a group there is less fear, but it is easier for them to shoot you ... Let them mix
with those who are there, one or two per squad. And that the bagpipes do not appear if there is no fat scrubbing.
-And me?
"Stay with me, if you want." And we are already seeing.
He also makes the other attempt to lean over the barricade, but does not consume the movement. The
stops midway, as if he just thought better of it.
Page 209
"Do we know who is in front?"

"The Third."
-Cone.
The Aragonese of the XIV Flag of the Falange who had barely taken the eastern python
they manage to retain it for two hours. After a heavy bombardment that kept them
huddled between the rocks of the ridge, the republican counterattack surprised them with no time to
to be reinforced, to replenish ammunition or to shelter well. When they could stick their heads out and
emplacement of weapons, the same men who had carried out the assault and suffered the
bombardment they met the enemy a few meters away, attacking with impetus. And without means
to oppose, after a fierce and brief defense that consumed the last cartridges and bombs
hand in hand, the Falangists were forced to give ground, in a mess for himself who can.
Puuum-clack-clack-clack.
They run down the slope Saturiano Bescós and his comrades with the cartridge belts and the chambers of
their rifles empty, seeking shelter in the rocks every time a mortar shell of the kind they
beat the counter slope explodes nearby. Some stop to pick up the wounded and others continue
forward blind with panic, not caring about anything other than getting to safety outside the python. The
81mm rounds arrive unannounced, in a long, silent curve from above, and
shards of stone and shrapnel bounce everywhere, smash through bushes, hit
the men.
Puuum-clack-clack-clack.
One of the morterazos explodes in front of Bescós, so close that the young man sees the glow
orange and feels as if a hammer of dust and solid air is striking it head-on, projecting it
backward. He falls backwards as countless shards rattle on his head, chest
and arms, hits the back of his neck on the ground and fidgets there, trying to get up without
to get it.
Shrapnel, my God. Shrapnel.
It is the first thing he thinks hastily, very scared, when he can finally do it. I already
it touched me, and those motherfuckers have filled me with shrapnel. For once I'm not wearing the helmet. To the
Finally he manages to move his hands and palpates his chest and arms with anguish, looking for wounds. Feel
his head is numb and a strange, warm heat spreads between his eyebrows and drips down his nose.
Then he touches his forehead, and when he looks at his fingers he sees them stained with blood.
Shrapnel to the head, my gosh. Shrapnel to the head.
The wound is palpated with fright, wanting to put the finger inside to find out the depth
under the broken bone. And at that moment he sees the face of Sebastián Mañas leaning over him, dirty with
earth and gunpowder.
"Don't touch yourself, shit," says his comrade. Let me do it.
He checks the wound and then slaps him. Smile.
"It's a stone, you idiot." A stone bounce, nothing more.
"And the bone?"
-As never before. Just a bump and a scratch.
Bescós spits an acid and bitter saliva.
"Well, I bleed like bacon ... What about the rest?"
Mañas now checks his chest and arms.
-The same. Gravel bounces.
"And the eggs?"
Page 210
"In your place, entericos."

-Insurance?
"Yes, man."
-Thank God.
While Mañas ties a handkerchief around his forehead, a new mortician falls nearby, they jump
more rocks and dirt, and the two young men huddle against each other.
"Come on, Satu, let's get out of here."
Helps him up, wraps an arm around his shoulders and grabs him by the
waist.
"Leave it alone," protests Bescós.
"What are you going to be able to do, dummy."
They finish going down embracing the counter slope and join the comrades who are already
out of the fire zone, clustering on the edge of the pine forest, in the old positions that the two
centuries occupied last night before going up to the assault.
"I've lost my gorrillo," Bescós realizes.
-Do not worry. Today they are left over.
The Falangists are arriving exhausted by the race, battered, out of breath, dropping to the
ground, looking at each other still confused. With dazed eyes, they search for the missing comrades.
Lorenzo Paño and Corporal Avellanas, who see Bescós and Mañas approaching, come to meet them.
The four of them hug.
"They creaked us, but fine," Cloth says.
Look around Bescós for the rest of the squad.
"Have you seen Tresaco?"
-Not.
"And Domingo Orós?"
-Neither.
Hazelnuts are fixed on the Bescós bandage.
"What's on your mind, Satu?"
—Mañas says that little thing… A stone.
"Well, he made you handsome."
-Already.
The four Falangists contemplate the crest of the python.
"We hardly counted it this time."
"They didn't give us time, the bastards." After the last pepinazo of Atilano they were already there
himself, right under our noses.
"They were international, I think." I heard them yelling in a foreign language.
"You sons of bitches ... What have you missed here, killing Spaniards."
"Marxist hordes, as Zarallón says."
"What about him?"
"There he goes." We have seen it before.
-Unscathed?
-Completely.
"Count, then." How lucky the uncle is.
"Bad bug never palm."
"The one who doesn't appear anywhere is Captain Labarta."
—Cagüentodo. That's a nice guy.
Page 211
—Well, you see… The worst was already his turn.

Try to clear Hazelnuts the unknown.
"I saw him upstairs, wanting to rally people to resist." But that was lost and I did not
I stayed to see how it ended ... Of course, going down has not gone down - he runs a finger across the
throat, explicit. And those who have not come down, well you know.
Cloth nods gloomily.
"The Falangists are not taken prisoner either."
"Well, I don't know why, shit," Mañas growls. I didn't ask them to put a shirt on me
blue.
"Tell that to the Reds where they lock you up," Hazelnut replies. For them we are all
the same: those on the front line and those who take walks in the rear.
"Ours don't take walks, watch out," Cloth jokes. They do that. Ours
debug. They pluck up the bad communist seed.
Corporal Hazelnuts looks around uneasily and touches his arm.
"Stop kidding, come on." That the oven is not there for that.
"But neither do we go with pampurrias," insists the other. Remember those to
that Zarallón gave coffee when we took the ridge. From sergeant up, as usual.
"Come on, okay," the corporal gets angry. Leave it already.
Bescós takes out his flask and tries to roll a cigar, but his fingers stained with dried blood
they shake too much, and everything falls off.
"Bring it on," says Mañas, and takes it by the hands.
"I'm worried about Tresaco and Orós," says Bescós.
"And me."
"Maybe they're out there."
-Hopefully.
Hazelnut takes a close look at the bandaged forehead.
"How's your perola, Satu?" It hurts?
"As if I had a crazy rat inside."
"Go get them to look at it, come on."
Cloth laughs.
"You still earn sick leave and they send you to a hospital full of nurses with fat tits."
"That fig won't fall."
Mañas has finished rolling the cigarette, runs his tongue over the edge of the paper and hands it to
Bescós, with the flask.
-Taking.
-Thank you.
"I'll accompany you to be seen."
On the third attempt, Bescós hits with the embers of the chisquero on the tip of the cigarette.
"No, stop." I'm going alone.
He walks away, smoking cigarette in his mouth and slung his rifle over his shoulder, looking at the faces of the
comrades that he encounters. Suddenly he sees Tresaco sitting against a pine tree, bandaging his arm
alone. When he saw him, the other got up very happy and came to meet him. They hug.
"Mine is a small thing," Tresaco says. I took a punch when I was running down python and
skinned an elbow. Nothing serious ... And yours?
"A stone bounce."
"Well, your face is swollen with balls."
Page 212
-Already.
The other indicates the aid station, a box of road workers next to the road, where
Some nurses and orderlies treat and classify the incoming wounded.
"Come have a look at you."
"That's what I was doing, china chana."
The other is holding him by one arm.
"Hey, what about the others?"
—All well, but we don't see Orós.
Tresaco's face darkens.
—You're not going to see it… He stayed upstairs.
-Host.
-Yes. Captain Labarta was regrouping us and we were going with him, and a bullet went through his neck,
from side to side. He fell like a bird, without saying anything ... Three feet from my face and with the red
over. So I turned around and ran down the slope, like everyone else.
"Poor you."
"Nineteen years ago last month." And from Sabiñánigo he was, like us.
"What a pity of parents."
-Yes.
At that moment Lieutenant Zarallón appears. He goes from group to group of Falangists, making them
stand up while checking your weapons. It's dusty from hat to boots and
He has a bad face.
-What do you have? He asks Bescós.
-Nothing. A bounce.
Zarallón picks up his handkerchief and looks at the wound.
"It doesn't seem serious."
-That's what I think.
"Well, go get yourself healed and join your squad." Take also your steel helmets,
that now we are going to need them ... Commander Bistué said that as soon as we rest
a little and ammunition, we have to go back up there.
Tresaco swallows loudly.
"Are you serious, my lieutenant?"
The officer looks up at the python, with a gloomy air, and Bescós does not like what he sees in his
eyes
"I haven't been that serious in my fucking life."
He walks away, and the two Falangists look at each other.
"Fucked," Tresaco says. Here you go out as a blacksmith and they make you a charcoal maker.
Page 213
VII
She looks at them from afar, concerned. Monsoon Duck occupies an iron bench in the courtyard of the
Flour maker, screwdriver in hand, repairing the magnet of an NK-33; and from where you are
watches the meeting taking place under the porch: Lieutenant Colonel Landa, political commissioner of the
brigade, second chief Carbonell and captain Bascuñana. This is not polite talk. They discuss ago
while Landa and Carbonell were angry, the commissioner threatening, Bascuñana vehement. Since the
Fourth Battalion lost the python Lola, the young woman has heard enough to worry about the captain,
who they blame the other way around. Before Bascuñana fulfilled the order to appear at the post
in command, the Russian was harsh in his comments; and although Pato cannot hear the
conversation, gestures and expression of the commissioner are unpleasant. Hit the palm of a
hand with the closed fist of the other.
"What a squirt," says Lieutenant Harpo, who has passed by and stops to look at them.
get to Pato.
"Are you hitting it hard?" Asks the young woman.
Harpo nods, leaning his back against the wall.
—You just need to blame him for the fact that Bailaor killed Joselito in Talavera.
Pato looks at him with feigned innocence, wanting to pull his tongue.
"They have a reason, right?"
The other scratches his kinky gray hair.
"In these things the reasons are relative." They accuse him of losing the python, which is true; and of
that the internationals had to go to get it back, which is also true ... But Russian speaks
of negligence and cowardice in the face of the enemy, and that are big words.
"I know that captain," says Pato, "and he doesn't seem like any of that."
Harpo smiles, vaguely complicit.
—I know you know him… La Valenciana says that you put little eyes on each other.
The young woman points the screwdriver at the lieutenant.
—La Valenciana is a lost fool.
Harpo laughs and the two fall silent, looking at those who argue. To the shed next to
The wounded continue to arrive at the door, including a doctor and two exhausted practitioners
to operate, bandage, give injections of tetanus serum and give morphine tablets. Every time
orderlies or mules with artolas go out to the river where men sway who moan and
little children who cry. In a ditch dug on the other side of the wall, corpses accumulate,
on which, before laying earth, shovels of quicklime are thrown.
"This Bascuñana," says Harpo after a moment, "is no more negligent or cowardly than
any of them, or the others, including us ... His battalion is made up of people without
ideological coherence. I'm sure he did what he could.
Pato turns the crank on the magneto, which already seems to work fine.
"Can you have serious problems?"
"I could have them." Harpo casts another glance at the group and shakes his head. When the Russian
take a trick and paint clubs, you never know.
"What do you think will happen?"
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"I have no idea ... But these things don't end well."
Harpo goes into the building and Pato follows with the phone. Screw the bakelite cap when
he sees Bascuñana unfasten his belt with the gun, give it to Carbonell and leave the group.
The captain takes a few steps aimlessly, his hands in his pockets, and then he approaches the
wounded and talks to some who seem to be from his battalion. At last he leaves the courtyard. After thinking about it
indecisive, the young woman slings the device over her shoulder and walks behind. The captain has removed his
cap and smokes sitting on a stone wall, looking out over the river. He wears the same shirt to
Always faded pictures, very wrinkled and dirty. Smells like sweat and grime, but the face shows
freshly shaved, and an actor's fine mustache trimmed and flawless.
"Comrade Patricia," he is surprised to see her appear.
The young woman remains standing next to him, also contemplating the slope and the pine forests that
they rise and then descend to the Ebro and the steep heights of the other shore. Sometimes they dot
flashes in the Vertex Campa, the booms are heard two seconds later, and projectiles of
105 pass tearing the air like torn silk, in the direction of the fascist positions.
"I've seen you before," she says. With those.
Bascuñana raises his face to observe her with interest.
"And did you hear what we were saying?"
-Not.
-Goodness.
He touches his face and turns his face toward the river. He doesn't seem talkative at the time, and Duck thinks
understand why.
"I hope you have no problems," she says shyly.
He looks at her again distractedly, as if thinking of something else.
"My problems are almost completely over." He barely smiles. They relieve me of command.
-I do not understand.
-It's easy to understand. I no longer command the Fourth Battalion, or what is left of it. My orders are
go to the rear and stay there while my conduct is reviewed.
-Are you serious?
-Well of course. That's what the commissioner said: check my behavior ... It sounds most Soviet, doesn't it
you think?
"I am a communist."
"I know, and that's why I'm telling you." You know the rhetoric: if you are not part of the solution you are part of the
trouble.
"How absurd."
Palmea Bascuñana the stone wall.
"Come on, relax." Sit here.
She doubts a moment. At last the telephone is picked up, left on the floor and installed next to the
captain.
"Taking you up seems an injustice to me," he says. It's not your fault if ...
He is silent, not knowing how to continue. Doubting between what is appropriate to say and what is not.
"I'm still lucky," Bascuñana says. I must stay here for now, waiting for the
documents to go to my destination by my own means ... Picnic, as the
English. They haven't detained me, or anything like that.
Pato is stirred, indignant.
"It would be more."
—Well, don't believe. I owe it to Lieutenant Colonel Landa. The commissioner is more
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supporter of an immediate court martial to set an example.

She looks at him, open-mouthed.
"Example of what?"
"Republican firm, I suppose."
"You make fun of me."
-Not at all.
They are silent again. At the end, Bascuñana throws away the Russian cigarette and shrugs his shoulders.
"As you can see, now I have free time." Too bad you don't have it.
Suddenly uncomfortable, she stands up and grabs the phone by the strap.
"I have things to do, Comrade Captain."
-Clear.
Bascuñana says it with an absorbed air, looking at the sky. Duck follows the direction of his eyes and
notice two black dots approaching over the riverbed. Two biplanes. Then look at his
watch.
"Angelus hour," he says. Punctual as machines.
He also gets up, takes his cap and grabs Pato by one hand, leading her to a trench
protected with sandbags, next to the low wall.
"They'll go to the river, as they usually do," she says.
-You never know.
The two of them lie on the edge of the trench, shoulder to shoulder, watching the planes,
indifferent to the white clouds that melt in their wake - resounds the monotonous pah-pah-
pah-pah of the Bofors antiaircraft guns—, they descend on a place that Pato cannot see, and at the
moment, when they gain height again and move away, two tall columns of water appear and
they collapse behind the bank.
"Goodbye again to the catwalk," says Bascuñana.
They lie down, looking at each other.
"I saw your men attack and come back mangled from the python, over and over again," she says. I know that
you did everything possible.
The captain smiles gratefully and sadly.
"Oh, they know it too." Even the Russian knows ... But it is not about knowing or not knowing,
but what each one needs to look like.
They are motionless, very still. They touch their shoulders and it seems that neither wants to interrupt that
Contact. For a moment before looking away, slightly embarrassed, Pato notices her own
reflection in the dark irises of man.
"Things are starting to stagnate," continues Bascuñana. The enemy strikes back.
We have the pythons and the cemetery, but there are factionalists again in town.
"Will there be no reinforcements?"
"What will there be?" Bottles and international bottles were the reserve ... And even if there were more,
it would be difficult for them to cross the river. They have sunk almost all the boats and our pontooners do not give
supply. Little by little we are becoming isolated here.
Pato's shoulder continues to touch the captain's: a warm and comfortable touch that seems
comfort of imprecise things. The young woman confirms that, at that distance, the dry, strong smell,
Bascuñana's masculine is not at all unpleasant. And if only he would hug me, he suddenly thinks.
It should have done it when the planes. Yes. When he said you never know.
"Someone has to pay for so many mistakes, do you understand?" He is saying.
She nods sadly. He understands very well.
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"That's why they need scapegoats," he says.

"Besides being pretty, you're a smart girl."
"You don't have to be smart to understand that."
Distant shots come, explosions rumble from the cemetery side and the python from
west. There they fight again. Duck looks in that direction. When he turns he meets the eyes of
Bascuñana fixed on her.
"You told me about a man, if I remember correctly."
"I talked about him," Pato agrees. And I said that I haven't had news for a long time.
"We are at the wrong time and place."
He said it thoughtfully, cryptically. She gives him a curious glance.
-What do you mean?
"You know who I mean."
We shouldn't be here, the young woman tells herself. Not this way. At the impulse of that new
thought, he stands up, brushing off his jumpsuit. He imitates her.
"After your wife died, do you have another somewhere? ... A partner?"
"None in particular." This war takes everything.
He puts on his cap, tilted as usual.
"If you ever…" he adds.
She gently holds her breath.
"If ever what?"
He leans over to pick up the heavy phone and helps her hang it over his shoulder.
—There are times when it is better to be alone, don't you think? ... It runs better without a child in
arms, without a woman holding hands, without parents that you leave behind ...
He interrupts himself while making a broad gesture encompassing the trench, the pine forest, the hamlet
nearby, the half-hidden river.
"We are going to lose the war, Comrade Patricia." To know what will become of each one of us
When this is over
"It will not end while there is fascism in the world."
"I love your faith."
"I know what will become of me if we lose." I may die; but if they defeat us and I'm alive, I would like
keep fighting as you can. So much sacrifice must do something.
-If ever…
He just says that, almost brusquely, and Pato looks at him more intensely.
"You repeat it again." If ever ... what do you mean by that?
"If I met you elsewhere, I would like you to have your hair shaved like a
boy, same as now. And walk with you arm in arm, with pride.
The young woman runs a hand over her head, surprised.
"With pride, you say?"
-Yes.
-Are you crazy.
-Not.
She thinks about it for a moment and finally nods slowly.
"I like that about pride." Sounds good in your mouth.
When the artillery falls silent after an intense bombardment that has lasted for
three-quarters of an hour, eighty-five red berets are on their feet and as many bayonets shine
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amid the dust that the zenith sun turns into a golden haze.
-Live Christ the King! Shouts Captain Coll de Rei. Go Spain!
This time the requetés of the Tercio de Montserrat shock company have not gone to heart
naked against the cemetery, but approached slowly under the cover of the artillery curtain,
advancing among the vineyards sown the day before with dead companions. After, near
Republican positions, waited close to the ground as the 88mm rounds passed
above their heads to lift jets of smoke and shrapnel into enemy trenches. It is done
same hour, if they don't fall behind like they did yesterday, Ifni's shooters should be doing
the same on the right flank.
"Go ahead, go ahead, don't stop! ... Long live Catalonia and Spain up!"
It smells of sulfur, trilite and turned earth. Blinking to get rid of the dust that irritates your
eyes, Oriol Les Forques wields the Mauser as he runs almost blind, dodging the last
vines or stumbling over them. He still does not see the enemy trenches and is oriented by the impulse of
exit and confusing lumps of companions going in the same direction. Know that close to
he advance Santacreu, Milany and Dalmau, and that all are still alive because the Reds, overwhelmed by
what has fallen on them, they still do not shoot. In the silence of the artillery only the
voices of officers and sergeants, the hurried steps on the clods and the breath
choppy of the running youth.
"Up Spain, up Spain!"
The wire appears suddenly, on the unevenness that was the maximum point of progression of the
advance yesterday. This time it is not necessary to cut it, at least in the section that Les Forques has
ahead, as the bombardment struck him down. Go up the slope, jump on the wire
hawthorn, and at that moment, among the cloud of dust that begins to dissipate, flashes
nearby and a rosary of booms runs from left to right, marking the first
enemy trench.
Fluaaas, ziaaang, fluaaas. This is how Les Forques hears the invisible projectiles that pierce the
curtain of dust with a sucking sound that makes your skin crawl. But there is no time to protect yourself, and
not even to fire the first bullet locked in the chamber of the rifle. Don warned
Pedro Coll de Rei when they occupied the starting positions after distributing a sip of
brandy to each one, while Pater Fontcalda - who this time accompanied them in the assault - gave the
last blessing and the requetés kissed medals, scapulars and stop. Once we start
said the captain, do not stop for anything or anyone, do not shoot or seek shelter. Who hesitates and
offer white, you will die. Drop your hand bombs and then go straight to the reds and
stick the bayonets in them.
"Don't stop, for God's sake! ... Go on, go on!" Go Spain!
Sinister clicks and moans are heard, chac, chac, bullets that hit the flesh. Passing the rifle to
left hand, without stopping running, Les Forques unhooks the Oto grenade from the belt
She was ready, she removes the pin, pauses for a moment and throws it as far as she can.
He crouches for two seconds until he hears the boom and then he gets up and walks forward again: a
small slope, sandbags, flashes and thunder of hand bombs everywhere.
Shouts sound in Catalan and Spanish. At last the dust vanishes discovering a moat in
zigzag with bodies crouched inside, fearful faces, men looking up, pointing
Their guns, they shoot as the ziaaang, ziaaang, ziaaang buzz like Les Forques through
a swarm of crazed bees. And then, deaf from explosions, drunk with violence and
fright, the young queté feels the loneliest man in the world when he jumps into the
trench and, precisely because of that, because he believes himself alone, he begins to drive his bayonet into everything
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in front of you. When you move or stand still, defend yourself or raise your hands.
"To the other one, go ahead!" The hoarse voice of Don Pedro Coll de Rei sounds distant, as if from the
God shouted heaven. This is it, keep going!
Corporal Les Forques is a bloody automaton up to the elbows, his arms sore.
move them back and forth with the rifle and bayonet, when he comes out of the trench and runs again between
the companions who now howl like butcher wolves, arrive at the shattered wall of the
cemetery and scattered among the graves, the mutilated and fallen crosses, the tombstones broken by the
that splintered coffins and old corpses appear that mix with the new ones; and at every step
They shoot, stab, butt at the men who come out of the pits like specters and
confront them by shooting at point blank range and fighting with machetes, or by hunting those who
They flee between the graves, shooting at them as they go, making them fall with dry shots,
with impacts that lift little clouds from their dusty clothes.
Les Forques corner three reds who recoil until their backs are pressed against a wall of niches with
the gravestones pitted and broken from bullets. They defend themselves by brandishing trench shovels sharp as
axes. He faces the rifle, shoots, knocks one down - knees bent, as if fainting - and
he hits the bolt with the palm of his hand, driving a bullet into the chamber. The others throw the
shovels, raise their arms and yell. One of them desperately gives the Falangist salute.
"Don't shoot, brother, don't shoot!… Up Spain!"
Gaunt, dirty, their hair is disheveled with dirt and their eyes are feverish with fear. Hesitate Les
Forques, finger on the trigger. Suddenly, another requeté appears beside him as if materializing
out of nowhere, rifle in hand comes forward, and at the point of a bayonet he makes the two Reds kneel.
Then he kicks the fallen to see if it moves and looks at Les Forques. Single
then he recognizes Agustí Santacreu.
"Lower the poplar, Oriol, damn it." Don't shoot me.
Obey Les Forques as if coming out of a dream. Clear images and sounds return
when his heart, which was pounding uncontrollably, regains a reasonable rhythm. Take a deep breath and support
the butt of the rifle on the ground while Santacreu searches the prisoners by making them throw
straps and keeping whatever utility they carry: tobacco, trench lighters,
wallets, identity documents.
"Marxists with ID," he says, showing them to Les Forques.
He puts the documents in his pocket and looks at the prisoners with an unfriendly face.
"They killed Milany," he adds grimly.
Les Forques blinks in a daze, not quite accepting the news.
-What do you say?
"That these pigs have killed him ... when we had just passed the fence."
-Are you sure?
-Yes. He ran to my side and I saw him fall. I even heard the bullet hit. I bent down wanting to help him,
but then the captain arrived, he slapped me that threw my beret and ordered me to continue
ahead.
"Are you sure he was dead?" Maybe just ...
"I saw his eyes, hey." Open and fixed. ”He points to his chest. The shot hit him right here in the
heart… When I got up and started running again, my shirt was already full of blood.
-Shit.
-Yes.
Santacreu looks at the dead man and seems about to kick him again. Then he turns to the
prisoners, threatening.
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"I liked it," says Les Forques.

-What?
"Okay, stop it."
They push the two reds to join them with others whom they group before one of the walls: they are
a score and some are injured. When facing the wall, many look suspiciously at the
requetés, livid, fearing the worst.
Dalmau appears, big, sweaty, very dirty, with his eternal machine gun on a
shoulder. Comes with dejected air.
"They have killed Milany," he reports.
-We already know.
—And Juanito Falgueras is wounded… Apparently he threw a grenade, or they threw it, he advanced
too fast and he took all the shrapnel.
-Serious?
"Blind stays, sure."
Among the tombs and the shattered cypress trees there are corpses: some requetés and many red ones. Without
distinguish between one and the other goes the Fontcalda pater with his purple stole around his neck,
kneeling to deliver absolutions. Beyond the shrapnel-broken crosses, a row of
Moorish shooters head in good order to the eastern side of the cemetery.
"There go those fucking bastards," says Dalmau.
"At least today they haven't left us alone," Santacreu replies. It is said that Don Pedro
Coll de Rei had to hold him last night, because with his good hand he wanted to give milk to the
commander of the tabor.
"I believe it… Is he still alive?"
"Look," Les Forques points out. There it comes.
Coll de Rei approaches with several requetés, among them his assistant Cánovas and the sergeant
Xicoy.
"Nice work, boys," the captain is saying. Good job.
Apart from the dust that covers him from the beret to the high boots, his demeanor is so impeccable
as usual. His left arm is bandaged and tied around his neck by a silk scarf, which is not
knows where he got it from but that no one misses him, and the hunting shotgun resting on the
right forearm with a negligent gesture, as if coming from a walk; but the basket of
cartridges crossed to the assistant's chest is now empty.
“You guys have done very well… Splendid work.
He stops to review the captured Reds with the air of someone looking at wild boars
a hunt. For his part, Sergeant Xicoy collects the seized identity documents and
He shows them to the captain.
"Card Communists," he informs. Everybody.
Coll de Rei studies the documents and turns to the prisoners.
"Officers and NCOs, report," he urges them.
Nobody moves. Coll de Rei passes the shotgun to his assistant, and with his good hand he writhes
mustache.
"Is any of you named Roque Zugazagoitia?"
Silence. Grouped together like a herd waiting for the slaughterhouse, the prisoners look down.
"Is anyone Lieutenant Zugazagoitia?" Coll de Rei insists.
"He's dead," says a voice at last.
The captain is silent, cocking his head as if reflecting.
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"I'm sorry," he says.

Attentive to the scene, Les Forques, Santacreu and Dalmau have sat on one of the few
intact graves while the tobacco taken from the reds is distributed.
"Do you hear what he said?" Santacreu whispers, amazed.
Coll de Rei addresses the prisoners again.
—They look at me with the only noble resentment that exists, which is that of the brave who have fought
good and they have lost ... And I respect that. Also, yesterday they had the humanity to let us
Let's go with our wounded. ”He makes a gesture referring to the requetés who are listening. My
men and I do not forget.
New silence. Neither red nor national peel off their lips.
"Any other officer or noncommissioned officer?"
After a long moment, a man steps out of the ranks and stands still three steps from the captain,
with the head lowered. His clothes are ripped apart and a sergeant's gallon half-ripped on his shirt.
His hands are shaking.
Coll de Rei looks at him carefully.
-Name?
—Fernando Laguna.
"Is he the most senior?"
The other hesitates a bit, looks at his family and lowers his head again.
-It seems.
The captain continues to look at him with great interest. Finally, Coll de Rei makes as if to feel the
clothes with his good hand and looks around inquisitively. Noticing the three seated requetés, he
he approaches them, who stand up immediately, take all the cigarettes from their hands and
he's going to give them to Sergeant Red.
"Give them away to their people," he says. And rest assured, nobody is shot here. Have
my word.
And then, before turning around and leaving there, order Sergeant Xicoy to burn the
IDs of the captured men.
From the crest of the Python Pepa, the largest of the Gambo Laguna militias watches them arrive exhausted from
running, drenched with sweat, their shirts brown with dust and chedite. They are fourteen exhausted men,
some of them wounded: the survivors of the cemetery that the fascists have just taken. He
Chief of the Ostrovsky Battalion has been following the combat with binoculars, helpless witness
of the last resistance and the final rout. He doubts that the 3rd Company, whose lieutenant did not
has news, a quarter may have escaped: some crossing the Rambla towards the town, and
others seeking close refuge in the python. Tough fighters, hardened soldiers of those who don't
flirt easily, Roque Zugazagoitia's men have disputed the ground inch by
span and grave by grave; but the artillery broke their backs and the infantry attack
enemy has been of unprecedented violence. Gambo received up to three messages from the cemetery - the
Last, no longer a telephone line, through a link - asking for reinforcements that he could not send; Y
now he must take care of his own defense, knowing that the next enemy target will be him.
"What a disaster," laments Ramiro García, the battalion's political commissioner.
"It's more than a disaster," Gambo agrees. The cemetery in fascist hands is the bolt
of aWith
trap… Andare
them our peopleSimón
Captain in the Serigot
town areand
increasingly
Lieutenantbeing
Félixtaken away.
Ortuño, the other officers of the
Ostrovski. And the four look worriedly at the smoke of fires that rises in the center of the
Page 221
town, where the echo of distant shots comes from.

"So," Serigot sums up, "we've stayed inside the cage."
-It seems.
"I suppose counterattacking towards the cemetery is impossible," says Ramiro García.
Gambo, looking through the binoculars, responds without taking them away from his eyes.
—You suppose well. We have two hundred and fifty-two men left: two companies to
defend the python. There are no reinforcements crossing the river, and the rest of the brigade is bent on the
town and in sustaining Lola.
"Maybe the internationals ...
"Here." Gambo hands him the Komz. Take a look at the internationals.
Garcia focuses on the other python. The smoke and the flashes around the ridge.
"Damn it."
"Well, that."
Gambo retrieves the binoculars and moves through the rocks, jumping from one to another, until the
slot covered by a canvas where the command post is installed. For the part that faces
The cemetery, until now unprotected, the men toil with picks and shovels and carry stones
to make parapets. The soil is so hard and stony that digging half a meter is a
feat.
On some empty ammunition boxes there is a map of Castellets at a scale of 1: 20,000, a lamp
of acetylene turned off and a field phone. Gambo takes off his cap, invites his officers to
zoom in and mark points on the plane.
—With the cemetery in their hands, the fascists can infiltrate down to the river, taking over the
entire brigade. Around here, you see? ... I suppose that the main efforts of Faustino Landa will be
to cut them off on that side.
"Suppose?" Garcia asks, scowling.
"Just that ... I guess."
"And with whom will you do it, if there are no more reserves?"
It takes Gambo three seconds to answer.
"With the remains of the Fajardo Battalion, surely." Or something will find.
The four look at each other gloomily. They know that the Second Battalion, commanded by the commander of
Fajardo militias, has slowly disbanded in the last six days, since the initial seizure of the
cemetery to the defense of Python Pepa, the failed attacks on the Aparecida hermitage and the
fighting in the last hours in Castellets with the First Battalion. Of the four hundred
men of that unit who crossed the river, there must hardly be the troops of a
company.
"And
Ortuñowhat about
is over ouryears
forty mortars, the ones
old and he is on theSegovia.
from Rambla?" Asksconductor
Tram Lieutenant Ortuño.
until the
war, socialist since he had the use of reason, the Party since 34. Gambo looks at him and
shrugs his shoulders.
"They have also retreated to the town, because that place becomes the front line."
"Don't bother, Major."
-Yes.
"Who ordered that?"
-I do not know. The truth is that with the fascists so close, they were very exposed.
"But they're our fucking mortars," Captain Serigot interjects.
-Already.
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"At least we have two Maxims left," Ortuño consoles himself. It's something.
They look at each other seriously. Their faces and shirts are wet with sweat. The flies
they have been tormenting them for so long that they no longer bother to scare them away.
"And then," Serigot asks, "what do we paint here?"
Gambo makes an ambiguous gesture.
"Nothing special, I'm afraid." Distract a good portion of the fascist forces and prevent
feel safe if they advance from the cemetery, because we threaten their flank ... In fact, they
We are going to give a coup tonight, something fast and violent, so that they are not comfortable -
he looks at Ortuño. Take care of that.
-At your command.
"We need constant artillery support," Serigot says. Not only from mortars, but from
Vertex Campa. When the fascists come, they will come to the beast.
Gambo makes a reassuring gesture.
—I don't think the requetés will go up… Yesterday and today they have suffered a lot.
"The Moors," says Ortuño. The Moors will rise shouting in their hubbub.
"Our people are well done." They are not flattened by mojamés and turbans.
"Yeah, but fascist bosses don't give a shit about losing lives." They will throw them on us
in waves, as always. Cannon fodder: they send five hundred to make a hundred. There will be
to kill a lot to stop them.
"Easy, Felix." He will kill himself ... Are the two machines well aligned?
"Wonderful," the lieutenant confirms. A little diagonal, as it should be. And we have plenty
ammunition.
"Well, nothing, man." Set them on fire.
Gambo points to the field phone, open in its black Bakelite case. The cable comes out of
the cave and extends between the rocks, protected with earth and stones.
"Another thing that bothers me is that this gossip is starting to cause problems."
"What about him?"
"The line only works occasionally." It passes near the cemetery and may have damaged the
fascist artillery. I have asked to review it.
"Without a telephone, you would have to communicate through links," says García. Copados, we will
raw.
Gambo gives the commissioner a sour look.
"Now tell me something I don't know, Marshal Foch."
"And what did Lieutenant Colonel Landa say?" Serigot intervenes.
"That we embrace each other well, that he will do what he can."
"According to Chuminoski, famous Bolshevik tactician ... It doesn't bother you."
"And that we resist at all costs."
-I feared. I don't like how that sounds.
"Neither do I," Ortuño apologizes.
-Me neither. When it is said at all costs it is always at their expense.
"What's your idea, Major?" Serigot asks.
—If we continue communicated, carry out what is commanded.
-If not?
"Hold on until tomorrow night, whether the fascists attack or not." If by then the situation
has improved in Castellets, and Landa just promised me that yes, they will reestablish contact with
U.S.
Page 223
Serigot stares at him, skeptical.

"I insist ... What if not?"
-We'll see.
The captain does not take his eyes off his. They know each other too much for the second
Ostrovsky's boss settled for evasion.
"And if not, Gambo?"
The elder man sighs, shakes his head, touches the plane and slides a finger from the python to the
town, slowly, as if it was difficult for him to do so. A fly lands on his finger.
"Well then, maybe we have to leave Pepa and make our way to Castellets."
Ortuño and the commissioner lean over the shot, worried; but Serigot keeps looking at
Gambo.
"In twenty-four hours things can get worse, and you know it," he says coldly. We would have
more possibilities now.
"Don't you trust what I'm saying?"
"I don't trust what they tell you." You are not one of those who waste lives for nothing. Pepa is a
mousetrap, and in other circumstances we would be rolling the mat to retire to the town ...
have you told us yet?
Gambo sighs, unbuttons a shirt pocket and takes out a folded paper.
"Lee, come on." It was brought in by a liaison from the command post. In hand, so that you
sign the acknowledgment of receipt.
All units of this brigade will retain their positions without excuse, and in
If they lose them they will fight back to recover them immediately. Lost position must
be regained position. Chiefs are responsible for compliance with this order,
officers and non-commissioned officers.
Signed: Ricardo, Political Commissar, XI Mixed Brigade, 42nd Division
July 30, 1938
Lee Serigot passes it to Lieutenant Ortuño and looks sullenly at Ramiro García.
"Hey, Commissioner ... did you know about this?"
The other nods, uncomfortable.
"I found out ten minutes ago," he justifies himself.
"That's not an order, damn it." It is a most rancid Chechist threat.
"Very Russian-style, on the other hand," Gambo says. Although he assures that the
instruction is general for the entire army of the Ebro.
"And does Lieutenant Colonel Landa agree?"
The head of the Ostrovsky Battalion shrugs.
—Landa lives and lets live… Or in this case, lets die.
Serigot sums it up well, joker.
—San Joderse falls on Saturday.
The sun is already on the other side of town. Crouched in a ditch, chewing Russian meat with a
Slice of bread that smells of gasoline, Vivian Szerman looks up the slope of the Levante Python.
"There Chim comes back," he says.
Beside her, Phil Tabb leans up a bit to watch. Not too much, because the artillery
fascist erupts without a fixed cadence and the projectiles fall unpredictably, beating the
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counter slope and the open space in front of the pine forest of a dusty haze that never
dissipates completely.
"He doesn't seem in a hurry," Vivian says.
"Haste also kills."
Chim Langer goes down the slope seeking the protection of the ground as he crosses with the
international soldiers who, in the same way, taking shelter where they can, rise in
opposite direction to reinforce the ridge, intensely countered from the other side of the
piton. Vivian and Tabb have been in the ditch for a long time, first seeing how the 2nd Company
of the Jackson Battalion attacked and took the top, and how now, after the furious enemy response, the
1st must also go to reinforce the position.
At last Chim comes to them. The photographer comes smudged and gray from going up and down between the
burned python bushes. With one last run, head down, guarding the cameras
with his hands, he reaches for the ditch and falls into it.
"Fuck," he huffs.
And he tells them. The attack was harsh, although the fascists did not have time to entrench themselves well;
so they had to withdraw. They returned within an hour with the artillery ahead, and in this
At the moment, one and the other fight at a short distance, almost on the crest itself. That's why Larry O'Duffy
He has asked Captain Mounsey to join the fight with the reserve company.
"O'Duffy himself is upstairs, holding out," he concludes. I've seen it there.
"How was the taking of the ridge?" Tabb is interested.
-Wild. The internationals attacked fast and well… Admirable, even. Better than what
one would have believed seeing them down here.
"Who was upstairs?"
"Blue shirts, you know." Falangists.
"Those murderous fanatics," Vivian says.
"That's the point," Tabb responds evenly. The stronger the ideas of the
men, the harder the battle.
The photographer casts a somber glance at the python, where the noise of gunfire is still very
intense.
"Up there they must be pretty firm, one and the other." The ideas.
"We saw wounded come down from ours, but not prisoners of them," says Tabb.
Did they capture any?
Chim takes a sudden interest in dusting his Leica lenses.
"I already said they were Falangists," he just says.
Tabb looks at him quickly.
"Did you photograph that?"
-I could not.
"Wow."
"There were five or six of them, some wounded, and they were being interrogated." All quite young.
Then Larry came and ordered me to get out of there… Go have a cigarette, he said.
"Did they kill them?" Vivian asks, shaken.
"What do I know?" I guess so.
"Suppose?"
"I heard shots, but shots I've been hearing all fucking late."
Another artillery shell explodes between the python and the pine forest, without being heard coming. They shrink
the correspondents in the ditch.
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"I didn't have time to see anything else either," Chim continues, "because then the
bombardment, the fascists counterattacked, and he got a big bang. ”He looks up at the ridge. And so it goes.
-You have good pictures? Tabb asks.
—The light was favorable, they are not bad. Three whole reels: the men coming up, the combat
above, the wounded and a couple of dead ... But until the negatives are revealed there is no way to
know it.
"I'd like some of those photos for my story," Vivian proposes.
Chim glances at Tabb, consulting him on the possibility. After all, on this journey
the two work together.
"We'll talk about it," Tabb says.
"Don't be mean, Phil," she says.
"We'll talk about it, I'm telling you."
The American nods resignedly. They are unwritten rules of the trade, as you know all too well. In
In situations like this, the race is done by everyone together, helping each other if necessary; but the
The last meters are run by each one on their own.
Pedro, the Spanish driver, arrives. He comes pale, shrinking his head more than necessary. his
unshaven face has deep dark circles. It is obvious that you wish you were in the Office of
Press in Barcelona or anywhere else other than this one. Bring an unusual package of
dried dates.
"Will you?"
They take a handful each. They taste very sweet.
"Where did you get them from?"
"They were out there ... Some Moor would leave them behind."
Vivian chews the sticky, sugary pulp.
"Is there news?"
"An important one," the Spaniard announces. We have to go.
-Why? Tabb is surprised.
"It's not a safe area." Franco's artillery is increasingly active and there are counterattacks by
everywhere.
"I thought things were going well."
—In war things can go good and bad ... They order from the brigade command post
that we cross to the other bank of the river.
-Now?
-Now.
"We came to see this."
"Well, you've already seen it."
"Bad sign," Vivian says.
The Spanish confirms it with an uneasy glance around.
"We could be trapped here." Pedro looks in the direction of the river, invisible from there. The
Fascist aviation has sunk many boats and the gangway is out of use again. As for the
repair ...
"I'm not leaving," Chim snaps.
They look at him strangely.
-Cast? Vivian asks.
The photographer spits out a date stone and rubs his broad, flattened nose.
"This is going to get very hot, and I'm not going to be watching it from the other shore." I still have ... left
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four blank reels.

"Don't be an animal."
-I stay.
"But the orders of Lieutenant Colonel Landa ...
Chim spits out another bone.
"Fuck Landa." We have an authorization from the Republican General Staff to
accompany the Jackson Battalion. And the Jackson Battalion is here.
Tabb, who hasn't said anything, slightly squints her eyelids.
"Maybe tomorrow at this time," he points calmly, "there won't be much battalion left to
accompany.
"Then we'll see." Chim's tone is aggressive. You go, if you want.
"I didn't say I'm going to go," Tabb responds with the same softness as before.
The three correspondents look at each other: frowning Chim, calm Tabb, indecisive Vivian, who chews the
last date.
"Well, no more talk," he finally concludes. We stayed.
Pedro is scandalized.
"Your key is gone."
"What is the key?"
"The peg that…" He breaks off, shaking his head. Fuck. They can make me
responsible to me.
"Say you can't find us," Chim suggests. Or that it doesn't come out of our balls to leave.
The Spaniard stands up, discouraged.
"Well," he resigns himself. I'ma take a look around, see where we can spend the night
with some assurance ... Do not move from here, please. And no climbing the python.
"Don't worry."
When it disappears among the pines, two orderlies have just come down the slope. They bring a
injured and rush with him. At that moment a shell explodes nearby, and the earth and shrapnel
falls on them. The two throw themselves to the ground with the wounded man; But as the dust fades, only
one stands up. Chim is watching with the eyes of an avid hunter, and suddenly leaves the
ditch and heads there preparing a camera. After a moment of indecision, without reflecting
on momentum, Vivian gets up and runs behind.
The uninjured soldier tries to pull the stretcher, stunned, while his partner lies motionless.
Vivian kneels next to the fallen one, whose base has been breached by a shrapnel
of the skull. Nothing to do there, she concludes, looking fascinated at the still smoking hole, from which
not even blood comes out. The wounded man groans and fidgets with half his body off the stretcher, so
Vivian, reacting at last, pushes him back to her and then grasps the ends of the
poles free, lifting it up as he hears the click, click of Chim's Leica next to him. And so,
between her and the orderly they lead the wounded man to the pines.
She returns to the ditch, where the photographer rewinds the film and Tabb welcomes her with a pleasant
smile.
"You've earned the photo," says the Brit. And also the headline: Our correspondent
Aid a wounded Republican in the front line of fire ... The elegant editors will
envy yours at cocktail hour at the Algonquin, when they see you between an ad for
Palmolive and another by Elizabeth Arden.
-Do not be an idiot. I wasn't thinking about the photo.
-I already know it. If you think certain things, it's when you don't do them ... But yours was good: a
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girl from Connecticut running in Spain with a stretcher between fascist cucumbers - he points to his
partner-. Although you are not happy with Chim.
Look at the American at the photographer.
-Why?
"You've gotten into the picture," he replies sullenly.
-Seriously?
Laughs Tabb.
"He says you screwed up his photo." He came back muttering something about women who play
war.
"Did he say that?"
"Right there."
Vivian punches the photographer on the shoulder, who groans and looks at Tabb.
"You're a sneaky bastard."
"Yes," admits the other phlegmatic. I like to tangle.
"Wow." Vivian takes out his notebook and starts to take some notes. Sorry, Chim.
-Never mind.
"Look at it from another angle, mate," Tabb says philosophically. Harper's will pay you one
pasta for the photo ... And it's funny, right? You play it up there to get good
images, and what makes the afternoon profitable is Vivian with the stretcher.
She keeps the point of the pencil motionless on the page of her notebook. Think of the orderly
dead and the smoking hole in the back of his neck. He would have a name, a family, some friends. And not even
got to see his face.
The Aragonese Falangists fight almost on the crest of the python. They and the internationals who
are above hand bombs are thrown like stones, which rain on either side with
rosaries of flashes and dry bursts: hollow that of the Lafittes, metallic that of the pineapple
Polish and Russian, resounding that of the German wooden ones, alive and tall that of the Italians. Smells like
burned bushes, gunpowder, explosive and men who kill themselves.
With his head bandaged under his steel helmet, Saturiano Bescós advances with his companions,
armed with the rifle with the bayonet, and climbs from stone to stone with the skill of the shepherd who was
before the war, seeking protection every time a grenade explodes nearby, stopping at
gain momentum to shed yours. Beside him, crouching together when a new bomb
Enemy hand arrives through the air, Sebastián Mañas moves like him.
"Careful, Satu, another one is coming! ... Careful, Satu!"
Puuum-bah. Outbreak. Puuum-bah. Outbreak. Offensive and defensive grenades continue
raining like hail. The nightmare never ends, and everywhere the iron, the
aluminum, brass, lead, Bakelite. Around the two Falangists, the
comrades with orders and shouts, aware that they have gone too high to back down
and a withdrawal would mean being machine-gunned from behind. Between the booms the voice is heard
Lieutenant far from Zarallón, that the beginning of the attack ordered to sing the Face to the sun for
impress the Reds, although the bullets started early and no one went beyond laughing the
spring. Of course: someone who throws balls at life, or maybe more than one, because maybe they fall and
they are passing it, he has unfurled the red and black flag of the century, and among the smoke he can
Bescós to see her move, wave, be knocked down and rise again.
"With two balls," Mañas says in a breath, also glancing.
It's funny, thinks Bescós hastily when he shrinks behind a rock to avoid another
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bang and take a breath. Even Mañas, whose family voted to the left in his town,
the same thing happens. Almost everyone does not give a damn about that flag, which is not even the Spanish one with
fringe or without it; but it warms to see her move and that everyone follows her, as they would follow her even if it were
a kitchen towel or broom handle. They go behind her because where she goes the comrades go,
and because the comrades, who are your brothers, are followed wherever they go; and these in turn,
Like yourself, they follow Zarallón, who is a son of a bitch but who would be very ashamed
let it advance alone. Perhaps the right word is loyalty, although neither Bescós, nor Mañas, nor the corporal
Hazelnuts, nor most of the others, whose rural vocabulary is limited, have said or
heard uttered in his life.
"Hit hard, the reds flirt! ... Come on, come on, up Spain!" Hard on them!
It is true. On the ridge stand some figurines veiled by smoke and dust and
they run to the side and back, abandoning their positions. Bescós pick up the Mauser, shoot
against them, he bolts another bullet as he advances, stops and fires again. Nobody shoots anymore
grenades, perhaps because they are not left, and what they sound are continuous firings, Phalangist shots and
buzz of enemy bullets.
—Dump it, Satu, that they gave me.
Look at Bescós to his right and see Mañas jumping on his limp, with his helmet dancing on his
head and a bloodstain spreading down the leg of his pants. Instinctively low
the rifle and comes to help him.
"Wait, I'll put something on you."
He takes
shaking a step
it like in his direction
the cramp and at
of an electric that moment
current. a lead
The pain blowfly grazes
is immediate, sharp his
likeneck,
if they took out his nerves in a bunch, at once. So he groans, drops the rifle and falls from
knees. And it is Mañas who rushes on him, to his aid.
"Satu! ... Satu!"
Lying on the ground, protected behind a rock, they help each other. The de Mañas is a shot
clean entry and exit on one thigh. Bleeds, but not gushing or very often, which
means that no vein or artery is touched. Mañas himself, stoic, opens his cure package
individual and takes out of a pocket a strip of tire rubber that Bescós binds him as a tourniquet,
sticky fingers with blood leaving red marks on the bandage.
"Do you have a vial of iodine, Sebas?"
-Clear.
He breaks it and pours it on the wound. The other clenches his teeth.
"Fucked."
"If it stings, it cures."
"Well, he must heal the hell ... Let's see what you do." Mañas pulls his shirt aside and checks his
neck-. It hurt?
-Not much. What I have is a tick that won't let me move my head.
The other touches the wound, looking closely at it.
"Nothing, it scraped your flesh." Little, the shot of luck. And the tendons don't seem broken ...
Do you have more bandages?
"A pack of gauze."
"Bring." And take off your shirt.
Removing the bayonet from the rifle, Mañas strips the tail of Bescós's shirt.
Then press the gauze from the dressing pack on the wound and bandage the neck with the strips. I know
The two look at them, dirty with soot, their hands bloody. On the ridge, out of sight, follow the
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shooting.
"Cagüenlostia, how close we were," says one.
"Agüentodo," says the other.
"Yesterday the stone on my forehead, and today that I'm wearing my helmet, this."
"Don't complain, hey." This and nothing, relatives of Uncle None ... Let everything come like this.
Sergeant Pochas appears crouched, submachine gun in hand, and stares at them suspiciously.
"What are you doing there?"
"Well, you see, my sergeant," says Bescós, pointing to his neck and his partner's leg.
-. Sunbathing so comfortable.
The noncommissioned officer checks their wounds.
"Can you walk, Mañas?"
The other
circular steel. nods, teeth clenched, with his lean, hard boy face under his visor.
"If this one helps me, yes."
"Come down and get cured, come on ... You two come down."
"Are there no orderlies?"
"They don't climb that high." And be careful, those are leaving but still throwing.
Bescós hangs the rifle from the shoulder opposite the wound and Mañas uses his as a crutch. Y
thus, helping each other, they go down the slope and when they get down they take off their helmets. Hums Bescós a
jota, glad to be there and not up.
Color the face,

when he kissed her he put
color the face ...
The aid station is still on the edge of the road, around the road pawn box.
Under a tent, a doctor operates urgently and half a dozen nurses
They classify and treat the wounded they bring from the python.
"Come on then, Sebas." There are two girls ... They weren't there yesterday.
They look fascinated at the nurses, the first women they have seen since they left Zaragoza.
They are both wearing khaki jumpsuits and red cross bracelets, bloody aprons, and
efficiently move between grounded stretchers.
—They're a brunette and a blonde, like in zarzuelas.
"None is worth a currus, Satu." The tallest could be my grandmother Vidala.
"So what?… In wartime, every hole is a trench."
It is the blonde who takes care of them. Smells like chloroform. Chubby, young, brown-eyed, what in
those circumstances and place make her gorgeous. As soon as he gets closer, the two Falangists fall silent
freaked out and they call it from you. The nurse disinfects Mañas's wound, confirms that no bone
no veins are affected, he gives him a tetanus injection and bandages his thigh while he winks
a conspiratorial eye on his comrade. Then he does the same with Bescós.
"Can you move your arm and neck?"
-Yes ma'am.
"Does it hurt to do it?"
-No ma'am.
"What's wrong with his head?" Why is it bandaged?
"It's nothing, it's from yesterday." Just one hit.
"Your partner must stay here." You can go back to your unit - you put a
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envelope with two Veramón tablets. Take one now, and another when it hurts again.
"I thought I was going to stay here for a while with this."
"It would
as soon take something
as possible else, like your friend." The order I have is for the slightly injured to return
to your units.
Bescós accepts it, resigned. He looks at Mañas and then again at the woman.
"Excuse me, ma'am ... is asking offense?"
-Absolutely.
-What is your name?
The nurse smiles slightly. A tired and understanding smile.
—María del Sagrario.
The Falangist worried, clumsy, blushing.
"Isn't she a nun, by chance?"
The woman's smile is accentuated.
-Not yet.
The young man breathes relieved. Sitting on the ground, his injured leg stretched out, Mañas lights a
cigarette while following the conversation with interest.
"Well, thank you, Dona María del Sagrario," says Bescós.
"Good luck, soldier."
The nurse walks away. Mañas points to her with the two fingers holding the cigarette.
"Fucked." You have it in the boat, Satu. Like that of Zaragoza.
"The whore?"
"That same one ... She made more eyes at you than at the others."
Now it is Bescós who smiles, remembering. It was a long time ago, and it seems to have passed
an eternity. Five pesetas cost him the first woman in his life, the only one to date. Him, Mañas and
the rest of the squad: six boys in their twenties queuing up while
they were waiting their turn in a corridor. I'm not willing to die a virgin, Corporal Hazelnut had said
—The most launched of the group— when they passed, drunk and noisy, in front of La Pena Negra.
And that night, in less than an hour and with a single professional for everyone, the entire squad
resolved the matter.
Bescós hangs the rifle on his shoulder, which does not hurt, and takes his helmet.
"I'm going, Sebas." I will greet the comrades for you.
"I hope you are all doing well."
"I hope so too ... It hurts to leave you, hey."
"And me."
—Take care of yourself, and have a good time.
"Same here."
They embrace with emotion, without trying to hide it. Afterwards, Bescós returns to the company. By
the road observes that there is no more shooting at the top and that it flutters in the soft breeze of the
sunset, the red and black flag. Orderlies with the wounded descend the slope, and also
five men guarded by Falangists. The prisoners look very tired and have hair
Scrambled and dirty with grime and dust. Two are blond, they all look foreign, and the corporal who commands
the escort - a certain Urrás - confirms it to Bescós when he stops to ask for fire for the
dull cigarette that he carries in his mouth.
"International," he confirms. Up there are many pickles, but we have
caught alive.
-Which country are you from?
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"No idea, hey." One seems to me to speak and find out, and the others strange languages. And is that
He has eggs, right?… They come here to kill us and they don't even cheat the language.
"Well, they won't have time to learn it," says another Falangist.
Curious Bescós contemplate the downcast faces of the brigade members. Other times he fought against
they, or so they told her, but she is the first to see them alive and close.
"Are you going to ...?"
Leave the question in the air, lowering your voice. The corporal makes an indifferent gesture.
"It's not our thing." Zarallón has said that we take them to the command of the flag.
"Is the lieutenant still alive?"
"Go on ... We all thought he was going to kill him right there, among other things because
we have found six comrades killed in droves.
-Six?
"Cinco and Sergeant Cierzo ... Apparently the internationals nailed them when they took the ridge."
—Cagüenlostia.
"Well, you know, everyone here fixes his own thing." We believed that Zarallón was going to dispatch
these, I tell you, but he was very content for how he is. Only internationals were charged
wounded who could not walk. And these, he said, bring them down to be interrogated by someone who knows
Languages.
"If they are brigade members, there will be little difference, right?"
"Little, of course." A few more hours of life, tops. And look at their scared faces.
"They know," Bescós confirms.
"Of course they know." And if not, they would have thought about it before coming to fuck the ass,
kill Spaniards, smoke tobacco and fuck our women ... Let's see who gave them
candle at our funeral.
He turns the corporal and looks at the prisoners, squinting from cigarette smoke.
Then he pushes one with the butt of the rifle, without violence.
"Come on, wretches ... Pull up."
And the grim procession continues on its way to the rear.
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232
In the dawn light streaming in through the broken glass window, the young recruits watch
impressed the six bottles filled with gasoline and wrapped in beard paper with twine
that Julián Panizo and his compadre Olmos have left on the ground, in the most protected corner of the
room covered in rubble and chipped furniture remains. The bottles are eight and it is
with them Sergeant Casaú.
"The problem with the tanks is that without infantry around they are blind," explains Panizo. So
that the technique is simple: some keep enemy riflemen away, hitting them many shots,
and the others come up with this and a hand pump ... A bottle is thrown at the chains or the
lower part, which is the most vulnerable, and when the gasoline breaks and spills, we set it on fire with
a hand pump ... As you can see, the thing has little secret.
"Just put a couple of eggs on it," Olmos slaps.
-That's. Gasoline, pump and eggs. There is no better antitank defense than that.
Shots ring out outside, sporadic still. A weak package. Soon the boom resounds
far from a grenade.
"The fascists are beginning to wake up," says Panizo. They have tanks and they are going to bring them
face the recruits. Are there any of you who want to try?… We need two.
The young people exchange glances, undecided. The dynamite is significantly fixed in Casaú,
that he is leaning against the wall with his rifle on his shoulder and his hands in his pockets; but the middle
gypsy remains undaunted, as if the thing was not with him. Who does not take risks today can
fight tomorrow, say his clear, elusive eyes. Or the day after tomorrow. Or better, never.
Panizo points to Olmos.
"Whoever comes with us has to be trusted." One will go with this one and the other with me.
"Have you done it before?" Asks one of the young men.
"Of course, kid." In Brunete.
Raise your hand whoever spoke. And then, after hesitating a bit, another who is by his side. Nods
Panizo, approver.
"Very well, creatures ... do you have names?"
The first to raise his hand has a smiling face, appalled, and twists his mouth cheekily
youth. He wears a military shirt, civilian trousers and espadrilles, holds an old English Lee-Metford and
He wears his scarf very lopsided, brushing his left eyebrow cocky.
"We have names and even surnames," he declares. I, for example, my name is Rafael
Puigdevall, grandfather.
"Grandfather with a second surname?"
"No, I'm telling you that." We, creatures, and you, grandfather ... Right?
"Grandpa will be your father."
The young man holds his gaze, undeterred.
"I hope so, living long enough to give her grandchildren."
Panizo looks him up and down, arms akimbo.
"Let's see, boy." If you are given the choice between here a brave died or here a coward ran,
What would you choose?
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—Positioned in the tessitura, a hare ran around here.

"What's wrong, are you the funny guy from your villa?"
The young man does not blink.
"There were others, but they were killed yesterday on the Fayon road."
The dynamiter contains the smile that rises to his mouth and he looks very seriously at the other bottle.
"What about you?"
"My name is Lluís Masadeu."
Panizo turns to the first.
"How old are you, Rafael?"
-Eighteen years.
Look at the dynamite at the second young man: short, boyish, with pimples on his forehead and nose.
"And you, Lluís?"
-Seventeen.
"And are you as smart as your partner?"
"If we were smart we wouldn't have raised our hands."
Now it is Olmos who lets out the laugh, with Casaú and the others.
"They have caste, the fucked up."
Panizo continues to make efforts to stay serious.
"Comrade Olmos is right: you are two phenomenal uncles for volunteering." Now
It remains to be seen if you are up to the task ... The joker will come with me. And you, Lluís, with Olmos. When you
Let's say, you come and get two bottles each. With great care that they do not break. Then
you come back to us and do what we tell you. It is understood?
-It is understood.
"Understood, grandfather."
Casaú and the other bottles that listen to the conversation smile. When he sees it, he stands
Panizo before the last one who spoke, bringing his face very close.
"Look, Miguel ...
—Rafael.
"Well, okay." Panizo grabs him by the collar of his shirt. Look, Rafael. If you go back to
get over smart, I'm going to hit you seven hosts, do you understand? ... Not one, but seven, one behind
other. It is understood?
The other blinks, now intimidated. His cheek is gone and he's almost firm.
"Yes," he says.
"Well, you'd better, because I don't wear stripes on my sleeve but on my balls." Y
let me give you some advice: beware of old soldiers in a world where you die
young man ... do you get me?
The young man nods his head affirmatively.
"I get you."
-Comrade.
"I get you, comrade."
"That's how I like it ... creature."
Panizo adjusts the belt around his waist with four leather sheaths with grenades
Lafitte, take the orange tree -Olmos repaired the extractor nail, leaving it as new- and points
the door. Outside, the shooting grows in intensity.
"And now, come on," he says to Casaú and the others. Move your ass, we have them there again
fascists.
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They go out to the street. It is covered in bricks and broken tiles, and the facades of the houses look
shrapnel and bullets stung. The night passed calm and that gave a respite; but yesterday the
fighting was intense, reaching close to the church, or what remains of it: black walls
of smoke and mutilated beams under the sky that the sun begins to gild in the east. The tanks
fascists stopped some distance from the republican barricades, waiting for their
infantry secure the ground. And by the fire that the enemy now makes, he senses the dynamite that
those of the Tercio took advantage of the darkness to infiltrate to either side of the street that leads
to the church and the town square. When they come, the tanks will do it over there.
"And they are coming down," he tells Olmos.
After distributing Casaú and the other recruits around the vicinity, the bombers approach
the main barricade followed by the two baby bottles. The four walk crouched, because the
bullets whiz over their heads. A fascist machine gun fires from time to time with bursts
short that rattle on nearby houses and blow up pieces of tile. The barricade is a
parapet the Republicans reinforced overnight: stacked bricks, house rafters,
sandbags. It has a solid appearance and pockets have been made. In one of them are the
Cancela brigade and another soldier with the Mauser TG antitank rifle: heavy and long weapon of the
height of a man, bipod to support it, and 13.2 mm steel core ammunition, which twenty
years ago it was fearsome in the trenches of the Great War but now it has a bad reputation, with its
recoil capable of breaking the clavicle of the unsuspecting shooter and its poor ability to
pierce modern armor if it does not hit at a right angle and within a hundred meters.
"The fascists are moving," Cancela says when he sees them arrive.
"They got close to us tonight," Panizo says, concerned.
The brigade points out the nearby houses, on either side of the street.
"And so close ... Somewhere we have them thirty paces away." They have gotten very close.
"That's the tanks coming," Panizo touches the cold black metal of the tank with little confidence.
TG—. Will you take care of the can opener?
Cancela sighs with little enthusiasm.
"Someone has to," he points to the soldier and the open cartridge box at his feet.
This one will be passing me ammunition.
He indicates Panizo to Olmos and the bottles.
"My friend will go one side of the street and I the other." These lads are coming with us.
They will carry the bottles.
The brigade critically studies the recruits.
"Do you know what they're going for?" -doubt-. Do you have experience in that?
"That's how you have it, isn't it? ... No one is born taught."
Suddenly, without warning, three mortar shells fall in the immediate vicinity, crushing
tiles and raise a dust that spreads across the street. Almost at the same time a
intense gunfire that rattles like hail on the nearby walls and barricade, making
all crouch behind.
"That's it, they're coming," says Cancela.
Facing the anti-tank rifle, look through the porthole, push back the locking mechanism and
he inserts into the chamber the gleaming one-foot-long cartridge that his assistant hands him.
When closed, the click of the bolt sounds like a barrel chamber.
"Each to his own," he adds, and squints one eye, aligning the other with the sights of the weapon.
"Hang the poplar on your back and bring the gasoline," Panizo orders the bottles. Two
bottles each.
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The youths run with their heads down while the two bombers look at each other. Not
they have a lot to say to each other.
"You on the right side of the street," Panizo suggests. And I on the left.
-Voucher.
They check the four hand pumps that each one wears on their waists one by one, and then
they look at each other again.
"Have a good hunt, Julian."

"I'll tell you the same, compadre." Let's go to Pénjamo.
They turn their backs without further words as the two bottles return with the
gasoline bottles. Followed by the so-called Rafael, Panizo goes through the door of the house more
close between those on the left. It thus passes through the perforated partitions with beak blows
until the last one held by the Republicans. There are a dozen men there who shoot
protected behind sandbags that fortify doors and windows. The floor is carpeted with
empty pods and the harsh smoke of gunpowder wafting through the enclosure.
-Who commands here?
The leader of the group, a corporal with gray hair with traces of a veteran whom Panizo knows by sight,
Go back and look at the Lafittes and the gas bottles. That does not require explanations.
"How are you going to do it?" He just asks.
He has a very closed Asturian accent, bleary eyes under the bonnet, a week-old beard and
big dirty hands. The little finger on the left is missing and has four blue dots
tattooed on the back. Panizo crouches next to him and looks cautiously through a porthole.
"Is there a way to get a little closer to that stretch of street?"
The other points to a half-fallen stone wall: the wall of a small corral.
"If you crawl around and we cover you well, you can go there."
"And the house next door?"
"It's no man's land, or was it a while ago ... I don't think those castrones are going to shoot."
from her.
"You don't believe, or are you sure?"
"I'm sure I'm not even my wife."
Panizo studies the terrain carefully.
"Can you really cover us?"
"Here the comrades shoot well," says the corporal, a Degtyarev machine gun stationed
in a window. With that one and the poplars we'll have them crouched down for a while.
"Are you sure? ... The ones in front are bleaches, and those bend little."
-Quiet. There's ammo to burn to spare. ”Her sleepy eyes narrow, she gives him a
She glanced at young Rafael and referred to him with a shake of her head. How about the gourd for
this task?… Will he respond?
-I will tell you later.
The corporal is looking at Panizo at Lafittes's belt.
"Bad are those for this," he says. Either they fail, or they kill one more than the fascists.
—There were no others… Just in case, before throwing them away, I cut the tape for them.
-Host.
-Yes.
"I shit on Grao's pites ... Olé your balls, comrade."
"What a remedy."
Shouts one of those in the embrasures. A cry of alarm.
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"We already have them there," says the corporal.

The dynamiter does not need to lean out to confirm it. With a calm gesture,
fatalist, the orange tree is taken down and left leaning against the wall. Kneeling beside him, with a
bottle of gasoline in each hand, young Rafael has turned pale. He is, like everyone else, listening
the engines and the screeching of chains; but when he feels Panizo's gaze on him, he tries to force
a smile.
"Hey, Grandpa," he says suddenly.
"What the hell do you want?"
—Before coming, a political commissar gave us a harangue saying that Stalin was ours.
father…
-Y?
"Well, I wouldn't want to clap without having my doubt resolved." If Stalin is our father, who
is it our mother?
Santiago Pardeiro is at the other end of the street, leaning around a corner, watching with the
binoculars the republican barricade.
The young man's eyes are cloudy with fatigue, he barely slept three hours last night and
it stands up thanks to a tube of dexedrine tablets. After a week of fighting
dirty from top to bottom, hardly different from his legionnaires in the high boots, the pistol
to the belt and the ensign star on the chapiri and the left side of the shirt stiff with dirt. Yet
thus, although the water supply is still scarce - yesterday a tanker approached the
outskirts of town - has been able to shave and wash a little, in an attempt to maintain
dignity of officer.
"The people are ready, my Ensign."
Sergeant Vladimiro does not look better either: the blond hairs on his beard are
gray, the wrinkles on the face appear more marked and the Slavic eyes have the
opaque tone, patinated with fatigue and gunpowder, of men subjected to long and hard trials.
He also carries a stimulant tablet in his body. When Pardeiro took over the 4th
Company due to the loss of his officers, resolved to keep the White Russian by his side as second in
command. It is Cape Longines who sends the remains of the old 3rd Company, now reduced to
a section that Pardeiro has left in reserve, and it is the reinforcement legionaries who now
they are in the vanguard; although their natural bosses have been lost, they have good sergeants and corporals. It's people
blanked, shock. During the night, guided by the tireless Tonet - the boy continues
moving among the combatants with astonishing diligence and assurance - two platoons
they silently infiltrated through the nearby houses. Now in the light of day they have
started to make intense fire supported by mortars and wait for the rest of the force to attack
seriously.
A crash of engines makes Pardeiro turn his head. They are two German Panzer-I from the
called negrillos, light tanks that approach leaving a gray smoke. They do not carry cannons
like the enemy's Russian T-26s, but a double machine gun in the turret; and their armor
It allows us to support the national infantry from very close, with intense fire. By the turret of the
First the head of the crew appears, a Canarian sergeant with glasses and a black beret with which
Pardeiro was planning the attack last night. After greeting him, the ensign climbs the turret
to mark the objective: to reach the church and the town's main square. From the tank comes the
warm smell from the engine, fuel, grease and oil.
"There is a big barricade at the end of the street," he says. My people start to move inside
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ten minutes. It will do it from house to house, on both sides, protecting you.
"Are there anti-tank guns?" The tanker asks cautiously.
"We haven't seen anything at the reconnaissance."
The other's face twists. He seems restless and eats up half the syllables when he speaks.
"In such narrow streets, if your infantry stays behind and leaves us alone, we'll be sold."
Pardeiro shows him the two long lines of legionaries sitting or kneeling at one another.
side of the street: the sleeves rolled up and open, the rifle ready, looking tense at the ground by the
that they will advance as soon as they receive the order.
"Don't worry," she reassures him. My men are crude people. I already have them in
the houses, and the rest of us will stick to you. ”He jumps to the ground and touches the chapiri.
Good luck.
-Thank you.
The other one says hello, goes inside and closes the hatch. Pardeiro is going to meet with the sergeant
Vladimir.
"Here we go, come on ... Have machetes built."
Pardeiro shouts the order and the two rows of bayonets gleaming in the sun as they
They fit the barrel of the Mausers. With an automatic gesture that he cannot yet banish, the
Ensign looks around looking for his turuta, the cornet of orders that, like the assistant
Sanchidrián, he's been buried for a couple of days. Too many people are missing now, he thinks sadly. And the
tragic trickle never ends. It is also strange to go through the same places again
that until four days ago the legionaries defended with their blood, making the
red every street and every house.
"The men are ready, my Ensign."
With an inner sigh, resigned to what is there, forgetting everything to focus on what
now he must do, the young man takes out the Astra, locks a bullet and puts the safety on. Then look at
Vladimir.
"Come on, come on," he says.
The first tank is set in motion, and then the second starts. One after another they fold the
corner, and at the same time the two rows of legionaries advance slowly first and, after the
corner, running one by one to stand on both sides of the street. Pardeiro heads one and
Vladimiro, another. The covering fire - mortars of two calibers, machine guns and riflemen - is
intense now on the barricade and surrounding houses, but the Republicans are not just lowering the
head, but respond. The bullets hit the facades and eaves, tearing
brick fragments, tiles and pieces of plaster. Of those who go on the other side of the street, Pardeiro
he sees one collapse, falling soft, as if he had no bones, and remains motionless.
"Stick more to the houses!" —Orders his own.
The tanks go one behind the other, slightly staggered, and each one fires with its
two machine guns. The noise is hellish, and amidst the smoke that begins to dissipate in the
enemy position, since the mortars have stopped firing, it is seen how the tracers furrow the
air and the dense gusts impact a hundred meters into the red barricade, lifting
fragments and puffs of dust.
Take Pardeiro the Zeiss to study the position. He's looking on his knees when he feels that
a buzz grazes the collar of his shirt, and behind him there is a crack of broken bone and a
groan. His skin bristling, making such an inhuman effort to remain impassive that he knotted
tendons in his arms, the young man manages to keep the binoculars glued to his face.
"Look at that man!" He orders without turning around.
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The first tank clatters to the right, somewhat ahead, and the ensign breathes the
acrid smoke from burned gasoline. Suddenly, above the noise of the engine and machine guns
resounds a high-pitched, vibrating metallic sound, a prolonged claaang of steel on steel, and something
hard and fast it hits the armor, bounces, passes over Pardeiro's head and makes a hole of
a foot on the adjoining wall.
"Red-bye," the legionnaire behind him exclaims.
Puzzled, the ensign crouches down and tries to find out what has happened. Something similar must
to have the head of the first tank in the head, because the vehicle stops firing and stops
with a screech and a slight nod on its chains, as if it were the mechanical monster itself
the one who hesitated. But immediately he advances and his machine guns fire again fiercely.
A second impact arrives: another claaang sound that vibrates in the steel, bounces again and is
Once you are going to get lost somewhere on the street. That is when Pardeiro understands: the reds
they are firing from the barricade with a small caliber antitank. Also the crew
of the Negroes seem to have understood, for the four machine guns are now focused on
him, beating it down with raging fire as the two tanks forge ahead.
But that is the problem, warns the ensign: that the tanks advance, but the intense fire that
the reds do diagonally, from every row of houses across the street, delaying the
infantry. It moves very openly, shots buzz everywhere, and
Legionnaires fall dead or wounded in the web of bullets woven around them. Own
Pardeiro shudders when he feels the impacts a few centimeters away, when he sees the brief puffs of
dust bouncing off the ground, near your feet, or on the walls you hit
as if yearning to go through them to get out of there. He is at the head of his line. A sudden hail makes
He stops and kneels, a legionary passes him and a bullet sounds with a click. It stops
the stupor-faced legionnaire looks at the ensign as if holding him responsible and collapses
against him splashing him with the blood that escapes from his mouth.
Pardeiro stops crouching in a doorway while the fallen one bleeds to his side. Continue like this
It is going straight to suicide, and his calm breaks down for ten agonizing seconds. Brain
it closes in on him like a hedgehog and he can't think clearly. Look confused at Vladimir's people,
that he is in the same situation; and turning his face further he sees the legionaries who, overwhelmed,
sweaty, huddled as best they can next to their dead and wounded, stoically await the next
order. That is what to command, he concludes: to order others to do impossible things that may
cost your life. But also take care of them, saving as many lives as possible.
-Behind! He decides at last. Drop back!
The negrillos are already ten meters ahead, with no infantry to protect them. Powerless,
Pardeiro watches them go away without being able to warn them that they are alone. And then, between the
smoke from the tanks and the gunfire, behind a small stone wall located a little further and
across the street, a lone figure stands up. He carries what looks like a
bottle of gasoline.
Julián Panizo hardly thinks, nor does he feel. He is not even intimidated by the crash of bullets
they buzz and bang everywhere. War is captured with the eyes and ears, and in that it concentrates
his whole being. In seeing and listening. In this partial and intense way is how the world perceives while
he crawls through the open-air corral, along the wall parallel to the street. It is your instinct to
veteran fighter, his reflexes trained by two years of uncertainties and dangers, which governs
their movements. The dynamiter advances slowly, cautious, drenched in sweat, trying not to
be seen. Feeling Rafael in his boots, the young bottle that comes behind leaning on the
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elbows, with the two bottles in his hands.

Panizo stops. The noise of motors and squeak of chains is very close. Less than ten
meters, calculate. On the verge of caramel. Raising his eyes a little, he studies the house uneasily
next. There is a window in it, and he is afraid to see some
fascist to scorch him with shots. But the companions who are further back, covering him, do
well its work. Republican shots pass thick over the two crawling men.
If there is an enemy stationed in that window, the fire that is made on it is so intense, stinging
the wall, making splinters jump out of the frame, which would have to be crazy to risk the bagpipes.
"Get ready, Rafael."
With movements that he made many times before - same calm with which in other time
drilled holes hundreds of meters below ground - the dynamiter undoes one of the
holsters and takes out a Lafitte. Then he opens the knife and, resting his thumb on the tile of
security, cut the four wraps of insurance tape with one cut. From now on, when I withdraw
the pin and throw the grenade no matter what distance, any hit will make the
percussion mechanism.
With the grenade firmly in his left hand, pressing the tile with his thumb, Panizo turns
towards his partner.
"Pass me a bottle."
The other one passes it to him. For a moment the veteran's eyes meet those of the bottle: tense
some, the others scared. The boy, Panizo acknowledges, is behaving well.
"If I fail, you can pass me the other one ... Do you understand, child?"
"Yes, grandfather."
—And if I fall, you throw it.
-Me?
"Yeah, shit, you." There is no one else here.
He nods the bottle, finally decided, although his chin is shaking. Then Julián Panizo
he thinks briefly, just two seconds, of his wife and children. Just those two seconds.
I'd also light a cigarette right now, he concludes. But although he has plenty of desire, he lacks
hands. Then take several deep breaths, tense your body and stand up on an impulse,
Lafitte in one hand and bottle in the other. He hums under his breath, almost without realizing it, not
hear the bullets:
Fly in calm, blue nights,

we are pioneers, children of workers ...
There is nothing on the street that is new; rubble, bullet-riddled houses,

steel that whiz by, loose booms or in bursts: the sad landscape where perhaps Panizo
is going to die. And, six or seven paces away, the closest of the two advancing mechanical monsters
slowly, their chains creaking that crush the ground, leaving behind a black and gray smoke.
Be on guard,
be on guard
the implacable and cruel bourgeois ...
Neither thinks nor calculates; no time for that. Pull back your body, lengthen your right hand, and
He throws the bottle with all his force against the side of the tank. Hit the rear, right
behind the turret, where the engine is; glass breaks and gasoline runs on steel.
Then Panizo passes the Lafitte to his free hand, removes the pin, and throws it too. He
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burst, an orange flash, sprouts when it is thrown to the ground again; not fast enough,
fragments of shrapnel pass dangerously close, hitting the wall or falling into
the corral. But the dynamiter reaches the ground unscathed, with the fierce glee of having done it and continuing
alive.
There is a strong smell of burning oil and rubber, nearby flames crackle and shouts of
joy in republican positions. When you open your eyes and look up, Panizo
he finds that a dense black smoke curls towards the sky from the street; and when the
Seen to the side, he finds his eyes full of admiration for the Rafael bottle, who smiles and offers him
the second bottle of gasoline.
"The other one is too far away." The dynamiter shakes his head. Let's see if my compadre
Olmos succeeds.
"With my friend Lluís, you mean."
"Of course, child ... With him."
There is a bombshell bite on the wall: a hole between the stones through which Panizo, who
crawls up to him, risks taking a look. From there you can see the nearby tank, burning with
the turret hatch open, and the other fascist armor stopped a little further, firing
furiously the two machine guns. And you can also see, with the soul in a fist, two men who
they come running crouched down the other side of the street, Olmos and his bottle, while the
bullets dot them around, and he sees Olmos, undaunted, throw his bottle at the tank, and then
the hand pump.
Then something simultaneous and terrible happens: at the same time that the second tank catches fire
With a blinding flash, a thick volley of gunfire strikes around Olmos and his
partner; and when Olmos quickly retreats in search of shelter, the other one, who is still in the
hand the second bottle of gasoline, he is suddenly engulfed in a flare that makes him
in a human torch that runs aimlessly, falls at last and writhes screaming that, for a
moment, they silence the resonance of combat.
There is a stir in the Flour Mill. The command post of the XI Brigade is seething with tension and
nerves begin to manifest themselves in orders and attitudes. Every moment they come and go
hurried links, Lieutenant Colonel Landa, the Russian and the others do not raise their eyes from the
maps or take their ears off the phone, and the two hours that Pato Monzón and la Valenciana
they were attending the switchboard they have been crazy, with calls from all positions
calling for gunner support, ammunition and reinforcements. Booms and shots are sometimes heard every
closer time, towards the center of town. And just twenty minutes ago, on the very bank of the river,
Fascist aviation has bombed and machine-gunned a score of wounded who were waiting to be
evacuated, making a carnage with them.
Pato is lying in the shade, resting with Vicenta la Valenciana. They eat four figs
ripens that have changed for a cigarette, chewing carefully because the pulp
red and sweet there are small fragments of shrapnel. Every time they find one they spit it out as if
was an olive stone.
Sergeant Exposito appears. His usual sullenness seems more vinegary than usual.
"Come with me," he orders.
"They've just relieved us," protests La Valenciana.
"Come, I tell you."
They get up and follow her inside, to the table where the bosses are, including the
Lieutenant Harpo. The atmosphere is thick with smoke. It smells of cigarettes, sweat and dirty clothes. Faustino
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Landa, his sleeves rolled up and his shirt open to the waist, a half-smoked cigar between
teeth, study the map of Castellets and its surroundings. When he sees them arrive he raises his head, orders
Let them come over and show them the situation.
"The Lola python is missing," he says point-blank. The internationals have fought back two
times without success. Now they just keep the line around here, along the pine forest ... On the side
opposite, you see, the fascists have the cemetery and ours contain them entrenched in the
place we call the Rambla. The same thing happens in the center of town, look - he scrutinizes them from
up and down, valuing them. Put the situation in your head, because you are going to need it.
That said, look at Lieutenant Harpo, leaving the details to him.
"What resists well is the python Pepa," the lieutenant intervenes. We have the Battalion there
Ostrovski, who are fetish people ...
"A tough nut to crack for the fascists," Landa apologizes.
"The problem," Harpo continues, "is that between the graveyard and the enemy positions in the
people have been strangling our communication with Pepa. The Ostrovski is not cool, but
he's close to being. ”He hesitates for a moment and looks at Landa, who nods. Your defense is
fundamental for everything to endure.
Pato raises a hand.
"So that everything can last until when?"
Harpo ignores the question and studies the map intently, as if looking for the answer there. Duck
looks at the Russian, who has not parted his lips, and sees that the commissioner's icy eyes
politician do not depart from it. It's as if a strange animal is watching me, she thinks uncomfortably. A
cold and dangerous fish.
It is the lieutenant colonel who answers.
"So that everything can hold out as long as necessary," he brusquely ditch. So keep communication
with Pepa, it's a matter of life or death — he looks at the women. You are aware of what is happening,
not?
Duck nods. When she was relieved twenty minutes ago, she says, there was no good communication
phone with that position.
"We still don't have it," Harpo confirms. The line was bad, but now it doesn't work.
"And that's a serious inconvenience," Landa points out. I am communicating with him
Ostrovsky Battalion using links, but going through that bottleneck becomes complicated,
and they killed two of me. So I need to reset the line - look at Harpo and the sergeant
Foundling. That they carry as much as they need and that someone escort them ... Okay?
"They agree," Expósito says.
Landa sucks on the cigar and gives them a distracted look.
"What is your name, comrades?"
—Patricia.
—Vicenta.
"Well, remember that your mission is important." So to that, my daughters ... He told me
your lieutenant that you are effective and brave. Let's see if you show it.
"Yes." The Russian's frosty eyes are still fixed on Duck. Let's see if you show it.
Fifteen minutes later, Tokarev pistols at the belt and three magazines of ammunition each, the
two young men hang their backpacks on their backs, which include a kilometer of telephone cable in
two reels and two field telephones. The nine kilos of cable, added to the ten of the NK and the
rest of the material - the Valenciana carries the other phone and the second coil - they nail the straps
on the shoulders of Pato, who also carries the canteen and the tool bag. Not going
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to be able to run a lot if necessary, he thinks with resignation. But it is what it is, and it has been
trained for it.
They are ready to go, so they go out to the patio. Sergeant Exposito waits there, accompanied by
a bearded man, angular and skinny, with a fleeting gaze under the capped strawberry tree cap. He
soldier wears espadrilles, carries a Destroyer carbine slung over his shoulder and some old
holsters clinging to faded blue jumpsuit. A half-smoked cigarette peeks over
the ear and an arm surrounds him the purple band of the links of the staff.
"His name is Mingo and he's our escort," Expósito says.
The so-and-so raises an indolent, half-clenched fist to the frill. Pato is surprised to see that
the sergeant wears an orange box and a belt with two chargers. He has wrapped his head with a
black scarf, which accentuates the character of his dry and tough features.
"Our, you say?"
Exposito takes the satchel from her to ease the weight and hangs it on him.
-I'm going too.
Without further explanation, they start walking along the telephone cable, which in some places is
hanging from poles and trees and in others it goes on the ground. The soldier opens the route, Pato and the
Valenciana, and Exposito closes the march. As they leave the Flour Mill behind, the young woman looks at one and
another side with the hope of finding Captain Bascuñana there; but only manages to see the
shed to which the wounded continue to arrive from the village and the men digging trenches and
they stack sandbags. Which is not a good sign.
From the town, which they surround without penetrating it, the roar of combat continues to arrive:
rifle shooting and explosions of mortars and grenades. Every now and then the blue sky without a cloud seems
tear with the projectiles that come from the Vertex Campa and will explode in the positions
enemies of the eastern python and the cemetery. Nor are the fascist cannons idle, and
some of their shots land on the west python or near the river, or fire from
counterbattery on the republican artillery.
After a while of walking, this Mingo stops and looks carefully from one side to the other. Taking off
the half cigarette from his ear, he puts it in his mouth, takes out a cigarette lighter and lights it with
parsimony. The three women stop beside him.
-What happens? Exposito asks.
The other shrugs his shoulders as he lets the smoke out through his half-open mouth and nose.
"The trail brings us too close to the fascists."
"Have you been here before?"
-Twice.
Pato recognizes the place: the nearby Rambla and half a kilometer the slight height of the cemetery,
with what remains of its white wall and the cypresses now topped and bare. He followed the same
He walked a week ago, the day of the river crossing, when he went to contact the Second Battalion.
"Is there no one between us and them?" -question.
"I hope there will continue to be." We have a line of trenches along the Rambla, which
go down to the river. But even so, we should veer to the left, getting closer to the town.
"And the cable?" Exposito asks. You have to follow it all the time, without losing sight of it.
"That's not my thing anymore."
"But it is ours." The fault may be in this section.
Mingo looks to the left, worried.
—The other problem is that we don't know how far the fascists have come in
village. Do you see those houses? ... Well, they are the same as ours.
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"This is like playing at half past seven," says Valenciana.

—And that you say it. We are at the neck of the bottle. If we fall short, they give us a
side, and if we go over, the other.
Exposito studies the place very carefully. Then look at the soldier.
-What do you propose?
Mingo takes a long drag on his cigarette.
—If you say that you have to follow the cable, continue and period ... The best thing is that I go ahead, to
ten or twelve steps so that you can see me. And so we are testing it.
"And why you?"
"It would be a shame if you were shot."
-Why?
"I shit the hell out of it." Because you are women.
Motionless and silent, the sergeant stares at him for a few seconds.
-Hey you.
-Tell me.
"Go fuck yourself."
The other blinks, draining his cigarette.
-Nor is it to be so.
"I wear how it comes out of my pussy."
That said, Exposito takes off the orange tree, mounts the bolt, and starts to walk ahead.
"Fuck the Bengali sergeant," the soldier says. What a milk you have.
"He's from the hard line," Pato points out, amused. It has the headquarters of the Mountain and Somosierra
on the resume.
The other frowns, puzzled.
-Resume?
"Who was there, come on." There and elsewhere.
-Ah good. What strange words do you aunts use.
"Comrades."
"Well, that ... Comrades."
They advance checking the cable. After a while, Mingo takes over from Exposito in the lead.
It's hot and the python stands rocky and brown in the overhead light that crushes the shadows. When
they pass closer to the town stray shots are fired that are not aimed at them, and some bullet whistles
high above their heads. Soon they see three dead mules next to an artillery crater, swollen to the
sun and covered with flies. He could smell them from afar.
"Poor animals," says La Valenciana.
They walk crouching next to a narrow trough from which a reed bed appears when they
soon Mingo stops, inviting them to listen. Pato attends and hears very quiet voices, like
outside the war:
—There is no mus, and he who cuts, envies.
"Well, look where, I send more."
"Four are many, comrade."
"Well, two for me, long-beaked."
They approach with caution and look out onto the Rambla. Under a shade of canvas and reeds, four
soldiers play cards. They have a wine cask and they use pistol bullets as ropes. Not
are not at all surprised to see the group appear, although they look curiously at the
women.
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-What are you doing here? Exposito asks.

They are acemileros, responds with a lot of phlegm one who has the gallon of end in the frill. The
Fascist artillery has left them without mules and they have nothing to do.
The sergeant stares at them in amazement.
"But the fascists are nearby."
-Okay, yes. But that's a matter for the infantry.
"Are you sure?"
-What I say.
The acemileros return to their letters very calm and the group continues the march. Is it so
reaching the python. Coming shots ring out and bullets buzz low so they lie down on the
I ground while Pato and the Valenciana mount their pistols, just in case. They stay like this for a while
All four of us stay still, until the shooting slows down. Then they get up and walk with their heads down and
without losing sight of the telephone cable, with great precautions, when among some bushes they come to
a soldier crouched with his pants on his knees and his rifle on the ground, making his
needs. Seeing them pass by, undeterred, he raises his closed fist in impeccable greeting
republican.
"It's a crazy world," La Valenciana sums up.
He just said that and is still smiling when he hears the sharp tear of a
artillery that comes from the other side of the python, explodes a few meters away and kills her and Mingo.
No matter how hard he tries - he has been trying for a week - Ginés Gorguel cannot
detach from war. It follows in his footsteps, adheres to it like a paste, wraps it in a
sinister mesh from which he cannot escape.
"This is bullshit, Seliman."
—We are not so bad, paisa… God help.
"Well, it could help a little more."
"Shut up, you say." Respect your holy name for your head.
This is how the old carpenter of Albacete laments his fate while under the shade of a pine
watches the river bank, again with a rifle in his hands, next to the Moor Selimán and a score of
of soldiers collected, like them, from here and there. After the combat with the tanks in the
Fayón highway, Gorguel and the Moor were added to a heterogeneous platoon made up of
survivors of the Monterrey Battalion and the XIV Tabor de Melilla - Castellets garrison
annihilated on the first day of the Republican offensive - who have been hunted like fugitive dogs
when they roamed the vicinity or fled scattered to the rear: two dozen
Moors and Spaniards, placed under the provisional command of a sergeant and three corporals from the Battalion of
Baler, patrol between the pine forest and the banks of the Ebro to avoid republican infiltrations by the
eastern sector; Although, more than enemies in good shape, what they have been finding for a day and a half
they are scared red, some with little desire to fight and others alone or in small groups that
they look for the opportunity to go to the nationals. The last arrive raising their hands, trembling
out of fear, unsure whether those targeting them are their saviors or, by miscalculation -
It is difficult to differentiate uniforms—, executioners who will take them to the wall for deserting. Then comes
relief, even joy. Even prisoners against their will calm down after the first
moment, certain that, although prisons and concentration camps await them, the combat
it's over for them. When it comes to men on the run, there is little gallantry in defeat.
Three more appear now. From the edge of the pine forest where he is stationed, Gorguel watches them run
about a hundred meters along the shore. Either they are red that feel the way to cross the river, or they look for
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go. Of those they have caught a dozen today; so, being carried away by laziness, the
Albacete looks askance at Selimán and at the end of his squad, which is a little further
lying under a pine tree, pretending not to see the fugitives. Let the others take care of the
platoon, deployed a little further. He has complied with the homeland and is now calm and
shadow. Why complicate your life.
"There are two or three there, you see," Seliman says suddenly, indicating the river.
Annoyed and reluctant, Gorguel looks in the direction the Moor is pointing with one arm.
"The same are ours," he says.
"Crazy thing you say… Urraseq, come from the front, take a good look at the view." Sure to be
flings.
Turning around, willful as always, Selimán goes to warn the corporal and returns with
this. Sleepy, the corporal takes a look. He is a short, tanned Extremaduran with dirty teeth.
"Rogelios," he said. Do they carry weapons?
"God knows."
"What I want is to know."
"It doesn't look good," says Gorguel.
The corporal sighs and looks at the sun with annoyance, he bolts a bullet and turns to Gorguel and the
Moor.
"Let's stop them, okay? ... If they don't obey or get silly, shoot."
They follow him, preparing their Mausers. The fugitives have disappeared behind some bushes. Maybe
they see them approach and hide, unsure who they have run into. When they meet
Twenty paces, the corporal signals Gorguel and Seliman to stop and move away from each other.
Then he puts the rifle to his face and aims at the bushes.
"Let's see, you guys!" Get out of there!
Nobody moves.
"Drop your weapons and come out with your arms raised, or we shoot!" I'll count to three!… One!
… Two!…
Three unarmed men join, raising their hands. They are young: wild hair, clothes
dirty, espadrilles. One wears a blue jumpsuit and the others combine military garments with civilians.
All three tremble as if they had malaria.
"Approach slowly." Without lowering your arms.
Obey, submissive. Fear dulls their eyes as they look at the muzzles of the rifles that
they aim.
-Who are you? Asks one.
"I ask the questions," answers the corporal. Where do you come from?
They point back toward the shore, upriver.
"From the town," says one.
"And where did you go so hidden?"
They look at each other, fearful. One of them, the one who wears the blue jumpsuit, studies the clothes and weapons of his
captors very carefully. The eyes finally stop at Seliman, and that seems to reassure him
a little.
"Are you nationals?"
"I asked you where you were going."
The soldier swallows, still undecided. With the gesture of someone who gambles his life upside down.
"We were looking to pass by."
"And your poplars?"
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"We threw them away."

"If yours get caught unarmed and passing by, they'll shoot you."
-I already know it. That's why we hid when we saw you.
"And how do you know we are not red?"
The other indicates Selimán, who has slung his rifle on his back and is searching his pockets.
and those of his companions.
"I guess because of this one."
"What is it, do you Reds have Moors?"
-Not that I know.
"Well, you guys were lucky." We are nationals of the fetén Spain… Where are you from?
"I'm from Castellón and these two are from Murcia."
"Can you give us water?" Another soldier asks.
"Later," the corporal replies and looks at Seliman. Does anyone carry identity papers?
The Moor shakes his head.
"Nothing ... Only photos and letters, I say you."
The first to speak points to the bushes.
"We broke them when we saw you."
"How long have you been mobilized?"
-Less than a month. But from the beginning we thought to pass us.
"That you tell later to those who question you."
As they talk, Selimán squats and evaluates the loot on the ground: a package
mediated cigarettes, wallets with some photos, letters worn from being read so much and money
Republican, two chitters, a crust of stale bread, a cigarette paper booklet, a
bracelet, a razor and a gold ring. With the greatest naturalness in the world, he distributes the
cigarettes with Gorguel and the corporal and everything else is saved.
"How is the thing on the other side?" Asks the corporal.
"Bad ... Lots of casualties and the river behind us." They send us to the slaughterhouse anyway.
We are from Coast Defense, and you see. They brought us deceived, without equipment and without more
instruction that the courtyard of the barracks. We hadn't shot each other until two days ago.
The cape is turned towards Gorguel and Selimán.
"Take them to the rear and come back at once." Have a receipt signed.
The two of them set off on the road, rifles on their shoulders, relaxed, escorting the
young boys. As they move away from the front, they cheer up and even joke with each other.
In a little while they reach the road; and half a kilometer beyond, leaving behind two
control and after surrounding the holm oak where two days ago they fought against the red tanks
—The antitank guns are still there, camouflaged with bushes—, they arrive at a grove full of
soldiers.
It smells like a ranch. There are tents, trucks and mules, and among the trees a
mobile kitchen in front of which a long line waits with the aluminum plate in hand while
others, seated, put the spoon. Beans with rice, it seems. Gorguel's appetite is triggered.
Seated in front of a tent, an infantry lieutenant receives them indifferently.
"Passed or prisoners?" He just asks.
"They say past," Gorguel replies.
After a brief questioning and jotting down the names, the lieutenant writes a receipt and gives it to him.
delivery.
"Take them back there, Sergeant Martinez," he says.
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And it ignores the matter. Gorguel and Selimán lead the three young men, they ask the
way, and at last they come to a hollow surrounded by carob trees where a hundred of
men divided into two groups and watched by rifle soldiers on their shoulders. This Martinez is a
A forty-year-old petty officer with curly hair, a poorly shaved chin and rough hands, with a mean face
fleas.
"If they are past, let them go with those," he says, pointing to the smaller group: a dozen
men also under surveillance, whose only visible privilege over others is that they are
sitting in the shade of the trees, not in full sun.
"We sympathize with Franco," the blue jumpsuit protests weakly. Because
we are here.
The sergeant clicks his tongue like someone who has heard that a hundred times.
"Of course, man." Just like everyone ... But we will clarify that. Now go sit down
there, quiet. Come on.
"But hey, is that I ...
The sergeant gives him a slap that snaps dry, like a gunshot.
"Sit there, I tell you!"
Gorguel notices that Selimán gives him with his elbow, and when he turns he sees that the Moor indicates
eyes that it's time to go. He too is of the same opinion, so they turn to
get away from the hollow. Earlier, Gorguel takes a look at the larger group, that of
prisoners. Dejected, dirty, their clothes in tatters, some barefoot, they are sitting or
lying on the ground, huddled together. Several cover their heads with scarves and it is the
his a pathetic image of desolation and defeat. Gorguel looks away when he discovers that
a middle-aged man with a bony face and a beard of several days stares at him.
His face is vaguely familiar, although he cannot establish from what. And then, restless, he sees that
the prisoner stands up, catches the attention of a soldier with whom he exchanges a few words, and
This one alerts Sergeant Martínez.
"Hey, you," says the NCO.
Gorguel turns, already walking away. Surprised.
-Is to me?
"Yes, to you." Wait a minute.
The sergeant approaches sullenly, observing him with distrust.
"There's one there who says he knows you."
Look at Gorguel towards the hollow.
"Well, I don't know… I don't think so."
"He says you're from Albacete, like him."
"I've never seen that guy."
"But are you or are you not from Albacete?"
"No, well ... I mean." Yes.
-They were? Are you or are you not?
"I'm from there," Gorguel admits.
"He also says that before the war you were a little red."
The ancient carpenter pales.
-Sorry?
"That you were voting on the left."
"And what does he know?"
"That should be clarified."
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"There is nothing to clarify, Sergeant ..."

- My sergeant.
"There is nothing to clarify, my sergeant." I have been with the nationals since July 36.
—To see your documentation.
Gorguel feels his clothes, mechanically.
-I have not. I've lost her in all this madness.
"Wow, man." What a coincidence ... Where did the Uprising catch you?
-In sevilla.
"Well, maybe that's why you're with us and not with them." As so much scoundrel that
now raise your arm after clenching your fist.
Gorguel, bewildered, gets his words stuck.
"Hey…" he starts to say, and gets stuck.
The sergeant stares at him.
-What?
"It's nonsense," he finally articulates. I've been in Castellets since before they attacked ...
I fought in the town, in the piton next door and on the road to Fayón.
"That's what you count."
Look at Selimán from Albacete.
"You tell him, come on."
The Moor confirms it, honest and energetic.
"You tell the truth, güina, sergento, I swear to you ... I've seen our guirra do well and
kill bastards.
The sergeant barely looks at him.
"You shut up, jamido."
The other is not downcast. His very black eyes sparkle with indignation.
"I don't shut up or call Jamido but Seliman al-Barudi, arrigular soldier." And this is a man
our of Franco santo, I guarantee to you.
The sergeant gives him a quick, dismissive glance up and down.
—What about the milk… What laws has the morube.
"I really mean the great one, maak el haq ," Seliman insists. For my father's head and eye
mine that he is a man guino a lot, sergeant. I swear to you.
"That's what we're going to find out: how good or bad is this garment?"
he asks Gorguel sourly. Come on, the rifle.
The Albacete is changed.
-What?
"Give me the rifle." Are you deaf, or what?
"I repeat to you ...
With a sigh of impatience and annoyance, the sergeant takes the Mauser away from him and pushes it
to the side of the hollow where the prisoners are.
"Fuck you move."
Powerless, dazed and with the world spinning, feeling that his legs give way,
Gorguel is awkwardly pushed around. Selimán tenacious protest, who does not depart from them,
and the sergeant ends up turning menacing towards the Moor, violently shaking his arm
by the one who grabs it.
—And you shut up, jamido ... Or by my holy eggs that I enchiquero you with this one.
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Monsoon Duck turns the handle of the field phone's magneto, contacts the
command post of the brigade and warns Sergeant Exposito.
"Line restored," he says.
The other one checks it, nods and looks for Gambo Laguna, who is nearby. This one comes
hurried. Expectant.
"Do we already have communication with the Flourmaker?"
"It seems so, Comrade Major."
The head of the Ostrovsky Battalion lights up.
"You are wonderful ... May Saint Lenin bless you."
Duck moves away between the rocks, trying not to show himself too much. The west python is
under the sporadic fire of fascist mortars, which from time to time explode with a crash
bouncing stones and shrapnel. Also some enemy shooters have gone up a bit,
getting close enough to harass those silhouetted against the sky on the ridge.
The sun is very low on the horizon and the loose clouds looming on that side are beginning to
dyed mother of pearl and orange. Duck sits with his back against a rock and his feet resting on
another, her face flushed from the fading light. The landscape is beautiful; but the dying of the day, the
The imminence of the night approaching from behind the python makes him uneasy. It is as if a
A cold breath ran down her back, shaking her with uncertainty. There are many ways to
fear, in the last week he has known most of them, and he knows that the fear of what is
to come is the worst of all.
A distant, isolated rifle shot sounds, which the echo maintains for a moment in the air. The young woman
he huddles between the rocks and contemplates the landscape, trying not to look at the sun directly. At the foot of
python can see the vines it winds its way through distant blue mountains, the
Mequinenza road. And near it, with glows that reflect the twilight, the wide
bend of the river that intervenes between the right bank and the Sierra de Campells: quiet landscape in
The one where the war seems to have faded Something similar to the day of Creation, or the end of
world.
Reaching into a pocket, he takes out his last crumpled Luquis package and checks,
desolate, there are only three cigarettes left. Even the Ebro never imagined how important the
Tobacco in War: Relief, Comfort, Company. Why are men capable of any
thing for putting a cigarette to your lips. She has never been a heavy smoker, and a pack could
last for more than a week; but since it went into fire, as for most of those who
surround, smoking has become an obsession. So he takes out his penultimate cigarette,
Put it in your mouth, put the package away and take out the chip. So when you are about to hit the
dirty palm of the hand to the wheel, remains motionless when noticing the nails, which have remains
of blood of Vicenta la Valenciana. A blood that also stains, brown and dry for
four hours, one leg of the blue jumpsuit.
A metallic noise makes him turn his face. Sergeant Exposito has supported the submachine gun in the
rock, sitting next to him. He is, like Duck, dirty with sweat, dirt and dust, blackened the monkey
crawling through the burned bushes as they repaired the phone line cut by a
morterazo. The weary face of the former militia woman looks thinner and harder than ever.
"Don't think about what you're thinking," he says. Take care of things that prevent it.
Pato looks at her, surprised.
-And how do you get that?
"With practice." And you already have it.
The young woman shakes her head sadly.
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"I've seen a friend die before ... but never like this."
-I know what that is. Someone is, and suddenly is not.
Pato closes her eyes and the memory hits her like violent water from a torrent: Mingo
destroyed, split into two pieces of horrible reddish fringes, the Valenciana with her body covered
of earth, riddled and broken, her life dying through half a dozen holes, and she on top,
trying to cover them with his hands, the heat of the blood spurting between the
fingers, the eyes of the dying woman, who stared without seeing, slowly darkening as their
lifetime. The ragged, hoarse, almost liquid breath, and the suffocated, weak breath turned into a moan
that faded in the immobility of death.
"Hopefully it's worth it," she murmurs grimly.
"Of course it's okay," says the sergeant with conviction.
"It was so… so sudden, everything." I look aside and it seems to me that she is going to be right there,
laughing ... And poor Mingo.
-Yes. He too.
He smokes Pato slowly, inhaling deeply the cigarette smoke. The sun, which already touches the
horizon, is a distant red disk that begins to wane at its base.
"War does strange things to us," he says. I was a middle class girl
that I tapped on my way to work, that I went to the cinema and the terraces of the Vistillas or to dance in
the picnic areas of the Casa de Campo. Who cared about the dress, the lipstick, having
well plucked eyebrows ...
"And here you are."
"Yes, here I am." With Valenciana blood on her nails. Not like you, what ...
She falls silent, unsure, feeling that she is going too far. After all, who
next to her is Sergeant Exposito. Nobody less on purpose for confidences.
"Go on, come on."
It is a different tone than what Pato has heard him before. Relaxed, maybe. Or neutral. Less
rough than usual. Perhaps calling it friendly would be going too far.
"Not like you, who seem made of stone," he finally decides.
Exposito's grimace is almost dangerous.
"Is that what I look like?"
-Yes.
"Moscow ways?"
Duck doubt.
"Something like that," he says at last.
-And is it good or bad?
-I do not know. I guess right now it's good. Or at least useful. And I envy you.
Exposito nods, although he doesn't say anything. Look at the setting sun, and the twilight too
his leathery and bony face reddens.
She once had a man, thinks Duck. And he lost it too.
-How was he? He dares to ask.
To his surprise, the sergeant responds on the spot, naturally.
-Handsome. Strong.
-You have a photo?
-Not.
He turned to look at her, expressionless as usual. But the sun is shining in his eyes
dark a glow of interest.
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"And you, do you have a photo of yours?"

"Neither," Duck lies. And it wasn't exactly mine… Not quite, or not yet. I know
led the war, I don't know where.
"Teruel, they told me."
-Yes.
Puuum-bah. A morterazo falls near the ridge, kicking up a cloud of dust behind him.
boom. The two women look in that direction and huddle a little more between the rocks than
protect them. Exposito stretches out his hand, asking Pato for the almost consumed cigarette, and
returns after giving him a brief suck.
"My man was the sweetest in the world," she says as she lets out the smoke. And of the few
affiliated with the Party in Graphic Arts… On the day of the fascist uprising we went to
headquarters of the Mountain, to take it away from the military. They put out a white flag, people came up
and they pulled on us, killing many. Then I saw him transform. In the yard, when
They gave up, he was one of those who started hitting headshots. He was going like crazy, from one to another. And i went
with him, doing the same.
She is silent, expressionless. Still. Raises a hand slightly to her face, but stops it at
halfway there and drops her on his lap.
"I remember the smell of blood ... All those bodies lying there and the yard smelling of blood."
A long silence. Shocked, Pato drains his cigarette and stubs out. Dare not
take off the lips. At last, Exposito speaks again.
—After that he spent a day locked up at home, listening to the radio lying on the bed, without
open mouth. And to the other he said that he was going to the mountains, to stop the fascists. I said I was going with him and
there we went. With a battalion of militias from the Galán column.
It is suddenly interrupted. It is turned towards the young woman.
-What are you staring at? He says harshly.
"You have never been talkative, Comrade Sergeant." It was hard to imagine ...
The other considers it for a moment, thoughtfully.
"It's possible," he concludes.
After saying that, he shakes the earth from the monkey's legs, half stands up, careful not to
expose yourself to the fire of the enemy cops, and take your orange tree.
"We have to go back to the Harinera, but Major Gamboa says it's not convenient today." What
We could butt heads with the fascists. Let us spend the night here and, if they don't attack first,
Let's go down at dawn seeing where we step
He makes a move to leave, but doesn't move. Stand still with the submachine gun in your hands,
watching the last trace of the sun disappear.
"We were counterattacking in Alto del León," he says suddenly. I was going with my man. We went up
with more enthusiasm than knowledge and the fascists pulled from above. There were other militia women,
almost all with their companions. I stopped looking at mine, turned around and started looking for it ...
I found a few steps back, face up, still warm. A bullet had broken his heart.
He stops, looks at Pato, and smiles for the first time. The young woman had never seen her do it before.
A pensive, pained and sad smile that for a moment lends an archaic beauty to his features
hardened and dry.
"And it broke me too," he adds.
Then he hangs up the gun and shrugs.
"I wasn't always like this, comrade." Neither for you nor for me ... No one is like that until they finish it
being.
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II
Sixty meters, calculates Santiago Pardeiro, cautiously leaning out of a window. Maybe ten
or twenty more at that point. Eighty meters, tops.
That takes between twenty and thirty seconds under direct enemy fire.
Such, the young officer concludes, is the distance and time required to cross from the
union to the Castellets school. What it means to get out of the first building, run down the stretch
of the main square at the mouth of the main street and enter the school at
bombs and bayonets first. There is no other way to take it except by assault. At
bravas. Getting there would finally mean setting foot in the northern half of town and leaving the street
main square and the main square behind. That is why the Reds, who know it, have covered themselves well and
they defend that position as a cat belly up.
"They are ready, my ensign," Vladimiro says.
-How many?
-Thirty four.
"That will do."
-Hopefully.
Pardeiro goes out with the sergeant to the inner courtyard of the union. A large group awaits there
Legionnaires who ammunition Mausers and bait grenades. This is the section of
shock, made up of the best men, or those who by now are more whole. In its
Most of them belong to the 4th Company reinforcements that arrived three days ago and are fighting
since before yesterday; but among them there are survivors of the decimated 3rd, who began to
fight a week ago. In addition to Vladimiro, Cape Longines is there - always with Tonet
stuck to him like a limpet— and three or four veterans of the first defense of the town, the church
and the hermitage. They are distinguished from the others because they look dirtier, unshaven, their
shirts soaked with sour sweat, faces stained. Also because of the unusual sparkle in his eyes
reddened and dilated pupils from Pardeiro's last dexedrine tablets, which he has
dissolved in the bottle of jumper cognac still passed from hand to hand, one sip each
one, before facing what is coming.
Trying to be brief and clear, the young man explains what he expects of them. Cross the beaten zone
enter the school and take it to the bayonet. The enemy fire will be intense in the first meters,
which is the bad section, or the worst. Then it will decrease until it reaches melee. That's why it is vital
speed, running a lot and in a straight line, without stopping.
"The slower, the lower ... Understood?"
The legionaries nod, aware of what he is asking them to do. Even so, after a moment of
Pardeiro certainly resolves to give them a little margin. They are going to play it heads or tails and they deserve
consideration. In an action like that, everything cannot be left to discipline and obedience.
blind. At least in the apparent.
-Do you have any question?
Men look at each other, not used to hearing that. Nor that we were red, censor the
Dissatisfied look from Sergeant Vladimiro. But Pardeiro has been managing life for a week and
the death of his own, and he thinks he knows what he's doing.
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A corporal with a swarthy face raises his hand, one of those who arrived with the 4th Company.
"Will we have coverage, my Ensign?"
He says it with more curiosity than concern. According to Vladimiro, who knows him from
Before, it is about an old flamenco singer, known homosexual from the Chinatown of
Barcelona, which they call the Lily. Sent to the Ceuta prison after a matter of jealousy and
stabbing, enlisted in the Tercio to redeem conviction, was in Seville with Queipo de Llano -
was one of the first legionnaires to get off a plane at the Tablada aerodrome—, in
Badajoz with Yagüe, and he has been shooting all the war.
"Two Hotchkiss, a Fiat, and the four submachine guns," the ensign responds. All
that's going to shoot at the same time, for half a minute, from our right and left so that
Reds bow their heads ... And as soon as I stop, we leave.
He rubs the end of his nose, phlegmatic.
"Like the Death Gap, but short," he says calmly.
Pardeiro nods. At the Trinidad gate of Badajoz, August 36, attacking the
discovered, of a hundred long legionaries of the 16th Company of the IV Flag only
fourteen arrived. And according to Vladimiro, the Lily was one of them.
"Something like that," he confirms.
Then he points to the bottle that is already on the ground, empty.
"Let's see if you think that slug is going to be free."
The boastful, brutal legionaries laugh, and the corporal twists his mouth into a smile.
Look at Pardeiro at the clock.
-Any other question?
There are not. The ensign the fly is indicated.
"Five minutes to go." Take the bleach piss, we're leaving.
Disciplined even for that, the legionaries line up against the courtyard walls, emptying
bladders. That will make a possible shot in the gut more bearable. Pardeiro imitates his men,
although it takes a while to get the jet. Excess stimulant is to blame.
When he turns, buttoning his trousers, Corporal Longines is hanging his
hand pumps that Tonet, chapiri del Tercio on his head and bayonet on his shoulder strap,
after placing the baits with veteran ease.
"The baby isn't coming," says Pardeiro.
"Well, you can convince him, my Ensign," Longines observes. He doesn't listen to me.
Pardeiro grabs Tonet by one shoulder and leads him aside. The boy contemplates it with
devotion, raised the dirty face of churretes under the strawberry tree of the Tercio gorrillo. Pending
his words.
Pardeiro looks at him with solemn gravity.
"Are youstands
The boy a legionnaire,
proud. Tonet?"
"Yes, I am, Ensign."
"And the chief feat of a legionnaire is to obey." True?
"Yes, Mr. Ensign."
"Well, listen well." Now I order you to go in there and help to ammunition those who are going to
shoot for cover. I want you to do that until the corporal and I get back. You've understood
good?
-Very good.
"Well come on," Pardeiro gives him a light slap. Wake up.
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The legionaries begin to leave the courtyard through the door that leads to a ragged alley
of the enemy, next to the street they have to cross. The ensign draws the heavy pistol, pulls behind the
Long black barrel, clack, clack, to lock a bullet, pull out the magazine, replace that bullet, go back
insert the magazine into the stock and leave the safety on. One more will go well in what lies ahead.
Then he goes out with the last of his men. The rest is in the alley, everyone
kneeling and rifle butts resting on the ground; fixed your eyes on the corner that
hidden from the enemy and where Vladimiro Korchagin is crouching first, with the submachine gun
Beretta on one knee. Pardeiro stands by his side, dangling his right hand that
he takes the gun, and looks at his watch again.
"Machetes," he says calmly. But without screaming. The reds are too close.
The Russian turns to those waiting behind.
"Arm bayonets," he orders in a low voice.
The metallic clack, clack, clack spreads down the alley. The long bare steels shine
as they fit into the muzzles of the rifles.
"Take insurance."
He brushes with his fingers Pardeiro, making sure that it is buttoned, the shirt pocket
where he carries the wallet with the unfinished letter for his war godmother. Then close your eyes
and he concentrates, his body tense, his muscles fearful, his head empty of thoughts. To its
back sounds strong, deep, rapid breathing of men that fill their lungs
of air getting ready to run.
The covering fire erupts deafeningly, as if the nearby houses were spitting booms.
All the rest of the company burn gunpowder and bullets with a hellish roar. Speak resound
dry Mausers, the stuttering clatter of machine guns, the violent rebuke of
bursts of machines.
Pardeiro's watch does not have a second hand, so the young man counts in his mind.
Five six seven eight nine ten…
When he reaches fifteen, he turns to look at the men and makes a sign with his hand. All know
theyTwenty-two,
stand up, their faces so tense
twenty-three, that if someone
twenty-four ... were to hit them at that moment they would hardly notice.
Either Pardeiro has counted slowly, or those who cover them have counted too fast. He
silence arises suddenly, premature, almost unexpected, and only a few final shots dot it
when the young ensign, reacting, crosses himself.
Other than now, my God.
That says.
Please don't let it be now.
Then he turns the corner out into the open, and runs toward the school.
-Go Spain! He yells, and feels footsteps coming behind him.
In front of him, suddenly, the entire other side of the street, doors and windows, ignites in a
rosary of orange flares, of gun blasts that shoot closely, and that distance is shortened
with every stride. As you run holding the pistol you feel the buzz of the passing bullets, the
high-pitched sound of those impacting and bouncing on the ground, the warm breath left in the air by
that brush his body, the hasty steps of the men who follow him while the world, or the
portion of the world where he seems about to end his, decomposes into a chaos of screams,
booms and flashes.
I'm not going to arrive, the young man says to himself, terrified.
I will not arrive, because they kill me before.
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I will never arrive, because I am already mutilated or dead, or on my way to be.

Suddenly, blind with tension and his lungs burning, he finds himself in front of a wall with which
It collides like I never imagined it was there; and when he looks from one side to the other,
Confused, trying to regain his calm, he realizes that several legionaries are glued to that
wall, or they arrive and gather together bathed in sweat, their faces red with effort, and with
crazed eyes and urgent, violent gestures, without having to receive the order that the ensign
not even fit to hit, grenades are thrown out the windows and door that open
On that bullet-riddled brick wall.
Puuum-bah. Puuum-bah. Puuum-bah.
Black smoke leaps from the gaps, wood chips, plaster shards. They penetrate
attackers through the door jumping on the sandbags, pushing aside the furniture and mattresses that
they barricade, while others look out the windows and shoot the interior. Reaction to
Pardeiro at last, removes obstacles and goes inside dazzled by the street light,
moving in the gloom of debris-filled classrooms and broken desks, firing the
pistol towards the shadows that stand in his way, against the fleeting silhouettes that escape
by the corridors.
"No quarter, no quarter!" The legionaries howl, bayonetting.
You fight hand-to-hand, with a machete, with blows of the butt, with fists. Pardeiro shoots
until you run out of bullets and then hit with the pistol gripped by the barrel and a finger on the
trigger guard, using it as a mace, hitting the heads of those who stir with it,
They grab hold of clothing, hit and stab at him. Skulls and bones creak, it shoots up
point-blank and the booms, in the narrow space of the rooms, resound thunderous,
they deafen and stun.
"No quarter! ... No quarter!"
There is no mercy for anyone, and the Reds know it. They don't even try to give up: they fight, they fall, they are
finished off on the ground, and those who can try to escape. They are harassed from room to room
room. Pardeiro arrives at the landing of a staircase lit by a skylight, in pursuit of
several who wanted to win the floor above. They stir to face with eyes
distressed. They have no ammo or time to reload, so they do it at bayonet point.
"You sons of bitches!" They yell. Fascist sons of bitches!
The lieutenant goes back a few steps to avoid the machete blows and some legionaries interpose,
crossing rifles with the reds. Sparks fly from the steels. Pardeiro throws his pistol at the
One enemy's head is right, and the other bends his knees, releasing the weapon. A legionnaire suits him
above the fallen one — Pardeiro recognizes the Lily — wanting to skewer him. Grab the red, blind from
panic, the barrel of the rifle to remove him from his body; but Lily sticks her bayonet in him
chest, supports one foot, withdraws the rifle by throwing back his elbows, gains momentum and drives another
time.
Little by little, slowly, the chaos turns into sharp images and sounds. The noise of the
main combat. Only the shouts of the wounded Reds finished off with bayonets are now heard, the
single shots fired through the windows at those fleeing from the back, the
dull boom of grenades thrown at those who have taken refuge in the cellar. He
floor covered in empty shells is slippery with blood and smells sweet, of guts
bursts and body dirt. There are broken desks, blue covered notebooks trampled and dirty
of excrement, and on the blackboard you can still see mathematical signs crossed by the
phrase Viva Largo Caballero.
Sergeant Vladimiro appears, smothered with gunpowder. Bring the head uncovered, a cut in a
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eyebrow and blood clots in hair. He and Pardeiro look at each other without saying anything. Too exhausted
even to congratulate themselves on being alive.
"Did you look out into the square?" Pardeiro finally asks.
The Russian nods.
"How many, when crossing?"
-Eleven.
Look at the young man around.
-And here?
"I think eight."
The ensign remains motionless, breathing deeply and slowly as his pulse runaway
returns to normal. Then he begins to search for his gun among the enemy corpses that are
They pile up at the foot of the stairs, that the Lily and another legionary rob them conscientiously. It's the Lily
who finds the weapon: it is bloody, has traces of hair and brain mass attached to
the butt, and the legionnaire hands it to Pardeiro after cleaning it on the clothes of one of the
dead.
Major O'Duffy does not lower his head when an artillery shell passes low, starting
pine branches, and explodes out of sight, with a boom that makes the trees sway.
Keep sucking through the hole in a can of condensed milk. The three correspondents, who are
They crouched down at the noise, slowly got up.
-Counter? Phil Tabb says, still in awe.
The Irishman nods, stoic. Under the brown beret, beads of sweat glisten on his freckled forehead.
"That's what they order me," he answers.
-Has no sense.
O'Duffy drains the last drop by throwing his head back far and drops the empty can.
"Actually, it does." It's about buying time ... Relieving fascist pressure on this side
from the river.
Skeptically, Tabb points to the brown height seen among the pines.
"You can't go back up there."
"I suppose the fascists just think we can do it, I suppose."
"But that means sacrificing what's left of your battalion."
-You never know. The same we are lucky.
"I want to see it," says Chim Langer.
"And I," Vivian adds.
O'Duffy has removed his glasses and was cleaning them thoroughly, rubbing the lenses with a sheet
of crumpled paper. Despite how dirty he is, the riding breeches, the high leather leggings,
the rolled up shirt and the submachine gun at his belt maintain his military appearance from others
time.
"I don't advise it." It will turn out right or wrong. And if it goes wrong, it can all fall apart in a
moment. ”He points his chin toward Castellets. The fascists have entered the town. Not
I can take responsibility for your safety.
"We're not asking you that."
O'Duffy looks at the glasses against the light, doesn't seem satisfied and rubs them again.
"This has gone to hell." A listless grin sharpens her face. In your place,
I would try to cross as soon as possible to the other side of the river ... Maybe then you can't do it.
The correspondents exchange a glance: pensive Tabb, inquisitive Vivian, scowling Chim. He
Page 258
Irish brigadier slings his glasses on his aquiline nose and shrugs his shoulders.
"Think about it," he insists. My people will start moving in twenty minutes.
He walks away without further comment, pine forward. Watching him go, Tabb worriedly shakes the
head. He has taken off his jacket to shake off the dirt and pine needles.
"Cannon meat," he says. They are sent to the slaughterhouse, as always happens with
international. They have no chance.
Blunt boxer's face, Chim fidgets with the two cameras hanging on his chest.
"Well, hey… We're here to see how it happens."
"And to tell about it." Which we will not be able to do if we are trapped.
Vivian sides with the photographer.
"The Republic is about to withdraw foreign volunteers," he says. Matter of
weeks, as we know. This may be the last battle of the brigadistas in Spain.
"Yeah," Tabb agrees sarcastically. And I don't want it to be my last too.
The young woman studies it. The British's tone is calm. Despite the heat, he doesn't even sweat — he doesn't.
he's never seen sweat, strangely neat always. The New Worker correspondent is not
no fainthearted, and she knows it. He's just a veteran journalist who trusts his instincts, and that
makes you doubt. She likes being with him, but is excited by the nature of the upcoming combat. Wish
witness it.
—Phil.
-What?
"We watch the attack and then we leave."
The Englishman shakes his head.
"You heard Larry." Leaving can be difficult.
"Fuck it," Chim mutters.
He turns and walks sulkily the way O'Duffy went. Doubt Vivian in
follow him and turns to Tabb asking for one last judgment. He slaps his hands gently,
as if shaking dust and arguments.
"I've been to China, Palestine, and Abyssinia," he observes. Never for adventures, but
to tell what's going on ... I've taken risks and been in trouble before, and I know when it's worth it and
when do not.
He pauses a moment, looks at the photographer walking away, and then the python glimpses past
the pines.
"I also know that a dead correspondent is useless for reporting."
"Well Chim…" she opposes.
"Chim is Chim." That son of a bitch is only happy if he gets shot.
Vivian feels the need to justify the photographer.
"Your job is to take photos." For that you have to be where things happen.
"Your cameras are just a pretext." He once told me in Florida, full of alcohol and
with a naked woman in bed. I only feel alive, Phil, man, when they can kill me. That
He said.
Tabb tells it, smiling a little, and hers is a slight and sad face.
"One day he will," he concludes. Get killed.
Vivian doesn't know what to say. Without waiting for an answer, Tabb spreads his arms and long legs,
like stretching. Then he points back, towards the trench where a man awaits them.
once more overwhelmed Pedro.
"I'm going to be the command of the brigade, because that's where the information is." Then i will come down
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to the river, to see if the walkway is still intact or is there a way to get to the other side.
Look at Vivian.
-Choose.
She still doubts. Fear grazes his groin and belly: that slight trembling that dries up his mouth and
become familiar. But the python that rises behind the pines, the men who again head
to him, they attract it magnetically. You would never forgive yourself not seeing it.
Five seconds of silence elapse. And Vivian makes up her mind at last.
"See you later, Phil."
He nods impassively.
-Clear. See you later.
He walks away with his usual calm, one hand in a pocket, his jacket folded over one arm, and
Vivian stares at his tall, graceful figure for a moment. Then he goes to meet Chim. The
finds himself in a clearing, with a group of internationals who prepare their rifles and hang themselves
belt grenades. A little further, head bowed next to Captain Mounsey, who reaches
by the shoulders, Lawrence O'Duffy consults a map, looks at the clock and points towards the rocky height
of the python.
Observe Vivian the brigadistas: taciturn, disheveled, skinny, eaten by bedbugs,
laden on their backs under the weight of equipment and black thoughts. They have hung
shoulder the Russian rifles that the slim bayonets make seem even longer, and low
their steel helmets show their haggard faces, sunburned and with trench beards.
Hardened by reality, dozens of men who were workers, students, employees,
professors unrelated to weapons prepare to travel a space of land whose air
Thousands of rapids and small fragments of copper, zinc, iron, aluminum and lead will cross. The
Most of them came to Spain for their ideals; and of those are almost all that remain; the
that endure. The others, who came because of personal problems or in search of
adventures — fifteen pesetas a day does not make anyone rich — they deserted a long time ago,
they passed the enemy or were shot.
Chim smokes and talks to a soldier while putting film reels on the cameras. When
Vivian approaches them, they are in mid-conversation.
"The wounded are always pessimistic," says the soldier. Never believe what they tell you.
-And you? Chim is interested.
"If you want me to tell you the truth, I'd rather be on the corner of Broadway and Seventh,"
drinking a beer.
Strong, red-haired like Vivian, dirty with grease and grime, the soldier rests his butt on the ground
of a Degtyarev submachine gun. From the belt where he is carrying two Ferrobellum grenades of
handle hangs a French crest helmet on him, and the toe of one of his boots is glued with
sticking plaster. Irritated and metallic eyes. He has the physique of an Oregon lumberjack, but his accent
is from Brooklyn; And Vivian thinks that in tough places there is always a tough guy with an accent
Brooklyn
The brigadista gazes at the Leica de Chim with curiosity.
"Are you really coming with us?"

The photographer points to Vivian, who has stopped beside him.
-Also she.
A look of admiration. The soldier shakes his head.
"What a gutsy girl."
-Yes.
Page 260
-You're north american?

-I am.
"We have the same hair color, sister."
She nods, amused.
-It seems.
"From what newspaper?"
"Magazine… Harper's Bazaar."
The other studies her from top to bottom.
"Wow." An elegant piece of paper.
"Depending on how you look at it."
"Burgess you're dying."
-Too.
"Well, I'm a genuine product of the Young Communist League of New York and the
Albacete shooting school.
"There are worse combinations," she laughs.
—And that you say it. In my case, add an unemployed taxi driver and you will have it complete.
The soldier looks at the cameras again.
"I wouldn't go with the first of you," he advises Chim.
He makes an indifferent gesture.
"Too far, the photo is worthless." Too close, they can kill you. Everything is a matter of
take the point from them at the exact distances.
"And how do you calculate them?"
"Actually, it's the distances that calculate me."
Chim closes the lid of the second chamber and points to the rocky height between the trees.
"How about going back there?"
The brigadista looks at the python again and sighs. A louse crawls up the collar of his shirt.
"Since I've been in Spain, the only places we attack are impregnable and the only
that we defend, indefensible.
"Do you think it will be very hard?" Vivian is interested.
"Well, it already has been," the soldier looks at Major O'Duffy and makes a gesture of resignation.
-. Two
has days ago
enough. So wewecome
took the
back python and lost
for more. Andit,
is and
that yesterday wewe
the Jackson gotattract
it right. But like
metal apparently
the he doesn't
sponges the water ... Do you know what the comrades call this hill?
-Not.
"Peak of the widows."
Good title for a chronicle, Vivian thinks, memorizing it. But it doesn't say.
"How do you think it's going to be?" -question.
—Well, I hope not like the Cerro del Mosquito, last year in Brunete, which we took
the top and we lost it seven times in twelve hours.
Fascinated, Vivian follows the louse's progression down the brigadista's neck. This one notices
his gaze, he raises a hand and catches the bug with the skill of habit, bursting it between
the ones. Then he wipes his fingers on his shirt and scratches his neck.
"What is the worst of this war?" She asks.
The other looks at her as if he does not believe what he hears. Look at Chim and again at the young woman,
he spits out a spittle and tilts his head to one side, thinking.
"Constipation," he finally answers. Not shitting causes hemorrhoids.
Page 261
After saying that, he looks at them doubtfully, unsure of having given the proper answer. Scratches another
Once her neck, her forehead wrinkles, and finally her face lights up.
"Until I came to Spain I didn't know what true democracy was," he adds. And here
you learn to really hate fascism.
Vivian has taken out her notebook and jot that down. Look at the brigadista carefully what he writes,
making sure you register it as is.
"What's your name, soldier?"
"You better not put my name… Call me Andy." Only that.
"And what do you think of the Spanish, Andy?"
"Poorly prepared politically." Dirty, messy, naive.
"What do you want the most at this moment?"
"What I want most in the world is to walk without being shot."
A sucking sound passes over their heads, and two seconds later a white smoke is
hike on the python. The boom comes almost immediately, followed by others.
"It's already starting," says the brigadista. It is our artillery, which heats the ground.
The 105 rip the air, and orange flares gleam through the smoke under the impassive sky
blue.
"They will shoot very low," Chim observes.
"The fascists are not just riding high." They have also taken shelter in the middle of the slope.
Major O'Duffy is blowing a whistle and the soldiers begin to move with
cautiously, very slowly, among the skeletons of the pines that smell of burning wood and resin,
the eyes
they attentive
get closer. to New
The the terrain
Yorkerand looking
puts on hisfor covered
helmet and itineraries. The weapons
slings his machine thathis shoulder.
gun over
"Compared to this, hell is going to seem like a comfortable place," he says.
Suddenly his features are hard, expressionless. As if it stopped being there.
"My wife," he adds, "thinks I'm doing administrative tasks."
When the bombardment ceases and the ground under his body stops shaking, Saturiano Bescós
he puts the stick he has been gripping between his teeth in a pocket. After, still
deaf from the booms, dusted on his hull and shoulders with dirt and burned remains of
bushes, the Falangist raises his head and from his rocky parapet on the python's skirt sees
get closer to the reds.
"Decide how you guys are doing!" Sounds the next voice of the invisible Corporal Hazelnuts, chief of
the squad, as hidden as all.
"I'm a piston!" Shouts Bescós.
"Yo, enterico y bien!" —Jesus Tresaco is heard.
The last to report is Lorenzo Paño.
"Fucked but happy! ... Atilano can't with me!"
Bescós puts two Breda grenades within arm's reach, sticks his face to the stock of the rifle, blows
the dust that covers the bolt and watches carefully the enemies, each time closer. Be the
Before international or Spanish reinforcements, these are not rookies. They advance knowing what
do, with great caution and zigzag, jumping first from tree to tree and then,
start the climb, from rock to rock, always seeking the greatest protection of the terrain, the
less scorched bushes and craters, not too deep, excavated by the
artillery on the ground.
"Don't shoot until the machines do," Hazelnuts are heard saying.
Page 262
Stroll the view Bescós for those who approach. A couple of small caliber mortars make
Tump, tump, and they throw smoke projectiles to cover a little to those who give the assault; But they are
imprecise and there is a slight breeze that carries the smoke away. The faint white haze is not enough to
hide the gray, khaki, and blue figurines that advance, crouch, run, and turn
duck. Rifle shot for a moment.
Choose Bescós to one of the closest and most visible. Red moves his arms and does not have poplar,
so it is most likely a sergeant or an officer. He follows it with the spotlight,
calmly, the finger off the trigger guard and without touching the trigger. You know when you press it it will
white if the other is not moving too fast. The young Aragonese shepherd has good aim, and
not just with the Mauser. Shortly before the war he hit a she-wolf at thirty paces with a
hunting shotgun and six-post cartridges. The vermin had killed a dog and carried a
kid, and his father gave him four slaps for allowing it.
"Failing,"
So Bescóshe was told her. You
looking for are
the awolf
brave
forand a saphora.
a day and a half until he found her. He threw him away
hitting the first time, and when he got closer he discovered four cubs in the den. The cartridges were
expensive, to peseta each; so, to save money, he finished off the mother with the hunting knife and
drove the cubs down a ravine. He did it without pleasure or cruelty, with the calm
certain that five fewer wolves was the safest for the herd. The same calm with which
now aim at the red that moves the hands. Not because it is red, that sometimes you choose and others
no, but because if you let him get close you can bring him a kid. To a comrade or himself. They are
the rules of the mountain and of life.
He keeps Red Bescós in the sights of the rifle, following him carefully. The sun makes him burn
steel from the helmet and sweat trickles down his face and armpits, wetting his shirt and butt
weapon. The young Falangist is almost immobile and only the barrel of the rifle moves almost
imperceptibly from right to left. For a moment he thinks that, Spanish or foreigner, the
The man he points to has a life behind him, just like his. Who will carry a photo with
some parents, a wife or children; and that none of them, wherever they are and whatever they do in
At this point, you suspect that your child, husband, or parent has minutes or seconds to live. What
the man who climbs up the slope, cautious, courageous, obliged or voluntary, fulfilling his duty
or your ideas, it may be a piece of dead meat rotting in the sun in a little while.
A cry among those who climb. It sounds like an order, and Bescós thinks they have said it in language
foreign. Someone yells again, and this time it seems to be American, English, or whatever.
Something like jarri-ap, or similar.
Internationals, thinks Bescós. Those who took the python two days ago and lost it again.
And there they go up again to the assault. American, French, Russian, Chinese people, out there.
Foreign. Like the ones you saw two days ago on the way to the interrogation and the wall after going
with Sebastián Mañas at the aid station. Brave, no doubt. Trained and paid communists
for Russia, but as vulnerable as anyone to a bullet in the gut.
Tacatacatá, tacatacatá, tacatacatá. Sounds finally on the crest. Rough and dry.
Well-aimed bursts of machine guns crack like lashes and bullets pass over
the head of the Falangists with high-pitched buzzing, luminous traces of tracers and bumblebees of
lead that impact among those who climb making a pac-clack, pac-clack that raises little clouds of
dust and dirt, blows charred thickets, dots the figures that move in the mist
almost vanished from the smoke grenades. Some reds fall, others crouch. Break the fire
now on the slope of the hill, on the most advanced parapets between the rocks, and the
combat.
Page 263
Bullets high and low are whistling from the other side, but at this point in life and war, the
ancient shepherd does not worry, because he knows its secrets. The one that comes close buzzes loudly and
fast, with short sound. If it comes from a distance it makes it smoother and slower, and you can hear it when it hits
something
This or falls to
is recognized the ground.
because Themore
it sounds most vibrant,
dangerous
likeisthe
thestring
one that
of abounces, because you don't know where it might come from. TO
bandurria.
Anyway, the time has come for their own bullets to also sound, and there
the reds understand them with them. Without hurrying, Bescós finally touched the trigger of the Mauser,
he squeezes, and the gun hits his shoulder with an almost painful jerk. Barely part
I fire, he operates the bolt with his palm, pulls it back, puts another round in the chamber and takes aim
again. The man who moved his hands no longer moves them. He has fallen to his knees and is motionless,
as if praying. Then Bescós knocks him down with a second shot.
At least that one, he thinks as he reloads again, isn't going to steal his kid.
In the air the emptiness left by the trajectories of the bullets resounds like a snap of fingers,
and its impact seems like a whip with innumerable tips of lead striking the earth. get moving
Vivian Szerman among the brigade members, hunched over, running from protection to protection,
terrified and fascinated at the same time. It goes with the second attack wave, already fifty
meters ahead you can see the men from the first one already climbing, or trying, up the
python skirt, which from there looks high and stony, dotted with puffs of white smoke and
brown powder, with the impressive appearance of an impregnable fortress.
If they don't stop this, they are going to hurt someone, he thinks absurdly.
There are realities worse than nightmares, and that of war has not yet fully penetrated it. The
America has been in the trenches of Madrid before and saw people torn apart by the
pumps; but he had never come under direct fire, running and jumping between
thickets and rocks, surrounded by former Silesian miners, Cleveland college students,
Ohio car dealers, Budapest bank clerks, Liverpool unemployed who
They clench rifles in clenched hands and gasp, winking their eyes under steel helmets, amidst a
swarm of tiny metal objects that crosses the air in all directions.
Sometimes, when imitating those around her, she stops lying on the ground or bent over to
Taking a breath as he calculates the next jump, he sees Chim Langer moving about thirty
steps ahead, raising the cameras, standing for an instant as if invulnerable,
indifferent to fire, to take a photo, and remain so even when mortar shells
begin to fall among the brigadistas: booms, orange flashes and inverted earth cones,
stones and shrapnel. It continues to do so even then, and when a man lies down near
he, letting his arms wide open, Vivian sees the photographer running in his direction,
Crouch down beside him and raise the camera again.
The second wave is already within the firing range of the fascist machine guns,
stuck in the landscape of flying metal and small whirlwinds of smoke and dust between which
the continuous clap-clap-clap of the bullets that like hail hit and get into the ground or the
Crack-Crack the kind that bounce off rock fragments.
Amazed, still unable to accept that everything is real, Vivian finds that they are beginning to
fall many men. To be injured and to die.
The first cries of stretcher-bearers! Orderlies!
Those who run do it more and more stooped and slower. Some stop and search
guard; Others crawl on elbows and toes, crossed
rifles on the forearms.
Page 264
It smells strong of sulfur gas from bombs and burning dry grass. The bushes smoke
set on fire by sparks from tracers and mortars. The python skirt is covered with
a white and brown haze.
Vivian stops running and begins to crawl. His elbows bleed and sting where they
tears his shirt. She stops in pain behind a large stone, behind which there is
crouching is a brigadista who trembles from head to toe hugging the rifle. The helmet is
dented from a bullet.
"This is a bad place," says an English voice in Vivian's ear. A bad place.
He turns and finds the redhead from Brooklyn two feet away. His face is wet with sweat, and
dirt and soot from burned bushes cling to it. Pretend to smile, with the reflection
masculine that every man with guts tries to maintain before a woman; but he only gets one
tight wrist.
"I don't want to die here," she says.
"Me neither, sister ... Suddenly, any other place in the world becomes a place
desirable.
They are observed by the one who trembles, sullen, resentful as if his presence behind the same stone
violates any right of precedence. Then he looks back again, as if he were looking for another place
to recommend it to them or to leave himself, he sits up a little while doing so, and at that moment
comes a click similar to that made by a butcher when cutting chops on the
wood, the steel helmet rings like a bell, the brigadista throws his head back as if
he would have been punched and when he falls to the ground next to Vivian, she sees that a bullet has hit him.
crossed his face, tearing off his lower jaw, which hangs over his chest.
"Camilliers!" The one from Brooklyn yells uselessly.
The wounded man struggles, kicking on the ground, his hands on his face, while the terrified
American, who has produced a handkerchief, tries to do something, although she does not know what. Interrupts her
the other brigadista, who pulls her by grabbing her by the collar of her shirt.
"Get back! ... Crawl back and go, idiot!" Don't stay here!
After saying that, the one from Brooklyn crawls forward again, gets up, runs a little and gets
throws to the ground to crawl again. Vivian stares at him, undecided whether to follow him,
stay with the injured person or move away from there. Then see Chim Langer about twenty paces down
ahead, right where the python's slope begins to rise. He is on his knees, undaunted,
taking photos as if nothing that happens affects him at all. Vivian watches with
fascination, amazed. He's not human, he thinks. That stubborn Czech is not; no one to do that
it can be. And just then, as if the hidden rules of chaos wanted to disprove it — they are the
distances which are calculated for me—, a mortician explodes very close to the photographer, who
it disappears into the jet of dirt, smoke and dust that the explosion raises. And when it is
dissipate, Chim is no longer there. Or does not seem to be.
The mechanisms that govern human behavior are strange. Suddenly, something vibrates intense in the
inside Vivian, and it's not fear. In the future, for the twenty-three years that still remain
live, you will often wonder what exactly it was about, and you will never find the answer; with
the explanation that inside they suddenly mix, like a cocktail of rare components, the
courage, despair, solidarity, anger and fatigue. It's not like when two ago
days he came to the aid of the orderly while Chim took photos. Now it is different. It is singular. Is
Running down a gleaming razor's edge It's literally that, running.
Run Vivian like never before in her life and like she will never do again. He stands between the
bullets and shrapnel and he moves as fast as he can jumping over rocks and bushes,
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passes the Brooklyn brigadista who crawls and watches her go by in amazement, reaches the little
still smoking crater from the explosion and pouncing on the photographer, who is lying on his back
with his pants and shirt riddled with red dots and tears, and with a hole of greater
size in the chest, on which it still has the two chambers, one rotates, the other intact.
"Chim!" Chim!
Hooded, glassy eyes with dust-covered corneas stare at her without seeing her. Of the
throat comes out a deep groan, a liquid rattle, and with every movement of the breath
Irregular and choppy, pink foam bubbles in the large breast gap. Vivian se
he rips a sleeve off the shirt from the shoulder, makes a plug with it, and sticks it into the wound.
"Chim!… Don't fall asleep, Chim!"
It is all that occurs to him to say. Then he yells three times, stretchers! without anyone coming. He
The photographer's face is pale and his lips are blue. The legs also shake. They lived
hugs him, and the tears that run down her face mix with the blood that flows from the
innumerable wounds of the dying body. Little by little, as if a hidden cosmic hand
raised the volume of the war, the young woman begins to hear again the sound of gunfire and
explosions.
Fear returns for Vivian. The awareness of where you are. The screams of men
who fight and die.
The brigadista from Brooklyn passes by, crawling as before, the helmet over his eyes and the rifle in
the forearms. He stops for a moment to look and then, expressionless, without saying anything, continues
ahead. He too moves distant, in the bubble of his world. Of his own life and his own
death.
Chim is no longer stirring or breathing, and his half-open eyes are fixed, opaque. Vivian shakes the
head violently, tries to clear. Take many deep breaths, drowning out the sobs that
they rise from his chest like vomit. At last he looks around wanting to orient himself, in search of the
direction it came from, and crawls and crawls. Suddenly he remembers the photographer's Leica, he
stops and goes back, takes the intact one from his neck — the other has a broken open lid and
he lets go of the film— and after searching the body, he picks up the 35mm reels in shock that Chim
He carried in his pockets, and also his wallet with his documents. Then crawls again
stuck as much as possible to the ground, moving away from there while, behind her, what remains of the Battalion
Jackson is vandalized on the Python slope.
The lieutenant who interrogates Ginés Gorguel is the same one who signed the delivery of
the deserters of the red side. He has a broad, red face, a bull's neck, and eyes
small, mean and tough. Sitting in the shade of the canvas on a scissor chair and behind a table
campaign, he writes in a register, taking time to dip his pen in an inkwell located
next to a volume of The Rocambole exploits. His air is jaded, of an official who
can't wait to close the window or go back to reading the book.
"Who did you vote for before the Uprising?"
"I always voted for the right."
The officer looks at the sergeant responsible for the prisoners, who is next to him watching for
over his shoulder what he writes.
"Well, it's not what someone who knows you says," says the sergeant.
Gorguel blinks, undecided between showing surprise or indignation. He's standing, but I'd give a
year of his life for sitting.
"No one can know what I voted for," he finally answers. The vote is secret.
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"But in the villages you all know each other," says the lieutenant.
—Albacete is not a town. The one who accuses me is making it up, he will know why.
"Well, he says you were a carpenter," says the sergeant. Were you?
-That's true.
The lieutenant looks at him carefully. An evil smile twists his mouth.
"Then something knows you, right?"
Gorguel's beads of sweat trickle down his neck and armpits.
"I was never on the left or affiliated with anything," he vehemently denies. In Albacete
there will be someone who supports me.
The officer shakes his head.
"I doubt it ... That's the red zone, and those who say they could endorse you, most likely
murdered long ago.
Consult the log to review your notes and leave the toothpick with the nib next to the inkwell.
"Besides, you don't even have documents," he adds.
-What I'm gonna have. I lost them.
-When?
-The truth is that I dont remember.
The lieutenant and the sergeant exchange a meaningful glance.
"What a coincidence," says the first.
"I've been fighting since last Monday." I was on guard at the river the night we were attacked.
"Well, in view of what happened, you shouldn't have kept a good watch," the officer looks at him maliciously.
interest-. Or was it that you were quiet to let them pass?
Gorguel feels his knees weaken. He has put his hands behind his back, crossing them
so that it is not noticed how they tremble.
"That's outrageous," he protests. I was the first to throw some grenades at them giving the
alert, and then I fought in the village with the commander… Induráin, his name was. And also with a
Lieutenant who was killed.
"Who killed him?"
-The Reds. Who was it going to be?
The officer takes the pen again, reluctantly, and dips it in the inkwell.
"And what was that lieutenant's name?"
"I never knew his name." Or wait, yeah. Varela was called, I think. Or Valera.
The other one stays with the suspended pen, looking at him.
"Do you know or don't you know?"
-I'm not sure. Everything was very fast, do you understand? ... We left the town and they killed him.
"Like this, for the good?"
-So.
"In front or behind?"
The question has sounded sinister. Gorguel swallows hard.
-They attacked us. He and many others fell.
-Except you.
"Except for me and a few more."
The officer continues to study him very intently.
"I see ... And what did you do next?"
"I went to the eastern python, where Commander Induráin also sent us." And later on
I fought red tanks on the road
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"With the same commander?"

"No, that one the Reds shot when they took the python."
-You saw it?
"Of course I saw it."
"And they didn't shoot you?"
"There was a bombardment, and I escaped."
"You ran away, you say."
-Yes. And then it was the Fayón highway. With the antitanks.
"Look at you ... did you go to the artillery?"
-They passed me.
The lieutenant exchanges another skeptical look with the sergeant.
"What a ghost," he says.
The lieutenant's small, hard eyes sweep Gorguel up and down.
"You've fought a lot, I see."
"More than some of the ones I see around here."
He still hasn't finished saying it when he repents, but it's already said.
"What impertinence," the officer snaps.
Gorguel gulps again, trying not to panic.
"I don't mean to, my lieutenant," he stammered. But you ask me and I answer.
"So on top of that, you're a hero."
"I don't know what I am." But I have fought against the reds all this week, there is no room for that
doubt. The Moor can bear witness.
"What Moor?"
"Corporal Seliman." You saw it yesterday, when we brought back the past.
"And where is this Seliman?"
"No idea ... He left."
The lieutenant scratches an eyebrow. Look what he has written again and again to Gorguel. Not seem
convinced of the story.
"Well," he concludes. We will clarify everything.
Then he goes to Sgt.
"Take it away."
The noncommissioned officer grabs Gorguel by the arm and leads him back into the hollow.
"My sergeant… I swear on my son that I have told the truth."
"Yes, man, yes," nods the other, indifferent, while pulling him. That I also
I want.
"I assure you that ...
A threatening look and a hand ready to strike. A violent shove.
"Shut the fuck up."
Gorguel does not open his lips again; but when he reaches the hollow he is reassured that the
Sergeant did not put him in the group of prisoners, but in the group of the past.
—You are there still, until we decide what to do with you… Is that clear?
Gorguel goes to meet the others under the trees. Some are sitting and others are lying with
handkerchiefs or bonnets over the face, and some eat dark chunks of the carob beans
falls from the trees. The man from Albacete has an atrocious thirst —the questioning has left his mouth
like brown paper — but no one gives them water. He stays there, not daring to move. Once in
when he looks up and glares at the other end of the gully at the prisoner who
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he gave it away, trying to remember. And finally he succeeds: he is a waiter from the Manchego bar, next to the
Iglesia de la Purísima, where Gorguel used to have a chorizo sandwich and a
glass of wine. He does not even know the name, and does not recall having changed other words with him than
tell me about this and how much I owe you.
The human being is a strange animal, concludes the ancient carpenter. A dangerous animal
mean and strange. With that thought he lies on his back, closes his eyes and stays
asleep. Until a kick wakes him up.
"You ... Get up, you."
When he opens his eyes he finds the sergeant, his fists on his hips, staring at him. I know
Gorguel picks up hesitantly and the NCO pushes him away.
"Pull it up, come on."
"Where are you taking me?"
—Just shoot, I tell you.
They walk back to where they interrogated him. This time Gorguel walks without the sergeant
I grabbed his arm. Still, or perhaps because of that, he begins to fear the worst. With a disquieting
cramp in the groin, try to check out of the corner of your eye if the NCO's pistol is still
in its case, and if it is delayed more than normal. But nothing happens. They arrive at the tent
of the lieutenant and Gorguel is stunned when he sees there, along with the officer, Selimán in person.
He stops short, puzzled, not knowing if it is good news or bad. The weathered face
the end of regulars is very serious. He wears a clean shirt over the old and dirty ones
zaragüelles, belt with cartridge belts and rifle on the shoulder. He has shaved, and his gray mustache is
leafy and martial.
"Do you know this Moor?" Asks the lieutenant.
"Of course I know him." I told them about him.
The officer has a piece of paper in his hands, typed. He passes it to Gorguel, who reads,
nervous.
I hereby certify that Infantry Soldier Inés Gorguel, Attaché

temporarily to my unit, he fought with credited courage in the action of Friday,
July on the Fayón highway, contributing to the destruction of two enemy armor. Y
For the satisfaction and guarantee of the interested party, I entrust this recognition to Corporal Selimán al-
Barudi, of the 2nd Cía. of the XIV Tabor de Melilla, and I sign and date it on the front of Castellets
del Segre on August 1, 1938.
Signed: Captain Luis Gómez Soto, Cía. Baler Battalion antitank
"The Virgin has just appeared to you," says the lieutenant.

Gorguel embraces Selimán on the verge of tears, and the Moor tells him of his efforts:
urgent search of the antitank company and the officer who commanded it, the account of what
was happening, his pleas for everything to be certified in writing, which he did not get until this
tomorrow. His breathless run back, paper in hand.
"I can't come with you until now, paisa," he concludes. I swear to you by my eyes.
The lieutenant and the sergeant listen, curious to see a Moor and a Christian twinned from
that way. Gorguel turns to them.
-Can I leave? -question.
-Where? The officer asks.
The Albacete looks at Selimán, undecided. The moor is touched with a finger the gallon of cabo that
It has been sewn to the tarbús, as if to specify its solvency. Then he takes it off and takes out another
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folded paper.
—We are attached to the firing squad of the 2nd Company of the Baler Battalion, my
client. Urraseq, I swear to you what I say. By my father's head.
The other returns the document to him without hardly looking at it.
"For a Moor, you know a lot about papers."
Selimán agrees without complexes.
"Long live mine, I know how." He rests a protective hand on Gorguel's shoulder.
-. I kill bastards for holy Franco, and my friend helps a lot.
The lieutenant and the sergeant look at each other. The latter shrugs his shoulders, but the officer has something on
head. He looks at Gorguel slowly, thoughtfully. At last he twists his mouth in a bad gesture.
"You don't have a rifle."
"It was taken from me when I came."
The other addresses the sergeant.
"He'll have to pay it back, if he wins it."
There is something about the tone that Gorguel does not like. A sinister joke in the background. Sargeant
he seems to have understood, because he smiles, and his is not a nice smile.
"Sure," he says.
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III
Bad symptoms are beginning to appear at the command post of the XI Brigade. mens
They hurried in and out of the building, rifle on their shoulders, hurrying across the
empty rags, bottles, cans and ammo boxes. Documents and material are burned while
shots and explosions from the village sound closer and closer. Nerves and tension
they thicken the air.
Pato Monzón, who is returning from repairing another phone line - has already lost count of
times that she and her companions have had to do it - she sees that the number of wounded increases
arriving at the aid station, and that those who can move are diverted to the river without
receive medical attention. There are no tetanus injections, no morphine, and no medications; missing
bandages and suture material, and wounds are closed with seam pins or twists
string. Those who are seriously ill crowd under the shed with no other help than a sip of
water, and from the Harinera to the shore of the Ebro a line of orderlies and men
battered people who limp or lean on each other, on the way to a hypothetical evacuation each time
more difficult.
Lieutenant Harpo is in the yard with Sergeant Exposito, checking the material from
transmissions that are still operational: one Aurora of respect, two bags with tools and four
cable reels.
"Hello, comrade." Harpo smiles when he sees Pato, jovial as he usually is. How about down there?
… Something new?
"The gangway is out of service again." Fascist aviation has destroyed it again,
killing a few.
The lieutenant runs a hand over his face, irritated by a reddened rash. The
glasses lenses are dirty with dust.
"Shit," he says.
—Turning the catwalk in daylight is crazy ... Pontoneros should work only
night.
"I suppose it won't be the same with the moon," Exposito observes.
"Are there boats, at least?" Harpo asks.
-Very few. They cross rowing and crowded, full there and empty here.
"No reinforcements, I imagine."
-I have not seen.
"Better this way." Bringing more people to this shore may mean not taking them out later.
"How bad are we?"
Harpo lowers his voice and slyly points to the fire in the corner of the courtyard.
"Look at those." They follow orders ... And when papers and material are burned, things are
They should go better than they do.
-I see.
While Pato unloads from his backpack, Harpo and Exposito finish telling him how he is
all over there. There are only three lines left that work: the one she just reset with the dot
passing by the shore, the pine forest near the eastern piton and the Rambla, in front of the
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cemetery. Contact has been lost with the other positions. The python Pepa, where is it next?
resisting the Ostrovsky Battalion, it is again without a line, although there are messengers that come and go
through the narrow bottleneck. As for the people, the fighting is so close to the post of
I do not need a telephone: reports and orders circulate through links.
"In short," Harpo concludes, "that this gives us gasps."
Pato observes Sergeant Exposito, who barely leaves her lips, and in the face of the
NCO reads a stoic confirmation to the lieutenant's words.
"How long can we hold out?"
Neither one responds. Pato sighs, very tired. Your thighs ache from walking and your
shoulders of the backpack straps. He sits down on the floor and begins to slide the cloth bands
That the legs of the jumpsuit are tight over the espadrilles. In doing so, dust is released from them,
dirt and grime. He has an infected pimple on his left calf: itches and hurts, but little can
do for him. Dirt makes it worse. When it matures you can burst it, wash it with boiled water
and cauterize it with the flame of one of the three matches that he keeps in a tin box. But they are missing
a day or two for that, and a lot will happen until then.
A soldier comes to tell Harpo that they claim him in the staff and the lieutenant enters the
building. Pato continues to sit on the ground, putting the cloth bands back on while Exposito
he watches her in silence.
"You're a good girl," she says at last, and the young woman looks at her in surprise.
-I am?
-You are.
The sergeant doesn't say anything else. He has taken out of a monkey pocket a sandwich wrapped in a
sheet of Solidaridad Obrera. Duck just adjusted the bands and looks at her.
"We lost, right?"
-Not yet.
"But it seems inevitable."
Expressionless, Exposito looks toward the shed of the wounded.
"We'll win another time."
He has broken the sandwich in two and offers him half. Accept Pato, who has not tried anything since
Hours ago. The bread is stale and contains a slice of obnoxious canned English beef, but
calm an empty stomach. He helps himself with a sip from the canteen: river water with a drop of
iodine given to him by an orderly. It tastes like hell, but it's water.
A soldier approaches: one of the masters of the staff. He holds a button in one hand and
with the other the waist of the pants is held.
"Can any of you sew this on for me, pretty girls?"
A second Exposito looks at him, stony.
"Go get your fucking mother to sew it for you."
The other blinks, puzzled.
"The milk ... What are you doing, comrades?"
Exposito points out the gallon sewn to the jumpsuit.
-See this?
-I see.
"Well, get up, come on."
-What?
"Fuck off, you idiot ... Air."
The other stammering away and passes Harpo, who is accompanied by Major Carbonell,
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second in command of the brigade. The two arrive serious and whispering.
"Meeting of shepherds, dead sheep," Exposito murmurs as they arrive.
Duck stands up and the others briefly report. The python Pepa is key, and if it falls
the entire defense at Castellets may collapse. The passage of links through the bottleneck
it is becoming increasingly difficult, and communication needs to be reestablished. It's up to Pato to go.
-Because she? The sergeant asks.
Harpo looks at her, annoyed by the question.
"He's been there and knows the way." In addition, she is a good operator and reliable comrade.
"That's why we shouldn't risk it so much." We barely let her rest.
Pato gives the sergeant a grateful glance and smiles wearily.
"I may go, Comrade Sergeant ... No problem."
Harpo nods approvingly, and Major Carbonell looks pleased. Exposito keeps the rest
From the sandwich, he picks up the field phone and slings the submachine gun over his shoulder.
"In that case, I'm going with her."
"No," Harpo objects.
-Why?
—You need more here.
The sergeant doubts, Pato intervenes.
"No problem," he repeats. I can go alone.
"It's not that either," observes the lieutenant. Take Rosa Gómez.
Exposito considers it adequate and Pato agrees. Rosa Gómez is trustworthy. Goes
the sergeant to look for her while Carbonell and Harpo detail the mission to Pato. The phone line
it works normally until the republican position in front of the cemetery that they call the Rambla,
so the fault will be beyond, between it and the python Pepa. The two women must go there,
Inform yourself of the situation, and then check the line up to the python and repair it if possible.
Major Carbonell hands Pato a paper folded in four and sealed.
"In any case, with or without a telephone line, you will deliver this message to the head of the
Ostrovsky Battalion. It is important that you receive it… Is it clear?
"Yes, comrade."
The major leaves, crossing paths with Sergeant Exposito and Rosa Gómez: thirty-year-old skin
pale, delicate hands and large black eyes that Pato knows well, since they made the
Training Course. Serious, willing, with studies, Rosa is the daughter of a military man shot on
July in Ceuta for staying loyal to the Republic.
"Bring the basics," Harpo says.
He points to a cart with the poles resting on the ground, next to the wall, where they are stacked
either way the weapons left by the wounded.
"But equip yourselves better than you are," he adds.
"They don't have an escort?" —Exposito is surprised.
"They go alone."
The sergeant glares at the officer.
—It is risky to send them like that, Comrade Lieutenant: two women alone, and I am not saying it just for the
fascists.
"It's not my thing," Harpo justifies himself uncomfortably. They know what they are exposed to.
"It's true," confirms Pato.
The sergeant ignores her.
"Still, they mustn't go unescorted," he insists. They are technical personnel.
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This time the protester is Rosa.

"We are soldiers," he says.
Harpo shakes his head, ignoring.
"We have the fascists in town and every available man is needed." Is it so
arming even the inkbugs of the staff.
Exposito considers it a moment more and finally agrees reluctantly. Look at the two young women.
—The comrade is right… There are no people, and you know how to manage.
"Of course," Pato agrees.
Exposito points to the car.
-Come on. Get some weapon.
"We carry the pistols," Rosa Gomez opposes. And with the team we will be very loaded.
"Still, grab something else." Light weapons, but take them just in case. And ammo
enough ... We don't know what you'll find in the bottleneck.
Ginés Gorguel and the rest of the group walk towards the river. The stream is near, glittering
of sun among the reed beds on the shore. Annoying swarms of flies buzz.
"This is fine," says the sergeant.
They all stop: noncommissioned officer and six soldiers with rifles, one of whom is Gorguel and another,
Seliman. Two men go between them, hands tied in front, joined by the same rope.
The sergeant tilts his head to light a cigarette and looks around, satisfied.
"As good a place as any other."
He spends a moment contemplating the landscape with dreamy eyes as he sucks on the
cigarette. Thinking of God knows what. At last he seems to come to himself, as he looks at the prisoners.
Then he takes a piece of paper out of his pocket, unfolds it, and reads aloud:
—As a result of the summary court martial, the sentence handed down against the
soldier Rubén Nolla Corbí, for attempting to pass over to the enemy ...
Gorguel looks at the sentenced man: a man in his thirties, skinny, sunken cheeks, eyes
nervous. His peasant hands tremble under the ligatures as he looks at the sergeant with
puzzled expression and open mouth, waiting for his words, searching them for a
improbable gap where to continue living. To his left, the other prisoner contemplates the
I calmly ground, as if calculating the minutes remaining to rest in it. He is an individual of
the same age, long-haired, blond, with curly hair and a three or four day beard, and his khaki uniform
it's very dirty. He has a bruise on his forehead that inflames his puffy, yellow eyes.
"And also," the sergeant continues reading, "against the one identified as Martin Hellfeldt,
stateless person with no known nationality, mercenary paid by the so-called Brigades
International ...
At this point he pauses deliberately and long, almost theatrical, looking from one to the other.
"Both sentenced," he concludes, "to be put to arms."
Gorguel observes Selimán out of the corner of his eye, who attends everything without being surprised at anything. Not the moor
he was included in the picket; but upon learning that Gorguel was a part, he did not hesitate to
accompany him. The other four are volunteers: two Falangists from Fayón and two guards
civilians, one old and one young.
"Do you want to say something?" The sergeant asks the condemned.
The brigadista denies, so impassive that it seems that it was not with him; with all the air of
who wants to simplify procedures and finish soon. It is the other who speaks, anguished. Repeating
something that he will have exhibited a hundred times in the last hours.
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"I'm from Mayals, ten miles from here." In addition to his hands, his voice trembles.
I just wanted to see my family, I swear to God!… My wife and young children. I thought
return.
He does not tell the sergeant, but the six men on the picket line, as if the final decision
it depended on these and the rifles they carry on their shoulders. Gorguel looks away, uncomfortable.
The last eight days have pushed him to the limit and hardened, and he also knows that he has no choice;
but the prayers of that unhappy man upset him. They cause you intense embarrassment. To alleviate seek
consolation in Seliman, whose weathered and sallow face remains unshaken. Red bastards that
they don't believe in God, period. Gorguel sighs inwardly, bitterly. I wish it were like this for him
easy.
The sergeant issues an order and those on the picket line up seven paces, preparing their rifles.
The noncommissioned officer approaches the sentenced men and offers them a cigarette. Denies Spanish and accepts it
the foreigner, who brings his face a little closer so that the sergeant can give him fire. Smoke with your hands
tied up, calm, bringing the cigarette to his mouth with astonishing integrity. Gorguel supposes it
German, Austrian or from there. Namely, it is said, what strange carambola of life brought him to
Spain. To die here, executed like a dog.
"Turn your back," the sergeant tells them.
They obey. The foreigner continues to smoke with a lot of courage, although the Spanish backgammon,
he faints and falls sitting down. Gorguel cannot see his face, but his back shudders in
sobs.
"Lock out and take aim," orders the sergeant, slapping the flies away.
You three, that one; and you three, the other.
He studies the picket line with severe distrust and especially Gorguel, as if saying a lot
Watch out for missing the shot, I'll watch you. He raises the rifle, puts his finger in the trigger guard, touches the
trigger. Feel nauseous and try not to show it. Luckily, he thinks, he had to shoot the
Foreign.
-Fire!
The shots sound almost simultaneously although not entirely, as indecisive. They hit small
puffs of dust on the backs of the two men, who fell face down, crossing one over the
another, the Spanish on the brigadista. Blood immediately soaks through the perforated shirts, a
with three impacts and another with two.
He looks at the sergeant at the picket with furious eyes, as if asking who has missed a shot.
Then he takes the pistol out of its holster, locks a bullet, goes to the executed, gives it a shot of
Thanks to each one, and while he keeps the pistol he approaches the brigadista's smoking cigarette,
fallen on the dry grass, and crushes it with the sole of a boot.
"There's something there," Rosa Gómez whispers.

-What?
"I don't know… But I've seen something."
Rosa is a trained woman and knows how to move. Has stopped, slowly crouching down
kneel under the cover of a thicket. Just unbolted the carbine and look
restless, tense, sweat dripping down her face under her scarf. With cable backpack
phone on his back and the dirty blue ground monkey looks like a strange hunchbacked animal that
seek to blend in with the landscape.
"I hope it's ours," Monsoon Duck says in a low voice.
-I also.
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Pato crouches beside him, pushing back his tool bag and field phone
that wears crossbody bag. She, too, has unlocked the gun. To ease the
material they carry, both carry Bergmann Destroyer 9 length carbines, lighter than the
heavy carabiners. They took them from the cart of weapons abandoned in the Flour, with
handfuls of cartridges stuffed into pockets.
"La Rambla has to be there," Pato concludes after observing everything.
-Are you sure?
"Not quite, but I think I recognize the site," indicates the telephone wire that has been
Following-. I passed by here yesterday.
He is silent for a moment and his expression darkens.
—A little further on they killed the Valenciana.
They look at each other, undecided. Now there are no shots or explosions; but if there are silences
disturbing, that's one of them. Even crouching down they can see the height of the python Pepa a thing
of a kilometer, between the hazy light of the sun that reddens the horizon; and something closer already
left, the houses in the northern part of the town, from where two parallel and diagonal rise
plumes of gray smoke. In front of the women and about five hundred meters, half hidden by a
grove of hazelnut trees, you can see the gentle hill of the cemetery.
"We'll have to continue," says Pato.
-Yes.
They advance slowly, their bodies bent and separated from one another, their carbines ready to
shoot. Trying not to step on dry branches that make noise. Pato's hands are sweating around the
weapon; and it's not hot, though it's been a long time ago. Now she is the one who notices something ahead, near, between
the trees. Unusually vivid colors. He stops, looks closely, and smiles. A fringe
dwelling.
"It's our flag."
Almost at the same time he hears the metallic click of a weapon mounting and a voice gives them the
who lives. The two lie down on the ground and Pato shouts the watchword of that day.
"The pope is a bastard!"
-Voucher! The voice responds.
A few minutes later, guided by the sentries, the two women arrive at the position
Republican near the cemetery. The place called La Rambla is a deep cleft that is
stretches to the river bank. The north rim, speckled with shot peeled hazelnuts and
burned and broken reed beds, it is reinforced with trenches and sandbags where it is parapet
hundred and a half men: some above, guarding the enemy positions, and others who
they rest in the sandy basin, under stretched canvases and shaded by reeds. Smells like sweat
dirt and wood smoke. Campfires burn heating ranches and men eat, clean their
guns, mend your clothes or delous, patient. In a bend there are four 81 mm mortars
with their mouths covered and everything seems quiet there.
"Wow ... What a surprise, Comrade Patricia."
Captain Bascuñana, who was lying under a hurdle, gets up when he sees Pato approach,
confused. But the young woman is not surprised to see him there. It comes from the command post, where several times,
Without identifying himself, he established a telephone connection with the Rambla. Know that, by decision of
Faustino Landa and despite the opposition of the political commissioner of the brigade, the order against
captain was without effect after a few hours, as the seizure of the cemetery by the fascists and the
massacre suffered by the 3rd Company, with loss of Lieutenant Zugazagoitia and all officers,
left the sector weakened. That is why Bascuñana, with what remains of its people decimated in the python
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Lola and the remnants of Major Fajardo's battalion —discharged and evacuated with others because of a
acute outbreak of scabies - has been put in command of both units: two battalions reduced to
a company.
"Good to see you, Comrade Patricia." Although it is not the best place in the world.
Pato introduces him to his partner, and Bascuñana greets her kindly. The captain has changed a
little for two days, observes the young woman. Skinner, maybe. Even more fatigued. Or the dark circles that
now they mark his face without shaving they look like it. His left arm is still bandaged, but
The smile that twists the American actor's mustache is the same, and when he puts on his cap it
he does tilting her with the nice cockiness of other times.
"Everything seems quiet," says Pato.
He has left the equipment and the carbine on the ground, like Rosa, to rest his shoulders.
Bascuñana nods.
"It is." The fascists were exhausted with the taking of the cemetery, so they have limited
to dig in and wait. Sometimes we exchange a package, and last night there was a couple of hits
hand yours and ours, to test us. But it does not go beyond there.
"Who are you facing?"
—Requetés. At times you can see the red berets ... And moors higher up, near the python.
"Do you think they will attack?"
"Ah, I have no doubt about that." I guess they just wait to catch up or get reinforcements.
"Is our communication with Pepa still open?"
The captain gives him a questioning look. Worried
"I think so," he answers after a moment. But the bottleneck is getting narrower,
and this morning there were Moors wanting to infiltrate. Up to two hundred meters from here I have
you hear that they watch the path, marked every fifty steps with white rags ... No further
I can tell you, although a link happened at noon. I guess it's still open.
He keeps looking at her the same as before, doubtful, waiting for Pato to solve the mystery.
What business leads her there. She looks towards the path he has just indicated and makes a gesture
decided.
"My partner and I have to get to the python." Repair the line.
The captain's face darkens.
"Bad ballot."
The young woman shrugs her shoulders and makes a move to carry the equipment again.
"We have to go now."
"Excuse me, comrade," Bascuñana says to Rosa.
Taking Pato by the elbow, he takes her a few steps apart. He is very serious.
"I don't think you should go now," he says, lowering his voice. There is less than an hour of daylight and
you do not know what you will find on the way.
Pato tries to hide his embarrassment. The closeness of man is not indifferent to him.
Even the brush of his hand on her elbow has made her skin crawl. Not even the smell of dirt and sweat
emanating from his body is unpleasant. To avoid thinking about that, the young woman dug in
duty.
"I have an order," he opposes, firm.
Bascuñana does not give up. She knows what the orders are for her, she says. But although
Pato and his partner locate the fault, they will not have time to repair it before it is
night. And with the Moors hanging around, this is no place to be in the dark.
"I can call the Flourmaker and explain." Or do it yourself ... The best thing is that you spend
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here at night and at dawn you go with more security and seeing where you put your feet.
The young woman is not convinced.
"I have a written message for the commander of the Ostrovski."
"One of my men will take it, if it's urgent." A link of mine.
Denies, stubborn.
-Not.
-Why?
"It was entrusted to me and I must deliver it."
Bascuñana becomes impatient. He brushes his elbow with his fingers again.
"I can keep you here, don't you understand? ... It is enough for me to order it under my
responsibility.
Pato shoves his elbow away almost violently. Fuck all the stupid male protection
think. Despite the evidence, despite the war, despite Vicenta la Valenciana destroyed by a
bomb nearby, despite the dried blood that she herself wears on her clothes and under dirty fingernails,
even the best men still don't understand anything.
"You won't do that, Comrade Captain."
-Why?
Suddenly he feels the need — that's the word, need — to be cruel.
"You're in no condition." At the command post they really want you.
Bascuñana looks at her with sudden fixity. An expression that she had not seen before in him and that
he dislikes a lot. Superior, bitter and hard.
"Do you know what the Moors will do to you if they catch you?"
"Same with your link, if they catch him."
"No ... Exactly the same, no."
Vivian Szerman is sitting on the ground, her back against a tree trunk, exhausted from
run and undone by tension. He has the camera and the films of Chim Langer on his lap, already
Phil Tabb by his side. The English found her there when, after learning about the disaster of the
international, he searched for them. Still in shock, confused as one recalling a
nightmare, the American told Tabb about the death of the photographer and the two later
in a long sad silence. Sitting shoulder to shoulder, she tries to smoke but she shakes so bad
the hand that cannot bring the flame of the match to the cigarette. It is Tabb who gives it fire with her
lighter.
"I thought it was just an adventure," Vivian finally murmurs, exhaling the smoke.
The Englishman looks at her gravely.
"And it was life," he says.
Vivian nods slowly. He touches his shirt and pants, stiff with dried blood brown.
"Now I know what that Polish novelist was talking about," he agrees again. Now I really know.
Tabb flips back his jacket sleeve with a finger and looks at his watch. Then lead a
suspicious glance at the part of the pine forest behind them.
"We can't stay here."
He says it in a neutral tone, limiting himself to pointing out something obvious. He sits up shaking his clothes,
but Vivian is still. She looks at him still dazed, the cigarette on her lips.
"Chim," he says.
Tabb looks at her, very quiet. Standing one hand in a jacket pocket, so serene
Like I'm walking down Fleet Street
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"Soon it will be another ghost of the ones we carry in our suitcase," he says at last. He too
it will be. And there are worse.
"I don't understand how you speak with that coldness ... Chim was your friend."
"Of course it was." But he knew the rules.
Tabb seems to think about it some more and sits down again.
"Last winter," he continues, "in Teruel, I saw a twelve-year-old boy who after
losing his family in a bombing raid crossed the lines by walking ten kilometers under the snow,
his three-year-old brother carried on his back… When we found him, the brother had
dead from freezing; but the boy kept walking with him on top, trying to get to
somewhere.
He stops for an instant, his gaze wanders, and he shifts as if in a
uncomfortable.
"And you know what I can't forget? ... The dead brother's tears, frozen on his face."
Now look at the dried blood on Vivian's clothes. After a moment, he reaches out and scratches it
gently to detach it from there.
"Chim lived as he wanted and died as he wanted."
"I didn't like him," she confesses regretfully.
English smile.
-I know. Chim was Chim.
"But to see how they killed him like that ...
"They killed him like so many others."
"He wasn't a soldier, Phil." Vivian shows him the Leica on his lap. I only wore
their cameras. It's like he's been murdered.
Raise a Tabb hand as if you just heard a jarring note in a melody
known.
"A reporter is never killed in a war," he says. Die, that's all. They kill him
working ... Simple work accident.
He is silent, thoughtful, and gently scratches the photographer's dried blood again.
"Sometimes we forget that wars are just that: criminals and dirty wars."
-I guess so. But the price is too high.
Tabb is silent, thinking about it. Then he looks at his watch again and stands up.
“Unlike most of those other bastards,” he says, “nobody forces us to be here.
Don't you think?… We come with a passport and a train or boat ticket in our pocket, and when we
We tire of waiting for a hot shower and a drink at the Metropol or the Florida.
Vivian smiles sadly.
"And some whores, in Chim's case."
"Yes, that too."
He holds out a hand to help her and she sits up. Tabb sighs and shakes his head.
"He was one of those who age badly."
They move away from the pine forest in the direction of the command post of the brigade. Along the way they meet
soldiers wandering aimlessly, some of them wounded, and others in disciplined groups
they seem to know what they are doing. A platoon of sappers naked to the waist, gleaming
sweat torsos, dig trenches between the pine forest and the river, taking advantage of a small height above
a shallow glen. In the village, which Vivian and Tabb leave on the left, the setting sun
two columns of smoke reddened and a rumor of shots and explosions reached.
Pedro waits for them talking with some soldiers next to the wall of La Flour. The eyes
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exhausted and nervous of the Spaniard are relieved to see them, although he looks uneasily at the stained clothes
of Vivian's blood.
"I hope it's not yours."
-It is not.
The Spaniard is aware of the death of Chim Langer. Also that the evacuation of that
place is imminent. Taking the correspondents aside, he informs them in a low voice. The
Republicans destroy what they cannot transport and fortify the position to establish a
point of resistance.
"I'd like to speak to Lieutenant Colonel Landa," Tabb says.
-Impossible. He's moving the command post to the riverside and has other things to do.
take care. This is not the time to attend journalists.
"Which shore do you say it moves to?"
The other's face darkens.
"That is impertinence."
Vivian and English exchange a meaningful look. With a moody gesture, Pedro hangs up
shoulder the bag of correspondents.
"The pontoon workers are repairing the gangplank to make it operable at night." The
we better go down to the river.
"So it's over," Tabb sums up.
Doubt the Spanish for a moment.
"For us, of course," he finally answers. The order is to pass to the other shore all the
No personnel needed here… But the brigade is still fighting.
Smiles sarcastically Tabb. A contemptuous smile, very Anglo-Saxon.
"You mean what's left of her."
The tone and the smile make Pedro angry. Or maybe your nerves are flaming out there. Sparks fly from
His eyes are tired and he stands tall as if he were growing taller. Vivian had never seen him like this before.
So furious.
"Say it with respect, don't touch my balls ... The Ostrovsky Battalion resist
as heroes in the python Pepa, in the town we continue fighting house to house, and on the flank
left is reinforcing a line of defense.
Tabb collects candles. Try to appease him.
"Sorry, friend." I did not want to…
He has put a hand on his shoulder, but the Spaniard shakes it roughly.
"I don't give a shit what you want."
He looks at them dry, hurt. His chin shakes with rage, darkening his beard.
"I don't know how long we'll last here," he adds. But for now, we hold on. You are witnesses of
that the Republic fights like nobody ever did. Those in front of us are fascists, but
also Spanish; and that makes them tough to peel. If we are the best infantry
of the world, they are the second.
He stops and looks at them almost violently.
"Did I tell you clearly? ... Do you agree?"
"We are," Vivian says, convinced.
—Well, write it in your newspapers for those shits of your governments, unable
to understand that if we don't stop fascism in Spain they will have it at their doorstep.
After saying that, he takes the bag off the hook and drops it to the ground.
"There you have your things." My orders are to go to the river, and there I go ... I don't know how long
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The catwalk will be afloat, if they repair it.

"Wait, man."
"Fuck it."
Pedro strides away. Tabb takes the bag and they walk behind.
"Excuse us, man," they say in Spanish. Excuse us.
"We can't get through," says Rosa Gómez.

Pato Monzón shares that opinion, but it's hard to admit it out loud. They are both lying down
on the trail, carbines gripped, heavy equipment on his back. The red sun, to
about to disappear behind the west python, it makes the shadows very long. They have traveled the
last meters crawling, careful not to cut into the reliefs of the terrain; fulfilling the foot
from the letter the instructions they received during the training: go from shelter to shelter,
look for the low parts, avoid places in line, calculate all movement before doing it,
stay calm when moving through beaten areas.
That one is, and more and more. What started out as loose shots passing over their
Heads had grown thicker as they advanced, and now it sounds like general combat. TO
Sometimes a bullet reaches lower and tears branches and leaves from the bushes, which fall on the
two women. They do not throw at them - in that case, they would already be dead - but move between
two fires while from one side to the other they shoot each other, surely because the fascists
take advantage of the latest clarity to move a little further and strangle the bottleneck
taking over the defenders of the python. This one rises close, less than five hundred meters; but in
that moment seems as unattainable as the moon.
Duck has the face of his partner very close. She looks at her inquisitive, dripping with sweat,
dirty dirt. He breathes very fast, his eyes bulging with fear and tension, and Pato thinks
that she could hear her heart beat if she were not herself deafened by the wild throbbing of the
yours.
"Let me think," he says.
It takes a lot to concentrate. Stay calm while ideas are cleared. The wire
telephone line that they followed, intact up to there, extends through the bushes and stones, as far as
she can see. The cut, if that's what it is, must be further ahead, out of reach. And it is
impossible to go further. Also the undelivered message to the chief of the Ostrovsky Battalion
burns in your pocket. For a moment, the young woman considers leaving Rosa with the team and continuing
forward by herself, trying to reach the python. But with the little light that remains, the step so
narrow or nonexistent, the fascists right there and the Republican position almost hemmed in, or maybe
at all, a shot can even be hit by comrades themselves.
"We have to go back," he finally admits.
Rosa doesn't make him say it twice. They crawl back, as they came. Something further,
near the Rambla and the cemetery, there is a somewhat elevated section, almost uncovered, that
exposes in excess: six or seven steps without a stone or a bush. So they stop to
plan the crossing. Duck half gets up, takes a few deep breaths and runs the first time,
hunched under the weight of the backpack. In the last stride hear the shot and feel the ziaaang
of the bullet that passes. He does not know if they shoot Fascists or Republicans, but now he does not care. Kneeling,
Face the
bolts Destroyer,
another release
and fires againthe safety
while hiswith yourruns
partner thumb, fire, lockbeaten
the distance another
andbullet, fire again,
drops by his side, unscathed.
"Fascist motherfuckers," Rosa mutters, catching her breath.
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"Maybe they were ours."

"Red sons of bitches."
They both laugh, releasing tension and fear. Then they crawl again. A little further,
recognizing the place, Pato shouts the password to avoid being shot at from the Rambla. He
potato, etcetera. Shortly afterwards they are informing the command post by telephone of the
position. It is Lieutenant Colonel Landa himself who answers. Orders them to remain
there that night; And if the path is still cut off at dawn, give up and return to the Flour Mill.
When Pato approaches one of the parapets to look, the sky is full of stars. The
the python's dark mass still looms in the distance. Drawing itself in the last blue clarity of the
twilight, bushes and leafless trees look like theater sets, tin cutouts
black. From the fascist positions in the cemetery comes the voice of someone who sings enough
loud enough to be heard on the Rambla:
Long live God, who never dies,

and if he dies, he rises;
long live the woman who has
love affairs with a carlist ...
He hears the young sound of footsteps and notices a nearby shadow. He comes back believing that it is
Rosa, but the voice of Captain Bascuñana sounds.
"You have been very brave, Comrade Patricia." Your partner and you.
"Do you also say that to men who are brave, Comrade Captain?"
"I'm telling you that too."
The young woman looks straight ahead. The cemetery singer has finished his song and now only
there is darkness and silence.
"Tomorrow we will try again."
"I don't think so," the captain disagrees. The fascists have infiltrated the bottleneck and the
of the python are cool. No one will be able to pass that way.
"Will there be no counterattack from us?"
"With whom? ... What remains of the old reserves is pawned in the town." TO
us, you've already seen us. And the people of Pepa have enough to resist up there.
-Will be able?
-I do not know. Gambo Laguna is a magnificent battalion leader, and his soldiers are motivated and
hard. But they will not receive reinforcements, nor ammunition. Not even food or water. Will hold
while they can, I'm sure. Although I'm afraid we left them to their fate.
-And what about you?
"Oh, you know."
-No, I do not know.
—The disciplinary measures that the political commissioner of the brigade
want to apply, here I am. Waiting to give you new reasons.
-What is going to happen?
Be quiet for a few seconds Bascuñana.
"When the fascists rose up in Cartagena and we laid hands on them," he says at last,
the chiefs and officers went to the water ... We stayed with the Mediterranean ships and ports,
but with crews that didn't even know how to move a rudder.
Pato stays waiting for him to continue, to see where he wants to go; but not Bascuñana
add nothing more on that.
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"There is something dead in all this, you know ... something dead beforehand, that condemns us."
"I don't like hearing you talk like that, Comrade Captain." Not you, not anyone.
"This is my trench ... I say what I want here."
After saying that, he remains silent again. At last he makes a sudden movement and
remains still again.
"I'll tell you what will happen," he adds so quietly that she must strain to understand his
words-. Everything that can be evacuated will go to the other side of the Ebro ... The rest will continue here to sustain
withdrawal as long as possible.
Duck can't help shuddering.
"And how long will that be?"
"No more than two days." Tomorrow or the day after, our positions will fall on the east side and
then I will fall. Gambo Laguna will hold out as long as he can up there, while they pound him. And in
as soon as the fascists take over the Flour Factory, the rout will begin. He for himself who can.
"And what will become of you?… Your soldiers?"
After another short silence, the captain of his own speaks. They are good men, he assures, although
different from the tough boys who defend Pepa: scared kids and parents who
They have been watching their comrades die for a week, and who at this point the Republic matters
a bell pepper.
"Go tell them that Marxism is all-powerful because it's true," he concludes. What
they long for everything to end, whoever wins, and to go home. Most would not want to be
here, and some even prefer to be with those in front.
"Have you had desertions?"
"Since we are so close to the cemetery, four went by last night." And tonight he will try
any other. Besides, a poor bastard, almost a kid, has shot himself in the leg; what
It will cost him a summary trial and the wall ... Until they took him away a while ago, I had to
have him gagged. He kept screaming for his mother.
Duck slowly digests what he just heard.
"It's horrible," he says.
"They are human beings." Too much is required of them… And they do too much.
"Do you think they will hold out?"
"I'll see to it that almost everyone does." I have a small group of former Trotskyists left and
anarchists who are known to be marginal, but still have arrests to fight.
He remains a thoughtful moment, as if indecisive.
"Another man was killed this morning," he says at last. He was careless when he looked out and they gave him
in the head. Among his things he had a letter ... Do you want to read it?
-Clear. But there is no light.
"Come on down."
They take cover and Bascuñana lights an electric lantern that gives a weak light and
yellowish. Pato unfolds the paper, written in a round, clumsy hand. One corner is
stained with dried blood.
Dear father:
I want this to end to go back to town and settle accounts with so much
scoundrel and plugger that we all meet to eat some crumbs and you finish being at the
order of those manipulators who never get the bullets and enjoy a good coffee and even
a car and the calamities that we do not pass here where there is much injustice like that of
a boy who asked permission to see his sick mother and has not been given it and has
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happened to the fascists when there was an oversight and he was lucky because two others who did
they were caught and shot two days ago.
I am very sorry that Uncle Andres was killed by the militiamen because he did not harm anyone
but they will pay everything on our return that those of the town that we are here are going to kill
so much rascal that he eats it all while you are starving that my
sister in her letter that a group of women went to the town hall to ask for bread and the mayor
I call fascists while he does not lack and kneads good wheat bread.
Speaking of wheat, Andrea also tells me that there are 9 bushels that have been taken from the
Cousin Cosme like you last year when they went home and took the grain. Yes
do not be afraid of hitting someone who goes because that wheat cost me a lot
I work to plant it and for that, whoever wants to eat in the Republic to work or come here
with us to defend her that they are scoundrels because after they bring their children to the
slaughterhouse starve parents.
He returns the letter to the captain, who turns off the flashlight. They stand up.
"I don't think…" Pato starts to say, confused.
"Don't worry," he interrupts, "I don't mean to talk about this." Really not. Single
I wanted you to read it.

-Why?
—There are letters that should be read ... Anyway, I don't think this one would have passed the
censorship.
A silence. Dragged on.
"The truth isn't always revolutionary," he adds after a moment.
She feels the urge to put a hand on his arm, but she doesn't.
"I'm sure they'll fight well," she just says.
Bascuñana emits a soft sound, I stay. It seems that he laughs very softly, but Duck is not
safe.
"At least long enough for us to save face," he says. I'll see to it that they do.
Then…
He falls silent again, and she turns to look at his shadowy profile.
-What will happen next?
—Well, the foreseeable: the headquarters will issue a report saying that within the framework of our
offensive in the Ebro, which continues its course, in the sector of Castellets del Segre a
tactical withdrawal to positions established in advance, after causing serious losses to the enemy ...
This time the silence is long. And when it seems that Bascuñana is not going to say anything else, he speaks
again.
"I hope you are on the other side of the river by then."
The night has settled completely and neither the python nor the cemetery are noticed. Lumps
Dark people move along the Rambla, against the backlight of small fires hidden from the
enemy. Between the smell of wood smoke and burlap filled with earth comes another more pleasant one.
"That smells like a miracle," Bascuñana says. I mean, soup. I will see if it is true.
He returns after a moment and hands Pato, almost groping, a metal kettle. Their
hands touch while doing so.
"It's dried bean broth with a little bacon, but at least it tricks the stomach."
Pato taste the soup, comforting and warm, while the voice of the fascist who
sing to the other side:
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If you think that I have loved you,

it was to entertain you.
The love that I have had
Death already took him away.
When the singer is silent, Bascuñana speaks.

"I'd like to have your address, Comrade Patricia." A stable place to look for you when
thisShe
is over ... at
looks Supposing
the man'swhen it's curiously.
shadow over there's somewhere like this.
"Why do you want it?"
"Maybe I was wrong about your shaved hair." Maybe I am interested in seeing how you are with a
dress and long hair.
"I prefer that way."
"I prefer you like that tonight too." Without this I would not have been able to recognize you from the other
mode. Now I know.
-What do you know?
"That you are the best part of the world and of life." That you fight and deserve to win.
She continues to face his shadow, wanting to guess the expression he has at that moment.
"And you, Comrade Captain? ... Do you deserve it?"
"I don't know what I deserve." I know my men deserve to live, but I will continue to order them
that will prevent it.
"At least they die for something noble." Not like Franco's mercenaries.
He hears him chuckling quietly.
"There is nothing noble about dying in this war."
"No wonder the political commissar of the brigade has you between his eyebrows."
"This Ricardo doesn't even like my mustache ... He says that wearing a mustache is right-wing."
"And why are you wearing it?"
"Why not?… I've worn it since I shaved, Comrade Patricia."
I like his voice, she thinks. I really like how he talks and how he is silent. I am moved by that
resigned melancholy of a soldier without fortune with which he assumes everything that happens to him.
"I remember my emotion the first day I heard myself called comrade, " says the young woman. Go figure.
He was eighteen years old.
Another silence. He touches his forehead, aware that he cannot see the gesture.
"Our duty is never to give up." Do not give up from here ... The will.
A flare ascends to the sky and slowly descends, cutting the height of the cemetery
close in its milky light. Pato can now see the illuminated profile of Bascuñana, who looks attentively
in that direction.
"Do you like movies, Comrade Captain?"
-Yes.
-Me too. The last movie I saw before coming here is called China Seas, with
Jean Harlow. One of adventures.
-I have seen her.
"Well, you look a bit like the actor."
"Wallace Beery?"
-Do not be silly.
-Good thank you. And it's not to return the compliment, but you do look like Kay Francis.
The last words were said by turning towards her, watching her until the flare is extinguished.
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—In other landscapes of the world there are people who at this hour are having dinner, going to the movies, dancing ...
Stroll through places where you don't get shot.
"Why do you say that, Comrade Captain?"
"You make me think about it."
He has moved a little closer to Pato and now they touch shoulders. She doesn't shy away from contact.
You feel its dirty and pleasant smell again. They remain like this, motionless, and she thinks that
that contact comforts her. He consoles her of darkness and uncertainty.
"We are lost in an absurd world," says Pato.
"The dream of a cruel drunken god."
She stands up, shrugging her shoulder, back to the lucid communist, instinctively
dialectics. He came to himself as if cold water had been poured on his face.
"The gods are dead," she states, flat and dry. We are here for humanity
become aware of this historical truth.
"I'm afraid humanity has other things on its mind."
She is left thinking.
"They didn't train me for this," he finally concludes.
"For defeat, you mean?"
—For the doubt.
"Ah."
"To discuss the doubt."
"Ah."
"A communist only discusses certainties." That's why I read books, I listened to women and men
wise to think that everything was resolved forever: Marxism as a solution, the struggle
class ... That's why I was so amazed who seemed not to see it as clearly as I did.
"You are speaking in the past tense, Comrade Patricia."
—Because he believed that the boundaries between the evil and the righteous, between the bourgeois control of the
democracy and the dictatorship of the worker and peasant masses were perfectly clear.
"And aren't they?"
She hesitates for a moment, trying to express it better.
—Those whom I have seen die do so without shouting long live the Republic or long live anything. Single
they fall and stay still forever.
-So is.
-I thought that…
Pato is silent. Another flare ascends to the sky and descends slowly, past the cemetery. Is
Once distant shots are fired, and see the captain look in that direction, his profile illuminated again
by artificial and whitish light.
-And now? He says, still staring at the jagged hill at night.
"I still believe that," she says. Or I want to believe it.
The flare is turned off, and the sad smile is imprinted on the dazzled retinas of the young woman
of the captain.
"Well, nothing's wrong either," he says. We were many who believed it.
As the flare light flickers and descends into the night, the three requetés remain
motionless, flattened against the ground and yearning to bury himself in it.
Out of the corner of his eye, one cheek pressed to the ground, Corporal Oriol Les Forques watches the
tense faces of his companions Santacreu and Dalmau, illuminated by the white light. They left the
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trenches in the cemetery twenty minutes ago and they crawled in a semicircle toward the
Rambla, or to the place where they suppose it is, turning from time to time on its back to
orient yourself by the stars. In order to make as little noise as possible, they wear espadrilles instead of the
boots of nails, they have wrapped the belt buckles with rags and they only go armed, each one,
with a pistol, a knife and four Oto hand pumps. Even the little chains with crosses and
The medals that they wear around their necks have been covered with tape so that they don't clink. Even the
the snapping of a broken twig or the brush of bodies snaking over the dry grass could
be heard from meters away.
" Luce meridiana clarus," whispers Agustí Santacreu.
Dalmau chides him in a very low voice.
"Hush, bloody hell."
When the flare is extinguished, the three of them move again. Support the elbows, knees and
toes to move forward. The grenades that they carry in their belts are annoying when hooking
on the stones and irregularities of the ground. The pause has tempered the sweat that wet their
shirts and the damp cold of the night makes itself felt. Les Forques must grit his teeth so that
do not chatter.
How strange life is, he thinks. Or certain angles of life. Sometimes it would be said that God
he likes paradoxes, sleight of hand, sneakiness, practical jokes, putting to the test
human beings to probe their hearts and heads, bending faith to the limit of
breaking off. If the correct and educated young man of the upper bourgeoisie of Barcelona, the student of
aperitifs on the terrace of the Moka, drinks at Boadas and parents with a paid box at the Liceo,
Carlist by family tradition, they would have told him three years ago that he would one night steal the
body to the flares and crawling a few meters from a Marxist trench, Christopher Columbus
from the top of the column, in the port of Barcelona, I could have heard their laughter. What would the
members of the Circle, if they could see him and Agustí Santacreu. What would the girls say
gang. What would Núria say, wherever she is now.
Crickets chirp monotonously in the bushes, which is a good sign. Everything seems calm.
A few meters away, Les Forques looks at the stars again. For the elapsed time and the
direction in which they move, calculates that they must be very close to the republican positions.
When it was still light, Sergeant Xicoy took him and his two companions to a place from the
that the terrain could be observed, he lent them some binoculars and indicated the way forward and the
landmark: a hazel grove battered by bombardments, converted
trunks on black stumps. They are right there, he said. When you get to those trees, you will be glued to the
remigios.
Les Forques continues to crawl, his body tense, his mouth dry, his pulse beating twice as fast.
the usual. The closer he is to the enemy, the more he has to pray; but he already did it before
leave the position, when the pater Fontcalda blessed him, Santacreu and Dalmau after
listen
as theytocrawled
them ininto
confession and make
no-man's-land wasthe
thesign of theofcross
whisper theiron their
"go withforeheads;
God, my and the last they heard
children."
In any case, concludes the requeté, enough of thinking about what is not immediate. Even
praying now, peering into the pit of dark fear that this supposes, would distract the senses that the young
you need to focus on what you are doing. In the subtle difference that at that moment there is between life and
death. So he just brushes with his fingers the stop bullet he is holding with a safety pin
in a buttonhole of the shirt, while he hears behind the bated breath of his companions and the friction
of bodies on the ground. Sometimes, if he stops, Santacreu, who crawls close to him, stumbles
with his feet and growls unintelligible protests.
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A few bushes are visible in the dark. Les Forques warns of this by scratching the
face, and he remains very still because he has just heard a metallic sound among the branches, fortunately not
too strong. Reaching out with one hand, he feels carefully and checks that there are cans of
keeps empty hanging, very close to each other, as an alarm against possible intruders. The
indicates to his companions, they cautiously surround the bushes, and at that moment a new
The flare rises to the sky, far away, outlined in black against its descending, milky light
grove of toppled trees, no more than thirty meters away.
When the light disappears, the three requetés crawl into a group, head to head. Not
there is much to say: just briefly agree, in whispers to each partner's ear, how
They are going to execute it and how they will leave later. They already did it other times. Although the parts contain
as recognition for fire, a hand strike is to catch the enemy by surprise, asleep
if possible, and bust it well. Sometimes it consists of taking a moment an enemy position or
make some prisoner who provides information. Tonight they should only make contact with
the Reds entrenched in the Rambla, testing their defenses and their ability to react.
Motionless, they are silent. Listening.
Nothing is heard for a long time, and at last the sound of conversation reaches them.
far away. Several men talk among themselves, and for a very brief moment, immediately hidden, can
see the purple point of a cigarette. Les Forques looks in that direction while the voice
content of Santacreu whispers in his ear:
"About fifteen meters to your left."
Les Forques nods in the dark, without answering, goes a little further and stops again,
breathing slowly so that even that slight sound does not go beyond his lips. The stumps of the
toppled trees stand nearby, like a sinister palisade in the backlight of the sky
starry.
"Here," he whispers.
Then, trying to control the tension that makes her hands tremble, she rolls onto her side to
detach the grenades from the harness and align the bombs before him. So do their
companions; and three times four add up to twelve, which is not bad if they manage to place all of them
in the enemy
-Come on.trench.
Pronounced very quietly, the word is hardly a sigh. After giving each other with the
elbow, requetés count seconds while synchronizing movements: one, two, body
slightly incorporated on the left hip and forearm, three, four to pull the
tongue and throw the first, five, six to throw the second, seven to flatten well against
the ground - Oto are so unpredictable that they can put shrapnel in the face of anyone
she throws—, eight, nine listening to the booms with her eyes closed so she doesn't
dazzle the flashes, ten, eleven to get up again, twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen
to throw the other two grenades, sixteen to return to the ground, and seventeen and eighteen
to turn and crawl away as quickly as possible - stand up and run
it would be suicide - as a string of gunfire flashes across the enemy trench,
bullets high and low buzz everywhere, and from national cemetery positions
two machine guns fire intense covering fire on the Reds, with tracer bullets that
They arrive slowly and pass quickly over the three young men who hurriedly crawl back,
bruising arms and legs against the ground.
Look at me, Núria, look at me, Les Forques thinks in a rush, suffocated by effort,
crawling and crawling among the bullets that tear sparks from stones and bushes. Craving
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stay alive. Take a good look at me, Núria, please. I'm Oriol, the one you met. Or maybe it's not
exactly the same, but actually I'm still me. Look at me now, I beg you. Do it while
I try to be true to what I should be. And if I live long enough, if I'm ever lucky enough to
marry me, when the years go by and you see me sitting in an armchair, old, tired, useless now
for so many things, think about what that same man did when he was still vigorous, and the
eyes, and was capable of crawling at night on the very teeth of the devil.
At that time, one kilometer to the east and through the binoculars, the largest Gambo Laguna
he looks uneasily towards the Rambla from the top of the west python. Simon Serigot is at his side,
second in command of the Ostrovsky Battalion: two black silhouettes among the rocks that the moon very low
outlines and brightens in the shadows.
"It doesn't sound serious," Gambo says.
In a moment he hands the Komz to the captain.
"A coup?" He asks, looking back.
-I think.
"Ours, or theirs?"
"I doubt that ours are in a position to play tricks, but anything can be."
Very soon the number of flashes diminishes, and the shots become sporadic until
that"For
silence
me,and
the darkness return
fascists are to the
testing Rambla.
things out." Serigot returns the binoculars to the major.
-I think. I guess they will attack out there tonight or tomorrow.
They are silent for a moment. Except for the faint lunar glow, the python looks like an island
surrounded by a black sea. The only references under the stars are a faint leaden glow
by the part of the river and the distant and precise fire of a fire that serves as a reference to locate the
village.
—If the Rambla falls ...
That is what Serigot comments, without finishing the sentence. Gambo puts the binoculars in their leather case.
He wears a light jacket, very worn and torn, which is barely warm. The cap is damp from the
night chill.
"Yeah," he says.
No more is needed, and they both know it. The bottleneck has closed behind him and the
battalion is covered in python; but if the fascists take the Rambla, the distance with the
own positions will become excessive. An attempt to break the fence will be even more difficult.
"What's on your mind, Gambo?"
"Nothing that you don't have."
Serigot thinks about it for a moment.
"We have repulsed five attacks," he says at last. Ammunition is running low and barely
we have hand pumps left. There is no food either, but what distresses me the most is the lack of
Water.
"And me."
The captain's bitter laugh sounds.
"I've summed it up well for you, then."
"You've summed it up like a fucking mother.
They are silent again. A light breeze from the north and up the hillside brings
a thick and unpleasant odor, of carrion. They are the corpses of the fascist regulars who have
been rotting in the sun, among the rocks and bushes through which they climb and attack for
Page 289
two days.
"Those Moors will be back as soon as daylight," Serigot says, exasperated. It seems that
overn, fuck.
—They have plenty, as Ortuño said… That's why Franco doesn't mind throwing us meat.
Serigot exhales in dismay. A dry breath between teeth.
"May I tell you the truth, Major?" What I think?
-You must.
"I don't give us more than one day."
The Ostrovski boss does not answer. He just taps a shoulder to his second and
He retreats between the rocks followed by that one, on the way to the place where he has installed the
battalion command.
a trendy song, Nearby,
hummed played by someone invisible, a harmonica sounds accompanying
softly:
Goodbye, my short girl

don't cry for your Pancho,
that if he left the ranch,
very soon he will return ...
There are black bundles of men entrenched in the stark wolf pits dug in the
rocky ground and on the stone parapets where they have been able to put some sandbags.
Others sleep between the murmur of breaths and snoring. Sometimes you hear the metallic sound of a
weapon, a cough, a conversation. Nobody smokes; and not out of caution in the dark, but because
tobacco remains. Dried fennel and lavender, tops. The last real cigarettes
obtained by Sergeant Vidal registering the nearest corpses of the enemies, the
Gambo raffled excluding bosses, officers and NCOs fourteen hours ago.
The command post is a shadow made with a blanket, stacked stones and reeds, in the
Counter slope and a few meters from the crest, where the clarity of the moon does not reach. There are the
Political Commissar of the battalion, Ramiro García, and Lieutenant Félix Ortuño. The bluish flame of
an acetylene lamp illuminates the guard a little. In its light, with an empty pipe in his mouth,
Garcia reads Sunrise .
Gambo points to the useless field phone, placed next to a map on the ammunition box
that makes a table. Next to it are folded blankets, an empty jug and a first aid kit
with a painted red cross. On a Primus stove an old oil can with a stew smokes
of three potatoes, half an onion and a bone of ham.
"Is the line still dead?"
Ortuño nods with reddened eyes and an air of fatigue. He has had a fever for two days.
"More than my great-grandfather," he confirms.
He comes on guard to relieve Serigot and is equipping himself. The eldest takes off his jacket to
give it to him and Ortuño puts it on, tying the belt around him with the pistol and a grenade. Too
receives the only wristwatch with a fluorescent dial available to the battalion.
"I'll keep the bed bugs," says Gambo.
"Thank you." The lieutenant shows his yellow, horse-like teeth. I have enough
with mine.
Gambo touches his forehead, which continues to burn.
-How do you feel?
The other one takes his hand away.
-Better than ever.
Page 290
"You should rest, Felix."
"I'll rest when
"I smelled yourI'm dead."
eggs."
"Go suck."
Ortuño makes a move to leave, but stops.
"What do I tell people, if they ask me?"
"What do you say about what?"
"You know what… Am I suggesting that reinforcements might be coming to us?"
Gambo runs a hand over his face, his beard scraping as he does so.
"I don't like lying to our people."
-What difference does it make. They all lie more than the Black and White astrologer .
The political commissioner raises his head from the newspaper.
"Insinuating is not lying," he says.
Gambo gives him a curious glance.
"Is that from Bukharin?" He asks, joker.
"From Lenin."
"Don't screw me."
-I give you my word.
"You're making it up, Ramiro." I have read all thirty-seven volumes and it does not come.
-What I say. After all, the Party ...
"Don't mess with the Party, damn it." And don't look at me with the face of a comrade commissioner. This is the \ It \ him
python Pepa.
The other one returns to reading. Serigot approaches him and pretends to read over his shoulder.
"Come on, that's fine," he says. All ministers have signed a code of conduct ...
First point, win the war. Second, do not approach within ten kilometers of a front of
battle. Third, do not accept tips.
Garcia pushes the newspaper away with an irritated slap.
"Stop kidding, Simon, damn it."
"No jokes, nothing." Serigot winks at Ortuño and Gambo. The next crisis
ministerial will be, in reality, a rollover of the meat truck, with all the pigs
scattered and running around.
"You're the caraba, really."
Lieutenant Ortuño leaves and they hear him walk away: Suspiros de España whistles .
"He's a good guy," says Serigot as he serves himself on an aluminum plate and takes out of his pocket.
a spoon.
-Yes.
"Can you imagine him on the tram before the war? ... Surely no one got on without paying."
"I can imagine him doing anything, and doing everything right."
The two newcomers sit next to García, who has exchanged the newspaper for a book
very fondled. They are surrounded by an annoying hum of mosquitoes. Gambo leans over the commissioner
to see what you are reading.
- There may be situations in which the interests of humanity have to give up their
priority to the class interests of the proletariat… ”he read aloud. Hey Ramiro, don't you
do you ever rest?
The other smiles and raises an instructive index finger, in a rally mimicry.
"There is no revolutionary theory without revolutionary practice, Comrade Major."
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"Freedom of reading is so precious that it must be rationed, Comrade Commissioner."

-What to do?
"What not to do?"
"You bore me, you fucking Leninists," says Serigot, who after finishing his soup has picked up the
the phone and without much hope turns the handle. You are the grass of the brake pathos.
"A political leader has the duty to keep the theory greased," García justifies
-. Then the troop asks questions.
Serigot hangs up the phone in a bad mood.
"Yes… Above all, ask when you can go home."
Gambo crushes a mosquito perched on his neck with a slap and removes the palm with a point
of blood. He undoes the strap, unfolds the map next to the phone and studies it
long, frowning, calculating darkness, distances and time to cover them. Yes
Tomorrow night the Rambla belongs to the fascists and the dead, two kilometers to break the
fence may be too many. In order to lessen the emptiness you feel in your stomach, which is not
Although hungry, try to think of something else. In his wife, of whom he has known nothing since
the northern front fell. In the two small children, a boy and a girl, whose photo is on the rubber of the cap,
safely in the Soviet Union and found in a pioneer farm school nearby
from Minsk.
"Who is in the forward position?" Garcia asks, closing the book.
"Sergeant Vidal."
"Another good man."
The commissioner takes out of a box of grenades the latest Nestlé tablet, wrapped in paper
silver, he puts an ounce in his mouth and gives another two to Serigot and Gambo.
"What's going to happen, Comrade Major?"
He sighs without taking his eyes off the map while the chocolate sweetens his tongue. Travel
with one finger references and contour lines.
"Well, it's going to happen that as soon as it gets light, or maybe sooner, the fascists will bombard us and
they will attack again… And also those of Bascuñana.
—It will be difficult for them to set foot in Pepa.
-They know. We have shown it these last few days. But I smell that, rather than take for
the brave python, what they want is to wear us down, without giving us respite. Leave us about to
caramel so that we can cook in the pot. We are cool and they know what
we know. That's why I think they are going to press on the Rambla ... As soon as it falls, the codend will be absolute.
"Like tuna in a trap."
-Something like that.
"And why not get out of here sooner? ... Maybe then we can't."
Serigot, who has been lying down to sleep, loosen the harness and without taking off his boots, raises his
head.
"Remember the order of your compadre the Russian."
—Ricardo is not my compadre.
—It's the same, remember: 'All units will keep their positions, position
Lost must be position regained… ». That means we will need a good dose of
endurance form.
Garcia scratches his teeth with a twig.
"So the Republic must resist to the last drop of your blood."
"And yours."
Page 292
"I'd rather it be yours… You're the man of action, Simon." Ideas are my thing, now
you know. Politics.
"I'll remind the fascists when they come and ask."
The commissioner looks inquisitive at Gambo.
-We will be able?
The older one nods without hesitation, because he really is convinced of that.
"Our people are magnificent; so one more day, sure yes ... And twenty-four hours of
The margin for the XI Brigade, or what remains of it, will be pure gold.
"So, by enduring tomorrow we will have complied?"
"Unless we get new orders." But the way things are going, without a phone or links,
I doubt that nobody orders us anything anymore.
"And then? ... What will happen if we hold out until night?"
"We will leave Pepa and try to break the fence." If the Rambla holds, we will seek to unite
to Bascuñana. If it has fallen, we will make our way to the village.
"What if the entire town has already been taken over by the fascists?"
"Then the road will be longer: straight to the river."
"Those who can make it," says Serigot, who has his eyes closed and his hands folded with
placidity on the chest.
"Sure," Gambo confirms. Those who can get there.
Leaning over the ammunition drawer, the major extinguishes the lamp, the buckle of the
belt and lies down, covering himself with the blanket.
Garcia's voice sounds in the dark.
—People should be told, right?… They should be prepared.
Click the Gambo tongue. He does not forget what he heard a professor named Ponznansky say at the
Frunze Academy in Moscow: When disaster strikes, comrades, a married man is no more
than half a man; and if you have children, a quarter.
"No, leave them." Let them fight without thinking of leaving. In the afternoon we will tell them to get ready.
"What time will we leave?"
"As soon as the moon goes down."
"And who will cover the withdrawal?"
"No one ... We'll all go at once, in squads."
"I'll ask for the last one," Serigot says in a sleepy voice.
"We'll talk about that tomorrow," Gambo replies, covering his face with his handkerchief to
protect yourself from mosquitoes.
Page 293
IV
Sitting on the ground, leaning her back on a car wheel camouflaged under some
trees, Vivian Szerman types on the portable Remington on her crossed legs. Knows
that his chronicle will never pass complete censorship, but at that moment he is unable to write another.
You will review it later, before you try to send it:
Tuesday, August 2, somewhere on the Ebro front. By V. Szerman.

After nine days of very hard fighting, the Republican XI Brigade begins to
leave the right bank of the river, to which he passed on the night of July 25.
Command sources indicate that the objectives assigned in that sector have been met and that
it is a planned withdrawal. But those words are not enough to summarize the sad
spectacle of a retreating force.
Under the incessant action of the rebel aviation, with the nearest town burning in the
distance, dozens of fugitive and wounded soldiers crowd the shore looking for a place in
the few boats that can still cross the river, while the pontoneros work without
Rest repairing the walkway, constantly destroyed by enemy bombs.
Also the correspondents of the foreign press pay their tribute of blood. The photographer
Czechoslovak national Joachim Langer was killed on August 1 when ...
The American woman stops writing, looks up and looks toward the river. From the place where
he is, he can see the valley that goes down to the riverbed, the earthy water and the smoke that
it rises above Castellets. The town is out of sight, but the two pythons are well distinguished.
The closest is the Levante, with its bare rocky crest in the intense morning light.
Nothing seems to be happening there. The western one is further away, five or six
miles from Vivian, who can see the dust covering it. It is evident that it is still in the hands
Republicans, since the fascist artillery has been bombarding it since dawn and the explosions
Far from the explosions they come in monotonous succession. Whoever is there has to be
Having a bad time.
The young woman lights a cigarette - there was half a carton of Camel in the trunk of the car.
and looks at Phil Tabb, who a short distance from her conversing with Pedro and two officers
republicans. Despite the days gone by, even after the awkward night after
crossing to the safe bank of the river, the Englishman remains as graceful and poised as usual, half
hand in the left jacket pocket, a cigarette smoking between the index and the heart
on the other, as if instead of on the front lines he was waiting to be led to a
Savoy table. Watching him, Vivian remembers the hours of anguish yesterday at his side, the
sinister sunset on the flight to the river among fugitive soldiers, the shore where they
men on the run and orderlies with wounded. The few available boats moved slowly from
shore to shore, crowded on the way out, and half-naked pontoneros, swimming or with the water by the
waist, tenacious to the point of heroism, they rebuilt again and again the walkway destroyed by the
Fascist planes, which appeared from time to time, machine-gunned, dropped bombs that raised
jets of water in the stream and made the cork floats and planks jump.
Page 294
It was thanks to Tabb that they made it to the other side. The fugitives were crowding in the mud of the
shore between trampled reeds, belts, weapons and equipment that they left there so as not to drown if they fell
the water. The walkway was destroyed at the time, with a large gap in its central span, and
in boats, priority was given to the wounded. A score of exhausted and terrified men
he was claiming a place, and the chances were slim. Pedro argued with the boatmen without
no one would pay any attention to her, and Vivian waited impatiently, dazed, when Tabb, whom she had lost
out of sight, he reappeared with Larry O'Duffy, the commander of the Jackson Battalion.
"They won't let us cross," Tabb told him.
O'Duffy was not the same one they had seen in the morning. His hair was messy and very dirty,
his beret in a pocket, and he looked twenty years older: dark circles under his eyes surrounded his eyelids and
the freckled, aquiline face was scratched by shrapnel. He even walked differently: slower,
hunched over, sore.
"I'm sorry about Chim," said the Irishman. And it's crazy that you're still here.
Then
Pepa; buthe brought
it was them up
all falling to date.
apart and itThe
wasrepublicans resisted
doubtful that in the town,
the situation couldthe
be Rambla
sustainedand the python
longer than
twenty four hours. His orders, the last received from the brigade command, were to regroup the
remnants of the battalion, collect as many Spaniards could fight and organize a defensive line
half a kilometer beyond the footbridge, between the river and the pine forest, taking advantage of some old blockhouses
and fascist trenches.
"How many internationals do you have left?" Vivian wanted to know.
"Twenty-seven and eleven Spaniards."
-Single?
-Single.
"What happened to the others?"
Barely asked, it struck her as a stupid question. O'Duffy raised his hand
wound, pointing to the pine forest.
"They stayed in the python, or lost there."
"And Captain Mounsey?" Tabb asked.
-Dead.
While saying that, the Irishman opened the leather case to take out his opera cufflinks
plated in mother-of-pearl, and with them before his eyes he cast a glance across the river.
"You have to go," he concluded.
"There is no way to board," announced Pedro, who had joined them.
O'Duffy put the cufflinks away and watched the men clustering on the shore. A
weary Spanish lieutenant, dirty with mud and gun in hand, trying to organize chaos; get
that they formed lines to board in turns, giving preference to the wounded. With Pedro as
escort, the brigadista went to him and pointed to the correspondents. He was reluctant to
Lieutenant, who had previously rejected them with bad manners; but the Irishman raised his voice,
gesturing and showing the stripes, until the other ended up giving in. O'Duffy then made
Vivian and Tabb signal for them to come closer.
"You are boarding the next boat," he announced.
-With Pedro?
-Yes. The lieutenant has been reasonable. You are foreign press.
"We'll see you on the other shore, then," Tabb commented, shaking her hand.
The brigadista smiled sadly, his eyes empty.
"Sure… You owe me a drink at the bar at the Majestic."
Page 295
"We owe you more than one," she said.

"Make it Gordon's with a splash of Indian Tonic, please."
-Of course.
He kissed him on the cheek, scratching his lips with the brush of his beard. Then the Irishman
Heget
to walked
waistaway
deep without looking
in the river, in a back, and
boat so the correspondents
loaded and
with people that it Pedro
sank toboarded, after splashing in the mud and
the gunwales,
so it was very difficult to propel it with the oars. It took twenty minutes to get to the other
side, looking at the sky with the fear of seeing fascist planes appear, and set foot on the
shore as the sun was setting and twilight reflected russet clouds in the water. Then
night came, the three spent wet under the covers, exhausted, sleeping in the Alfa-
Romeo who, miraculously, no one had taken from where they left him six days ago.
Vivian pushes the typewriter aside, uncrosses her sleeping legs and leans back on the wheel
out of the car, enjoying the cigarette. Tabb has turned away from Peter and the officers, who are walking away
together, and comes towards her. He stands in front, looking at her, his shadow cast on the
woman. She lifts her face, making a visor with one hand.
"Pedro thinks he can get gasoline," says the Englishman. Enough to get to Reus.
"This is good news."
-Yes.
"Shouldn't we stay until the end?"
"They don't want us here." They don't like what we're seeing, and it's easy to understand ... Until
Pedro is nervous.
"We'll have trouble with the Censorship Bureau."
"When have we not had them? ... But you are right." This time they will read us with a magnifying glass -
Tabb looks at the typewriter. Are you telling about Chim?
-Clear.
"A correspondent should never make the news, but sometimes it's unavoidable."
"Did he have a family? ... He never talked about it."
-Not that I know. Just a girl in Paris, a model of painters, Austrian or German,
called Jutta. I don't even know the last name. They lived together, or they lived. He introduced her to me last year
at the Flore.
A sad silence. Bending his long legs, Tabb pulls up his pants
dirty with dried mud, as if to prevent the kneepads from bulging further, and sits next to
They lived. Then he watches the soldiers coming up the slope from the river, whom a
Carabinieri picket makes a group to one side of the dirt road. Some are injured and
few retain their weapons.
"They can't win this war," he says. They can no longer.
"Yet they deserve to earn it," she replies.
He has offered him the pack of cigarettes, but the Englishman just turns it between his fingers,
without putting any cigarettes in your mouth.
"It is true that they deserve it," he says at last. But they, not their leaders: that mob
irresponsible who is dedicated to settling accounts, to dispute power and to explode the adversary in
the left itself, not caring about making it easy for the fascists.
The American agrees.
"It's true," he agrees. It amazes so much nobility in those who fight and so much vileness in those who
they are far from the front. Anyone can figure that out.
"Fascists, at least, kill with method," says Tabb. They run a butcher shop
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systematic in order to terrify and wear down, ”he wonders. Unlike these,
they are…
"Effective?"
"Brutally effective."
Another silence. Tabb returns the pack to her and she puts it in a trouser pocket.
"Have you read about the history of Spain, Vivian?"
-Very little.
—I'm interested ... I often look for parallels with the First Republic, which is here
proclaimed federally and ended in disaster, with provinces and even cities declaring
independent. One even came at his own risk to declare war on Germany.
-Seriously?
-Yes. I wrote a fun article on that.
"It's a good story."
"Very good." Imagine how that would be, that the first president of the Republican Government,
a certain Figueras, said in a council of ministers: «Gentlemen, I am up to the balls of all
U.S". Then he got on a train to Paris and resigned from there by telegram.
Vivian laughs, waving the cigarette hanging from the side of her mouth.
"That's what the Communists want to end with."
-Too late.
-I think so.
She takes a long drag on the cigarette and lets the smoke out slowly.
"I consider myself a woman of the left, but I don't like Stalin very much."
-Me neither.
"I know, I remember when you and Dos Passos argued with Hemingway ... You were almost there at
hands.
"It's true," Tabb agrees. You were there.
It had happened in the dining room of the Gran Vía hotel in Madrid. Two, as they called Two
Passos, said that Stalin was creating a real army of the Soviet Union in Spain, and
Hemingway discussed it with him. And even if it were, he opposed, we have an obligation not to air it too much,
so as not to benefit the fascists. At that point, Dos, whose friend and translator Pepe Robles, a
Trotskyist Spanish, had disappeared at the hands of the Communists, dedicated harsh words to the
Hemingway bias. No communist fights for democracy, he said. Tabb took sides
by Two, the discussion rose in tone thanks to the wine ingested, and almost ended in
zafarrancho among correspondents. Since that night, Hemingway had not led the
word to Two or Tabb.
"The events in Barcelona made me think a lot," says the Englishman. I was watching
how they killed each other, and I understood that this disease is difficult to cure. Sometimes I think,
And it terrifies me to think that only a dictator from one side or another would control this. And the one who
do, whoever it is, red or blue, it will plunge everything into a bloodbath. Even after winning,
will prolong the carnage for some time ...
Something explodes loudly in the distance. A dull boom that seems to come from the village, which remains
out of sight, under the plumes of smoke that rise almost straight into the now breezeless sky.
The two correspondents look in that direction. Then Tabb rests his head on the door of the
car.
"Do you know what an old communist told me in Barcelona, one of those irreducible ones?"
-Not.
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—When this is over, he said, we will settle accounts with Franco's men, but also with traitors.
to the Republic like Companys, Aguirre and some others. The same ones who would be shot
fascists, we will shoot them. It will take a few years for everything to be as it should be ...
Leveled, was the word he used. Adding a strange expression: even slash, he said. The
we will cut everything evenly.
-Makes sense.
-Yes. From his point of view, of course he does. But I don't see democracy in that for any
part.
The Englishman is silent, busy with a dry twig loosening the mud adhering to his
filthy suede boots.
"And yet they are wonderful people," Vivian says.
"They are," Tabb agrees. That is why it hurts to see them fight and die in this way. So
barbarously innocent, so proud ...
"So brave and tenacious."
-Yes. Italy is on its knees under Mussolini's clown, Germany is a sinister automaton of the
Nazi party, European democracies look the other way with Hitler and Stalin, and even in
Great Britain imposes a white collar fascism ...
"My fellow Americans also think they are safe, as if nothing were with them."
Tabb nods. Her knees are bent and she supports a worn notepad on them that
just out of pocket. Pencil in hand, contemplating a blank page.
"Sometimes I think that the Spanish are the only lucid ones," he says. They understand that
The practical aspect of a civil war is that you know who you kill. That's why they haven't bowed, no
they compromise and fight the battle that others do not dare to give or do not believe necessary ... They teach a lesson
to a world that doesn't seem to care that the bible of the future is Mein Kampf. So with all
their flaws and disasters, I admire so much these illiterate, proud, disoriented, irreducible
sons of bitches.
He looks at Vivian for a moment, bows his head and begins to write.
"It is moving to think of what awaits them if they are defeated."
Sergeant Vladimiro, individual military medal and four wound scrapes on his sleeve, no
will live to wear the fifth. They kill him in the middle of the morning, when the Tercio fights house to house in
the small sector that the republicans still conserve in Castellets. Legionnaires have just
break into a two-story building, and when they reach the foot of the stairs they receive a hand bomb
Citron thrown from the floor above. This steaming but without exploding falls, the men seek
guard, and Santiago Pardeiro, who is with them, sees how the sergeant takes it to give it back
to the enemy. The explosion shatters Vladimir's arm up to the shoulder and leaves him covered in
plaster dust, speckled with shrapnel shards.
"Get him out of there!" The ensign shouts.
While some legionnaires shoot down the stairwell, others grab the Russian and
they crawl to safety, leaving a long trail of blood on the ground. Precipitated
Pardeiro over it, looking for a way to plug the wound, but the tear is irreparable: the
The explosion has reduced the arm to reddish strips of flesh, between which the humerus is
splinters, the artery sectioned so close to the shoulder that it is impossible to apply a ligation. I know
Vladimir bleeds hopelessly, his eyes cloudy in shock, his bleached cheeks sunken from
dust; and when Pardeiro looks for the pulse in his healthy wrist, he hardly feels it and notices his cold hand.
Looking up, he sees the smoky, dirty faces of the men looking at him.
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"Finish them off," he says, and it's not the dexedrine that makes his eyes sparkle. Without
prisoners, understood?… Give no quarter!
Later, with a strange feeling of helplessness, or perhaps of orphanhood, the young ensign
Provisional takes the dying man's wallet, puts it in a trouser pocket, stands up and
returns to combat leaving behind Vladimir Sergei Korchagin, a veteran of four wars,
junker at the Nikolaiev cavalry academy, lieutenant on the Eastern Front, captain of the
Glukhov's Dragoon Regiment during the Russian Civil War, Legionnaire Corporal in the Campaign
of the Rif and sergeant in the war of Spain, who is dying in a ball, curled up against the
wall, while from the upper floor the shots and the shouts of anger of the comrades who
come it.
"Up Spain! ... Don't leave even one, up Spain!"
Pardeiro passes by a shattered window and is dazzled by the light, so he squints
so as not to endanger himself when he returns to the gloom. Legionnaires tour the building
sunburned and black with gunpowder, sweating the water and wine they drank at dawn before
to resume the attack. The ground is littered with empty shells stuck to the dried blood.
"Don't stop, hard on them!" Get paid! ... Keep going!
One by one they clear the rooms between whose walls the gunshots and the boom echo
of the grenades that are thrown preventively into rooms and basements. At times shouts of
wounded reds who complain or surrender, and which only last as long as it takes the attackers to
Finish with them. The order not to give quarter is strictly enforced.
"Slaughter, slaughter!" The legionaries shout, enjoying it.
The young provisional ensign's heart beats hard and fast; so much so that you notice the blows in the
chest. Because there is, see, a wild pleasure in the chase. In the reckoning of the
hunting, making you pay dearly for what you suffer and have suffered, what you lose and can still lose. In the
hate that overflows, unlimited, against those who can satisfy it. Pardeiro himself feels it
explode intense when, after invading a kitchen from which a moment before they fired
enemies, leaning out of a corral through which some reds still run, wanting to
Safe, raise the pistol and fire three shots, taking down the last one. Hitting gives him a burst of
joy. A wild happiness. The legionaries are launched after the fugitives; and one, passing by the
fallen, still stirring, he bends down, machete in hand, and slits his throat. Run the ensign with
the men who enter the next house, where the scenes of the previous one are repeated: a
legionary looks incredulously at his foot destroyed by an explosive bullet; another, screaming on his knees,
holds the belly open by a bayonet; two wounded crawling reds are finished off
like beasts amid the pungent smell of gunpowder, the roar of grenades, shots and screams.
"No quarter!" He keeps shouting. To slaughter, to slaughter!
The heat is unbearable and Pardeiro's head is spinning. If you could think, you wouldn't like
let his war godmother see him now: his face is smudged with smoke and dust, disfigured by
tension, and in his damp clothes his own sweat mixes with the blood of friends and foes. Y
I would also remember, if I could think, that today is August 2, 1938 and that a moment ago
turned twenty.
When Pato Monzón and Rosa Gómez return to the Harinera, a smoke rises over the
fierce fighting noise comes from the town and nearby houses.
The command post no longer exists: the place has become a blockhouse with loopholes open to
beak blows on the walls and walls. The remains of the bonfires where they were
they burned material and documents. Few injured are left in the shed, as they are being
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evacuated to the river; and the fresh corpses, piled up in the crater of a bomb
aviation, are covered with shovels of earth under which appear human forms, bandages
bloody and tattered uniforms, stiff limbs, open skulls, deformed faces
by impacts of bullets or shrapnel. A catalog of horror.
Sergeant Exposito and two other companions are in the courtyard, packing in backpacks
the equipment: the useless transmitter-receiver that has not worked in nine days, the switchboard,
campaign, spare parts, cable reels. The usually stern face of the noncommissioned officer is encouraged as
see the two young women appear, although he quickly gets serious again.
"Blessed are the eyes," he says.
Pato is surprised not to see Harpo.
"And the lieutenant?"
-Injured.
-Serious?
-Not too much. We had an air strike that did damage. Debris fell on him
above: head injuries and shock. The comrades who have already gone to the river took him away.
We are collecting what is left.
Pato takes the carbine off his shoulder and leans on it.
"Are they all okay?"
"Yes, that I know of." Or they were when they left ... How have you guys been?
Pato explains what happened: the night on the Rambla, the impossibility of reaching the python, the
enemy attacks that began at dawn. The critical moment when the fascists were
about to reach the positions, and the order that Captain Bascuñana gave them: leave before
things to get ugly.
"I don't know if they're still holding out," he summarizes.
—They do —Exposure indicates the only field telephone that is still operational, installed
by the stone bench by the door, under the porch. They communicated a while ago, saying that
the fascists had given them a break.
"They won't last long," Pato thinks, disheartened.
The noncommissioned officer gives him a censoring glance.
"That is defeatism, comrade ... It may cost you a lot of trouble."
"We came from there, Comrade Sergeant."
The other watches her thoughtfully. Then he looks at Rosa and the other two, and looks back at the young woman.
His bony features seem to harden.
"Well, you'd better hold on," he concludes, "if we don't want the fascists to sneak up on us.
that side.
He said it in a dry, dispassionate tone. What if they asked what time it is. Pato is removed
cap to wipe the sweat that drips down your face.
-What is the situation?
-It could be worse.
"Yeah, but what is it?"
The sergeant swims sullenly.
"To our left, in the pine forest," he says at last, "the internationals remain, or whatever
remains of them.
"Is there a phone line?"
-Not. It is too unstable a position.
"They are fixed with links," says one of the companions.
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Exposito looks at the gray smoke suspended over Castellets, from where the roar of
rifle and grenade blasts.
"As for the people, you see ... We have the fascists a few meters away." Ours are
They defend in the last houses and the Flour is going to become the main point of resistance. I know
he tries to buy time for all our people to pass to the other side of the river.
"Hours," says Pato, discouraged.
Exposito nods with the same coldness.
"I think so, hours." Lieutenant Colonel Landa, the commissioner and the others have already left.
"What a rush they have been."
The others smile when they hear that, but the sergeant glares at Pato.
"You put ironies in your cunt… Do you understand, comrade?"
Duck nods wearily.
-I get it.
"Here is Major Guarner with half a company of riflemen, three machine guns and what
that is coming from the town. In other words, what is left of the First Battalion.
Pato looks at the companions, who put their backpacks on their backs. Besides Rosa, they are
Paquita Marín, from a family of miners from León, and Lucía Santolaria, whom they call Bicho, who was
ticket office of the subway in Madrid. Two good girls, some of the best. Maybe that's why the sergeant
has withheld to go the last.
-And U.S? -question.
"They order us to maintain a direct telephone line to the river," says Bicho.
"Stirrup position, they're calling down there," the sergeant confirms. They want reports
continuals of the situation and knowing what to expect. That is why we leave an Eneka here and the line stretched out.
"Who's going to take care of that?"
"I'll take care of it." Exposito looks at Rosa. This comrade stays with me.
-And what do I do?
The sergeant points to Paquita and Bicho.
—You go with them.
Pato hesitates, reluctantly, and Exposito looks at her strangely. The young woman does not usually discuss orders.
-What happens?
"I'd like to stay, Comrade Sergeant."
-Why?
"Rosa is more tired than I am."
Rosa's hopeful gesture does not escape Pato. And Exposito, who watches them, either.
"Okay." He shows Rosa a bag of tools at his feet. Take this and
go to the river too. And be careful.
The three of them raise their fists to their temples and hurry away, laden with equipment. The eyes
Very black of the sergeant contemplate Pato, critics.
"I can't get rid of you, from what I see."
"Neither am I of you, Comrade Sergeant."
Exposito does not smile. Indicates the Destroyer carbine, on the barrel of which is supported by Pato
hands.
"I wouldn't get too far from that one."
"I'm not going to do it."
The other still looks at her for a moment. At last he cocks his head.
"Come on." I'll introduce you to Major Guarner.
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They find the major by the wall, supervising the installation of a Maxim machine gun:
very skinny, cunning mouse face, restless eyes behind thick-lensed shell glasses.
His uniform is wrinkled, greasy; and like the men around him, a dirty beard of
trench coat darkens his face down to the cheekbones. Pato is not surprised by that exhausted appearance, because
Guarner and his First Battalion have been fighting for nine days in the town, in the olive groves of the
hermitage of Aparecida and again in the town.
Otherwise the oldest is a kind man. In short, it puts the two women at the
current of what you expect of them.
"We are going to hold out until the night," he concludes, "to give time for our people to finish
to cross the river.
"And what about the python Pepa?" - Pato adventure.
Guarner looks at them inquisitively. First to her and then to Exposito.
"He has just returned from the Rambla," she justifies. We sent her yesterday to the python and she couldn't
move from there.
The older man's expression changes.
—Ah, have you seen Juan Bascuñana?… How is he?
He asks it without suspicion, interested. As if he appreciated the captain. Duck replies that he found it
well and with his willing people. That made her come back when the fascists attacked, but that she's
resisting.
"Who were attacking?"
—Requetés, I think. From the cemetery.
"Yeah ... Well, we better resist." How far away are your positions from the python Pepa?
"I don't know, a kilometer."
Guarner makes a helpless gesture, looks askance at the soldiers who are struggling
positioning the machine gun and lowering his voice.
"Pepa is given up," he says. But those who are there are the Ostrovski Battalion,
And those are not left easy ... They may try to break the fence at night. That's another
reason to stay here, in case they make it through.
He gives Pato a distracted smile. Almost paternal. He is a tired man who harbors few
hopes, and does not seem to give orders, but arguments.
"Guarantee communication with the river at all costs," he concludes. If the Flour Plant falls, there is
to avoid a man for himself.
-At your command.
Pato and Exposito retire. They cross the courtyard back, in the blinding sun, hearing the noise of the
closer and closer combat.
"Try the Eneka," says the sergeant.
They sit on the stone bench, under the shade of the small porch. Next to the phone is a
satchel, and leaning against the wall is Expósito's orange tree. Pato picks up the headset and
move the magneto crank, which turns with the proper resistance. On the other side of the line
a woman's voice sounds.
- "Stapes position when speaking."
—Elehache testing communication… Here we are without incident.
- 'Understood, Elehache.'
Pato hangs up the phone.
"Clean line," he says to Exposito.
-Good.
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"And that bag?"

"The staff forgot it when they left."
The sergeant takes stock of what is inside: three cans of sardines, one of butter
Dutch, another of condensed milk, a well-worn novel by Eduardo Zamacois, a Manual
of the aspiring officer and an unusual bottle of El Águila beer with the plate intact. Too
four cigarettes, a pack of bandages, a spool of sewing thread, and two vials of iodine.
"Not bad," he says.
They light a cigarette with the sergeant's chitter, open the beer and pass it one to the other.
another, sharing it. It's hot, but it tastes good. Voices and noise come from inside the building
of those who open loopholes and barricade doors and windows: the most repeated phrases are «Daos
hurry "and" shit on God. " Pato contemplate the desolate courtyard, the ashes of the fires, the
equipment trampled and left on the ground, soldiers peeking behind loopholes and
bags of earth looking restlessly towards the town. Expendable objects and people, think,
left behind by those who at this moment go over the river. So am I, he concludes with a
almost physical sadness, close to shuddering. As are Exposito, Major Guarner and all
those unhappy people who, insulting God or praying to him inwardly, according to each one, await
resigned the fascist onslaught.
"What's going on, Comrade Sergeant?"
Exposito looks at her sullenly. As if he had just heard an impertinence.
-Why do you ask that?
"I never thought the Republic could lose this war," Pato was sincere. Until today.
The other takes a drink of beer and passes it to him.
-Be careful with what you say.
"Doesn't matter, doesn't it?" The young woman finishes her beer and puts the empty bottle on the floor. He
comrade commissioner has already left.
"Don't be an idiot ... The Republic has lost nothing." You cannot lose.
Pato points to the place.
"Well, no one would say, seeing this."
They keep smoking. With the hand that holds the cigarette, Exposito makes a vague gesture and
stubborn at the same time.
—In other parts of the Ebro, ours advance successfully… They say that we have taken
Gandesa, or that we are about to do it. Our mission here was to cut the road between
Mequinenza and Fayón and we have done it for nine days.
"Nine months, they seem to me."
"It's not a defeat, make no mistake." It is a movement within a general battle and more
complex. Mission accomplished. We have fought well, we are leaving and we will fight again where and
when ordered. And so it will be over and over again, until we finish off the fascists.
The young woman does not see that so clearly.
"What if we don't finish them off?"
"Then we will go to the mountains to continue fighting, or to France as the men of
Bielsa's bag, to return the other way. We will never give up.
Exposito is silent, takes one last drag on the cigarette whose ember burns his nails, and leaves it
fall to the ground.
"Besides," he adds, "Europe is on the brink of war ... When it breaks out, we'll stop
fight alone. This is one of many places where we must hold out until it happens.
He said it looking towards the shed, from which the orderlies remove the last two
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wounded. There is nothing left but bloodstained blankets, dirty bandages, crumpled papers and
empty sanitary boxes.
"We must give Comrade Stalin time and our friends in the Soviet Union."
Pato looks at her, confused. He has removed the bolt from the carbine and is cleaning the chamber.
-Time for?
The sun, heavy and vertical, gilds the dusty air. In that light, the features of Sergeant
they seem tougher than ever.
"Stalin's not ready yet, I tell you ... You have to give him time."
The last buildings in town that the Republicans keep look like monsters
gutted and gutted: piles of rubble under which they stink
corpses, blood-stained clothing, the smell of garbage, ruin and death. And the fascists infiltrate by
everywhere. Overwhelmed, Julián Panizo and his comrades recoil like furious wolves
fighting house to house, room to room. There is no time for calculation or serenity,
because you only fight not to die. Those who attack are legionnaires who advance at bayonet without
mind casualties, dropping hand bombs in pursuit of melee. There's no mercy
for no one. The heat is terrible and even the shadow has become hell. Some men
They fight naked from the waist up, their torsos gleaming with sweat, their lips white.
thirst. Fallen beams burn amid the rubble, broken furniture, doors, and window shutters. Fleet
in the air a haze of pulverized plaster and wood smoke and gunpowder that irritates eyes and lungs.
That veils, blurring it in dirty gray, the chaos of gunfire, screams, insults and booms.
Panizo pulls out the MP-28's empty magazine and falls to the ground because his fingers are shaking. I know
he bends down, picks it up, puts it on his belt, puts one full in the submachine gun - he has another whole
and loose ammunition in his pockets - tap the trigger and fire a short burst,
tacatacatá, three fair shots through the door, which is nothing more than a hole of broken bricks,
stones and chips. Beside him he hears Olmos screaming.
"They're sneaking through the windows!"
Suddenly the dynamiter feels extremely vulnerable, aware that his sides
right and left, even his back, are mortal flesh. So with a tense feeling of
helplessness, he recoils as he looks from side to side, afraid to see the bayonets flash
enemies. In doing so, it slips on loose bushings rolling on the bloody ground:
has at his feet a partner with his face open like a sunflower by the impact of a bullet
dumdún, and another one further away, kneeling, whose head was bandaged by Olmos, dripping blood.
Hand bombs go off in adjoining rooms, bullet-riddled walls vibrate.
"They're fucking right there!… We have them inside!"
Olmos leaves the wounded man half bandaged and backs up too, bumping into Panizo at the door
towards which they rush. The corridor is long and narrow, chiaroscuro, under a ceiling with cracks of
light between the broken rafters. The young bottle that accompanied the dynamiter when the tank,
Rafael, he's glued to the wall, shooting his old Lee-Metford through the opening of a
door. Seeing them appear so hasty, his face melts.
"Run, child!"
The boy doesn't make her say it twice. The three of them reach the end of the corridor together, a
landing from which two staircases start, one to the winery and the other to the upper floor. There they find
Sergeant Casaú and half a dozen bottles that are grouped together indecisively, not wanting to die.
Two of the young men, scared, run upstairs seeking the protection of the upper floor.
The rest, Casaú included, are about to follow, but Panizo grabs the gypsy by the shirt.
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"Upstairs you are dead! ... To the other house!" Shoot for the other house!
Without checking whether he is being followed or not, he goes out into the courtyard — a corral between two buildings — and crosses it to
hastily. As he does so he sees that there are men jumping over the fence to his left and he is about to
to hit them an orange; but he takes his finger off the trigger when he realizes they are comrades: six or
seven dynamiters fleeing nearby buildings, dirty, shattered, dripping blood
like christs of Holy Week. As if chasing them, something similar to a stone comes from
behind, it curves in the air, passes them and is going to fall between them and Panizo. This is thrown into the
the ground with his legs drawn up, protecting his testicles, and with the dry bang the grenade
he throws stones and splinters over him. As soon as they stop bouncing, he stands up and runs
new. Four of the fugitives get up and all arrive together with Panizo at the door of the
next house, which they immediately get into. The dynamiter leaning on the jamb becomes
destroyed, raised the barrel of the submachine gun, and let Olmos and Rafael pass, who entered followed by
Casaú and four bottles. As soon as the last one arrives, Panizo lowers his gun and shoots at the
shadows looming in the house they just left, while in the floor windows
Shouts and explosions of grenades are heard.
A meager breath, barely a minute. Outside shots sound loose. Panting, drenched in
sweaty and covered in brick dust and plaster from top to bottom, Panizo contemplates the nape of the
sweaty, the damp backs of the comrades who stare out into the courtyard holding their rifles
still hot. Reaching into a pocket, he pulls out the last handful of ammo he has left
in reserve: fifty-two rounds of length 9. With thumb squeezes he shoves thirty-six into the
empty magazine. Because of the rush the nail is lifted halfway.
-What do we do? Casaú asks, his voice cracking.
Panizo sucks on his injured finger, biting profanity. It stings horrors.
"Stop them, damn it."
Without anyone telling them anything, the four dynamiters spread out the windows, leaning on
they the rifles while they check the park that they have left. Neither part of the lips. They are
shock sappers like Panizo, who knows them: El Fakir, Galán, Morrazo and Sueiras —Morrazo
He is the Asturian who is missing a little finger and has prison tattoos on the back of his hand.
They all get scratches and bruises, even bandaged or bleeding wounds, but they don't seem
willing to run more than necessary. They keep a cool head because they are braided people, made
to be killed and to kill. With good judgment, Olmos places next to each of them one of the
Casaú's baby bottles, then he looks at Panizo and points to the ceiling of the room.
"Upstairs is more exposed," he says. But it would be necessary ...
"Sure," Panizo replies.
He takes the last hand pump on his belt from his compadre and puts it in his pocket.
"That's the way I like it," Olmos quips. That you load to the left.
-Shut your mouth.
He sucks his finger again, which still hurts a lot.
"Stay here with the gypsy and the others," he adds. And if you have to go, give me a shout
but don't wait for me, I can already manage.
Olmos looks at his boots, crouches down, and tears off a two-toed shrapnel shard
which is nailed to one of them.
"Has it got into your flesh?"
He tramples on Panizo and touches himself inside, checking it out.
-Not. At least it doesn't hurt.
The other throws the shard and again points to the ceiling.
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"As soon as you see it raw, come down." Eh? ... Don't go hooking up there.
"Don't worry."
Panizo goes to the hall and the stairs. He's climbing it when he hears footsteps, he turns and
he sees that Rafael is behind him.
-What are you doing here?
The young man smiles cheekily, his face smudged with gunpowder.
"You bring me luck, Grandpa."
"Grandma will be your fucking mother."
The upper floor has no roof, but a skeleton of beams that intersect as a
broken ribs. Getting between them, the sun beats down. Panizo approaches the
window, sticking out just enough to look. In the courtyard there is nothing except the immobile bodies of
the two hit by the grenade. One has crawled for cover by the wall,
because there is a trail of blood up there; like a dying bull seeking the shelter of the
boards. They have probably finished him off from the house, because there are bullet holes in the adobe.
Taking the knife out of the sheath, the dynamiter cuts a strip of cloth from a sleeve of the shirt
and bandage the thumb with it, pressing the nail well. Then he turns to Rafael.
"Give me this, come on."
The boy obeys. Panizo points his chin toward the window.
—When they come they will do it protected by the fence, pulling us from there while others cross
the patio ... do you see it?
-I see.
—You're going to do the following: you get close to the other window and focus on those, shooting them
so they don't stick their heads out. Try not to expose yourself. You pull, you bend over to reload, you pull and you
crouch. Do not aim at any in particular, shoot them in bulk. Make them feel in danger.
"And the patio?"
"That's what the downstairs and I take care of."
-Voucher.
-Another thing. If the fascists come to the house, this is a bad place. We will have to go down before
cut us off on the stairs. So if I tell you to run, even if I don't tell you but
If you see that I do it, you start running ... Okay?
-Agree.
"You're a good boy." You fucking did it when the tank. Let's see if you do the same this time.
As he speaks, Panizo looks out the window, moistens his lips with his tongue, and it touches
beard hairs. The respite is over. A few green sparrows move across the
fence.
"There you have them, child." Hard on them.
At the same time that he says that, a loud firefight breaks out on the ground floor. Panizo looks out
and sees flashes and impacts of dust in the house opposite, from which legionaries are beginning to emerge
bayonet first. Placing the orange tree on the ground, he takes the
hand, removes the pin and throws it against them. And before it hits the ground and explodes, grab the
submachine gun, crouched waiting for the boom, gets up and waters the patio with three long bursts that
they empty the magazine. He takes it out and drops it to the ground, puts another in and shoots again, this time I shoot
shooting, looking for the targets in the fascists who, stopped by the hand pump, are shown
undecided, they fall hit by the fire that is made from the house, they retreat and drag
some of his wounded.
Pam, bang, bang, bang, it rings in the other window, thundering the room. Doing exactly
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whatever Panizo told him to do, young Rafael harassed his people. The fascist bullets arrive
diagonally to the back wall, from bottom to top, tearing off pieces of stucco and brick. Of the
broken roof fall wood chips.
"They've passed the fence!" Rafael yells, suddenly decomposed. We have them on the side
of the house!
Panizo hears him with difficulty, deafened by the shots he fires against the
enemies moving back through the courtyard. Some fall and others arrive, jumping on the bodies.
At last the dynamiter looks at the boy and sees him crouched, without ammunition, with the bolt of the weapon
open, not knowing what to do. Shrapnel from grenades rings out downstairs. It's time to go.
Panizo bends down to pick up the empty magazine, rushes toward the ladder, descends the
four at a time and finds the comrades backing in disarray down the hall, panting,
looking around with the eyes of cornered beasts. Some carry wounded and one of them is
Casaú, whom Olmos and Morrazo bring very pale, shuffling his feet and wearing his pants
wet with blood. The dynamiter goes outside, where there are no more houses but fences and walls
orchards and corrals, because the town ends there and only two hundred meters
large and square building of the Harinera. Dazzled by the sun, Panizo watches the
wounded through the windows and they fall in any way without anyone picking them up, because those who
they leave the house hurry away.
Bullets start to whiz from the right and left. The rabbit season opens,
understands Panizo. The fascists are already poking around the corners and soon they will do it from the house,
where their shouts of joy resound and their upstairs Spain. Leaving the gypsy lying on the threshold,
Morrazo and Olmos run together and jump walls and fences as if in a competition
sports is involved. Panizo does the same, he takes shelter in a corral barely one meter high,
surprised to see that Rafael remains close, glued to his heels —the dynamite
had completely forgotten - and when he gets up to continue he notices that Olmos is
running alone and the Asturian can no longer be seen. And also that, suddenly, Olmos stumbles and falls from
mouth as if he had been punched on the back of his neck.
Panizo doubts between the instinct of preservation and loyalty to the friend. Just a second. I know
narrowly imposes the last one, runs up to him and finds him with his face on the ground and a
impact on the skull, although it revolts, it breathes plaintively and tries to get up. When Panizo
He touches his head, feels the sunken part and the very soft and broken bones. There is hardly any blood.
"Paco!" Paco!
The wounded man does not respond. Panizo takes him by the arms and pulls him. At that moment he lifts the
He looks and sees that Rafael is there too, he has hung his rifle and tries to catch Olmos by the
legs. But it weighs a lot and slips out of his hands. The fascist bullets keep buzzing in
around them as if they were weaving a net of fine mesh; and the young man, with anguished eyes, helpless,
He shoots an apologetic look at Panizo and runs off. He throws his comrade's dynamite,
although it is useless. Olmos is now on his side and his dull, stunned eyes narrow.
"Leave me, dammit," he mutters hoarsely, his voice cracking into a groan.
-Shut your mouth.
Panizo manages to drag him a little more, jerkily. Although only a little. Another low fence of
stone and adobe stands in the way. He tries to carry it on his shoulders, but he no longer has the strength;
and furthermore, when he is moved, Olmos starts screaming as if his head were ripped off. Try Panizo
push him up to throw him to the other side, but he can't. It wheights too much.
"I can't, brother."
The other looks at him with his mouth ajar and his eyes veiled with dust. Then leaning
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Above him, Panizo kisses him on the forehead, gets up and continues running towards the Flour Mill.
Ginés Gorguel stops at the edge of the pine forest, puts the carabiner on the trunk of a tree,
rub your shoulder and look down at the river.
"They're doing well," he says, pushing back his steel helmet.
Selimán stops next to him and also observes how the national planes, black dots and
silver in the evening, they pass again and again, they descend among the white clouds of the
antiaircraft, they bombard, strafe and rise again making the chain. Looks like a
Sunday air show for the amusement of an invisible audience; but in the distance I know
hear the dull rumble of explosions and the syncopated stutter of the Bofors.
"I wouldn't want to be there," Gorguel adds.
"We've already been, I say to you," says the Moor.
He keeps the rifle on his shoulder and a thumb on the trigger guard of the Mauser, from whose ramrod it hangs
a hen - undoubtedly the last one left on this side of the Ebro - which a little while ago
discovered in some bushes, taking thirty seconds to catch her and twist her neck.
Gorguel gazes fondly into the dark loyal eyes, the gray mustache that joins a beard of
several days, the dirty and misshapen tarbus bent over his forehead with the braid of sewn rope.
"War is fucking weird, Seliman," he concludes.
The Moor watches him with interest.
"Why do you say what you say?"
"Well, I don't know." Gorguel scratches the grime off his neck, which is already scabbing over. You know
people you would never have met and do things you never imagined you could do ... AND
kill.
A broad line of smile crosses Seliman's dark face.
—And you kill too, paisa.
"They haven't killed us." And look, everyone tries, huh? ... But we're still alive.
- Inshalah, Ines.
"Ginés."
The Moor makes a fatalistic gesture, turning one hand upwards and clasping his fingers.
—There's still a lot of guirra for dilante.
-Fuck. You always giving encouragement.
Gorguel takes the rifle and they walk. The unit they were added to is still deployed in a
quiet sector, in charge of guarding the eastern part of the shore. Nobody shoots there anymore.
At most, new deserters and red fugitives who try to get away that way and turn themselves in
to the nationals with more relief than concern.
"I couldn't kill a fly, you know… I was a carpenter."
—But your destiny was to be a soldier and kill bastards who wouldn't be right.
-You are right. It seems.
- Mektub, friend.
"Until they started shooting at me, the Communists hadn't done anything to me." And they shoot me
because I'm here and not at home, which is where I should be.
"You shoot because they are bad shots." They burn churches and mosques and do not believe in God,
owner of the worlds… Holy Franco, blessed be his name, he says so.
"I wasn't very clear about God either." And hey: Franco, even less.
"Well, I've heard you pray, paisa."
"These days I do a lot of things I've never done before."
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From some nearby bushes comes a foul, intense smell. A thick hum is heard from
flies. By now, Gorguel knows exactly what it's about. He tries to get away from there, but the
Moor comes over to look.
"Don't bother, Seliman."
"Easy, paisa."
"I'm calm, but it sucks."
—Your nose covers, I look.
They go around the bushes and see the corpse: it must have been there for several days, because it looks
very unpleasant. At first glance it is impossible to establish whether he was young or old, national or
Red. He has no weapon nearby, but has a hand pump attached to the buckle of the
belt.
"Ours, or theirs?" Gorguel asks, covering his nose and mouth with one hand.
Without any qualms, leaving the rifle with the dead hen on the ground, Selimán has
kneeling next to the corpse and studying it up and down, indifferent to the flies that land on him
in the face. Finally he shrugs his shoulders.
"The grenade will be Russian."
With a branch he removes the worms that crawl between the clothes and rummages in the pockets.
—Any time to be Misiana, I say to you… Do galima, paisa.
A wallet, a lighter, a knife. He leaves them on the ground apart. Then look at the portfolio, leave
drop two photographs, take out four five-peseta bills and open the cardboard of a card.
"Being brave fag," he says.
He throws the document and the wallet, searches a little more and takes a little gold chain from the corpse
wearing a miniature hammer and sickle around his neck, showing Gorguel
triumphal. On the left hand there is a gold wedding band, but the finger is so swollen that
it is impossible to remove it, so he takes the machete and cuts it without hesitation. Then he takes care of the
left wrist, on which there is a watch.
"Damn it, Seliman," Gorguel protests, still holding his nose and mouth.
"Easy on you, friend." Zaretna the baraka. Prosperity visits us.
He looks at the face of the watch, shakes it, winds it a little, holds it up to one ear and smiles,
satisfied. Then he takes out of the zaragüelles the handkerchief where he wraps his treasures, he puts everything
Inside, he grabs his rifle and stands up.
- Iallah… Let's go.
As they walk away, Gorguel removes his hand from his face, spits and takes a deep breath, wanting
clean your nostrils and lungs. The memory of the worms turns his guts.
"I don't recognize myself, Seliman."
The Moor smiles placidly. The hen hangs upside down, tied by the legs to the ramrod
of the Mauser.
"Only God, who sees everything, is who knows." Know what we are.
"We do petty things."
"Machines?"
"Miserable ... Ugly."
The other thinks about it for a moment.
"You and me are also made great things, paisa." We have fought well, ualah. For him
my father's head I tell you. Yes.
"Me, because they forced me."
"Whether they are forced or not ... A man must fight when he must." The women stay in
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the house with children and the elderly, and the men fight. They go out looking for money and food, and that's why
they fight. And while they fight they do good things and do bad things. Luck.
"I know all the bad ones, I think." Tell me some of the good ones, come on.
Selimán glances at him sidelong to make sure he's serious.
"It's weird that you say that, with many days to be together," he says at last. Once in the
Guirra you fight for your honor, for your bosses, for your teammates ... It's not just money and food anymore.
Not the homeland, what do you arumis say ? Black comes out of your heart, but the light also comes out, I tell you.
Pride of being a man and doing like a man ... Guirra is the greatest test that makes us
God.
Gorguel keeps thinking about that. Finally, with an index finger, he touches the Moor's temple.
"You have a loose screw, mate."
The other smiles.
—My father, may God, like my grandfather, may God, he fought against the French and
against the Spanish ... I think about it and I like it. For my head and eyes, what a lot of pride
to call me Seliman al-Barudi.
"And why is that?"
"In my language, barudi means the one who shoots with the powder of the emkhala, which is the rifle."
-Ah, well.
—I'll tell you something, Inés… Men only cry when their fathers or women die and
children are born. But once I cried and it wasn't like that.
Gorguel thinks about it for a moment.
"Hey, Seliman ...
-Tell me.
"I can't imagine you crying or burying your mother, God forbid."
—My mother is old but fine, jandulilá. But I say I once cried. The Jalifa called
to help Franco santo to kill spells that are not of Muhammad. They promised forty dollars to
month and that's a lot of shirts, so young and old we join the list of
arrigulares from my cabila. In addition to two payments, they gave us the uniform and the espadrilles, a can
of Giralda oil, a packet of green tea and three piles of La Rosa sugar ... They made us
rich men, and we went happily to the guirra.
They have reached a height where the river can be better seen, which on that side runs in a curve of
steep banks. The sun is low and its setting light filters through the suspended smoke
past the nearby python, over the village, they don't see from there. Selimán leaves the rifle with the
hen on the ground, and Gorguel, who has taken off his helmet to wipe his sweat, remembers the
corpse and thinks that he will never be able to eat something of that hen, even if they cook it in
pepitoria.
The Moor is sitting cross-legged and spreads the handkerchief with his booty on the ground,
undoing the knots.
"When they took us to Mililla in trucks," he says, "the women were with children in
arms at the exit of the aduar, saying goodbye with the alilí that shouts with the lingua and the throat
when his men are going to fight, which means fight well and come back, that you wait for the fire of the
house, the laughter of children and the soft flesh of your wife.
"Nobody yelled anything at me when they nailed me for this nonsense."
"Because you are not lucky enough to be Moroccan."
"Yes ... that's going to be it."
—I said, I was in the truck and I heard the women, and I remembered when my father, that
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God have, he was going to the guirra against Spaniards and I was holding my mother's hand, and I heard her
shout the same ...
He stops, with some objects in his hand: gold teeth, silver chains, wedding rings, watches
bracelet. He looks at everything as if he were thinking about something else. Suddenly he looks up. It has
his voice altered a bit and his black eyes shine like wet jet.
—Then I cried, paisa ... I cried like men cry, swallowing it, while my
companions sang.
He says that and is very still and silent. After a moment, with unusual care,
almost tenderly, she knots the handkerchief, puts it away, and stands up. Shines in one hand the chain of
gold from dead red.
"I never told anyone ... Bekher, Alah iazeq." God wants you because you are my friend
Agnes.
"Ginés, damn it."
—I know, Ines… You understand misiano what I say, paisa.
He offers her the chain. Gorguel looks at her, looks up at the Moor, and shakes his head.
Selimán insists.
"I give it to you from my heart."
He inserts it into a shirt pocket for Gorguel himself. Then the
carabiner and starts walking, the hen swinging behind him.
Putting on his helmet, the Albacete catches up to him and walks alongside him.
"Hey, Seliman."
"Tell me, paisa."
"Do you really think Franco is a saint?"
Smell of immobile war.

White hand pump ribbons hang from broken reeds, bushes, and logs
of trees without branches. That would be enough to give an idea of how hard the fight has been, if it were not
more eloquent the corpses lying on the parapets with stiff and surprised expressions -
a soldier always seems to die disappointed, as if not quite believing it - the wounded of
both sides, the dozen prisoners sitting on the sandy bed of the Rambla, whom
they watch exhausted requetés with the bayonet fixed.
Oriol Les Forques removes his from the barrel of the Mauser, and before putting it in the scabbard he rubs it
with earth and leaves from a thicket. His hands are still shaking when touching the metal handle and
wood, the blade of more than two feet of blood stained steel that the sun and heat dry
quickly.
"We have done it, Oriol," Agustí Santacreu says.
"Yes ... We have done it again."
"We need less."
-And I see it.
Santacreu finishes bandaging Sergio Dalmau's calf pierced by a bullet, which
fortune is a clean wound. With a smoking cigarette on his lips, the big boy is
lying on his back propped on his elbows, watching apprehensively as his comrade, after
put iodine on the wound, knot the ends of the bandage over the gauze.
"An egg hurts," he mutters.
The other laughs.
"Don't complain, sucker, it hasn't touched bone or artery." So congratulations, because you go
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way of the manger. With this you have two weeks of hospital and beautiful nurses.
"And even if they're ugly, eh? ... I'll send you a photo."
"You're a bastard."
"Well, they'd shot you, hey." Ask yourself the time for the next one.
Santacreu admonishes him, joker, wagging a finger.
—Don't forget that, according to the pater, tango is the shortest shortcut to hell.
"I'll confirm it when I can dance it."
Les Forques puts down the rifle and closes the empty holsters. Then look towards
where Don Pedro Coll de Rei attends to Lieutenant Cavallé, wounded in the last moments of the
assault, when the Reds fell back in disarray, fled or began to surrender. Two
orderlies put him on the canvas and carry him away, hanging one arm almost severed from the trunk. He
Captain watches him walk away and then, followed by Sergeant Xicoy — the assistant Cánovas has died
- walks down the Rambla reviewing the wounded and the corpses among which he wanders,
kneeling for the last aid, Father Fontcalda with his purple stole around his neck.
Almost all those who are of peasant origin, observes Les Forques, die silent, fatalistic,
no fuss. It usually costs more for city people: they call their mothers and protest while
agonize.
"There are a lot of them," Santacreu says, wiping his hands on his shirt. Has stood up and
he also contemplates the bloody bodies over which the chaplain bends. It
darkens the face.
"Too many," Les Forques agrees. Several generations of crows could live on this
during years.
There are few truths like that, he thinks. Of the fifty-nine surviving company
of shock from the Tercio de Montserrat who left the cemetery in the middle of the afternoon with pockets and
leashes full of grenades and ammunition, crawling and crawling as the
Heavy-caliber mortars crushed the enemy position, barely half left. The others
began to fall when the dust from the latest explosions still hung in the air and the
Captain Coll de Rei stood with one arm in a sling, Cánovas raised the flag, the
comrades shouted "Viva España" and "Viva Cristo Rey" launching the assault, and for eleven
minutes they fought and died in the enemy trenches, with bayonets and grenades, until
the Reds raised their hands or fled across the field to the river, harassed by the
shots of those who, finally owners of the position, hunted them like partridges from the back.
"From here to nothing, marching down the Diagonal," Santacreu says, as if comforting himself.
Les Forques smiles, tired and sad. Dirty with sweat, dirt and gunpowder.
"I'd settle for a vermouth and some tapas at El Xampanyet."
"Make it Cinzano and with olive." Please.
—It would be missing more… Olives stuffed with anchovy.
About twenty steps away, in a semi-cave surrounded by bags full of earth, there is a
shattered shadow of reeds and canvas that attracts the attention of Les Forques, because when the
Requesters broke in with their bayonets in front, a group of Reds tried to make themselves strong in that
place. They resisted hard, not agreeing to give up, until Dalmau gave them a long spray of the
machine gun - at that moment he received the bullet in the leg - Les Forques threw a
grenade, and between him and Santacreu they finished with bayonets with those who were still stirring inside.
"Just stand there," they tell Dalmau. That now we come.
"How do you want me to go?" Jumping on the limp?
"You are very capable."
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"Fuck you ... I'd like to go right now."

The two requetés approach the shadow, to take the calm glance that they could not give before.
There were four of the Reds trapped there, and their bodies are still as they fell, covered in flies.
Two of them lie on the sandbags riddled with splinters and bullets. The others are
they find behind, one in a fetal position and the other face up, their arms open in a cross over the
ground covered with empty bushings. The one who is shrunken has his clothes pierced by tiny
Shrapnel and the bones of his feet stick out from his torn and bloody boots. A great
grenade shard protrudes from his skull.
There is a field telephone on a chipped ammunition drawer, with damage to
shrapnel in bakelite sheath. Les Forques takes it off the hook, turns the crank and takes it to
ear. To his surprise, a voice is heard on the other end of the line.
- «Here Elehache, tell me.»
The requeté looks at the receiver, incredulous.
"There is a line with the remigios," he tells Santacreu.
-Check it.
Santacreu picks up the headset and brings it to his mouth.
"We have busted you well, you red shit," he says in Spanish.
When Les Forques took the device from him, communication was interrupted. By the phone
wrinkled and stained, there are maps and notebooks. Aware that they will interest Don Pedro
Coll de Rei, the requeté puts them between his chest and his shirt. When he turns around, he sees that Santacreu
he gazes curiously at the corpse on his back: his plaid shirt, stiff with blood
coagulated like red jelly, the three bars and the army captain's star are sewn on
republican; and despite two large bayonet slashes that plunge into his chest, the expression he fixed
death on her face seems serene: her eyelids half open and her pupils opaque, her
upper lip, uncovers teeth as in a final mocking grin.
"I thought the Reds didn't wear mustaches," Santacreu says.
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There is a faint glow in the distance, on one side of the star-covered night. It's about to
hide the moon and should not waste time.
Black lumps move cautiously in the dark. They are many. No one speaks, not even
whispers. You can only hear the scraping of boots and espadrilles on the ground, the breaths stifled. TO
Sometimes a stone rolls or a branch creaks underfoot, and then the long line of shadows
He immobilizes, holding his breath, before moving forward again.
Silently, the remains of the Ostrovski Battalion leave the python Pepa. There are 198 men
healthy those who try to break the fence and escape. Behind them they leave twenty-seven wounded who do not
they can walk and a volunteer nurse to stay with them. Before leaving the
positions stripped away everything superfluous, covered what shone with mud made with
urine and dirt - they have been without water for a day - camouflaged their faces with that same mud and
how much on his team could he make noise, hopping on his feet to check it out. And after
receiving the last orders in whispers, they went down the slope one after another, in squads, similar
to a long black caterpillar crawling in the shadows.
Gambo Laguna feels wet clothes, but it is not the night's cool. He puts a hand to the
face to wipe sweat from eyes. From one moment to the next he fears that the darkness will explode in
sparks, a flare leaps into the sky and your people are machine-gunned before reaching safety. He has
highlighted Simón Serigot with the lead platoon, Commissioner Ramiro García with Lieutenant
Ortuño in the middle, and he leaves with the last people. Together with five men he maintained the positions
from the ridge until the last moment, gave a hug to the medic who was staying with the wounded -
a brave Aragonese boy named Florencio Azón— and now he's in a hurry to catch up with the
the rest. The idea is to move through the old bottleneck passing between the Rambla, which is already
the fascists, and the people, who are too. Advance as far as possible towards the river before
that —and that, everyone knows, will happen sooner or later— they discover them and have to make their way to
clean shot.
"If I don't get to our lines, visit my wife when you can," Simon Serigot said before
leave-. Take this letter for her. The details are on the envelope.
"Don't be an idiot, comrade… You will arrive."
"You take the letter, damn it."
A muffled noise, maybe someone stumbled. Those in front stop and Gambo gives himself
in the face with the barrel of a rifle. Something sharp hurts a cheekbone, and when
fingers to the wound, it stings, and he feels the warmth of the blood dripping down his beard. Is, understand
with annoyance, what the soldiers call a crosshair; something that can happen when you walk in
Row in the dark and you come across the sight of the rifle that the person before you carries on his shoulder. Any
lost an eye because of it.
The night is still silent. The last glow of the moon dulls the brightness of the
stars on that side of the horizon. The town, dark and silent on the right,
define with vague geometric shapes. Gambo tears a piece of paper from the notebook that
He carries it in a pocket and sticks it on the wound to stop the bleeding. Then he looks up to
note the position of the Polar, which each man must keep to his left, at nine o'clock
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watch.
The major scratches the itch in an armpit, through which he feels a louse move. Then look
around. What do you think about at times like this? Who do you remember, who do you forget, who
loves? The answer is nothing and no one at all, for instincts, more powerful than
thoughts are focused on preserving life. That is why the commander of the Ostrovsky Battalion
keeps the mind empty of everything alien to immediate survival: caution, silence, caring
where you step, listen carefully to the slightest hint of danger, scan the night until they hurt
the eyelids to be open and the optic nerve to pierce the shadows.
The pulse beats fast, even faster, when a flare rises to the sky very far away, perhaps
over the river, and descends slowly, outlining the roofs of the nearest houses in the
town, which by means of that vague clarity can be estimated at about two hundred meters, and leaving
also glimpse the long line of men now still and crouched. They are just minutes away
Gambo understands that some fascist sentinel discovers them; but every step to the river before
That happening will bring you closer to salvation. Once everything starts, there will be no choice but to run
like heck and shoot their way, those who can. Aware that he lives the last
moments of respite, the eldest takes the heavy 9 length Extra Flame out of its sheath, checks with
the thumb that is on the safety, and keeps it in hand when the distant flare goes out
and the dark caterpillar gets up and goes on again.
Despite the uncertainty and tension, Gambo feels a strange lightness of spirit; a freedom
interior that I did not experience for a long time. For the first time since he took command of the battalion,
he does not feel responsible for his men. At this moment, moving into the night towards the river and the
enemy that stands between them and freedom is just one more. Final instructions are
they gave at sunset, and there will be no others. His last order was "Get to the river as many as you can,
cross it and keep fighting. Now each one is responsible for his own actions, because when
the combat begins nobody will be able to control anything. It will be fought in the dark, each one as best he can,
freed himself, trying to break the fascist siege. Trying to get there.
Gambo's hand is sweating with the gun. He passes it to the other to dry on the
shirt, and then it happens: a gunshot to the front, not far away, and the dry boom of a bomb
hand. Then a flare rises to the sky, blinding, and when it falls it illuminates trees, slopes of the
ground, ditches through which the black caterpillar, suddenly immobilized, suddenly comes to life and
scattered in all directions as the night erupts in flashes, explosions, trails
purplish and white with tracers that buzz and spark sparks from stones and bushes,
clarities that intersect like the stitching of a gigantic sewing machine.
Gambo runs as the rest of the shadows run, hearing the ziaaang of the passing bullets,
feeling the rapid vacuum, like suction, left by the projectiles that brush against his body. Run
panting stumbling over the stones and bushes, without seeking protection, without stopping, for he knows
that whoever does it will never run again. Run blindly in the direction you've passed
half an hour fixing on his instinct without losing sight of the Polar, although also there, where he
He directs, shots flash, brief flashes of grenades erupt.
As soon as the flare is extinguished, another one rises to the sky, illuminating everything with a clarity
spooky and milky. Gambo follows in a hurry and his lungs burn just as if they had
embers inside. There are men who precede him, and also to his right and left. Overtake some,
others surpass it. A burst of flashes arises a short distance, cutting off their path, and some
of those who run collapse. The cracks of bullets sound clear when striking flesh,
break bones. The major raises the pistol, shoots at the flashes, runs a little more and
soon falls into a slope in the ground, a ditch in which confusing lumps, shadows
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enemies. More men are pouring in than were running around him, and the ditch turns into a
chaos of screams, blows, butts. Shoot Gambo point-blank at the lumps, hear the scream
of those who are pierced by bayonets, he breaks through as he can, striking with the pistol,
climbs out of the ditch and keeps running while glancing at Polaris, keeping it in the
left shoulder. The last flare almost touched the ground and its light was extinguished, and in the last trace of
The black silhouettes of many men who run, fall,
They die, shoot, and fight for their lives.
"They attack us, my Ensign!" They attack us!

Santiago Pardeiro, who was beheading a dream lying on the ground, abruptly stands up.
It is Corporal Longines who shakes him by the shoulder, without regard to graduation. Behind
Tonet's expectant mouse face appears.
"What do you say?"
"The Rogelios, my ensign." We have them right there!
Pardeiro shakes his head and rubs his bleary eyes, clearing himself as he girdles his
belt with the gun and the chapiri is stalled. With the electric flashlight illuminates the watch on your wrist.
"Impossible
"Whatever I ...
tellThe ones who are going to attack in two hours are us."
him."
The young ensign goes outside. The house he occupies with his men is the most advanced in the
Northeast side of Castellets, less than three hundred meters from the red positions in La Flour.
But from that part everything seems calm. It is to the north, at the bottleneck between the town and the
cemetery, where you fight; and furthermore, it checks, with extreme violence. From the portal
of the house, Pardeiro manages to see very close the flashes of the shots and the glare
of hand bombs, and hear the dense crackling of riflemen spreading like fireworks,
resounding in echoes that multiply it. And because of the place where this occurs, he immediately understands what
what's going on.
"Hey, Tonet."
The boy's determined voice sounds.
"Tell me, Mr. Ensign."
"You know that place well, right?"
-Well of course.
"Do you see the shots that flash further to the right?"
"I see you, Mr. Ensign."
"How far is it from there to the river?"
"About two kilometers."
The officer nods, satisfied.
"They want to break through the fence." They try to pass.
"Are they counterattacking from the river?" Longines asks.
"No, man, on the contrary." They go towards the river. They go away… right, Tonet?
"I think so, Mr. Ensign."
It was a possibility. The command already warned yesterday, and Pardeiro took the provisions
adequate, if possible. Device according to the most probable hypothesis, safety compliant
to the most dangerous. His legionaries - the remnants of the 3rd Company mixed with the reinforcements
of the 4th - they make the main front of the Flour Factory, which they intend to attack in the morning as soon as
two Panzers arrive that must support the assault; but also, in anticipation of an attempt to
infiltration from the west python, the ensign has placed a wedge-shaped platoon on the neck of
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bottle, in trenches that he made them hastily dig and from which they almost shake hands with
Carlists who took the Rambla yesterday. And he supports those men from something further back, in a
elevation of the ground that allows the sector to be lined up well, a Fiat Revelli heavy machine gun
equipped with fifty-round magazines; the same one that at this moment shoots with bursts
professionals, very well directed, directed their fire by the tracers that tear the night with
its luminous traces.
"They're happening!" Exclaims someone nervous in the dark, not far away.
-Silence! Pardeiro bellows. Shoot, and hush!
Some will succeed, he supposes, although he doubts there will be many. They shoot the legionnaires with fire
shot from his height, guided by the lines of the machine gun. Also the requetés of
other side they shoot intensely from the cemetery and the Rambla. The tump, tump, tump out
of the small caliber mortars now begins to sound from behind, twenty seconds later
the first projectiles explode below, and the bottleneck turns into a hellish vertex
that bustles with impacts, flares and flashes where the luminous points of the
tracers that cross the night like disciplined fireflies.
"They're taking a lot of rubber," Longines says.
Raising the binoculars, Pardeiro can see distant silhouettes running scattered among
brief, magnesium-like glows of a crazed photographer. But not only
they flee, he warns. They also fight.
I wouldn't want to be down there, he thinks. I would not like it at all.
"Hey, my Ensign?"
Pardeiro hears it, indeed, and pays even more attention. Some voices begin to be heard among the
grenade booms and rifle shots, growing in intensity like a rumor
it spreads until it is chanted by dozens of throats more and more numerous, more and more loud.
You can almost make out, or guess, the words:
Above, outcasts of the earth,

on your feet, famished legion ...
"They're singing," he says, lowering the binoculars in amazement. Those bastards are
singing The International.
Pato Monzón sees them coming, at least some of them. Those who got through appear
between the two uncertain lights of dawn, running alone or in small groups, silhouettes
Helpless in the leaden clarity that begins to filter in from the east. Behind him, far away,
the flashes of the mortar fire still flash, the intermittent traces of the tracers
that annihilate those who have not been able to break the fence and remain there forever. Come the
survivors exhausted from the effort, panting, wounded, helped by their companions. Some
take refuge in the fortified walls of the Flour mill and collapse exhausted when feeling safe,
Either way, faces dirty with dried mud, bleeding from wounds, dragging
rifles that almost all keep. Others pass by and go on towards the river, walking
now more slowly without any concert, without bosses or officers in sight to give them orders.
"Poor comrades," says Pato.
"Poor, nothing," grunts Sergeant Exposito. They have fought like wild beasts and managed to pass.
-Not all.
—It's the same… Each one that arrives is a victory.
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They take care of them the best they can before heading to the river: water, something to eat, attention
for the wounded. Newcomers look at each other, search and call, ask about this
or that comrade. They are tough men, hardened by life and struggle, and perhaps that is why Pato
their half-naive comments are touched, their eagerness to hear from absent friends, to
find out who has managed to cross the fascist lines and who could not. They move her
Those short hoarse voices, the empty expressions in the eyes that growing clarity defines
more and more, the way they shake hands or hug each other when they recognize each other with the first
light, how tired faces bend, comments of concern or pain for those who are absent.
The young woman believes she perceives something unequivocally masculine in them: a curious group ritual, not
deliberate, instinctive, which seems to bind them together. As if they have not been in the campaign for two years,
but thirty centuries returning together from difficult places, from hunting and war, always they and
always the same, those who manage to break the siege and the comrades who do not return, in whose
honor looks back or lights a cigarette. And Pato feels a strange envy, because it disturbs her
the suspicion that, unlike men and their natural group instinct, which shelters them so much,
women fight much more alone.
A staggering soldier arrives, badly wounded in the arm, from which the severed artery throws
spurts of blood, and collapses before them without a voice or a groan. Smells like gunpowder, dirt and
Dirty clothes. The two women tend to him as best they can, binding his arm tightly with a
rubber to put it to sleep and remove the huge metal splinter that prevents it from plugging the tear well.
But the wounded man - skinny, ragged, muddy face, beard of several days -
leaving your hands cold and your lips bloodless, and you bleed without being able to stop the bleeding,
wide open his aching eyes, fixed on the nothing that slowly takes over his immobile body.
"Leave it alone," Exposito says, standing up while drying his hands on the legs of the
monkey-. It is no longer worth it.
It does not last, the relative calm. As soon as daylight sets in, the enemy begins a bombardment
dreadful. The fascist artillery, which appears to have been reinforced overnight, throws a deluge
of fire on the republican outpost and the almost three kilometers of land that
between her and the Ebro. For an hour large caliber projectiles explode, raising jets
of earth, thickening the air with a dust that smells of burned stubble, sulfur and trilite.
Fortunately the shot is indirect, and most of the cannon shots pass howling over the
Flour mill to explode between her and the river; but mortar fire does hit the building directly
producing damage and casualties.
Crouched in a shelter surrounded by sandbags, lying face down with her hands
shielding the back of his neck as he hears bombs exploding and shrapnel flying, Pato feels the earth shake
under your body. Squeeze a stick between your teeth so they don't collide and the shock wave
compensates in and out of the eardrums and lungs, and feels moist from a taste
unmistakable metallic: nose and gums bleed. Sergeant Exposito is lying next to
her, touching their bodies. Sometimes, in the moments of respite between bomb and bomb, they look at each other
without saying anything, with reddish eyes that pierce the mask of dirt and dust. It seems impossible
that nothing can survive what is falling.
Suddenly the noise ceases and the silence that follows, similar to the stupor of those who keep it -
as if they did not quite believe in him - he is filled with the blasphemies of the men who
incorporate, the voices of the wounded who until now did not dare to shout or could not be heard,
I begged for nurses and orderlies. And then, among the smoke that has not yet dissipated from the
all over, the figures staggering around, disoriented in the brown haze, while Duck and the
sergeant rise to their feet, helping each other, coughing up the dust and dirt that irritate the
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lungs and dry mouth and throat.

Exposito shakes off his jumpsuit and runs his hands over his face. Duck starts to tell him what it is
It is necessary to check if the NK-33 and the telephone line work after the bombing, when the
Sergeant stands very still, and signals the young woman to be quiet. Look up at the building
whose roof has collapsed and from which are broken tiles and chunks of brick scattered all over
everywhere, but pay no attention to that, but to the sound that comes from beyond, from the other side of
the Flour Mill on the town side: a growing noise of approaching engines.
"Damn," he says.
Pato's heart gives a false beat.
-Planes?
"Worse ... Tanks."
Many hear the same thing, and men rush to their positions of
combat. Loose shots and bursts are already ringing, and the hammering of heavy machine guns hits
sinister on the other side of the walls. Duck sees Major Guarner, who standing in the center of the courtyard gives
orders, sending people to the loopholes. Then walk to the stone bench where it is
field telephone installed, surrounded by a protection of ammunition boxes filled with
land, and Pato and Exposito come to meet him. When they reach his side, the eldest has
Pick up the handset and turn the handle.
"Stirrup Position, Stirrup Position," he says. I'm calling you from Elehache… Do you hear me?
His face is gray with fatigue and his sore eyes weep for the earth. Look at the two women and
He hands Expósito the phone helplessly. The sergeant puts it to her ear, moves the
crank.
"Out of service," he confirms. The cable will be broken.
Guarner looks at them resignedly, almost indifferent. He takes out a very dirty handkerchief and blows his nose.
"Is there a way to repair the line?" She asks with little hope.
Exposito does not respond. He just looks at it gravely. The elder shrugs his shoulders.
"Never mind, not much to say," the team points out. Pick this up and go. Nothing
you have to do here.
"Is everything so bad, Comrade Major?" Pato asks.
"Not bad, it's running out ... Leave now that you still can."
The shooting increases on the other side of the building. Rifle shots and also the boom
flashing machine gun Maxim. Heavy fire sounds a little further away, closer and closer.
Fascist fire.
"When you get to the river, report what's there." I guess I can hold out for a few hours ...
Tell them to hurry to cross, whoever they can. After the Flour Mill falls, everything
it will happen very quickly.
After saying that, the older man turns on his heel to enter the building, but stops at
point to the orange tree and the Destroyer carbine that are on the bench next to the telephone.
"If you
"We don't
have thetake that, disable
Tokarevs," it." replies, feeling his belt.
Exposito
-Best. So you will go lighter in weight.
Guarner disappears. The sergeant has leaned over the phone and disconnected the cables.
"Go get the tool bag and the coil pack," he says to Pato. They are in the
chicken coop shed.
The young woman obeys. The place is thirty steps away, attached to a wall demolished by the
bombs. One of the blasts ripped the roof off as cleanly as if a
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hack. Duck is about to put his backpack on his back when he hears a loud bang nearby, a
starting shot. Standing on the tips of his feet he can see the heads of some
soldiers next to the protective shield of a cannon. Curious, she leans out to look. It's about a
Russian anti-tank Maklen 37, with its characteristic wagon wheels. It is served by four gunners; one
just put a projectile in the still smoking chamber from the previous shot, and another closes it with
a metallic click. Beyond the square steel shield, Pato can see the houses more
next to the town; and between them and the republican position, about two hundred meters away, something that
bristles the skin: four very dark gray armored vehicles that advance slowly, stop,
They fire dense machine gun bursts and advance again. After them, leaping, looking for the
Protecting the land, scattered men move, barely visible for a moment.
Fire the antitank again with a flare and a jump that raises the gun carriage a foot
ground; and one of the tanks flashes with a huge spark and goes still. Shout
the gunners exulted and the shout spread through the republican position, but immediately
The firefight rages on: the other tanks spit direct, bulky fire that hits the walls of the
building, in the walls and sandbags, and echoes with metallic hail on the protective shield of the
Canyon. The gunners crouch lower, Pato crushes hearing the heavy bullets being flogged, and at the same time
time a salvo of heavy caliber mortars strikes in chains over the trenches and
parapets.
Smoke and dust again. A lot. The young woman steals the body by retreating with her head lowered,
cats, carrying her backpack and satchel on her back, and runs to meet Exposito. The Sargent
He has closed the telephone box and collects all the telephone wire he can; more when Pato
He proposes to adduct it on the coil, the sergeant stands still, staring discouragedly at the cable. To the
Finally, after a hesitation, he drops the part that is rolled up in his hands.
"Fuck it," he says dejectedly.
He takes the orange tree by the barrel, breaks the wooden stock with a strong blow against the stone
and throws the two pieces to the ground.
-Come on, let's go.
He hangs on the NK's leash, and begins to walk away from the building. Duck feels an emptiness in
chest that makes his knees sag: a desolate mix of stupor, faintness and
fear. He finally
carbine, reacts,
pulls out slaps
the bolt andoffbreaks
his backpack, adjustsblow.
it with another his bag,
Thentakes the the bolt as far as he can,
he pulls
and with the bag of tools on his shoulder he goes behind the sergeant.
They both go down to the river, hurrying. The dirt road is full of objects
abandoned by the men on the run: an overturned car, trampled and dirty clothes, bandages
bloodstained, canteens, ammo combs, holsters, guns, open backpacks with
the contents scattered on the floor. Next to a T-26 tank lying in a ditch, with a
chain broken and out of its guides by the impact of an aviation bomb, there is a mule
dead; and next to her, the shattered corpses of two wounded that she transported in the artolas
when it was hit by impact. The acemiller's body is a few steps further, fallen from
face, with the nape and back black with flies.
A man is sitting against a tree by the side of the road. For a moment Pato believes
recognize Captain Bascuñana and he approaches with his heart leaping in his chest; but
warns that it is not him. It's about a middle-aged soldier with messy and very dirty hair,
feet black with dirt peeking out from the torn espadrilles. A dark trench beard
blue the face. He has a rifle at his side, with the bayonet attached, leaning against the tree. It remains
motionless while smoking a cigarette; and as he approached, Pato saw that he was injured on one side,
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stiff shirt of dried blood.

"Can I help you, comrade?"
The other raises his eyes and looks at her distractedly, without moving or responding, limiting himself to
put the cigarette back in his mouth. You seem indifferent, tired, or maybe both at the same time.
Afterwards, after looking at the young woman, he very slowly shakes his head.
She stares at him in bewilderment, slow to react. Finally, as at the impulse of a
Inner shaking, he turns his back sharply to the soldier and rushes to catch up with the sergeant
Exposito, who continues walking without looking back.
This was defeat, thinks Pato as he walks.
So defeat was this.
This is victory, says an exultant Santiago Pardeiro when he advances with his legionaries
taking cover behind tanks: something you can almost touch with your fingers. The certainty of
own force that is projected at last on the defeated; the even physical relief that, after the worries
and the uncertainty of the combat, supposes seeing him go back broken, object of the shots that
they are done while running to get to safety. The sense of cruel omnipotence that brushes the
reckoning.
If there is a time when the young ensign does not wish to die at all, it is now, so close
end. That is why he moves with a caution that he did not show in the past days, turning from
from time to time to make sure his men do the same; Be aware that the shield of the
Panzer that screeches before him leaving a smoke of gasoline protects him as much as possible. Sometimes,
Between the boom of the MG-13 double machine gun from the turret, he hears the cling-clang of bullets
that hit the armor.
Pardeiro does not give orders, it is not necessary. Every legionnaire knows what he is doing. Before assembling
bayonets, abandon the protection of the people, and set out for the Flour Mill,
scarce hundred men left and told them, in a short harangue, what is expected of
them: frontal attack supported by several black tanks while on the left flanking the
shooters from Ifni and on the right the Battalion of Baler. Nationals have to reach the river
in the afternoon, and that's where they are. In breaking the resistance of the Flour Mill to clear the
road.
The red antitank firing from the left has finally been silenced. I was doing
hurt. Fortunately there is no need to take it by storm, because one of the last hits of
heavy mortar - that cover ended as the legionnaires approached the position
enemy - it must have hit the ammunition, as it lifted it through the air, knocking it off the parapet
as if it were cardboard. Making furious fire with their machine guns, the three
Negroes who remain operational have left behind the one who received the cannon shot, who smokes with a
a tear in the steel and the corpse of a tanker impaled on one of the open hatches.
Pardeiro looks at his men: bearded, grimy, wielding Mausers armed with
bayonets as they walk slowly and crouch behind the tanks, protecting themselves at each
irregularity of the terrain no matter how small, stealing the body to the bullets that pass. They do not have
hurry, they don't waste forces, they don't shoot; they stop kneeling, they look cautiously, they advance
new. They save the ammo they will need when they are at the proper distance, before the body
to body. Some of them, survivors of the 3rd Company, have been fighting for ten days. The
who arrived with the 4th reinforcement, five. That is why they move with the peculiar way of the
soldiers who have received a lot of fire and are almost at the limit: a little slow, with gestures
mechanical, the eyes red and shiny, the pupils turned into hard black dots. Go
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of cognac until the bars.

A red submachine gun shoots in well-aimed bursts, the bullets clap-clap-clap-clap
raising puffs of dust, and one of the men advancing in the open on the right
The lieutenant bends his knees and collapses as if his strength failed him. Turn your turret one of
tanks and the rattle of the double machine thunders vindictively, intense, pounding, pecking at
hits the enemy position. Two orderlies run in search of the fallen and remove it
rear. The walls of the Flour Mill are near, and the three little black men stop looking for the
best position to hold the last phase of the assault. Some knees on the ground, others leaning on
the armor, the most advanced legionnaires begin to bring the rifle to the face and shoot.
He looks back at Pardeiro to see how the rest of the people are and finds Tonet glued to
its shadow. The boy follows behind with his legionary chapiri and his bayonet on his shoulder,
crouchingdarken
scratches when the ensign
with crouches,
dirt, he walking
has scratches onwhen he does.
his knees Theface
and his legsfull
fullofofchurretes, but his
expression is one of absolute happiness.
"What are you doing here, Tonet?"
The kid doesn't respond. He just takes two more steps and kneels next to Pardeiro, looking
towards the enemy with a fearless gesture. A little further, sheltered behind another tank, is the
Corporal Longines, who since Vladimir's death has served as Sgt. Pardeiro points to
child asking for explanations, and the other makes a gesture of helplessness.
"I told you to stay behind, baby."
"There is nothing in the back, Mr. Ensign."
Pardeiro slaps him and the boy smiles stubbornly. Grabbing him by the arm, the ensign
closer to the tank, seeking to better protect it.
"Don't get away from there." But if you see the tank moving, be careful because it can
back off and crush you ... Got it?
"Yes, Mr. Ensign."
The officer takes the Astra out of the holster. Then he looks over the shield to calculate the
distance to the enemy position. There is a good race ahead, slightly uphill. Of
the assault again. For fear of gasoline bottles, until the ground is cleared
tanks will not go further.
Again the faithful infantry, he concludes. That, as the hymn says, knowing how to die knows how to win.
After thinking about it for a moment, the young man moves close to the tank and feeling the heat of the engine,
up to the left side. Once there, he hits the armor with the butt of the pistol, making the
adequate sign: the helpful little glass of ojén. The side hatch is ajar and a face appears
greasy headdress with a black beret that sports a skull and two tibiae: the chief officer of the tank.
"Are they going to stay here?" Pardeiro asks.
"I don't trust myself to go any further," says the tanker. Now it's up to you.
The ensign nods, stoic. There is not much to think about, and nothing to discuss.
"Then we get ahead of ourselves." Beat the big gap and the right parapet,
from where that machine throws us, and try to give us as much cover as possible.
"Count on it, buddy… Good luck."
The hatch closes and Pardeiro returns to the back. Several men have approached
and they gather instinctively seeking protection from the tank. Everyone looks at the officer with
quiet resignation of the veteran who knows what is coming next. Longines and others
legionaries, lying on the ground or crouching behind the other blacks, also look at him
expectant. There is no possibility of giving orders by voice, because at this moment the three
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tanks start firing and the roar fills everything: six 7.92 mm machine guns
they punish the enemy position.
lockOur longing
a bullet intoisthe
your greatness,
pistol Pardeiro
and leave mentally
the safety hums
on. Our without
longing moving
is your his lipsrepeat.
greatness, when What
be noble and strong. The breast pocket is touched with two fingers, on the patch with the star of
six points, where he carries the photos of his parents and his war godmother and the unfinished letter to
this. Then he crosses himself without trying to hide it, and looking at the men around him
wink to lighten the gesture. Some smile and others cross themselves too. To the right and
left, everyone is watching him: the provisional lieutenant of twenty years just turned
that he is preparing to lead them, again, to victory or disaster.
The young man breathes deeply, very often, aware of his lungs still healthy, filling them
of the air that he will need so much, while he gazes at the blue sky and fills his eyes with light. I know
he feels at peace with his conscience and with the world in which he lived. If it is to fall, it will do so as a
officer and a gentleman doing his duty, without hatred - the rancor of a soldier in combat is another
thing — toward those he intends to kill and may be killed. At peace with himself. Just with one
gray melancholy for what will be denied.
Look down at last, looking straight ahead. And to see you feared and honored, keep humming to yourself
same; although suddenly he stops confused, because he does not remember how the warrior hymn continues
has sung a hundred times. But it is time, and it doesn't matter. Raise your left hand with all five
fingers extended and picks them up one by one: four, three, two. The last one, the index, shakes it in a
circular movement. Then he leaves the protection of the tank and sees the Flour Mill in front, white
and menacing, dotted with impacts and clouds of dust from machine gun fire. He
The building is less than a hundred meters away, but appears to be on the edge of the
time and fear.
-Go Spain!
Scream that in a hoarse voice - he's been yelling it for ten days - unhook the gun and start
to run. He does it five meters ahead of his men, as stipulated by the unwritten ordinance
of the Legion.
Then suddenly you remember the rest of the lyrics.
And to see you feared and honored, happy your children will go to death.
Julián Panizo adjusts the bandage on his broken nail, pokes his face through the gap between two sacks
Terreros, take a look and curse loud and clear.
"I shit on the Virgin's panties."
The bottles that are crouched next to him, Rafael and a dozen others, look at him waiting for him.
that the dynamiter does not know how to give them: encouragement and confidence. They've seen too many fall
companions, and their almost childish, dirty and fatigued faces are tense, the eyes of
uncertainty, pending of Panizo as, in a storm that will pluck the sails and disarm
sticks, an inexperienced sailor would be from the captain. But he's not a captain, and he didn't even want to
never accept a single gallon of cape. He does not know how to drive men, much less children
seventeen and eighteen years old. All he knows is to fight.
"They come to bayonet, creatures," is all he is right to say. You have to stop them anyway.
They can't get here.
"What if we withdraw?" —Adventure one.
"That's worse, groggy ... They'd hunt us from behind, like rabbits."
His orange tree clicks as he gets on. You have that whole magazine and a half more:
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fifty-four shots and no grenades. Then we will have to dance a chotis based on
rifle butts and machete. Concealing her unease, putting off hopelessness, she makes an effort to smile.
How much he misses his compadre Paco Olmos, and to be able to tell him now to shut up.
Point to the sandbags.
"We're going to look out there and throw everything we've got at them." Throw him eggs and pupil, okay?
… For every shot, a fascist.
Giving an example, just enough to support the submachine gun and aim at the figurines
enemies who are now advancing rapidly and are already about fifty meters from the
position. Put the selector on shot to shot, pull the trigger and start shooting slowly,
thrifty, with method, looking for the nearest enemies. On either side the
booms from the boys who also shoot, mimicking him. Only two of them stay
crouched down and a third runs off. Panizo, who sees him out of the corner of his eye, represses the urge to hit him
one shot. This is not the time, you understand. Not now, because they would all fall apart.
There are three fascist tanks covering the attack. Luckily, thinks the dynamiter, they are of the
dark-painted Germans, who only carry machine guns in the turret. If they had a cannon like
the Russians, from the Flour mill, would not even have their tails left. But they have stopped away and let the
infantry, legionnaires over there apparently, do the rest of the work. However,
check satisfied, they don't have it easy. To the rifle fire that is fired from the parapets
and the building is joined by the effective hammering of the Russian machine that from the left side fans
well-directed bursts that honor attackers, forcing them to come slower,
stop every now and then and seek protection.
Although the fascists also shoot. They no longer rain mortises as they did until recently, but
the fire of the tanks systematically irrigates the republican positions. Fall
men and the park is scarce: people are heard crying out, desperately, for ammunition
that nobody brings anymore. Either he doesn't know anything about the war, thinks Panizo, or right now there is his
back a bunch of motherfuckers throwing it all away to run faster to the river.
"You are doing very well, creatures!" He yells at his boys. Keep it up, hard on them!
… Imagine that your girlfriends are looking at you!
There is no remedy, with or without girlfriends, and the former miner from La Unión knows it. But
the truth is that he is lazy to run. A lot of cansera, as they say in their land. And that, he concludes, is
as good a place as any to face the end. He feels it, yes, for the kids
that surround it, that they are dying or will die before they even begin to live. But that's how
things and so is war. This is the filthy world that struggles to change; a new world that without
certainly has to come. Who can like this one?
A blast on the parapet. A bottle drops the rifle, puts his hands to his face and falls from
back without saying a word, so slowly that it seems that he is sitting down. Another, with one shoulder
devastated, he huddles on the ground calling for his mother. OMG, moan. Mom, please
my mother.
"Hit them hard, my children!" Hit those bastards hard!
"Grandchildren, grandfather ... In any case, we will be your grandchildren."
The Rafael bottle is at his side almost elbow to elbow, striking the bolt of the gun with his
palm of the hand, putting one bullet after another and firing where Panizo does. He has
traded in his old rifle for the Mauser of one of those who have fallen, and uses it effectively. With
a sidelong glance, the dynamiter sees the gunpowder-smudged profile of the young man, the gorrillo
bent over one eyebrow, the cheeky half smile that even what's falling doesn't take away
the youth of the mouth. Panizo opens his to tell him any nonsense, but at that moment go,
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beyond the boy, how a machine gun burst hits the parapet of the machine
Russian, catching the servants unprotected as they change the tape and pour water into the
fridge. One falls off the parapet, disjointed like a fairground puppet, and another remains
lowered over the machine.
Panizo doesn't even think about it. That machine gun is the only serious obstacle to the fascists
on that side. So he hangs the orange tree on his back and slaps Rafael on the shoulder.
"Can you help with a Maxim?"
-Not.
—Well, it's your lucky day… Come, what are you going to learn?
Panizo runs with his head down, climbs the parapet and drives away the dead machine gunner,
pushing it aside. The ribbed brass sleeve surrounding the barrel is hot and
slippery with blood; The dynamiter wipes it a little with the sleeve of the shirt and closes the cap
water inlet.
"This is a Maxim, see? ... a hell of a Soviet machine." Each tape has two hundred
fifty bullets and fires six hundred per minute. It is the host.
Panizo sits behind the protective steel shield.
"Give me the tape, come on." Put it through the power box ... Over there to the right, that is.
Hold it up so it doesn't catch… And lower your head, damn it.
When the end of the tape sticks out from the left side, the dynamiter gives a strong jerk,
move the bolt forward, and repeat the same operation twice. Clack-clack, clack-clack, it does.
-You see? Now there is a bullet in the chamber and another in the entrance of the slide. Now it can
throw in automatic.
Leaning over the stock, Panizo holds the double grip, rests his left thumb on the
trigger lever — the right one hurts — and looks out the shield window lined up with the
look. The fascists are thirty meters away, he calculates.
"Set the rear sight to zero and open your mouth wide so your eardrums don't break."
Rafael obeys, ducking on the spot because one of the tanks just sent another
blast that crackles against the sandbags and the wall behind, blowing up earth and
brick chips. A stray bullet hits the steel of the shield, which vibrates with a sinister
It rings the bell and makes the machine shudder. Two seconds later, his face contorted,
lips parted to reveal clenched teeth, Panizo begins to shoot blasts
short and precise that arise with violent succession of booms, thundering the air. And the other
On the side, wherever they hit, the figurines advancing resolutely hesitate, stop and seek
shelter between the powder jets that dot them.
"Another tape!… Have another tape ready!"
As she turned to Rafael yelling that at him, her hands trembling from the shaking of the weapon,
Panizo is sad to see that the bottles that were left behind the sandbags are beginning to
abandon them, surely because, like him now, they hear the screams of the Moors who howl just as
than jackals giving the assault a little further, on the right flank of the position. That changes the
things and changes too much: the sense of urgency and danger grips the English of the
dynamiter, who strives not to panic. Losing your mind now is losing
life, and he needs it to keep killing fascists. With a slap he shakes Rafael for a
shoulder.
"Get one of those, before they all leave!" Run, we're taking the machine!
The boy obeys while Panizo removes the pins from the shield, to relieve the weight of the
machine gun. Then unhook it from the stock with wheels. The sixty kilos of weight remain
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now divided into two, weapon and car, and that makes it transportable. There are two boxes of ammo
closed, full, and one open. The dynamiter wraps around the body the band of bullets from which
is open, and at that moment he sees Rafael appear with another sweaty-eyed boy
scared, covered with a steel helmet so big that it dances on his head.
"You, take the car back." And you, take that ammo ... We're leaving, creatures.
The three crouched wait for the fascists to fire the next burst, and while it is still
the dust that it raises in the air, the dynamiter throws the heavy machine on his shoulder, lowers
of the parapet and gets as fast as possible through the gap in the wall, towards the patio
full of rubble where there are men fleeing and others crawling wounded, imploring a
help that nobody gives them. Panizo crosses the place hurrying, suffocated under the weight he carries
above, that the almost five additional kilos of the orange tree make it unbearable. And after looking back
checking that Rafael and the other bottle follow in his footsteps, he takes the dirt road that goes down
towards the river. The sun is very high and falls vertically, as a punishment, and the sweat drips down the body
of the dynamite as if a sponge were squeezed over it.
Making his way through the cane fields that hide him from the fascists, the largest of militias
Gambo Laguna observes the opposite bank of the river.
Salvation is there, or it would be for a good swimmer able to overcome the current or be left
carry her skillfully to the other side; but he is a mediocre swimmer, and besides he is not
alone. He is accompanied by five men, one wounded. Four of them are the only ones left from the
platoon he was with when last night they broke the enemy siege at the bottleneck.
The fifth is Captain Serigot, whom the leader of the missing Ostrovsky Battalion found at
dawn with a bullet in the hip and another in the leg, sheltered in the same reed beds
for those who now try to approach the catwalk. A place of salvation that Gambo calculates to
seven or eight hundred meters away.
That, of course, in case the gateway is still operational and has not been destroyed again by the
fascist aviation.
All six men are exhausted and are harassed by mosquitoes. Their clothes are torn and dirty
of crawling through the mud on the shore. They have been able to drink water from the river, but they have stomachs
empty since yesterday. Gambo keeps his Llama pistol, and two of the men, the rifles
Mannlicher. The others lost their weapons in the flight, and they charge with Simon Serigot, who cannot
walking and barely retains consciousness.
"Wait here." And don't make noise.
Gambo steps forward to take another look. Among the tall stems and green leaves
see now, on the inland part, more than a slight slope dotted with some pine trees: neither
trail of fascists like those who long ago forced the group to spend two long hours in hiding
in the cane field, motionless, covering Serigot's mouth so that their moans would not give them away,
when they waited for the men in red berets who patrolled the place to leave.
Gambo had plenty of time to observe them, as they sat down to have a cigarette and
pass a boot of wine while a couple of them watched: they were requetés, all young, and
they spoke in Valencian or Catalan. By the direction from which they came and towards which then
returned, Gambo deduced that they belonged to the unit that had taken over the cemetery and
Rambla; and for their calm attitude, that they felt safe in that part of the front, since the thick
The combat was centered, and continues to do so, on the outskirts of the town around La Flour,
where distant noise of booms and gunshots comes from.
"All clear." We can continue.
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The question, Gambo thinks as they continue the march, pushing aside reeds in their wake, is whether
Stragglers like them will get to the crossing point before the fascists do. Yes
that last corner of the shore will be the salvation or the final mousetrap.
"Is it much lacking, Comrade Major?" One of the men whispers.
"We're close to the catwalk now… if it's still there."
"Well, you better keep going." I do not know how to swim.
"Neither do I," says another.
The wounded man utters a long, hoarse cry, and Gambo turns to look at him. Simon Serigot is
his friend, but he can do nothing for him more than what they all do: not abandon him even if
delay them. The second commander of the missing battalion is in a sorry state: he is burning with
fever, delirium and muttering incoherent words, and under the tourniquet that binds his left thigh
with a strip of tire rubber, covered with pieces of his own shirt, a fragment pokes out
white chipped femur. The other wound, badly bandaged, drips blood and makes him suffer
a lot to every move.
"Was this a loss or what?" Asks one of those who spoke earlier.
Gambo smiles even though it's not the time for smiles: a sidelong glance and a grimace
resigned. The soldier, covered in dried mud, is one of the Ostrovsky veterans whom the
The elder knows well: Cipriano Jalón, his name is. A leathery little guy, gardener of
rich gentlemen before the war, which he has been with him since the creation of the Fifth Regiment and who
He has eaten without question all the scrubs from Madrid to here. Someone who doesn't
need to go with hot cloths.
"We're in tactical withdrawal, Jalón."
Squeaks the laughter pierced by the other.
"Don't screw me, Comrade Major ... Is it called that now?"
"We've always called it that."
The other frowns, wiping the muddy sweat from his face.
"Hey, Comrade Senior."
-Tell me.
"Why didn't Comrade Stalin send us what he promised?"
-And what is that?
-Well, I do not know. Tanks, planes. Sailor fabric.
"Did he promise you personally?"
—La Pasionaria said it in that speech she gave us in Teruel, don't you remember?
Stalin, the war in Spain is very cheap, so the world is at stake in it. That's what the aunt said.
That is why we Spaniards are not going to lack anything ... He said that too, right? ... Did he say it or not
He said?
"Yes, man." He said it.
—And then, with all his cunt, he approached a wounded one of those who came from the front and did as
who was holding it, so that they could take the photo that appeared in Mundo Obrero.
The reeds creak in their wake. Gambo directs another look at the opposite shore, which begins to descend
towards a trough, and thinks he recognizes the place. They are already close to the catwalk and there is no noise from
planes. Perhaps luck will smile on them.
"Each one fights in his own way," he says.
Jalón growls, unconvinced.
—Well, we could exchange ways, don't you think? ... We taking photos of yours,
and she getting shot, ours. She, Negrin or even Comrade Stalin.
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-Do not pass.

—It was that before, everything was in front, right? ... Or so they told us. Now we have front and
rear, but in the front we are still the same.
"Come on, stop it."
"Okay, Comrade Major." Jalon shifts his rifle over his shoulder. Now tell me what else
it is worth being wrong with the Party than being right against the Party ...
"Leave it alone, I tell you." If he heard you, our political commissar would put a package in here for you.
I hope.
"Hard for him to hear me, don't you think?" They loaded it last night.
"Ah, yes ... It's the custom."
"Charge it?"
"Name it." Ramiro, man. Don't be a beast.
"Well, the fascists have screwed up our habit."
It's true, Gambo thinks bitterly. Garcia and many more. Neither does he know anything about the lieutenant
Ortuño. And he wonders how many have been able to cross fascist lines. How many survivors of the
battalion will have managed to reach Flour and how many will now be scattered and alone like them,
looking for a way to reach the catwalk.
After a few steps he turns and looks at the hard, dirty face of the soldier.
"Pull ...
-What?
"You're a bloody communist."
The other nods and slaps his rifle, which is the only thing he's got clean and shiny.
"It doesn't screw you." Here I would continue, if it were not.
When Pato Monzón and Sergeant Exposito reach the riverbank, the walkway is in chaos;
but it is still stretched between both banks, very curved to the right by the current of the river:
150 meters of shallow-width boards mounted on boats and large floats of
cork, through which they run across, oscillating the structure that the pontoneros
strive to hold firm dozens of terrified men whom a few sergeants
they can barely contain. From time to time, one falls into the water and sinks or disappears downstream.
Others huddle on the sidelines, with mud up to half their legs, trying to climb one of the
boats that move very slowly, loaded on the way out and with only two rowers on the way back.
"We can't get through," says Pato, disheartened.
"Easy," Exposito answers. You'll see ... Easy.
The whole place, on the way that comes from the Harinera, is full of weapons and equipment thrown by
soil. About thirty wounded are grouped on the shore itself, some on stretchers and sitting or
others lying in the mud, waiting for someone to put them in the boats; but the orderlies have
disappeared and no one cares for them. From time to time, from the Vertex Campa, which
found on the other side, artillery shots come out, tearing the air over the river and going to
burst out of sight, towards the Castellets and the surrounding area, in an attempt to slow the advance
fascist. Halfway between the town and the river, where the two have recently passed
women, there is now a loud gunfire from heavy weapons, as if a
last point of resistance before everything collapses and the moment of save yourself arrives
who can.
A moment that does not seem distant, if it has not already begun. When Pato approaches the
starting off the catwalk, looking for a space between the men to get on it, an NCO
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He shoves away and gets in the way, cutting him off.

"Get in line, you! ... Wait your turn!"
Exposito comes forward, his eyes twinkling. Moscow ways.
"It's a woman, comrade."
The other looks at her, insolent, with a face of being fed up with everything.
-You are too.
"I'm not in a hurry, I can wait." But she is a child.
"So what? ... If you've come to war, hold on." That he had stayed at home.
Exposito approaches him with such violence that Pato thinks he is going to hit him in the face.
"I shit on your fucking mother," he says rudely.
The other one stands up, more puzzled than furious, looking at Exposito the sergeant's gallon
which is sewn on the jumpsuit.
"I don't consent to you ..." he begins to say.
"Whatever you allow me, I'll pass it through my cunt." She grabs Pato by one arm and puts it on
in front of the other. What is it, are you going to leave it to the fascists? ... Do you know what the Moors will do to it?
if they put their hand on it?
The NCO blinks, confused, looking alternately at the two women. At last it is done to
a side.
"Come in," he says.
Pato comes forward, but Exposito doesn't let go and touches the bag loaded with equipment.
—If you fall with that you drown, idiot. Take it off.
Pato hesitates, and it is the sergeant herself who gets rid of him. Then the
field phone strap and throws it into the water.
-Come on, run.
They climb the catwalk and move fast on the boards only five feet wide, which are
they move dangerously with the hurried pace of the men who precede and follow them.
A little later, a soldier clings to another to avoid falling and the two rush into the river, where
They claw their arms yelling as the current carries them away. Duck looks apprehensively at the water
earthy and cloudy that runs under his feet, but fear turns to excruciating fear when he sees that
the antiaircraft on the other shore begin to shoot, look up and see the sky of
white clouds.
-Aviation! They all shout, decomposed with panic. Aviation!
Four black and silver points that reflect the sun appear going up the river course, increase
in size, and together with the increasing sound of their engines comes, violently, the tacatacatacatac of the
machine guns that pierce jets in the water, hit the walkway and continue beyond, between
boats that cross higher. Men fall into the river and at that moment they begin to burst
pumps: two raise columns of water and foam that fall like jets on Pato, Exposito
and the soldiers, and another explodes on the shore in an inverted pyramid of mud, smoke and shrapnel. The
fourth hits squarely in the middle of the catwalk, making her jump through the air with the men to
those it catches in its whirlwind.
The boom deafens Pato, at the same time as the shock wave and the jump of the
disarticulated walkway is thrown into the air. He falls into the water, which seems so cold that it cuts off his
breath, and she sinks in a daze, reacting with a desperate stroke when she realizes that
it's going to the bottom. He rises to the surface with a groan of anguish, blowing air into the
lungs while coughing to expel the water that entered them. Again I know
sinks, and kicks while with an agonizing struggle he tries to unbuckle his belt with the Tokarev and
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the chargers he still has. It rises to the surface again, finally released, and nothing; or, more than
swimming, strikes almost blindly with his arms and feet trying to get to shore. Get to touch a
soft and muddy bottom that sinks to the ankles; and stepping on it, pushing, achieves
get half a body out of the water and crawl to the bank. He arrives crying and coughing, and
leaning back he sees that his left hand is pierced by a large splinter of wood that enters through
the back and comes out through the palm, staining his fingers and wrist with blood that the water spreads with
speed.
While wiping the water from his eyes with his good hand, Pato looks anxiously for his companion
Among the men who splash on the shore, the wounded and the dead who bleed on the
mud. But he will never see her again. Sergeant Exposito has been swallowed up by the river and the war.
When Gambo Laguna and the other five survivors of the Ostrovski Battalion reach the
crossing point, the walkway has disappeared and its two halves are undone and
both banks by the stream. The right bank of the Ebro is in chaos. Down the path that leads to
Castellets continue to arrive fugitives, although behind them you can still hear elements fighting
Republicans who resist between intense shooting and the roar of explosions. Nobody brings the
wounded, coming under their own power or left behind. Shoot your own artillery almost to zero
from the Vertex Campa to cover the retreat, and over the heads passes the sound
heartbreaking of the projectiles that barely contain the fascists.
There are few means of passage and panic is contagious. The boats that come and go are robbed
by dozens of men who intend to come aboard, and in many cases must be turned away to
gun point. Others wander the shore not knowing what to do, and the most daring throw down their weapons,
they take off their clothes and go into the river to try to swim across it.
Loaded with Serigot, who is still alive, Gambo, Jalón, and the other three make their way to the
shore. There are in it two boats next to the quagmire of reeds, trampled clothing and equipment, and a score of
decomposed soldiers who try to climb them, repulsed with strokes of oars by the
boatmen, who insist on giving priority to the wounded. Gambo, Jalón and the others look at each other, and without
Need for words they shove between them, splashing in the mud. The pot more
nearby has embarked several men, wounded or not, and they are preparing to move away from the shore
when the elder and his family get there.
"We have a wounded man," says Gambo.
Denies the boatman, a tan and dirty guy who wears civilian clothes and covers himself with a beret.
-We are full.
Gambo has gotten into the water up to his knees and is holding the gift of the
boat.
"You take healthy men there," he points out to Serigot, "and we have a wounded man."
"There are many wounded," replies the other.
"Not like this one."
After saying that, without getting upset, Gambo takes the pistol from his belt and shows it to the boatman
while rubbing his chest to clean the bar of his degree that he wears sewn to his shirt.
—I am the major of the militias Emilio Gamboa Laguna, this man is Captain Simón Serigot and
he is seriously injured ... And if the boat is too full, whoever it takes gets out. I don't care who
mean, do you hear? ... Let one down.
The ferryman shuts up and looks at the other occupants. There are nine on board, and three of them seem
perfectly healthy. Gambo chooses at random.
"You, get down."
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The aforementioned refuses, shrinking among the others: one with traces of a peasant and gray hair on the
trench beard, who wears khaki jumpsuit torn at the knees. He has no weapons.
Gambo aims the gun at his chest.
"If you don't come down, I'll shoot you."
The soldier's hands and mouth tremble and his eyes go wide in fear. try to say
something, but the words don't come out. Gambo stops aiming at his chest and aims at his head.
"Down, comrade ... Or I swear I'll kill you."
Obey the other at last. He passes the older one, who notices the sour smell of his despair and his
fear, and is lost among those who look. Meanwhile, Jalón and his crew accommodate Serigot in the boat.
Gambo himself helps push him into the river and they stay there, watching him go. After the
The older man turns to his men: apart from Jalón, their names are Domínguez, Soto and Roldán. Everybody
veterans of many battles, all communists of the first hour. Look at their faces
dirty, bearded and honest. Calm and haughty all four, despite the disaster. After all they have
fought well, like other times; and also like other times they have been defeated. They are albures of the
war. Gambo knows that they would fight again if he asked. And that they will do it again if
they reach the other side of the river.
"From defeat to defeat," he tells them, "until final victory."
The soldiers smile. Gambo asks who can swim and two of them raise their hands.
"You don't know, Jalón?"
"No, Comrade Major," the other responds with much phlegm. I am from dry land.
"And neither do you, Domínguez?"
-Neither.
Gambo points out some remains of a walkway piled up on the shore.
—Let's take those pieces of wood, we put them together by splicing the belts and straps and we
we all grabbed at them. Hitting the water with our feet we can try, and maybe the
The current helps us to get to the bend of the river… Is that okay?
He looks like Domínguez, but not Cipriano Jalón, who shakes his head.
"I'm sorry, Comrade Major, but water isn't my thing ... I'd rather stay on this side,
stepping on solid ground.
"The fascists will catch you." Gambo points to the men huddled on the shore and then
it indicates the road to Castellets, where the rifle continues to ring. Whoever does not throw into the water
they are going to catch, do you understand? ... They are right there, you can hear them.
The other shakes his head stubbornly.
"I'd rather have one of those motherfuckers blow me off than soak my neck."
He thinks about it for a moment and squints his eyelids, as if hesitating to say more.
"Besides," he finally confesses, "I'm scared."
"Don't fuck around, Jalón."
-I'm serious. And I'm old enough to go to spas.
After saying that, he takes the rifle from his shoulder and stands up as if
I hit the tiredness, the mud and the grime off me.
"Permission to act on my own, Comrade Major," he adds.
Gambo has a lump in his throat.
"Permission granted, Comrade Jalon."
The other brings his fist to his temple. He is very serious but his eyes are smiling.
"Health and the Republic," he says.
Then he turns around and walks up the path to where the shots are fired.
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SAW
Julián Panizo's hands are shaking and his thumbs hurt, especially the one with a broken nail,
squeeze the Maxim's trigger lever. Move the machine gun from side to side, swinging the
barrel at an angle of about ninety degrees, trying to cover as much of the terrain as possible
whereby, slowly but inexorably, covering themselves and advancing in calculated leaps, they move
the fascists ever closer. Luckily the tanks have been delayed after,
After the Flour Mill, one of them received the impact of two bottles of gasoline and began to
burn with the crew inside. Panizo sees it in the distance, a column of black smoke that joins the
that animate the horizon.
The last Republican point of resistance has been established around the place from which the
dynamite and the two bottles fire, next to the damaged carcass of a T-26 half lying on
a ditch. The tank itself and the trench offer protection, and there they have been grouped so
spontaneous, with no one in command, the last fugitives from town: those who still have
desire to fight and those who are too tired or battered to reach the river. Since
where it is, Panizo cannot know how many there are; although by the sound of gunshots and
directions from which fire is fired, he estimates a score of men, so stubborn or
desperate like him.
That they are less and less: next to Panizo and Rafael's bottle, leaning on the broken chain of the
tank, the boy in the big helmet lies pale and yellowish as if his skin has
turned into old wax, his collar and shirt covered in blood on which flies feed and
that the sun begins to coagulate in reddish crusts. Her eyelids are ajar, one hand
slightly raised, as if asking permission to die, and still wearing the helmet
that it did him no good when, when approaching them a box of ammunition, a fascist bullet went through him
his throat, making him sag like a bird, without a cry or a complaint.
Not eighteen years old, Panizo calculates with the last glance before concentrating again on the
machine gun. And even Rafael doesn't know his name. One more boy, of so many. A mother
somewhere. A future that no longer exists.
Keep firing Panizo while trying to save ammo, in short bursts of three or four
shots. Suddenly the Maxim jams - it has already happened three times - reluctant to fit the
last cartridge through chamber. It's a great weapon, Russian to the hilt, the best
machine gun that the dynamiter has seen in his life; but he's been shooting too long, the
The refrigerator's brass jacket looks like a hot iron and surely the residue from
gunpowder has accumulated in the gas chamber. Or go know. Panizo pulls the tape more
of ammo and push the crank back until it snaps into place. Then open the
mouth, clenches his teeth and fires again.
Rafael, who is holding the tape up to make it easier to enter, yells something that Panizo
he barely hears, deaf as he is from the succession of booms. The boy points to the
left, looks at Panizo in that direction and warns that the fascists are trying to outflank them: they advance
crawling, letting yourself see the essentials. The gun the dynamiter returns there, long three
short bursts and the machine gun jams again. Try to repeat the operation, but the weapon
it really seems blocked.
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"I shit on the ciborium of Bullas," he exclaims.

There is no time, he understands with dismay. There is no room for anything. Disassemble the box
of mechanisms and repair the fault is impossible; and besides, the barrel is so hot that the bullets
they are scattered a lot in the places it points to. On the other hand, when you run a glance
around it understands that the resistance in the ditch and around the tank has its last
minutes: finally demoralized, wounded, or out of ammunition, some men turn away and leave
running towards the river; and the few who stay, draw bayonets or wield machetes
while on the right flank the shouting of the Moors who come to the assault can be heard.
Rafael is looking at him: face smudged with gunpowder and glistening with sweat, the barracks cap
leaning on the forehead. There is no longer insolence on the boy's face, but bewilderment. Look
To Panizo, like a helpless puppy, he would look at the mastiff that protects him. Without that look, such
Once the dynamiter would have stayed there, orange tree in one hand and knife in the other, waiting
take a few Moors or Legionnaires ahead while singing Goodbye, boys, like
men do who dress by the feet. But for some strange reason it doesn't stop at
analyze — he's not one to do that — the little soldier who is only three or four years older than
his eldest daughter removes things inside him. Makes you feel uncomfortably responsible for your
lifetime.
"We're going, child," he decides.
He unlocks the lever from the Maxim's latch, pulls it out, tosses it away, unhooks from the
He backs the orange tree and shoots the cooler sleeve. And then without further ado,
grabs Rafael by the arm to remove him from the machine, crouches past the tank and the
dead bottle and runs to the river.
The boy follows. The bushes and dry grass are burning, set ablaze by artillery, with
a low and brief fire that leaves the ground covered in ash and smokes raising a gray haze in
the one that explodes the caps of the cartridges of the dead men. Among that mist, to his
left, Panizo distinguishes human forms, confused figures that move obliquely,
Approaching; and in a second glance he notices with anguish that they wear garbanzo-colored uniforms and
they cover themselves with turbans: Moors at twenty or thirty meters. Stopping suddenly to affirm the
feet, raise the submachine gun.
-Follow! She orders Rafael. Run on!
He fires two short bursts, very calculated, but on the last one he hears the trigger click without
cartridges to chop. Then he runs again while pulling out the empty magazine, throws it on the ground and
put the other one in. A few more bullets and it's over, he thinks. Stops again, fires another short burst and goes
running. The silhouettes moving through the smoke stop, crouch, hide. Panizo
now runs after Rafael, and as he does so he observes that the bottle has not thrown the rifle and
still with him in the hands. Good boy, thinks the dynamiter. He's a good kid.
More hostile silhouettes, this time to the right. Now it is Rafael who sees them first.
he stops, kneels, shoots, bolts and shoots. Panizo pats him on the back
running past him.
"Go on, child!" Don't stop anymore!
Hear the hurried steps of the boy behind him. There are new enemies to the right and
left; and if it weren't for the smoke they would have already shot him and the bottle. Shots sound
and screams, stray bullets buzz. And suddenly, after going down and up a small trough leaving the
smoke behind, Panizo is almost on the river bank. He turns then to encourage Rafael,
and as he does so he sees that the bottle slows down, limping. He no longer carries the rifle and with both
His hands try to block the blood that flows from his hip and soaks his pants.
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Bad luck, thinks Panizo. With the fascists on top, the poor boy ain't got none
possibility. And if he lingers too long, neither does he.
-Sorry.
So he says, or maybe he just thinks so. And keep running. Then he hears the voice behind him
pleading boy.
"Don't leave me here, Grandpa!… Don't leave me here!"
Panizo stops as if he's been slapped. Shake your head and take a hand
to the face, undecided. For a moment he thinks he sees the image of his compadre Paco Olmos
getting rid of him. From their rush.
"Shit my fucking skull," he exclaims.
And then, resigned, he hangs the orange tree on his back, turns around and comes to the aid of the
boy.
Few prisoners are taken in the ditch and next to the Russian tank; and they would be less, or
none, if Santiago Pardeiro, pistol in hand, had not interposed reducing to the
he disciplines his men and the Moorish shooters who, victorious, throw themselves at the slaughter of the
Reds that are still alive, wanting to claim their resistance. It was one thing to stab those still
defended, which their legionaries did without hesitation when they reached the bayonet, and even finished off in
warm the wounded and dying who struggled for mercy. That goes by trade for
both sides in the unwritten laws of an assault. Different, however, is cold slaughter
the dozen broken men, exhausted from fighting to the last cartridge, who have thrown
arms and raise their hands, surrendering.
But there are those who reproach him. An Ifni marksman captain approaches with a very angry face,
asking for explanations.
"How dare you order my people around?" She interrogates him dryly.
Pardeiro contemplates him: skinny and with a mustache, an angry eye under the brim of his peaked cap
red and a black patch on the other. The officer's uniform is dirty from fighting, though not
too. Certainly not like those of Pardeiro and his bearded legionnaires, who are covered
of dirt and dust like old hams. A rowdy day, he calculates you from the glance. Or two, like
a lot. Cool people, come to Castellets a couple of days ago. With desire, of course. But just
arrival, as it says.
"A lot has already been killed around here," he answers.
The other looks him up and down.
"Stand by."
After a couple of seconds, stunned and not believing what he hears, Pardeiro stands at attention.
"I'm in charge of my shooters," says the captain sourly.
The young ensign points out to the Moors, who at that moment cut off fingers and smash the
jaws of the dead to remove gold rings and teeth.
"Well, I should tell them to settle for the loot."
"I'm the one who decides what they settle for."
Pardeiro looks at the prisoners who raise their arms like a beaten and broken herd of
tiredness: torn clothes, messy and dirty hair, shaggy faces. In his sunken eyes there are
fatigue, resentment and fear. Without resisting, they allow themselves to be looted by the legionaries who
guard; who, no longer cruel to them, group them at bayonet point next to the Russian tank
damaged.
"Those men have fought well."
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The captain of marksmen observes him with curiosity, noticing Pardeiro for the first time:
dirt, missing air, pupils affected by fatigue and stimulants. The dust and grease that
They cover the patch with the temporary star sewn to the chest.
"Why do you say that?"
-Because it's true. People have killed me and we have killed them ... Now they deserve that
they are treated like people.
"Identify yourself," the other replies sharply.
—Alférez Santiago Pardeiro Tojo.
"Galician, of course." With that accent.
-Yes.
"And since when have you been here?"
The young man must remember. He hesitates for a moment, awkwardly, and finally responds.
"From day one, I think."
"Ten, then."
-If that. Ten.
The captain looks at the thirty legionnaires still standing. His expression has changed.
"So those men ...
"3rd and 4th Companies of the XIX Flag," says Pardeiro. Or what's left of them.
"And are you still here?"
"And where were we going to be?"
The other remains silent without taking his eyes off him. At last he makes a negligent gesture.
"I'm leaving him with his prisoners ... Do you have other orders?"
Denies Pardeiro.
-Not that I remember. New, I mean.
The captain stops, turning his back.
"And what were the last?"
The young man points to the terrain behind him.
"Take the Flour Mill." And I have.
"La Flour is far behind."
-Already.
"So what are you doing here?"
"I decided to pursue the retreating Reds, lest they regroup."
Another curious glance. Surprised now.
"We Shooters call that eating the order ... Did you decide on your own?"
"I thought my frontal attack would help while you and Baler's Battalion attacked by
the flanks.
"Front, he says."
-Yes.
"Wow ... did you think?"
"Yes, my captain, I thought so ."
The captain continues to watch him carefully. Take a quick look at the legionnaires and come back
to look at him.
"You can stay here, Ensign," he says at last. Consider yourself relieved with all honor. I
order to get to the river.
The young man sighs.
-Thank you. My men…
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The other interrupts him, raising a hand.

"Yes, I see them," he replies. His men.
And without more words, he turns and leaves.
Pardeiro remains watching the captain go away and then closes his eyelids. Not even
happy. You feel so tired that you may fall asleep standing up. When he opens his eyes he sees the
Corporal Longines, Lirio and Tonet, who look at him expectantly. Then take a deep sigh, and as you do
he notices that he is still holding the gun in his right hand, as if he had forgotten it there.
With his left hand he opens the cover of the holster and puts the weapon very slowly.
"The war is over," he murmurs. At least for now.
He wants to cry, but Tonet is looking at him.
Wet, dirty with mud, Gambo Laguna is shivering with cold. He still has his pistol at his belt. They have
left a blanket to cover her shoulders while walking among the seated men or
lying along the path to the walls of the ruined farmhouse that is on a hill.
A little further on, the canyons of the Vertex Campa continue shooting against the other shore to contain in
the fascists who are already beginning to appear and shoot at the last ones who try to
to cross the river. The starting guns sound and the projectiles explode on the other side like a rain of
black soot, covering it in a gray haze between which columns of smoke rise from the
pine forests burned.
There are wounded everywhere, those being treated in the blood hospital under canvas tents, and
also hundreds of soldiers similar to each other: pale, bearded, sleepy, full of
filth and parasites, many without weapons, who look more like prisoners than fugitives. Some
noncommissioned officers go back and forth in roll call, and the silence that follows numerous names of
those who speak. Sometimes it is not the one questioned but someone else who answers: I saw him fall, he drowned,
wounded, dead, we lost him on the shore.
Of the people of Gambo there are not many left. After breaking through the fence at the bottleneck,
some reach the Harinera and others reach the river, those who passed to the left bank are
bleakly few. The largest of the militias has barely seen thirty, including
those who crossed with him kicking on the raft and took Simón Serigot to the hospital
blood, and also Sergeant Vidal and some others - Felix Ortuño is nowhere to be found
-. That's how much is left of the 437 men of the Ostrovsky Battalion, the best shock unit in
the Republic, which on July 25 crossed the Ebro.
It smells fresh, of almond trees and pine resin. That is news for Gambo, who for days
he has only smelled burnt bushes, gunpowder, and decaying corpses. Next to
the farmhouse and next to a Katiuska truck, protected from the sun under a shade of canvas and reeds, is the
staff of the XI Mixed Brigade, or what remains of it. As you go up the hill and
approaches, Gambo sees that they are there, around a binocular rangefinder, field telephones and a
folding table with maps, Lieutenant Colonel Faustino Landa, Major Carbonell and Commissioner
politician who calls himself Ricardo. They wear clean clothes, there is a bottle of wine and some snacks
On the table, Landa is already smoking a farias between his fingers.
"Damn, Gambo ... What a joy!"
Sincerely overjoyed, the lieutenant colonel advances to the major, who has removed his
blanket, and holds him in a warm hug not caring that his clothes are dirty and wet.
"What happened to your face?"
"Nothing, a blow." It's not important.
"I knew they weren't going to be able to with you, huh? ... I did know."
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He leads it affectionately to the table, takes the bottle and fills a glass to the brim.
"Here, man, you're soaked." This will warm you up inside.
The brigade commissioner also shakes his hand. His touch is cold, even to
Gambo in the state in which it is: humid, rough, without temperature, it makes the oldest think
on the scales of a fish. And not just the hand. Also pale skin and hairless cheeks, the
sparse blond hair, bulging eyes behind thick blue glasses; and how
Sinister reminder, the red star circled in the warrior's peaks. Why
Ricardo, aka the Russian, wears a tunic and does not go in shirt sleeves like everyone else, until August.
As if I was cold all year long.
"And Major Guarner?" Gambo asks after emptying the glass and putting it on the table.
Landa shrugs, with a face of circumstance.
"He stayed to defend Flour ... We don't know anything."
"Wow."
"And Juan Bascuñana?"
-Neither.
"Bloody bitch."
"But tell us, man." The other puts an arm around his shoulders, cordially. Tell us.
He does it with an interested, even sympathetic air; and Gambo thinks that, more than the head of a
Brigade of the Popular Army disbanded and in retreat, Faustino Landa looks like a bullfighting businessman
ask him, between two glasses of brandy, about the outcome of a bad afternoon. Not even missing the
cigar.
Then Gambo tells it. Tell the lieutenant colonel and the commissioner about the latest attacks
resisted in the python Pepa, the isolation with the command post, the breaking of the fence. The
agony of his scattered men trying to reach the Flour or the river. And the final crossing of the
few that have arrived.
"Don't worry," Landa tries to encourage him, almost frivolous. Surely more will come.
"Don't worry me, you say?"
-Well of course.
Gambo agrees.
-Everything is possible.
The Russian listened without taking off his dry and hard lips. At last he makes an ambiguous gesture
that the same covers that place, the Ebro sector or the rest of the world.
"This is only a small part of the whole," he said. It is necessary to see it with that
optics.
Gambo stares at him.
"What ensemble are you talking about, comrade?"
The other drummed his fingers on the map on the table.
—The Republic has launched an unprecedented offensive… We have eight divisions pressing
strong. We have taken Pobla de Masaluca and Gandesa, or are about to do so, and the enemy
back along the river. Between us and Amposta, the fascists collapse.
"Well, it doesn't seem like it here."
—Castellets, as you know, was a tactical objective that is more than fulfilled: cut off the path
between Fayón and Mequinenza.
"And is it no longer necessary?"
An icy look.
-Not that much.
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"Ah, yeah ... not so much."

The commissioner touches the map again, making a circular motion with one finger.
"Furthermore, we have subjected the fascists to terrible attrition in this sector, preventing them from
his forces went to other places on the front lines.
Gambo doesn't even look at the map.
-If he responds-. But by putting fresh meat from peasants and workers in front of them:
best of the Republic, which has burned there; and also kids who don't even shave.
The other looks at him sourly.
We have stopped their offensive on Valencia in their tracks, silencing the defeatists.
"So ours is almost a victory ... By dint of victories we will end up in Perpignan."
The sarcastic tone makes Lieutenant Colonel Landa frown and darkens the Russian's face.
"I don't like that tone, comrade," he says sullenly.
Gambo looks at him without flinching.
"You don't like it? ... Well, hey: of the almost three thousand men from the brigade that we took to the other
side, I doubt that it reaches a third what the river has passed back. And you see in what state
make.
"And what do you tell me?" That they would have fought better.
"Wow," the older one smiles bitterly. Now you've finally said it.
Faustino Landa looks startled. He almost jumped.
"Please, Gambo."
He is ignored by the aforementioned, who continues looking at the Russian.
-What do you mean? He asks.
"In order to encourage them to fight," Gambo touches a pocket. I have here your last
circular: "If you go back the enemy will not kill you, we will kill you."
"The order didn't say that."
"It said something similar, but in a nicer way."
The commissioner makes an impatient gesture.
"Few have been killed," he says at last, "and that's the way things go."
-A few? Gambo looks at the lieutenant colonel, who looks away. What's up, Faustino? ...
Do you have anything to say to that?
Raise your hands the other, conciliatory.
"Man, Ricardo, I don't think this is the time."
Gambo ignores him again. He looked back at the Russian.
"Does the word error sound familiar to you , Comrade Commissioner?" Does it exist in your vocabulary?
The other stiffens the jaw. His gaze could chill the glass of his glasses.
"The Party never makes mistakes."
Gambo throws back his torso, theatrical, as if the argument were a push in the chest.
"It took you long to say." It's the human element that didn't measure up, right? ...
I suppose you mean that.
"We're talking about strategy and tactics, not about men." I think you studied that at the academy
from Moscow.
"I learned more by reading Questions of Leninism, from Comrade Stalin."
"What are you saying?"
—That maybe the one who is being held accountable is you, not the human element. Is that what you
Are you pouting, Commissioner Ricardo?
The other one turns his face away, as if something on the map was demanding his attention. Reach out a hand
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the bottle and pour wine into a glass.

"Your sanity is gone," he says grimly. Combat fatigue, no doubt. You need to rest.
Gambo shakes his head insistently.
"Let me tell you something, Comrade Commissioner." Our men are better soldiers than
two years ago, but they hate less than two years ago. It is no longer a war of extermination of
fascists, but a war where they see the enemy's face; where sometimes they discover that it is from
same town as them and bought tobacco in the same store ... That changes things,
Do you understand
Drink the other slowly, without getting upset. Run your tongue over the cold, narrow lips and leave the
glass on the table.
-That does not matter.
"Not at all ... It doesn't matter at all, because the mechanism no longer works." The war of
The rearguard has not been done well, and that makes the war of the front not work.
"It's about efficiency, comrade." There is responsibility, right? ... Self-criticism, does it sound familiar?
… The blame.
"The little word is out: guilt." But none have the men who have fought.
"I assure you ...
"No, damn it." Don't assure me of anything.
"Let him talk, Gambo," Landa intervenes, conciliatory.
"No, sorry." I do not let it. I come from fighting and losing almost all my people, and who has
now the right to speak is me. And I tell you that it is not the fault of the men who have fought,
but you and maybe me.
A flash of anger hits the Russian. His usual coldness has just gone to hell.
"I don't tolerate that language."
-Not? Gambo takes the Llama out of its case and puts it in the commissioner's hands. What are you going
to do, run? Set up a process, with my service sheet that is cleaner than the
of Lister or Modesto, and naturally much more than that of that clown of the Peasant? ... To me,
that I neither rape women, nor get drunk, nor run like a hare when the fascists come?
"I don't like that tone, Gambo," Landa protests, flamboyant.
—I don't like to fight thinking that they send me the military, and it turns out that
the usher of the Avenida cinema.
Landa pales as if his face had been crossed.
"I do not consent to that infamy, Emilio." You are spending a lot ... I understand that with what
you've lived…
"I'm going to shit ... And besides, I'm not talking to you, but to the comrade commissioner."
"The orders were what they were," says the Russian, handing him the pistol.
"And you never discussed them."
-You neither.
"True," Gambo concedes. The fucking discipline. That is why I am as responsible as
you. The difference is that the men who have killed me hurt me.
"Us too," says Landa.
"Come on, Faustino, don't screw me." Do you know their names? ... I from the Ostrovsky knew them all.
And you see it as a festival in which it would have rained in the middle of the dance.
"Those kinds of comments…" the commissioner begins, and stops. Not left
but to obey what we are commanded. The Party is above all.
—And hit the ball with the Party ... The Party has been fooled like a
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Chinese. In Barcelona there are three governments: that of the Republic, that of the Generalitat and the Basque,
although I don't know what the hell rules that anymore. And each one of them seeks life on their own ...
They should all be shot, damn it. To all.
"Everything in its time," says the Russian.
"In time? ... Don't you give me those." In recent times everything is a lie and a
treason. Nobody dares to tell the truth to anyone, and here you have the result.
The commissioner cocks his head to give him an evil look.
"You are saying something very daring, Comrade Major."
Gambo obvious the implicit threat. It does not matter.
"The daring thing is to ignore reality," he answers. And the reality is that the rest of the offensive
it will end as this has ended ... Not tomorrow, perhaps. Not in a week or two. But after
the butcher shop will be the same. And in a big way.
At last he is silent, holding the cold gaze of the Moscow man without blinking. You can almost read it
behind the glass that dwarf the fish eyes, and hear the wheels turn slowly
of your brain; so guess what he thinks. At this time, the political commissioner analyzes whether the
militia commander Emilio Gamboa Laguna, head of the prestigious and annihilated Battalion
Ostrovski, is a suitable candidate to bear part of the responsibility for the disaster. But
Gambo also knows that the criminal and cautious instinct of the man in front of him will make him
discard that option. And when he sees him glancing at Faustino Landa, who ends the
pure while dreaming about the next press photos, he realizes that the Russian has already made his
choice and that he can be calm.
When Julián Panizo reaches the shore of the Ebro carrying Rafael on his back, there is only
abandoned equipment, wounded, dead, and men who have dropped their weapons and sit waiting for the
enemy. The last ones who ventured to swim across have drowned or are splashing in the
current wanting to win the other shore while, from a nearby hill, the outposts
fascists practice target shooting with them. Sprinkle splashes among the dozens of heads
They move slowly through the muddy, earthy water, like castaways from a ship that has gone
background; and every now and then a swimmer raises his arms and dives forever. The vertex
Campa fires volleys with more fury than efficiency, and the outbursts of dirt and mud, which
Sometimes they catch up with the comrades abandoned on the shore, they put a counterpoint of horror to the
landscape of defeat.
"There is nothing to do here," Panizo decides.
After studying the situation, the dynamiter decides to go to the right, away from the point of
crossing. Seeing a slope covered with reeds, he advances trying to show himself as little as possible. Holds
Rafael by the legs, and the boy puts his hands around his neck; He is thin, but his weight in the
His back, together with that of the submachine gun, makes Panizo very tired. So after a few steps, exhausted, it
He kneels down and drops it to the ground with the greatest care of which he is capable. The bottle mouth remains
above, the right hip and half pants black with blood. Leaning over him, Panizo
chase away flies and check the wound. The piece of cloth that he put on as a compress has
fulfilled its function, check. Clotting is good, and although it bleeds when touched, the
bleeding seems
chipped and reasonable.
loose The bullet,
when touched which -ricocheted,
with fingers went on hisbreaking
way andpart
leftofwithout
the bone - note the
affecting anypiece
glass
important.
"Does it hurt a lot, child?"
The boy shows his teeth, forcing a smile that fails to fully set. On his forehead
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beads of sweat glistening thick as peas.

"When I laugh, Grandpa."
Panizo nods approvingly, satisfied with the boy's caste. But it is an ugly wound
that prevents him from walking and will become infected if he is not cured in the next few hours. It is also evident
who, despite his bravado, suffers a lot.
"Sorry, boy ... I don't have morphine, not even iodine." I have nothing at all.
Rafael bites his lip and contracts his face, contorted with a spasm of pain.
"Don't worry," he murmurs weakly. I'll manage.
"Of course I do," Panizo encourages him. You are a healthy and strong uncle.
Look at the dynamite around. No one in sight, just the roar of cannon shots. From there I don't know
see the river. He doesn't know where it is, but he does know that they have gone down the river.
"Stay there still and quiet ... Okay?"
He grabs the bottle by his shirt, lifting his head slightly.
"Are you going to leave me here?"
"Don't be an idiot, man." I want to take a look.
He moves away from the boy and takes the orange tree. Then he crawls very cautiously, sheltered
in the reeds, and at the end it is incorporated a little to see better. At that time, he supposes, that will be
infested with fascists. Distant voices and gunshots are heard.
There must be some way, he tells himself. There has to be.
Remembering, the dynamiter estimates that it was there that he, Olmos and the comrades of the
assault group landed the first night to blow up the machine gun nest. Since
then ten days have passed that seem ten months, but he thinks he recognizes the place: the
valley that they left behind, the slope with a broken wire fence. Raising your face, observe the height
from the sun, which is already declining. His watch was taken for granted a long time ago, but he figures they must
be five or six in the afternoon.
Saturiano Bescós stops leaning against a tree, takes off his steel helmet and feels the bandage
of the forehead, which is wet with sweat. His head hurts and he would give three days' leave for one
aspirin, because he already took the two Veramón that the nurse gave him. For a moment lend
Pay attention to the isolated, distant shots that occasionally ring out in the pine forest. Then he gets off
Put the helmet back, pick up the Mauser, and move on. Twenty steps to his right, between him and the river,
distinguishes between the trees Cape Avellanas, who walks scanning the ground, stirring
with the bayonet stuck in the rifle the bushes where a man might hide. And looking at
the left sees further his comrade Lorenzo Paño, who does the same.
There are scattered reds that have been isolated, and the XIV Flag of the Falange of Aragon has
received the order to advance slowly, methodically, cleaning the area until
contact with the other national forces that have reached the Ebro upstream. Along the way, the
Falangists hardly find resistance: a few Reds unwilling to fight who surrender
with ease, and some isolated case, rare at this point, of someone who does not give up and becomes
kill by burning the last cartridges. The order is to respect the lives of those who surrender, eliminate
those who resist and fire on those who try to escape. All the prisoners are
sent to the rear, even when it comes to international brigade members, of those who have
imprisoned several. Lieutenant Zarallón, who has an easy trigger but is a disciplined officer,
content with mistreating a little a Frenchman and two Americans who were looking at the blue shirts,
yokes and arrows with scared faces, believing that they were going to be shot right there. A
brief interrogation with threats and slaps, before being sent back with an escort. I try to
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courtesy, for how the lieutenant usually spends them.

There are also dead reds from days ago that are located from afar by the smell and buzz of
the flies; and Saturiano Bescós is saddened to see the bodies lying here and there, the faces
blackened by sun and heat, the misshapen expressions death left on those who made
few were, like himself, young and vigorous. What a disgrace, he thinks. How much pain in
families, girlfriends, parents, wives, children. How much strength, intelligence, work capacity and
promises of the future absurdly spoiled in those inert pieces of meat that rot
among the trees, and to which no one buries yet.
A loud, dry pam sounds. One shot closer than the others. Bescós crouches prudent,
instinctively, down to one knee on the ground, the rifle ready. And when you look to the side you see
that Corporal Hazelnuts has done the same. In that part the pines are low, there are thick bushes
and slopes that hide the view, and it is easy for a paco lagging to shoot you in the gut if not
you are careful. From where he stands, Bescós watches how Avellanas takes the Mauser to his face
looking to aim, but does not shoot. With a sprint, head bowed while moving
From tree to tree, Bescós goes to join him and kneels beside him.
-You see something?
"I don't see shit."
The corporal has lowered his rifle and is looking straight ahead.
"Do you see the crooked pine?" She says at last. The one with a scrub underneath?
-Yes.
"I bet an egg that was thrown from there."
"It wasn't a poplar."
Nods Hazelnuts. Sweat drips under the visor of his helmet, up to the tip of his nose.
"It was a gun." And a single shot.
"Isolated red," concludes Bescós. Tired or injured.
"Maybe he hit it himself."
"Anyone knows."
The corporal nods, still looking.
"Do you have grenades left, Satu?"
-Not.
The other one that is hanging from the belt is unhooked and passes it to him: green
yellowish, prefragmented, ring and lever. A Russian Limonka of those who are fucking
the Reds.
—Be careful, they don't even know their father… In thirty meters they distribute shrapnel to
all god.
-Already.
Bescós removes his helmet, which is uncomfortable to crawl. Put the grenade in a pocket, it
grave with the rifle on his elbows and crawl over the dry pine needles, drifting slightly to
right to flank the thicket. Once in position he looks towards Hazelnuts, who observes him
from afar, and makes a silent gesture. Then the corporal begins to shoot while Bescós
lays on its side, takes out the hand pump, removes the pin and throws it before sinking the
head and cover it with both hands.
Pum-baaah, it does.
When pebbles, branches, and shrapnel cease to fall, Bescós gets up and runs
crouching towards the thicket, he finishes going around it and sees a red man lying on his back in a small
ditch. The grenade hit him squarely, riddling his entire left side with fragments
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from the shoulder to the boots, and ripping the skin and flesh from that side of his face. his
face, intact on the other side, there is a bloody mass where you can barely distinguish the
eye and half of the mouth, contracted to show the white teeth in a grimace similar to
a horrible smile.
However, the wounded man is alive. From his perforated windpipe comes a hoarse, intermittent moan,
interrupted at intervals by air flowing in and out of the hole. And the healthy eye, with a blue iris
very clear, he moves following each movement of the Falangist. Bescós notices his clothing.
He wears a faded blue shirt, riding pants, and high leather leggings. Beside him there is
a Mauser submachine gun.
"Drain her," Avellanas exclaims, who has just come over and sees the color of the shirt. Is
a comrade.
"No, it's red." Take a better look at the clothes.
The cape is closer to take a look.
"Well, it's true."
-Clear.
"What a scare I've been… He seems foreign."
—Brigadista.
-I suppose.
Bescós takes the wallet from the dead man. The photo is of a thin, aquiline-nosed guy with
glasses. But the Falangist can hardly read.
—Odunosequé, I think it says.
"Let's see, bring it up." Hazelnuts takes the card from him. O'Duffy, his name is… Damn, a major. We have
charged to a commander of the International Brigades, Satu. With two balls. What would be
doing here, alone?
Bescós indicates a bloody and dirty bandage that the injured person has around the knee
right holding a stick as a splint.
"He was wounded, see? ... Surely his own left him behind and he was looking to get closer to the river."
"Poor devil." Hazelnut looks at Bescos, undecided. What do we do with it?
"I am reluctant to kill him."
"And me."
"You don't have much left either, do you?"
"Let him die in peace."
"Sounds good to me." Hazelnuts keeps the card, takes the Mauser off the floor and weighs it,
satisfied, before tucking it into his belt. Then we tell the lieutenant, and that's it.
They are preparing to leave. The blue eye of the injured man remains fixed on Bescós, following each of his
movements as if of the two Falangists only he cared. Suddenly emits a groan
different, like trying to speak. An almost liquid rattle that comes from the torn throat.
Bescós leans a little, intrigued, and then the wounded man slowly raises his right arm,
puts a hand to his head to point a bloodstained index finger to his temple, and
curve imitating the trigger of a pistol.
"Damn it," Hazelnut says. He asks you to shoot him.
The blue eye remains fixed on Bescós, who shakes his head.
"No," he says. You'll see how someone comes and heals you ... Be calm.
The wounded man insists, pulling the imaginary trigger again. Then he moves his hand and brings it to
side, following the strap of a leather case underneath. With difficulty, moving
His fingers clumsily, he opens the case and takes out some very elegant cufflinks, plated in mother-of-pearl. I know them
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offers Bescós and brings his index finger to his temple again, again mimicking the squeeze of a
trigger.
Bescós and Hazelnuts are looked at.
"Do it," says the corporal. You have the right not to agonize here alone, slowly and like a dog.
Bescós gets up, keeping his cufflinks. Then he removes the bayonet from the rifle.
-Look over there.
That's what he says to the wounded man, pointing to the side. And when the blue eye obeys, the Falangist approaches him
the gun barrel to the head and pull the trigger.
The artillery fire has ceased a long time ago and there is hardly any isolated and distant rifle shot.
From where he is lying, Julián Panizo can see a small stretch of the river; so it stays
there looking at it while imagining possibilities. Mosquitoes torment him, riddling his
arms and neck; but he continues without moving, thoughtful. The curve that describes the channel is
family. And remember that in the middle of the river, when he and his comrades crossed in a boat of boards
so rotten that it was flooded before reaching the shore, they stopped to orient themselves in the dark
taking advantage of a tiny island; a narrow sandbar that the water discovered in the middle of the
channel. And if that's the place, that island may not be far away. That would give a
opportunity, he concludes. A support to rest before moving on, if they manage to swim.
Hopeful, ready to confirm it, Panizo advances a little more; and a smile cut in two
his brown, bearded, grimy face. The islet is there, sandy and brown in the middle of the
stream, barely three meters long by one meter wide; but it remains in place. And what is more
importantly, the dynamiter sees a piece of walkway carried by the current, stranded between the
reed beds green on the shore: broken planks, attached to a cork float.
He counts, very still. Only his veteran soldier eyes move. There must be a
couple of hours of light, and there the doubt arises, because waiting for the night has two risks: that the
discover and that in the dark it is difficult to orient and swim. Instead, attempt the step while still
no light can put them in the sights of some fascist wanting to please the trigger. And that
coin only has heads or tails.
After a long time without moving, he crawls back, like he came, to meet Rafael. To the
Seeing him appear, the bottle, which he was looking around, lets his head fall back in relief.
-Phew. I thought you ran away, grandpa.
"Creature of little faith."
He approaches Rafael and looks at the wound again. It continues without bleeding too much. The young man
it seems to guess his thought.
"I'm in no condition," he says.
-Of what?
-Of swimming.
Panizo looks at him, uneasy. That had not been considered. The bottle is a city boy, and the
city boys know how to do almost everything. Beach vacations, things like that. Pools and
pretty girls.
—Don't fuck… don't you know?
"I know how to swim, but my entire side and leg are asleep ... It even hurts less now."
So while you were out for a walk I tried to get up, but I couldn't.
"Don't worry, we'll manage." It will be enough if you help a little.
The boy looks at him, surprised.
-Help?
Page 344
-That's.
"Well, you'll tell me how."
"Come on, you ... Don't you have another leg and two arms?"
-Yes. I still have them.
"Well, use them." And the bull, who is a monkey.
Panizo takes out the knife and digs a hole in the ground.
If the priests and friars knew

the beating they are going to take,
they would go up to the choir singing
freedom, freedom, freedom ...
That hums softly while digging. Then he takes off his shirt, or what's left of it,
wraps the submachine gun and buries it after looking closely at two large stones that serve as
reference. Life takes many turns, he thinks. And you never know when a good orange tree will be needed.
Before sheathing the knife, he cuts a sprig of brush, peels it off, and puts it on the
bottle in mouth.
—If it hurts a lot, bite; but keep your nose closed ... We're leaving.
With an effort, the dynamiter charges himself onto his bare back, slippery with sweat.
to Rafael, who groans in pain and clenches the twig with his teeth.
"Hang on a bit, child ... We're close."
Hunched under the weight, Panizo walks along the slope, stops at the end, looks
suspicious to both sides, and trying to hurry he goes along the open path that
separated from the reedbed on the river bank. Once there, he places Rafael on the muddy earth and
triumphantly signals the float and the boards.
"It's not the Queen Mary, but it can be worth it."
Saturiano Bescós and Cape Avellanas look out at the edge of the grove, where the
The terrain slopes down to the shore of the Ebro. The sun is already low and tinges with orange tones
the branches of the pines and the reeds. They have propped their rifles against a tree after putting the safety on them and
they are about to roll a cigarette. A strange silence reigns on both banks of the river. Not even
shots or explosions are heard in the distance.
"Look at that," Hazelnut says.
Point out two little dark dots moving in the water next to something semi-sunken, which looks like
drift with the current towards a small sandy tongue that emerges between the two banks.
"There are two uncles there, Satu."
Bescós takes out the dead brigadista's cufflinks, adjusts the wheel and takes a look. It is about,
check, from a cork float that it is most likely to come from a catwalk or a
boat bridge of those tended by the reds upriver. And there are two men who cling to him,
trying to reach the island in the middle of the riverbed. Only their heads emerge, and sometimes you see the
foam that the legs raise when they beat the water to advance. They fight with the current, that
it is strong and seems to want to drag them.
"Bring me to see," Hazelnut says.
He takes her cufflinks and takes a look.
"Fucked," he says.
He returns them to Bescós and the two Falangists look at each other.
Page 345
"The order is to shoot those who leave," recalls Hazelnuts.

-Yes.
"We will have to obey her, right?"
"You'll see ... You're the corporal."
"Well yeah, shit." There will be.
They still look at each other for a moment. Then they raise their rifles almost at the same time.
Bescós puts a finger in the trigger guard and points the sight of the weapon towards the two men, who
have finally reached the islet, come out of the water and crawl over it, pushing the float to
take it further. They move very slowly and one pulls the other, helping him. They seem helpless and
tired, and they still have to cross the other half of the river to safety.
With the Mauser facing, Bescós checks out of the corner of his eye that the latch tab is
raised. Then pull the trigger. It clicks, it does, but no shot comes out.
"I don't know what's wrong with this poplar," he says, lowering his gun.
Hazelnuts does the same.
"It must have jammed you, like me."
The two young men rest their rifles on the tree, sit in the shade and finish
roll cigarettes. Mosquitoes buzz and the confident screeching of cicadas sounds.
Page 346
Epilogue
The later history of the characters in this story was as diverse as their lives. Then
of the Battle of the Ebro and the end of the war in Spain, some of them found peace and others
continued to be shaken by the convulsions of a world that shattered and would take a long time to
recompose. Some were lucky and others were not.
After serving the rest of the war on the Catalan front, Pato Monzón went to France with the
columns of fugitives, and after a painful internment in the refugee camp of
Argelès-sur-Mer managed to embark for Mexico, where she was friends with Luis Buñuel, Remedios Varo and
Diego Rivera, who painted her twice — the portrait named Patricia Curtis may
admire yourself at the Dolores Olmedo museum. She was married twice: first to the Mexican painter
Alejandro Huelin and later with the philosopher and writer Marcelo Curtis. Wrote some notebooks
memoirs that were not published, and passed away in Santa Barbara, California, at the age of
eighty seven years. He never wanted to return to Spain.
Also Ginés Gorguel, the national soldier who walked all the battle of Castellets of the
Segre trying to escape but forced to fight almost every day, he was lucky to finish the war. TO
his return to Albacete with the winning side, he obtained privileges that allowed him to create his
own industrial carpentry company and ended up entering politics with notable success, as it was
Procurator in Cortes and, already in old age, one of the founders of the Alianza Popular party. During
All his life, until the death of Seliman al-Barudi, he maintained a close relationship with his
Moroccan companion of fatigue and kept the gold chain that he gave him in Castellets del
Segre. Ginés Gorguel died in 1993.
Corporal Selimán returned to Morocco at the end of the war. Served in the military
locals when his country gained independence, reaching the rank of sergeant. Once
Retired he settled in Melilla, where one of his sons had a shoe store. There
tried, without success, to create an association dedicated to helping the widows of compatriots killed in the
Civil War, which, neglected by the Spanish Government, lived in begging and poverty.
He used to be seen sitting on the terrace of a cafeteria on Avenida del Generalissimo talking
with friends and acquaintances after having breakfast every day at the bar of the Regulares barracks, where it was very
appreciated. In 1975 he traveled to Madrid to attend the funeral of General Franco, whose photograph
framed forced his son to have it exposed in the shoe store. The son withdrew her at his death,
in 1981.
Vivian Szerman went from one war zone to another. After Spain covered the German invasion
of Poland, the fall of France and the blitz over London. Accompanying the troops
North Americans attended the invasion of Italy and the last offensive in the heart of Germany.
One of the first testimonies from the Auschwitz extermination camp is due to her. Married in
1949 with the film producer Michael Rosen and died of cancer in Calviá, Mallorca, in 1961.
His experiences of the war in Spain and World War II are contained in his
scrapbook A Bad Place ( A bad place, Alfaguara, 1983).
After his work in Spain, Philip Tabb, the London New Worker correspondent ,
went to the British BBC. As a special envoy he covered World War II, the War of
Korea, the conflicts in Palestine, Indochina and Algeria and the first African independencies.
Page 347
Disappeared with a cameraman and sound technician during the Tet offensive in Saigon,
Vietnam, in 1968. Among the books he published several highlights A Very Dirty War ( a war very
dirty, Ruedo Ibérico, 1971), of which Ernest Hemingway said: «It's the best I've read about the
Spanish tragedy ».
The requetés of the Tercio de Montserrat continued fighting for more than three months
that still lasted the battle of the Ebro, and later intervened in the counteroffensive of Extremadura and the
Battle of Peñarroya, where Oriol Les Forques was seriously injured. After the war, the
Requeté married Núria Vila-Sagressa, daughter of the Marquis of Muntallá, became
in charge of family businesses, he was president of the Círculo del Liceo, promoter of the Brotherhood
del Tercio and sponsor of the Montserrat Abbey memorial where they were
319 Carlist combatants buried - destroyed in 2018 - and a monolith in memory of the
requetés dead in front of the Castellets cemetery —destroyed in 2019—. Oriol Les Forques
died in Sant Cugat at the age of seventy-seven, the same year as the publication of his
memoirs ( Memories of a Catalan requeté, Planeta, 1994). His son Jaume Les Forques Vila-
Sagressa was an economy counselor in one of the Convergència i Unió governments chaired
by Jordi Pujol.
The militia major Emilio Gamboa Laguna fought until the end of the war. Could arrive
with his last men to the port of Valencia, where he managed to be evacuated aboard the
British destroyer Boreas. After countless adventures he traveled to the Soviet Union, where his
discrepancies with two prominent Spanish communist leaders, Santiago Carrillo and Dolores
Ibárruri la Pasionaria, earned him a confinement in the Vorkutá labor camp.
Rehabilitated during the Nazi invasion, he commanded a unit of Spanish partisans and
Russians who operated behind enemy lines and intervened in the offensive against Germany and the capital
of the Reich, where he repainted the signs of the conquered streets, renaming them with names
of comrades killed in Spain. After the conflict, he settled in Cuba and later in Puerto
Rico, until returning to his homeland in 1977. He did not accept the proposal to be a Party deputy
Communist in the Spanish democratic Cortes, and during an act in memory of the militants
fallen in the Asturias revolution starred in a notorious incident by refusing to narrow the
hand of Santiago Carrillo and the poet Rafael Alberti. He died in his modest house in Cangas de
Narcea from heart failure, at ninety-four years of age.
Antoni Saumell, Tonet, the twelve-year-old boy who accompanied during ten days of fighting the
Legionaries of the XIX Flag, he did not see his grandparents again, who never returned to the town. Without
more family, welcomed in the school for orphans in Lleida on the personal recommendation of the lieutenant
Pardeiro, studied baccalaureate and teaching, and for three decades he was a professor of history and
literature at the Miguel de Cervantes secondary school in Tarragona. He had a wife
four children and nine grandchildren. In 1963, during the commemorative events of the XXV anniversary of the
battle of the Ebro, he met again with the old Cape Longines, graduate of the Third time
back and owner of a bar in El Puerto de Santa María. The photograph of their embrace was the front page
in the Barcelona newspaper La Vanguardia.
In the case of provisional lieutenant Santiago Pardeiro Tojo, the sinister saying was not fulfilled
provisional ensign, effective corpse. He continued to fight on different fronts until the end of the
war and ended it without receiving any injury and with the rank of captain, a military medal
individual and two collective. In 1941 he married María Cristina Olaizábal, his war godmother,
and that same year he volunteered to Russia with the Blue Division. There he obtained two iron crosses: the
2nd class in the Volkhov stock exchange and 1st class on the Sinyavino Heights. He died with all his
men on February 10, 1943 at the Battle of Krasny Bor, when the company under his command
Page 348
it was annihilated without yielding its positions to the mass of Soviet infantry and armor. I had
twenty four years. His name, placed on a street in his hometown (Calle del Capitán Pardeiro),
It was withdrawn in 2019 in application of the Historical Memory Law.
The dynamiter Julián Panizo continued fighting for the rest of his life. After Castellets del
Segre joined another unit with which he fought in the Sierra de Pàndols, in the final phase of the
battle of the Ebro. It passed to France after the fall of Catalonia —the gendarmes had to take away
the rifle with rifle butts - holding a clenched fist raised and, inside it, a handful of earth
Spanish. Interned in the Saint-Cyprien camp, he ended up in an army work company
French. In 1940, during the German invasion, Panizo and other Spaniards took to the mountains to
form one of the first nuclei of anti-Nazi resistance in Haute-Savoie. In March 1944,
On the Glières plateau, the former Murcian miner intervened with sixty other compatriots in
the bloody fighting that took place there against the German troops. Liberated France, that
same year he crossed the Pyrenees with the Spanish Guerrilla Group, in the disastrous
invasion of the Arán valley, and was among the few maquis that managed to infiltrate into Asturias
and Leon. He fought in those mountains for nine years and died on November 25, 1953 in
Vega de Liébana, together with the last two men left from his departure, in a
confrontation with forces of the Civil Guard.
Saturiano Bescós, the shepherd enrolled in the XIV Flag of the Falange de Aragón, did not obtain
some benefit from the more than two years he spent fighting on different battle fronts. The 2
April 1939, the day after the war ended, he was discharged with 468 pesetas - the pay of
two months—, a pack of Ideals, two cans of sardines and a piece of bread for the trip, and
put on a train that, six days later, returned him to his land, the town and the flock. Passed the
the rest of his life in the mountains among his goats and his dogs; and when some animal got lost,
he sought by taking out of his satchel the only thing he kept from the war: the theater cufflinks, plated
in mother-of-pearl, from an international brigade member whom he killed in the Ebro. He died as an old man in 1998, sitting in
a rock, looking at the mountains at sunset with a cigarette burning between his fingers. Y
he never said a word about the Civil War.
Las Matas, August 2020
Page 349
Edition in digital format: October 2020
© 2020, Arturo Pérez-Reverte

© 2020, Penguin Random House Grupo Editorial, SAU
Travessera de Gràcia, 47-49. 08021 Barcelona
© of the illustrations: 2020, Augusto Ferrer-Dalmau
© Design: Penguin Random House Grupo Editorial, inspired by an original design by Enric Satué
Cover design: Marc Cubillas

Cover photo: © Henry Buckley Fund. Arxiu Comarcal de l'Alt Penedès
Photographs from the beginning and end of the book: Basque and Navarrese requetés volunteers
© Lola Baleztena. Baleztena Archive / Republican militiamen on the Ebro front © Mary Evans
Penguin Random House Editorial Group supports copyright protection .

The copyright encourages creativity, diversity advocates in the field of ideas and knowledge, promotes
free expression and favors a living culture.
Thank you for purchasing an authorized edition of this book and for respecting copyright laws by not reproducing,
scan or distribute any part of this work by any means without permission.
By doing so you are supporting the authors and allowing PRHGE to continue publishing books for all
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ISBN: 978-84-204-5577-8
Digital composition: MT Color & Diseño, SL

www.mtcolor.es
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Page 350
ARTURO PÉREZ-REVERTE'S NEW NOVEL

July 1938, thousands of young people fight in the tragic battle of the Ebro.
Their names are not what history remembers, but what happened to them is part of
our memory.
"It's the bad thing about these civil wars, right?… You hear an enemy wounded
call his mother in the same language as you, and like that, right? ...
they take away the desire. "
During the night of July 24 to 25, 1938, the XI Mixed Brigade of the
Army of the Republic crosses the river to establish a bridgehead in
Castellets del Segre. In the vicinity of the town, half a battalion of
infantry, a Moroccan tabor and a company of the Legion defend the area.
The battle of the Ebro is about to begin, the crudest and bloodiest ever
never fought on Spanish soil.
Masterfully combining fiction with historical data and testimonies

personal, Arturo Pérez-Reverte places the reader, with overwhelming realism, among those who,
Volunteers or by force, they fought on the front lines of the Civil War. Their names are not
those that History remembers, but what happened to them resonates in these pages with the drama
of a memory that belongs to all of us.
This is not a novel about the Civil War, but about the men and women who fought in
she. The history of the parents and grandparents of many Spaniards today.
The critic has said:

"Arturo Pérez-Reverte knows how to retain the reader at each turn of the page."
The New York Times Review
"Arturo Pérez-Reverte manages to keep the reader out of breath."

Corriere della Sera
"Readers won't be able to turn the page fast enough."

Publishers Weekly
«There is a Spanish writer who looks like the best Spielberg plus Umberto Eco. His name is Arturo-
Pérez-Reverte. »
La Repubblica
"Arturo Pérez-Reverte makes us enjoy an intelligent game between history and fiction."
The Times
«Pérez-Reverte at his best. His novels draw ties of union with each other, until
to form a warp that is what the classics called style, and the modern ones, world. "
José María Pozuelo Yvancos, ABC Cultural
«Pérez-Reverte is his radically modern, intelligent and complex sensibility […]. A summary
of an argument by Pérez-Reverte is exciting, but not as interesting as his books, each
Page 351
one of which creates a psychological atmosphere that is irresistible. "

The Boston Globe Book Review
Page 353
352
About Arturo Pérez-Reverte
Arturo Pérez-Reverte was born in Cartagena, Spain, in 1951. He was a war reporter during
twenty-one years, in which he covered seven civil wars in Africa, America and Europe for the newspapers
and television. With more than twenty million readers around the world, many of his novels
they have been taken to film and television. Today he shares his life between literature, the sea and the
navigation. He is a member of the Royal Spanish Academy.
Page 355
354
Index
Fire line
Quotes
Dedication
First part. Shadows on the shore
Chapter I
Chapter II
Chapter III
Chapter IV
Chapter V
Chapter VI
Second part. Rams Clash
Chapter I
Chapter II
Chapter III
Chapter IV
Chapter V
Chapter VI
Chapter VII
Third part. Devil's teeth
Chapter I
Chapter II
Chapter III
Chapter IV
Chapter V
Chapter VI
Epilogue
Credits
About this book
About Arturo Pérez-Reverte

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14/10/2020 Fire line

What brutes, my God. But what men.

To Augusto Ferrer-Dalmau, painter of battles

It's 00:15 and there is no moon.

"Are we still far from the river?" Someone asks.

-Who are you?

-Well of course. That is why I have come.

"Can you give me a sip of water?"

rule out a bad idea.

"Where does it come from?"

Cancel, with many others.

"We'll see later."

Dear María Cristina, my friend, dear godmother:

The sergeant makes an ambiguous gesture.

"Fucking jewels will go down shit," he adds. You see?

macutos, closing their eyes as if to sleep.

—In that case put it Russian, why will they say.

"What we lacked," says Captain Bascuñana. As the short throw fits us

Do not give him peace or barracks,

Mare, mare, come carlins.

"In the House of the Doctor they are full, my Ensign!"

"It's my turn," Margot says.

"You are not very curious."

For your love, militia,

"I don't trust those terns, Julian," Olmos whispers.

beautiful matches you have.

"He was a brave boy," he says at last.

God commands in heaven;

"Here I am, my ensign."

Harinera command post: tobacco smoke, sweat-wet shirts, men who

-Do not say foolishness.

bear it. Probably not.

-Nothing yet. I sent a liaison to the rear, but it hasn't returned.

Bad end have the postman

Would you allow me to speak honestly to you?

"Yeah ... I remember."

hanging it over his shoulder.

—It's better that we are the ones who…

"Of course, man."

"Nationals," he sighs almost into a sob, relieved.

"Those motherfuckers are queer." They will try.

Rosa d'abril, Morena de la Serra,

"Do you have any oil?"

—And about Núria.

I have a brother in the Tercio

"He doesn't sing badly, the motherfucker," Olmos says.

While she bathed,

It was you who said

If you are a clenched fist

Drop the bomb that spits shrapnel

"Good thing," Santacreu says.

by the thunder of mortars and the buzz of bullets.

—Yes, a little… That's why I joined the Party.

"But I've seen things."

—Militia Lieutenant Roque Zugazagoitia!… Who are you?

Pato nods, not looking away.

Our longing is your greatness,

That you still have the faithful infantry,

that knowing how to die knows how to win.

"He passes it for the eggs."

It is Corporal Longines who has seen them first.

—Espabila, Julian, we're going.

we stayed yesterday. Not to mention the water.