The Return

by Victoria Hislop

  Enrique remained glum right until the moment of departure, unable even to raise a smile for his mother, who struggled to hold back her tears. Señora Sánchez was not going to accompany them on the train to the dock. Her farewell would be on the station platform.

  By contrast with her brother, Paloma was full of excitement. She was sick of the sirens and the aching hunger. ‘It’s only going to be for a few weeks,’ she kept saying to him. ‘It’s an adventure. It might be fun.’

  As far as all the children were concerned, they were going on a journey to keep them safe. Many of them were smartly dressed: little girls wore ribbons in their hair, their best floral frocks and white ankle socks, and the boys looked neat in crisp shirts and knee-length shorts.

  The Habana seemed huge to the children, looming darkly over their heads, ready to swallow them up like a whale. Some of the smallest of them could not even reach up to catch the rope that ran the length of the gangplank. Sailors took tiny hands in their own and, squeezing them tight, escorted the smallest children along the narrow strip of wood to stop them plunging into the canal of dark water between the dock and the ship.

  The ship was big enough to take eight hundred passengers but they had made provision for nearly four thousand children and almost two hundred adults (twenty teachers, one hundred and twenty auxiliaries, of which Mercedes was one, fifteen Catholic priests and two doctors). They were all on board by nightfall and after a bigger meal than they had eaten in weeks, slept on board.

  At dawn on 21 May, the moorings were loosened. There was the clanking of heavy chains and the passengers felt the first, slow movements of the ship as she began to slide away and move out of the port.

  Mercedes felt her stomach lurch. She was immediately unsettled by the unfamiliar rocking (she had never before been on the water) but it was mostly her emotions that induced this nausea. She was leaving Spain. All around her small children were wailing, while the older ones stood by them, bravely holding their hands. Mercedes bit her lip, suppressing an almost overpowering need to howl with grief and loss. After days of anticipation and preparation, everything was happening too quickly. With every second the distance between herself and Javier increased.

  A spray of salt water mingled with the tears that ran down her face. The knowledge that she was leaving behind every single person she loved and knew was unbearable, and the temptation to run to the bow of the boat and fling herself into the wash almost overwhelmed her. Only the fact that she had to keep a brave face for the children stopped her.

  Enveloped by a feeling of utter bleakness, she watched first the figures at the dockside and then the buildings themselves diminish to pinpricks and disappear from sight. Her hopes of seeing Javier seemed to vanish with them.

  ‘And that,’ said Miguel, ‘was the last Mercedes ever saw of Spain.’

  ‘What?’ Sonia could not conceal her shock. ‘Ever?’

  ‘That’s right. And she still couldn’t write to her mother to explain where she was because it might be incriminating.’

  ‘How awful,’ Sonia said.‘So Concha probably didn’t even know she had left the country.’

  ‘No, she didn’t,’ affirmed Miguel. ‘Not until a long time later.’

  They had finished their lunch in a restaurant near the cathedral and were now strolling slowly back to El Barril. Sonia suddenly felt rather afraid. If Mercedes had left Spain once and for all, perhaps Miguel would have no more information on her. She was about to enquire further when Miguel picked up the story again.

  ‘I want to tell you more about Antonio,’ he said determinedly, increasing his stride as they crossed the square towards his café. ‘We haven’t yet reached the end of the Civil War.’

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  THROUGHOUT THE SPRING and early summer of 1937,Antonio and Francisco were kept in Madrid. The transition in the season that year was sudden, with the kind enveloping warmth of May suddenly swept rudely aside by the searing temperatures of summer. The air in the capital was almost unbreathable and a deep torpor lay heavily over them both.

  They were both pleased when, at the beginning of July, there was renewed action and they were sent towards Brunete, twenty or so kilometres west of Madrid.The Republican army was aiming to drive a wedge into Nationalist-held territory. If they managed to break the line of communication linking the Fascists to their troops in the villages near Madrid and on the edge of the capital itself, it would end the encirclement of the city.Antonio and Francisco were among eighty thousand Republican troops being mobilised for this campaign, which was also drawing in tens of thousands of International Brigaders.

  At first things seemed to go well for them. By nightfall on the first day they had penetrated Fascist territory, Brunete was captured and the village of Villanueva de la Cañada followed. Republican troops now moved on towards Villafranca del Castillo.

  Some of the time, Antonio and Francisco were fighting the few small Fascist forces that still remained, or collecting munitions and food supplies that had been abandoned in their retreat. Once, their battalion found itself caught in a bombardment and for four hours shells rained down on them as they sought cover in the ditches on either side of a road. Nationalist planes were now coming over and bombing them too. Dust, heat, thirst and aching exhaustion affected them all but none of these things mattered when the scent of victory hung in the air. It had a sweetness that overpowered the pungent odours of blood, sweat and excrement.

  Francisco was euphoric.

  ‘This is it, I think,’ he said to Antonio, with boyish enthusiasm. ‘This is it.’ He was shouting above the sound of artillery fire.

  ‘Well, I hope you’re right,’ answered his friend, who was glad to see something other than anger and frustration pouring out of his companion.

  During the first few days, the Republicans felt a strong sense of momentum with this battle. They knew that the Nationalists were aware of it too and would be preparing themselves for effective retaliation. This was crucial territory and, if the Republicans achieved their next aim and took the hills above Madrid, their objective would be won.

  But having been initially unprepared for this offensive, the Nationalists now moved vast troop numbers into play, and began a vicious counterattack. The Republican air force had achieved supremacy in the air at the beginning of the battle but within a few days, the Nationalists were superior in the sky and now repeatedly bombed Republican lines.

  Sitting in shallow trenches, the earth too hard and dry to allow them to be dug any deeper, Antonio and Francisco knew they were in trouble. After the initial wave of optimism they could see that victory was going to take longer to grasp than they had thought.

  One after another the Nationalist aircraft came, bombing them with almost tedious regularity.The artillery fire was relentless and the noise of it crushed their morale. The heat began to intensify. Rifles’ catches that had frozen up the previous winter were now too hot to touch, and the battlefield turned into a living hell.

  There was little talking in the trenches, but occasionally some seemingly senseless instruction was barked out and passed between them.

  ‘They want us over there,’ said Antonio one day, indicating an area thinly planted with trees.

  ‘What? Where there’s no cover at all?’ shouted Francisco above the noise of an exploding shell.

  In the brief respite from aerial bombardment, a group including Antonio and Francisco clambered out of the trench and ran for cover in the copse. There was the crackle of sniper fire but no one was hit. Most of Antonio’s unit had been lucky so far during this conflict. Though they achieved little, they did not lose their lives.

  Blackened corpses of Republican militiamen littered the landscape. Occasionally they were retrieved, but often they just lay there, cooking in the heat, food for the flies. It was a desolate area. The landscape of pale earth was becoming more bleached by the day. Stray wisps of grass caught in the firing line would ignite and go up in brief, bright flames, only adding to the heat fo
r anyone standing close by.

  The appalling inadequacy of the supply lines soon became a problem. It was not just ammunition the Republicans lacked, but food and water.

  ‘We have a choice: drink this filthy muck that could give us typhoid, or die of thirst,’ said Francisco, holding up a battered enamel mug. The water situation was critical. He took a swig of brandy from a flask, wishing more than anything that he could swap it for a mouthful of pure, clean water. ‘You know there are dead animals lying upstream,’ he added.

  Some of the men around him tossed their water ration onto the earth and watched it disappear into the ground. They knew Francisco was right.They had watched one of their fellow soldiers die of typhoid in front of them the previous day.

  Aerial bombardment increased and in this exposed landscape it was often mere good fortune to survive. When a bomb fell, dried earth flew into the sky. Huge stony clods landed on the soldiers’ heads, sprayed into their faces and filled their ears. Neither skill with a rifle nor accuracy with the throwing of a grenade played a part. Bravery did not increase anyone’s chances, but nor did cowardice.

  ‘You know what we are,’ said Francisco one night, when calm had descended, and there was a moment of peace to allow them to talk. ‘Target practice for German planes.’

  ‘You’re probably right,’ muttered Antonio. In spite of his habitually positive stance, he was feeling increasingly disheartened.

  It appeared that the Republican leaders did not communicate with each other and were uncertain about basic directions and even less sure about their position. The initially firm and well-thought-out strategy was now obscured by dust and chaos.

  In spite of huge numbers of Franco’s infantry dying when their lines were bombarded, the Nationalists had continued to bomb Republican airfields and considerably weakened their capacity in the air. The Republicans found that they were now struggling to defend the territory that they had gained at the beginning of the campaign.

  By the last week of July, with temperatures still unbearable, the air power of the Nationalists had become the dominant factor, and many Republicans tried to flee. Some were shot by their own side as they ran away. Eventually firing ceased. Ammunition was all but spent and burned-out tanks dotted the landscape.

  It seemed that, because of bad communications, poor leadership, confusion about the geography of the area, a poor supply system and Nationalist air superiority, the initial Republican gains ultimately meant little. This victory did not have the sharp lines of certainty, and the mess of war allowed both sides to feel that they had won. Leaders on the left claimed Brunete a masterpiece of cunning, but with the gain of a mere fifty square kilometres at the expense of twenty thousand lives and at least as many wounded, it was a small advance won at a very high price.

  ‘So this is winning,’ said Francisco, stabbing his heel into the ground. ‘And this is what it feels like to be the victors.’

  His bitter words reflected the discontent among his fellow troops and the anger over the pointless losses of this battle.

  Where was La Pasionaria now to rouse them and to remind them that they must not give up? With communist leaders telling them that this was a triumph, they knew they would be called on to continue the fight, but for now they were glad to return to Madrid for some rest. There would be other fronts to fight later.

  For a few months, Antonio and Francisco were back in the capital, where everyday life would still carry on a masquerade of normality that could be suddenly shattered. Even when they were enjoying a cool drink in the sunshine, an air-raid siren would send them running for shelter, reminding them of the threat that continually lurked in this city. Antonio’s thoughts often strayed towards Granada and he wondered what life was like in a city where the Fascists had taken over. There would be no bombs dropping, but he doubted whether his beloved mother would be sitting in the Plaza Nueva eating an ice cream.

  A new offensive took place on the Aragón front that autumn, but Antonio and Francisco discovered that their unit would not be among those heading into battle.

  ‘Why aren’t we going?’ moaned Francisco. ‘We can’t sit around here for the rest of our days.’

  ‘Someone has to stay and defend Madrid,’ said Antonio. ‘And that campaign looks like complete chaos. Why do you want to be cannon fodder?’

  Antonio believed in what they were doing but lives were being wasted now, and it angered him. He did not want to be an unnecessary sacrifice. The papers they read in Madrid carried the detail of internal divisions on the Republican side that were doing nothing to help them. The Marxist militia and the trade union groups were being deprived of weaponry by the communists, who were now determined to take charge, and disputes were breaking out in their own ranks that did nothing to further their cause.

  Antonio could never understand why his friend desired action for its own sake, and, just as he expected, news of huge loss of life on the Aragón front began to filter through.

  In December, though, they were on the move. Loaded into a lorry, at the beginning of the bitterest winter anyone could recall, Antonio and Francisco were taken towards the town of Teruel, east of Madrid.Teruel was held by the Nationalists, and the Republicans hoped that Franco would divert troops from Madrid if they made it their target. There were fears that Franco was planning a renewed assault on the capital and the Republican leaders knew that something had to be done in order to draw their forces away.

  The attack on Teruel took the Nationalists by surprise and for a while the Republicans enjoyed the advantage, eventually capturing the garrison. Grounded by severe weather, German and Italian planes were initially unable to join the conflict, but even without them, the Nationalists had the advantage of more weaponry and more manpower. They proceeded to use both to the full, and subjected Teruel to a relentless battering.

  The landscape itself was cruel: flat and barren, with bare, chiselled hillsides. Antonio and Francisco, who were positioned inside the town and almost dead with cold, watched as dozens of their comrades died on this wasteland. They were both so hardened to discomfort now that Antonio wondered if they would one day cease to feel pain.The only time that Francisco did not complain about the general state of this war and the inadequacies of Republican leadership, was when he was immersed in danger and death. Even a hacking cough did not appear to bother him, and often he seemed at his most contented when he was in the midst of machine-gun fire.

  On Christmas Day they were camped out on the outside of town. Snow had been falling for days and the soldiers’ clothes were sodden. There was no hope of drying anything out. With saturated boots more than double their usual weight, walking was more arduous than ever.

  Francisco was wheezing badly now. He was holding a cigarette but it fell to the ground as he doubled up, his whole body racked by a fit of coughing.

  ‘Look, why don’t you sit down for a while, or even come in here?’ suggested Antonio. He put his arm around his friend and guided him towards a makeshift tent that was being used for medical supplies.

  ‘It’s nothing,’ protested Francisco. ‘Just flu or something. I’m all right.’ He brusquely shrugged off Antonio’s guiding hand.

  ‘Look, Francisco, you need some rest.’

  ‘I don’t,’ came his voice in a rattling whisper, his throat full of phlegm.

  Antonio looked Francisco in the eyes and saw they were full of tears. It could have been the cold that made them water in this way, but Antonio could see a man at breaking point. His friend’s heaving chest and the exhaustion from fourteen sleepless nights in the damp had pushed even this tough individual beyond endurance. Pain or injury he might have borne with some fortitude but this was sickness and his body was failing him.

  ‘I have to be strong,’ he sobbed in desperation.To find his body placing such limitations on his desires and to encounter his own frailty were harder to endure than sickness itself. He felt so ashamed.

  Antonio put his arm around Francisco and found himself supporting his entire wei
ght. Through the thick cloth of his uniform he could feel his friend’s raging fever. Francisco was steaming.

  ‘I don’t . . . I don’t . . . I want to . . . Don’t . . .’ As he slid into a state of shivering delirium, his sentences became rambling.Within the hour he had slipped into unconsciousness and that night was taken away from the battlefield to a military hospital.

  The enemy in this battle was as much the horizontal sleet that sliced into their faces as the strafing bullets. The dampness sat in their lungs. Many men died of the cold. They simply did not wake up in the morning. Some of them had used alcohol to anaesthetise themselves and it had relaxed them into such deep slumber that their hearts forgot to beat. At least in the snow their bodies would not immediately putrefy.

  The campaign continued for another month into the New Year. With Francisco on sick leave back in Madrid, Antonio found he was able to detach himself from the horrors around him. Francisco was always angry with his own side as well as with the enemy, and his continual protests had merely exacerbated their disgruntlement.