Rutherford, though, felt that he could best serve the cause he believed in so passionately by returning to Spain, telling his father, ‘if all the young men had seen what I saw out there they would be doing as I am doing.’ He returned to Spain in August 1937, and, after being kept back to attend officers’ training school for a short time, the Battalion eventually granted Rutherford his wish of rejoining the front line.
Following his arrest at Calaceite in March 1938, aware of the gravity of the situation, Rutherford’s comrades attempted to cover for him, and he resolved when questioned to go by the name ‘James Small’. What ‘Small’ could not legislate for was being recognised by Alfonso Merry del Val, who had interviewed him following his apprehension at Jarama and arrived at Zaragoza military prison to perform the same task. The fingerprints Rutherford had given at Jarama merely stood to prove the veracity of Merry del Val’s accusation. On 24 May 1938 Jimmy Rutherford was executed by firing squad. He was 20 years old.
Given the difficulty of obtaining accurate news from Spain and its military prisons, similar tales of woe occasionally took a belated twist for the better when genuine facts emerged, as witnessed in Mrs Maley’s visit to the cinema.
George Drever, who in his lifetime earned two honours degrees, was listed as having been killed at Belchite. His mother was informed, and she accordingly claimed his death certificate and placed obituary notices in local newspapers, following which Drever’s friends in Leith held an emotional memorial meeting. Yet, in July 1938, news that he had been taken prisoner as part of the large group captured in and around Calaceite filtered through. Drever reached his delighted mother’s house on 2 November 1938, in her eyes, back from the dead. He regretted greatly that Jimmy Rutherford, his friend from Leith and then San Pedro de Cardeña, was not with him.
Earlier, in November 1936, 19-year-old David MacKenzie was reported to have been killed at University City, Madrid. Back in Scotland, a commemorative service was held for the promising medical student. However, news emerged through the Daily Worker on 12 December that MacKenzie was, in fact, alive and well. So ferocious had the nationalist bombardment of his position been, his comrades had presumed him dead. MacKenzie, a first-class gunner, who had reportedly eliminated an entire enemy machine-gun section with one burst of fire, returned to Edinburgh and travelled around Scotland summoning support for the Spanish republic. Such cheerful denouements, however, were rare.
CHAPTER 5
Eating Onions as Apples:
Life as a Volunteer
This place isn’t so bad, although it isn’t quite as cheerful as Sauchiehall Street on a Saturday evening. As a matter of fact it isn’t hellish cheerful at all. You can’t drop into Lauder’s and have a quiet one and have a night at the Playhouse. As to women, I haven’t spoken to one yet. The grub is better than I expected, although there is a lack of meat, sugar, milk etc, but the cigarette shortage more than justified my misgivings which I believe I expressed to you before leaving home. These have to be smoked to be believed, it is absolutely incredible that anyone could brand their contents as tobacco.
John Miller, Alexandria
AS IS FREQUENT in war, participants in Spain spent long periods of inaction behind the front lines of battle. By spring 1937, with the British Battalion bedded firmly in, the organisation of life outside of battle had greatly improved, prompting Jock Cunningham to write on 8 June:
We have a canteen in the line, a wall newspaper and a trench newspaper, delivered every morning before breakfast. We had a concert up in the line. The lads get bathed regularly, there is plenty of water being brought up by mule. It is possible to get a dozen of the lads to Madrid for two days leave per week. If there is anybody really bad they get 14 days in a rest home in the country.
Political meetings were a staple of communal life in the Battalion. These were overseen by Communist Party-appointed Political Commissars, many of whom were Scottish. Commissars’ chief responsibility as far as their duties to volunteers went was keeping up company morale, whether through organising leisure events or giving political instruction.
It is difficult to ascertain to what extent Commissars used political meetings to simply relay the propagandistic messages of the Soviet Union conveyed to them from on high. What can be said is that, on the whole, Commissars felt a great, almost paternalistic devotion to the men they presided over. They were, too, resolutely independent of mind, and it is hard to imagine the likes of Tom Murray unquestioningly acting as a mouthpiece for Moscow.
Relating what he had witnessed, John Gollan set the scene of a typical political meeting:
The boys – there were 650 of them, 400 British and 250 Spanish – sat round in a large semi-circle with their rifles across their knees, listening while I explained the situation back home. Imagine it! We could hear the guns very plainly. Lorry-loads of materials for the front and armament convoys kept rumbling by. Overhead, every few minutes, a squadron of planes flew towards the fascist lines. Each time this happened we had to interrupt the meeting because the boys cheered the planes so much.
Peter Kerrigan reported on the content of the meetings:
Full reports of the situation on all fronts were given, as well as readings from Spanish and British newspapers. These readings and reports gave rise to many useful discussions.
Not all Brigaders were accustomed to the heavily theoretical direction these gatherings often took. Steve Fullarton confessed that one meeting in particular, called by Bob Cooney, left him feeling politically naïve:
I just listened. We were all sat there, some in the shade, some in the sun, and I just listened to the arguments and it was there I realised what an ignoramus I was, in terms of politics. They were all getting up; somebody over there would quote from Lenin and somebody would quote Marx, and so on. They were quoting by the yard! I thought: ‘God help us, how do they know all that?!’
Fullarton’s comments suggested that there was an open element to these meetings rather than them being a form of political lecture:
Sometimes a meeting was what they called a ‘beef meeting’ – ‘beef’ was the Yankee way of expressing complaints. It was at such a meeting where you got the complaints off your chest, not that it made much difference!
While the meetings represented a sober form of extracurricular activity, more orthodox forms of entertainment were on offer. George Murray expressed his enthusiasm for a raucous Battalion night:
We had a concert here last night at which the star songs were such classics as ‘The Old Maid in the Garret’ etc!! The good quality of the singing lay mainly in its volume and vehemence!! We also had an ‘orchestra’ consisting of two mouth-organs and a pipe resembling those used by snake-charmers.
‘Fiestas’ were regularly held, another highlight for Murray:
We are having a ‘fiesta’ in the billets tonight and I should very much like you to be present not only to hear my singing (!!), but to witness some of the original, ingenious, weird and wonderful items which will be put across. The humour is always rich and strong on such occasions. By strong I mean that it has to be the opposite of ‘parlour’. Notwithstanding that (or maybe because of it) it is always genuine and the laugh is usually against fascism or something else we don’t like.
Bill Gilmour spoke of the lift in mood produced by a singing competition held between the different nationalities of the XVth International Brigade. Gilmour sang ‘Hame o’ Mine’ and won a much sought-after shaving kit for his efforts. He felt sure that events such as this helped morale enormously:
We are all as happy as hell in spite of the difficulties of language and customs. That we find it hard to understand one another is more often an attraction than a difficulty. After all, we understand each other spiritually as we are all imbued with the same anti-fascist spirit. We have many a joke at one another’s expense due to the many misrepresentations.
The wall newspapers referred to by Jock Cunningham were an extremely popular feature of Battalion life. The papers, mounted on noti
ce boards for all to see, would contain, among other things, useful information, personal news and sketches. George Murray described his Company’s version and the charismatic figure behind it, as well as the contentment these activities bred:
The wall newspaper is also worth seeing. We have a unique character who runs it and most of our other ‘cultural’ activities. In addition to playing a peculiar type of whistle with great skill he writes and produces sketches and ‘songs’, edits the paper and sets off competitions on everything from military strategy to those which determine whose girl is the best looking. Oh yes, even this life has its compensations. In fact, given its purpose, the compensations greatly outweigh the inconveniences.
Football was played regularly, often between different nationalities. John Gollan refereed a game between the British and Canadian volunteers from the Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion. The Canadians had been challenged by the British to what the latter described as a ‘contest in the ancient and honourable traditional game of football as played in Britain’. With coats for goal posts, and 18 players on each side, the match ended 5–4 to the Canadians, thanks mainly to their Spanish ‘guest’ players (or so their British opponents contended).
During time spent away from the frontlines of battle, Scottish Brigaders fraternise with Spanish, English and Irish comrades.
Cultural Committees were established, and provided Battalion members with gramophones, wireless radios, draught and chess sets, dominoes and a library. Alec Park glowingly described the latter: ‘There is a fine library here, the books and the journals of American labour predominate. The premises used to be the church and now the main building is used for concerts and picture shows.’ Lectures were given on various topics, and schools for the education of illiterate Spanish comrades were formed, with lessons given by British soldiers. Brigader Willie McAuley organised a workers’ theatre movement, and recorded ‘we have written two plays, one dealing with the work of the 5th Column, and the other dealing with International Solidarity.’ The establishment of all of this led Bill Gilmour to conclude that ‘the health of the Battalion is very good considering everything, and our morale was never better’ (tellingly, this was written a month prior to events at Brunete).
Further interest was provided by the visits of public figures such as Clement Attlee and Pandit Nehru, and, perhaps more memorably, Paul Robeson and Errol Flynn. In January 1938, American actor and singer Robeson visited the British Battalion and met a number of Scottish Brigaders, heralding a special relationship with their home country. Robeson was an impassioned supporter of the Spanish republic, and suffered criticism at home for his backing of the American Abraham Lincoln Battalion. In Spain, he sang in Tarazona, and in hospitals at Murcia and Benicassim, announcing of the cause: ‘To me, Spain is another homeland because the people are not in favour of racial and class differences.’ Alec Park was one of the Scots who saw him sing at Tarazona. Writing in January 1938, he relayed the experience:
Yesterday afternoon we had the pleasure of a visit from Paul Robeson, his wife, and Charlotte Haldane. Robeson rendered to us many of his songs, but he gave ‘Old Man River’ to new words, words of hope and struggle and not of as in the past defeatism and helplessness.
Park was to die in battle during the retreat from Aragon, yet Robeson’s relationship with the family he left behind lived on. In August 1938, Park’s widow, Annie, took her young sons George and Eric to see the singer perform in a concert at City Hall, Glasgow, staged to raise money to send a food ship to republican Spain. The Park family met with Robeson before the performance, and informed him of the death of Alec. As the Glasgow Herald reported on 19 August, ‘Mr Robeson distinctly recalled meeting Mr Park, and was greatly distressed to learn of his death.’ After the concert, Robeson said that because of the atmosphere of solidarity in the auditorium, he had never felt more compelled to sing.
On his visit to Scotland, Robeson revealed a love for the country and in particular the Gaelic language. He visited a clachan in the Western Isles, performing in a village concert hall and later giving an impromptu outdoor performance in Gaelic of ‘The Eriskay Love-lilt’.
Annie Park remarried some years later and emigrated to the United States, where, over a decade after meeting him, she attended a Robeson concert held in a private house (it being the McCarthy era, the singer was banned from playing in concert halls or abroad). To her amazement, Robeson spotted her and dedicated a song ‘to my friend from Scotland’.
Other Brigaders in Spain were astonished to meet Errol Flynn in Madrigueras. William Jackson and a large group of comrades were enjoying a night in a local bar when the world famous actor walked in and announced: ‘The drinks are on me.’ Flynn climbed onto a table and, raising a toast to the British Battalion, vowed: ‘If I wasn’t Errol Flynn, I’d be fighting with you for your cause.’
One thespian whose fame was yet to come also spent time among Scottish Brigaders. Born in London to Scottish parentage, James Robertson Justice considered himself a Scot, and upon joining the International Brigades must have been heartened to find so many of his compatriots in Spain. Robertson Justice, it is fancifully alleged, escaped the clutches of nationalist troops by pointing at the sky and shouting ‘Look! Greylag geese’, in the baritone voice that was to become his trademark. An aside perhaps, but interesting to note the link between the Scottish contribution to the Spanish Civil War and Chitty Chitty Bang Bang!
In terms of employment conditions, Steve Fullarton and George Watters both remarked that the £1 per week Brigaders were paid proved worthless, as there was simply nothing to spend it on. Of more importance to volunteers was leave, and as Jock Cunningham explained, a system was put in place to ensure occasional periods of recuperation. When on duty at Jarama and Brunete, many Brigaders chose to spend their days off in Madrid, a city suffering intense nationalist bombing. On one of these visits, Bill Gilmour was impressed by the unshakeable Madridleños: ‘It was good to sit in a picture house where an unconcerned audience heard the bursting of shells outside, above the dialogue being broadcast for their amusement.’
Despite German bombs raining down on them from 5am to 1pm for the entire three days Gilmour was there, the locals remained impressively unfazed:
The more I know of the Spanish workers the greater grows my admiration for them. No one regrets the shelling of Madrid more than I. But I am glad that I was able to witness the assets towards the Spanish character that I have herein described. It has been a great tonic to my anti-fascism and by the time I returned to the trenches my hatred for fascism had grown a hundred times greater.
Some leave was spent, understandably, escaping from the pressures of war in local bars. Gilmour explained how easily relief turned to over-indulgence: ‘We are still rather unsettled as the exuberance of the boys in their first hours of freedom from the sounds of fire is sometimes carried to excess.’
Cooks with the Anti-tank Battery photographed at Alcorisa, Aragon, autumn 1937.
A more personal pursuit behind the lines was letter-writing and receiving, the latter of which caused Brigaders endless anxieties; some went months without hearing anything from home, such was the predictable unreliability of the wartime postal service. Of almost equal importance to the contents of letters were the packages accompanying them, and specifically those containing much-cherished British cigarettes. It was rare to find a Scottish Brigader who didn’t smoke, and the scarcity and low quality of the cigarettes provided by the republican authorities was legendary. Alec Donaldson summed up the problem:
The smokes problem is very acute. We sometimes get one packet per week of cigarettes which have only one claim to the name, the fact that they have the same shape as the genuine article. They are known as ‘anti-tanks’ and are twice as deadly.
Glaswegian Thomas McWhirter described the lengths stretched to in desperation for tobacco:
We have started Butting Clubs. One must be quick on the draw to tap an after nowadays. I saw a comrade smoke nut shells today. Personally my wo
rst attempt has been at tree leaves; they are not so bad.
Though volunteers were short of cigarettes to puff on after meals, food itself was an important issue during the Spanish conflict. Political Commissar Bob Cooney, a late arrival in September 1937, having been retained in Scotland for his importance to the CPGB, laconically emphasised the importance of nutrition to the Battalion quartermaster Robert ‘Hooky’ Walker: ‘Feed the boys well and they’ll fight well.’ Alec Park detailed the meal-time experience:
The meals are, roughly, coffee at 7.30am, lunch about 1.30pm and supper about 6.30pm. The food is mainly soups and beans and rice and I feel I am doing fairly well on it although the cup of tea is missing.
In terms of ingredients and quantities, the culinary experiences of Brigaders appear to have varied greatly, in line with which period they were in Spain, and in which position they found themselves. David Anderson, at one time platoon commander in the Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion, recalled in desperate hunger eating snakes and snails, while Edinburgh student David MacKenzie’s diet consisted of three main staples: rice, beans and chick-peas. On the Aragon Front, Tommy Bloomfield became so hungry that he began to eat raw onions as if they were apples, a habit he continued for the rest of his life. Steve Fullarton admitted of the Battle of the Ebro: ‘We were always hungry and food probably was our main topic of conversation.’
However, this ravenousness was usually more of an issue on the front line; satisfaction with rations behind the lines seems to have been general. George Murray observed that ‘the food here is plain and wholesome and agrees with my stomach’, and added that any hunger pangs could be defeated by eating oranges, apples and cherries plucked from the trees. His brother Tom, in April 1938 a very late arrival, was more than pleased with the menu:
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