by William Boyd
1937
[Wednesday, 10 March]
Toulouse airport. I’m waiting for the flight to Valencia – delayed one hour. Today is Wednesday – on Monday evening I left London. I think I’m still suffering from after shock: I’ve no idea what I left behind. Wrong – you know exactly what you left behind. What you don’t know is what you’ll discover when you go back.
It happened like this. I spent the weekend at Thorpe as usual. Came up to London on the early train and shopped at the Army & Navy Stores for a few items that would be useful in Spain (powerful torch, 500 cigarettes, extra warm clothing). I was back at Draycott Avenue after luncheon. I laid out my clothes on the bed and was about to start packing when there was a ring at the doorbell. I went down the stairs to open the door and found Lottie and Sally [Ross] standing there – gleeful to have surprised me like this. Lottie said something like: ‘You left your manuscript behind and we were bored so decided to have a day trip to London.’ She handed over the folder (twenty-four appalling pages of Summer at Saint-Jean – I had no desire to take it to Spain and had deliberately left it at Thorpe). Sally said: ‘Well, come on, Logan, aren’t you going to ask us up?’
What could I say? What could I do? In the flat Sally realized instantly and started talking like a machine gun. It took Lottie a few seconds longer and I saw her stiffen and her ‘Isn’t this a nice die in her throat as she looked around her. They didn’t go into the bedroom, kitchen or bathroom – there was no need. They had recognized the effect a woman has on a dwelling place. Whether a palace or a mud hut, it is palpable and unmistakable – a presence, a kind of order quite different from something that even the tidiest man living alone produces. They had been expecting something basic and functional – which is how I described Draycott Avenue to anyone who was curious – one level above a monk’s cell. Our dark, warm, cherished, lived-in few rooms were eloquent testimony to the kind of secret life I lived in London – my books, my paintings, the odd, interesting bits of furniture. Lottie became very quiet while Sally’s camouflaging prattle intensified, with her finally blurting out, ‘Do you know, darling, if we run we’ll make the 5 o’clock.’ It was the perfect exit line and allowed us all to bustle downstairs. Lottie rallied and managed to say, ‘Do take care in Spain,’ and I was able to kiss them both goodbye and wave them off up Draycott Avenue.
I sat in a chair for half an hour letting the clamour in my head settle down: the warring suppositions, courses of action, ways of escape, excuses, lies… Freya came home and I told her what happened. It really startled her and then she gave me her look and said, ‘Good. I’m glad. It’s time we stopped hiding.’
And now I sit here in Toulouse thinking of potential consequences and I see that, in general, Freya is wise and right. But I feel – what? – that it has been forced upon me, that it should never have happened this way. I could have lied my way out of my sham marriage to Lottie in a manner that would have spared her feelings better and hurt her pride less. Not to be. They have just announced a three-hour delay for our ‘plane.
Monday, 15 March
Valencia. Hotel Oriente. Things have changed here even in a few months. The Communists (the PSUC) seem to have consolidated their hold and consequently things are being run better: at the Foreign Press Bureau I was presented with my passes to the Aragón and Madrid fronts. British journalists protested vainly at this favouritism: they go to the back of the queue – the Republican government is incensed by our non-intervention policy. One of them told me that Hemingway was here, staying in a vast suite at the Reina Victoria. I shall go and pay my respects.
Later. Hemingway was very cordial – he said he was on his way to Madrid to make a documentary film. He’d never heard of the Dusenberry Press Service. ‘Are they paying you? That’s the only criterion.’ Like clockwork, I said. He’s also on a contract for something called the Newspaper Alliance. He’s paid $500 for each cabled story and $1,000 for each mailed one – up to 1,200 words. Jesus: almost a dollar a word. Rather puts Dusenberry in perspective. ‘Rack up the expenses,’ Hem advised. He was at his most likeable, in expansive, genial mood, and we drank a lot of brandy. The Hotel Florida in Madrid, he told me, was the only show in town. I said I’d see him there later in the month. I head back to Barcelona tomorrow to meet up with Faustino. I realize I’m happy to be back in Spain and not just because it has its own excitement. It stops me thinking – and caring – about what Lottie may be doing or saying. Wrote a loving letter to my Freya, saying all would be well – but specifying no particular course of action.
Thursday, 18 March
Faustino and I caught a troop train this morning and chugged slowly up on to the Aragón plateau. It’s damn cold and I’m wearing my Army & Navy long Johns. We’ve billeted for the night in a little village called San Vicente about a mile from the front. My supply of cigarettes makes me a very popular man. We had a big tortilla each and as much wine as we wanted in exchange for a pack. Faustino warned me to ration them: ‘All Spanish tobacco comes from the Islas Canarias.’ I realized: Franco holds them – soon there’ll be no cigarettes for the Republicans.
Barcelona has changed too: that exhilarating revolutionary fervour seems to have vanished and in its place the city seems merely to have reverted to its pre-war state. The poor are everywhere and the rich are correspondingly obvious. The big expensive restaurants are busy, yet there were huge queues for bread and the beggars and the urchins were back outside the shops of the Ramblas. At night you could see the prostitutes lounging in the doorways and on street corners and the nude cabarets were being advertised again. All that had gone last year. I asked Faustino what had happened and he said the Communists were slowly taking control from the Anarchists. ‘They’re more interested in governing,’ he said, ‘they’re better organized. They put their principles to one side in order to win this war. While all that we have are our principles. That’s our trouble: we Anarchists only want liberty for the people – we crave that – and we hate privilege and injustice. We just don’t know how to achieve this.’ He laughed softly and repeated his words like a private incantation: ‘Love of life, love of humanity. Hatred of injustice, hatred of privilege.’ It was actually strangely moving to hear the heartfelt way he said these words. ‘Who could disagree with that?’ I said. I quoted him Chekhov’s two freedoms: that all he asked for was freedom from violence, freedom from lies. He said he preferred his formula of two loves, two hatreds. ‘But you left one out,’ I said. ‘Love of beauty.’ He smiled. ‘Ah, yes; love of beauty. You’re absolutely right. You see how romantic we are, Logan – deep down.’ I grinned at him: ‘En el fondo no soy anarquista.’ He gave a genuine joyful laugh at that and to my surprise he held out his hand. I shook it.
Friday, 19 March
We are led up to the front. In the misty early morning light we can see that San Vicente is a huddle of stone and mud buildings, somewhat knocked about, the narrow lanes between the buildings churned into a quagmire by the passage of vehicles, men and animals. It’s freezing cold. We plod up a path between small mean fields showing the first acid-green shoots of winter barley rimed with frost. We are making for the ridge ahead. The countryside is bleak and virtually treeless – a wind-battered scrub (I can identify rosemary bushes) covers the sierra and the escarpments beyond.
The trenches are on the ridge of the hill – scrapes behind piled rocks and sandbags – or else more substantial caves dug into the lee side of the hill. Beyond the trenches (which only extend a hundred yards) there is a line of barbed wire and then the hillside falls steeply away to the valley bed beneath. On the crest of the hill rising up on the opposite side of the valley I can see some emplacements and an orange and yellow flag flying – the Fascist position, over half a mile away, and I can even spot the ant-figures of soldiers moving about. The absence of threat is very present – nobody is bothering to keep his head down. Faustino introduces me to the teniente, who turns out to be English – a sullen, suspicious man who says his name is Terence, pointedly not
giving me his surname. He used to work at Chatham Docks, he says. He takes me on a cursory tour of the position: the men huddle around little smudge fires, unshaven, filthy and demoralized, their weapons muddy and ancient. Terence explains that this area of the front is manned by the POUM militia – the Trotskyites. Only the Communist forces receive new Russian weapons. The Russians won’t supply us because we’re anti-Stalin,’ he says with real vehemence. ‘Make sure you write that in your newspaper. I’m sure Franco’s most grateful.’ He spoke of the government in Valencia with more disdain than he expended on his enemy opposite.
We clamber over the trench and advance as far as we can to the wire. Peering down the slope, I can make out what I take to be a dead body lying there. ‘A Moroccan,’ Terence says. They attacked us in January. We beat them off.’ Then I hear a few dry reports, almost like two stones being hit together. ‘Are we being shot at?’ I ask. ‘Yes,’ Terence says, ‘but don’t worry, they’re too far away.’
When I leave I give him two packs of cigarettes and he manages to produce his first smile.
[Saturday, 20 March]
I realize I’ve seen everything I’m likely to on the Aragón front so we arrange to leave. Faustino and I spend the morning waiting for a truck to take us back to the railhead. We are both dispirited by what we’ve seen – but, as Faustino points out, it’s worse for him: I’ll be going away in a matter of days – this is his war and he has to stay. These are the images of the struggle against Fascism that he has to subsist on.
We squelch along the main street and wander into the church. It is empty of all furniture (all burnt as firewood) and is now used as a stable for mules and shelter for chicken coops. I take out my Baedecker and read out loud: ‘San Vicente has a small Romanesque church that is worth a detour.’ We sit on the floor and smoke and sip whisky from my flask. How long will you be in Madrid? Faustino asks. A week, ten days – I don’t know, I confess, I really should return home as soon as possible. I smile at him: my marriage is in difficulties, I say. I tell him about Freya, our double life, my London Norfolk set-up. My wife found out, I say, just before I came to Spain.
He makes a rueful, sympathetic face. Then, as if this small confession has reassured him in some way, he scribbles an address on a scrap of paper. ‘If you could visit this person when you reach Madrid – he’ll give you a parcel for me. And then when you return to Valencia I’ll come and collect it. I’d be most grateful.’ He can see from my expression that I’m somewhat reluctant to become involved in anything clandestine. ‘Don’t worry, Logan,’ he says. ‘This has nothing to do with the war.’
Monday, 5 April
Hotel Florida, Madrid. Air raid sirens tonight but it must have been a false alarm – I heard no bombs falling. Then I dined with Hemingway and Martha.29 Tiresome Russian journalist joined us halfway through. Sore head this morning, so Martha took me to the Bar Chicote and had the barman make up Hemingway’s favourite hair-of-the-dog concoction – rum, lime juice and grapefruit juice – and I felt marginally better.
Then we caught a tram out to the University Quarter to ‘have a look at the war’, as Martha put it. It was strange to leave your hotel and journey through a city that, although on a war footing and somewhat knocked about, gave the signs of being a normal Monday – shops open, people going about their business. And then suddenly you find yourself on the front line.
Here in the University Quarter there is much more rubble on the streets, buildings have been destroyed and there’s not a pane of glass left unshattered. We showed our press passes and were led into an apartment block where we climbed to the top floor and found a room that had been turned into a machine-gun emplacement. Through the sandbagged windows there was a good view of the ugly concrete blocks that were the new university buildings. The mood was one of lethargy: soldiers sat around smoking and playing cards. It has been stalemate here for months – since the big Fascist attacks were repulsed last November.
A young captain in the militia (with a patchy, soft, boy’s beard) lent us his binoculars and we peered over the sandbags piled in the window embrasure. We could clearly see the lines of trenches and strongposts, barricaded streets and barbed wire. There were piles of earth thrown up by the shelling, and the concrete façades of the buildings were pocked and scarred by bullets and shrapnel. Off to the west I could see the shallow valley that marked the course of the Manzanares River and the San Fernando bridge. It was a slightly hazy sunny day: springtime in a civil war.
Martha had some questions for the captain who had come from Guadalajara and she wanted to know some details about the Popular Front’s victory there last month. I translated for her. Martha is a tall leggy blonde, not spectacularly pretty, but good fun and bracingly sure of herself, in that particularly American way. She and Hemingway must be lovers by now, though they are very discreet in public. I know there’s a Mrs Hemingway and children back in the USA somewhere. Martha’s wiry blonde hair reminds me of Freya’s. Hemingway is busy with his film30 and I’ve not seen much of him. Strange to think of us both in similar state of amatory duplicity.
Once she had her information Martha left me, but I stayed on, wondering if I could write this up for Dusenberry, somehow. They had cabled asking me to stop sending them so much material – I sense interest in the war is dying down. Then, as I was scanning the landscape beyond the university, I saw what looked to be some kind of armoured staff car coming along the road from Moncloa. It was painted grey and its windows and windscreen had been replaced by metal plates with slits and firing holes in them. I pointed it out to the captain and he said, ‘Let’s give them a fright.’ I had the impression that the urge to relieve boredom was the motive here, rather than anything more bellicose. So they ratcheted up the machine gun to its highest elevation – the car must have been a mile away – and the captain gestured to me, as if offering me a seat at a table, and said, ‘Why don’t you have a go?’
I sat down on the little bucket seat fixed to the gun’s tripod and peered through the sights. There was a pistol grip on the gun, and beside me a soldier stood feeding the belt of bullets into the breech. Through the sights I drew a bead on the car that was pottering down an embanked lane towards one of the university buildings. I squeezed the trigger and fired off a long burst – a split-second later the bank on the side of the road erupted in a cloud of dust. I fired again, traversing slightly, and watched the bullets chew up the tarmacadam in front of the car – which had stopped abruptly, and was now reversing. My God, this is fun, I thought. I fired again, walking’ the bullet strikes up the road until I could see I was hitting the car. A cheer went up. The car backed around a corner and was gone.
I sat back. The captain patted me on the shoulder. The man on the ammunition belt grinned, showing me his silver teeth. I felt all trembly and tense at the same time. ‘That’ll teach them,’ the captain said. ‘What do they think this is? Some kind of –’
He never finished because suddenly the room was full of flying metal, falling plaster chunks and brick dust. The wall opposite the windows had fist-sized holes punched in it, stripping the plaster in seconds down to the lathes. Everyone flattened themselves to the floorboards and crawled into the lee of the outer wall. I threw myself to one side as the sandbags in front of me seemed to explode. The man holding the belt screamed as a bullet hit it and ripped the belt out of his grasp. Blood flicked from his hand on to my jacket.
There must have been two or three machine guns that had zeroed on to our position and had let fly simultaneously. They kept up an almost consistent fire for what seemed like an hour but was probably only five minutes or so. I lay on the floor, my arms wrapped around my head, repeating to myself over and over again ‘Fish in a pond, fish in a pond’ (my mother’s advice for calming any panic attack). A sizeable lump of plaster dropped on my leg, giving me a terrible shock for a second or two. To my right the man who had been feeding the bullets into the machine gun whimpered in pain. It looked like the little finger of his right hand had been alm
ost ripped off. It bled copiously, forming a little dust-mantled pool on the floorboards until the captain managed to bandage it up.
When the firing became more desultory the captain and I crawled to the door, wrenched it open and wriggled out on to the landing. I stood up and dusted myself down: my throat was parched and I was shaking all over. ‘You’d better go,’ the captain said, in a brusque unfriendly way, as if it had all been my fault.
I sit here in my room writing this and realize I have filed my last dispatch from the war zone. I have to go home now. This is as close to death as I’ve ever come in my life and it terrifies me. My clothes smell of plaster dust, my head is still full of the clanging ripping thudding noise of the thousands of bullets that poured in to that room. Fish in a pond, fish in a pond. While I lay there the only other thought in my head was of Freya and of Freya receiving the telegram announcing my death. What are you doing here, you fool? You’ve been pretending you’re needed but you’re secretly delaying your return. What’s the Dusenberry Press Service to you? Go home, you fool, you idiot. Go home and sort out your life.