At the end of that first week of the civil war, Jordi was aware that he could hear something strange and different when he was phoning his reports to London.
“Steven,” he said, “come and listen, whilst I make a phone call.”
“What is it?” said Steven. Eulalia, who had taken to coming to work with Steven rather than remain on her own, looked up.
“I think someone’s listening to the calls,” said Jordi. “There’s a different sound, and there seems to be breathing.”
Steven listened, and agreed that there was a strange echo to the phone line.
“I’m curious,” said Jordi. “Let’s go down to the telephone exchange in Placa Catalunya, and see what’s going on.”
Setting out along the Gran Via, the three were vigilant all the way, and took care to keep to shadows. They skirted the university fearful of the soldiers who had recently occupied the main building, and taken anarchist prisoners there, but all was quiet. They entered the Placa Catalunya near the Ramblas, and found that all was quiet there as well.
“It’s unnaturally quiet,” said Jordi.
“Let’s go to the Telefonica building,” said Steven, walking ahead with Eulalia.
At that point, Jordi saw Josep Sunol. “What’s happening?” asked Jordi.
“I’m not sure,” replied Josep. “It seems our phones are being tapped.”
“I thought so.” said Jordi. “They’re not very good at it, as I could hear their breathing.”
“Do you think the army is back in the telephone exchange?” said Josep.
“Most of them have left the city. It’s more likely a bunch of anarchists,” said Jordi, watching Steven and Eulalia walking towards the telephone building.
Suddenly there was a terrific burst of machine gun fire. Steven and Eulalia fell to the ground. The few other pedestrians in the placa dropped down, or hid.
“What the hell?” said Josep.
“The gun’s in the telephone building,” said Jordi, “firing from the doorway. They’ve set up a machine gun at the top of the steps. Eulalia’s not moving. Has she been hit? We must get to her.”
“Come this way,” said Josep, “through the ruins of Sant Anna’s. We can get through to Angel, and get near to Steven and Eulalia that way.”
Treading gingerly through the charred remains of Santa Anna, they were able to approach Catalunya unseen by the gunman. Squeezed into the very same doorway where he had sheltered earlier in the week, Jordi waved to Steven, who waved back. The movement was enough to alert the gunman, who let burst another round of bullets. Steven’s hand dropped.
“He’s got both of them, I think,” said Jordi, taking out his pistol. “I’ll creep up the street alongside the telephone building. Perhaps I can catch the gunman from behind.”
“For God’s sake, be careful,” said Josep.
With his gun in his right hand, cocked ready to fire, and his left hand in his pocket grasping the tiny black cat, Jordi crept forward. Josep watched, hardly able to breathe. As he got close to the corner, Jordi could see the silhouette of the man crouched at the machine gun. He lifted his pistol and took aim.
Just as he was about to fire, the man turned and stared directly at him. It was Tomas. Both men took a sharp intake of breathe, then Jordi fired. Tomas fell forward over the machine gun. In the silence that followed, Josep rushed forward.
“Are you OK?” he asked.
Jordi turned to him, shaking and shocked. “I’ve just killed my best friend,” he said. “Tomas and I go back many years – we were kids together. Why, oh why, did he become like he was? And why did it have to be him, of all people, with that machine gun?” He sank down onto the pavement.
Looking carefully from one side to the other, Josep walked nervously to where Steven and Eulalia lay, Steven shielding Eulalia’s body, but both dead. Looking around, Josep could see several others lying in pools of blood, caught in the lethal fire from Tomas’s gun. He went back to Jordi, who was now crying, and rocking back and forth. A group of Mossos came running from the direction of the Cathedral. Josep stood to tell them what had happened. They looked from Jordi, crumpled on the pavement, to Tomas slumped over the machine gun, and then to the placa, strewn with bodies.
“Do you know where he lives?” asked one of the policemen.
Josep nodded.
“Get him home,” said the policeman kindly. “We’ll try to sort out the mess here.”
It was some time before Jordi knew the full story of what had happened. It seemed that a group of anarchists had taken control of the telephone building, just as the army had done the week before. Once inside, they did not know what to do with their prize. They’d been listening to telephone conversations, but gained little intelligence of use, and had taken to firing randomly, as usual, at better-dressed passers-by. Steven and Eulalia had simply been unlucky, and had paid for it with their lives.
Following the death of Tomas, the Mossos had attempted to storm the building, but the machine gun had been dragged back in, and up the stairs to a landing where it was used to mow down anyone entering. A full gun battle had developed, with armed communists alongside Mossos in the street, by the end of which around five hundred lay dead, many civilians and policemen in the Placa Catalunya, and many anarchists in the telephone building. It was a stalemate: the anarchists continued to occupy the building, and could not be dislodged.
Back at his room at Espanya, Jordi could hear the continuing gun battle, and clung to Laura. “When will this madness stop?” he asked her. “When everyone is dead?”
Laura wanted to go to the Ramblas to buy flowers for the double funeral of Steven and Eulalia. Jordi wanted to go with her, but she insisted she would be fine – she would walk through the narrow lanes behind the market, and avoid dangerous areas. Sensing she needed to keep her independence, he let her go, but was acutely nervous the whole time she was gone. She returned safely with two small bunches of flowers, and a sad story.
“The flower sellers on the Ramblas have never been so busy,” she reported. “It would make an interesting story for your paper. They are making a fortune selling flowers for funerals, and are having trouble getting enough stock. Even in war, someone benefits.”
Work at the Hispano factory had temporarily stopped, but a few days after the telephone building battle, Laura went back to check, and discovered that the factory was re-opening. She returned with news that the factory needed to recruit new workers, and offered to take Ferrer there with her. With his management skills, he was welcomed immediately by the workers co-operative, which was getting production under way. That evening he had supper with Jordi and Laura.
“I don’t understand,” said Jordi. “Surely you’re not making luxury cars. There’s no petrol for civilians, and no-one would dare buy a car like that at this time.”
Laura laughed. “Of course not. As you know, the factory makes trucks as well, and that’s what we’re doing. What’s more, there’s a secret project being developed.”
“I’ve been taken on to work on the project,” said Ferrer. “It won’t stay secret for long. As soon as you see an armoured car on the street, the whole world will know what we’re doing.”
“Armoured car?” asked Jordi.
“It’s actually based on a truck chassis covered in armoured plate, based on the tanks they had in the great war. There’s a gun turret at the top, and a tiny grill for the driver to see through when driving. It will hold ten soldiers, and take them safely, under fire, where they’re needed. It looks pretty hideous.”
“It sounds as if it would have been useful at the telephone building last week,” said Jordi. “Can I write about it for the newspaper?”
“Wait a few days, my love,” said Laura. “They’re asking photographers to come to the factory next week for the unveiling of the first one. Then it won’t be a secret any more. You must come to the launch, and bring Josep, and see our new weapon.”
Telephones had been restored soon after the battle. Barcelona wa
s getting very good at fast recovery from disaster, and the frightened telephone girls, who had twice fled when gunmen had occupied their building, were back at work alongside the anarchists who continued to occupy the building. Jordi tried to phone Josep, but after several failed attempts, was becoming alarmed. He contacted the football club, and found that officials there were also worried, as they had not heard from Josep for several days.
The Barcelona football team, Barca, had recently won the Catalan Championship and had appointed Josep Sunyol as their President. It had been symbolic for the team to appoint a well-known Republican as President, and they were as worried as everyone else when Josep disappeared. It was mid-August, when Jordi received a phone call inviting him to go to an urgent meeting at the club. He felt from the tone of the call, that the invitation was ominous. Arriving in one of the club rooms, he was joined by other journalists, the players themselves, and other club members. Some players, already aware of the announcement about to be made, were clearly distressed.
It transpired that Josep had been travelling with another politician, and a Republican militia captain, in the countryside east of Madrid. The car, which was displaying a Catalan flag, had passed a number of groups of soldiers without stopping. Eventually, they came to a road block, and getting out of the car, and anticipating a meeting with Republican soldiers, they cried “Long live the Republic!” Unfortunately, it turned out to be a group of Nationalist soldiers acting under orders from General Franco. Discovering they had captured a republican soldier, a Catalan politician and the well-known Josep Sunyol, the soldiers had gleefully lined them up, and shot them, including their driver. They had been buried in unmarked graves.
The room was silent. Jordi looked around at these good Catalan citizens, and saw the anguish and consternation on their faces. No-one was safe now; clearly the fascists would shoot to kill anyone who stood in their way. From the back of the room came a voice:
“We will never let these bastards rule our country. Catalonia will stand firm, Barcelona will stand firm. And our club will stand firm.”
Someone nearby started to sing the Catalan national anthem, and all joined in, the bass voices rising together in the great song of the Reapers.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Jordi was one of many journalists to write passionately about the plight of democratic Spain. Via his regular column in the News Chronicle, he sent out many messages of the need for the international community to come to assist the Republican cause.
Many of the athletes who had come for the People’s Olympiad, were trapped in Barcelona, and rallied to the cry. Most of them had been sponsored by trade unions or communist groups, so it was natural for them to want to help turn back the rising tide of Fascism. Those who did not want to stay to fight had long and difficult journeys home.
In October 1936, with his wife Carmen by his side, Major General Francisco Franco was sworn in as Generalissimo, with absolute control of all of Spain. Franco had established a reputation as a “Caudillo” - a warrior leader, and he immediately proclaimed his intention to “win every inch of territory without any Republican surrender.”
Although he realised he was risking his life, Jordi attempted to paint a verbal picture of Franco for the News Chronicle. He told his readers how Franco had used ‘Moroccan’ terror techniques to put down a strike in 1934, killing four thousand workers, and imprisoning and torturing others. As an extreme right-wing politician, he was obsessively angry and vicious towards communists, and anarchists, and believed that the only way to rid Spain of this disease was to use the army.
Whilst the communists were bringing power to the people in Catalonia, the fascists were expanding rapidly, and violently, in northern and western Spain. Franco used Hitler’s aircraft to fly his vicious foreign legion soldiers from North Africa, and established a military headquarters in Seville. Jordi kept a close watch on developments, and was horrified to report to London that the Legionnaires had butchered and murdered their way eastwards, capturing Toledo. Reprisals for resisting the fascists were horrifying: many republicans were beheaded.
It fell to Jordi and his colleagues to tell the world. The News Chronicle used Jordi’s reliable reports to campaign for the British government to intervene; and he was devastated to learn that the British were in the vanguard of a movement advocating non-intervention.
At the end of each working day, Ferrer would walk home with Laura, often coming up to the room to find out the latest news.
“How can we resist the fascists without help?” Jordi said to Ferrer. “Franco has the Germans and the Italians behind him. His best friends are Hitler and Mussolini. We need help and support from Britain and France.”
“We cannot hope for support from London,” said Ferrer. “Why, the British even flew Franco to North Africa to start the war.”
“Perhaps help will come from the USA,” said Laura. “You said that the News Chronicle sends your reports to American newspapers.”
“Mocking Franco has had no effect,” said Jordi. “I’ve told the world he’s a little fat man, with a girlish voice, sounds more like his daughter than a real man. My paper is a socialist paper, and supports the communist cause. They even carried a headline “Fatty Franco”, but it did no good.”
“They’re talking in the factory about getting help from Russia,” said Ferrer. “If there’s nothing coming from Britain, perhaps Stalin will rescue us.”
This notion from Ferrer was prophetic, for within a couple of days the Russians arrived. Jordi was startled to hear factory hooters sounding, and footsteps running up the stairs. The door burst open to reveal Ferrer and Laura, breathless and telling him to hurry down to the docks. They got there to find a crowd gathering to welcome a Russian steamer, the Zyrianin. The collectivised factories, including Laura’s Hispano factory, all closed early, and masses of workers were marching to the docks to welcome the ship. Groups carried their red and black banners, and arm-in-arm, sang patriotic songs. The arrival of the Russians sparked a kind of carnival atmosphere.
Watching intently for the first of the shipments of arms, a sudden hush fell over the crowd. The word was passed from person to person. The Russians had not sent weapons, but food.
Jordi, having pushed to the front of the crowd, managed to speak to one of the revolutionary control patrols who were preventing the crowd from actually climbing onto the ship.
“It’s thousands of tons of food,” said the guard. “They tell me, mainly beans and chocolate!”
Disappointed, the crowd dispersed. The food would not be wasted, but it was not what was needed. Jordi realised that the ship-load of food represented considerable sacrifice from Soviet trade unions and people, at a time when there were severe hardships, almost a famine, in the USSR.
Urgent messages from Lluis Companys to Stalin, thanked him for the Soviet support with food, but asked for arms, as many and as quickly as possible. Jordi was at the Generalitat when Companys announced the arrival of Soviet tanks and Russian military advisors in the city. A noisy parade of the few finished armoured cars from the Hispano factory, together with the first arrivals of Russian tanks, gained much greater applause than the shipment of Soviet beans.
Jordi’s columns in the News Chronicle, together with reports from many parts of Spain published in the world’s press, started to have an effect upon people in many other countries. Ordinary men and women, alarmed by the rise of fascism in the heart of Europe, saw the Spanish civil war as a cause they wanted to support. Laura had just left for work one morning, when she came running back up the stairs.
“There’s a group of young men want to talk to you,” she told Jordi.
“Is it a trap?” said Jordi.
“No, they’re very innocent looking. They’re not Spanish.”
Jordi went down the stairs with Laura to meet the men.
“Excuse me, but we are looking for a man called Jordi Vilaro. We understand he speaks English,” said a young man in English.
“I am Jordi Vilaro
,” said Jordi. “What are you doing here?”
“We have come to fight the fascists,” said the young man proudly. “We persuaded the News Chronicle to give us your name, although your reports in the paper are anonymous. Your writing is famous in the UK, and your reports have inspired two of us from London to volunteer. Our friends here are from France and Germany.”
Jordi shook hands with each of the eager young men. He looked at their innocent smiling faces, and his heart sank. Did they realise how brutal is the enemy that they had come to confront? Despite their governments maintaining a stance of non-intervention, many anti-fascist young people, both men and women, had started to arrive in Barcelona to join the marooned athletes in what would be called the “International Brigade”.
Jordi took the little group up to his room, and made coffee for them while he listened to their stories of the journeys from their homes, how they had met en route, and how they had had the adventure of sleeping in the mountains after they had left France and were walking. His journalist side kicked in quickly, sensing that the stories these young men were telling him would make the basis of a good column.
The German spoke about leaving his fatherland. “Terrible things are happening in my home town,” he explained. “I cannot stay there as I am Jewish, and my life is in danger. I decided that I could do nothing to help my country, but that I could come to help Spain. It will be terrible if the same fate falls to Spain as has happened in my country.”
Jordi explained that some of the international volunteers had been arriving by train, and that a barracks had been set up near the zoo to receive them. The Lenin Barracks was a large former hotel which had seen better days, and provided very rough dormitories for the arrivals.
“I’ll take you there,” said Jordi. “I will be pleased to see how things are working out at the barracks, and to meet other volunteers. I need to report how the numbers are growing in the International Brigade.”
Barcelona Sunset Page 27