by Pete Ayrton
In a bitter dawn we approached Albacete on the plain, clanking through tiny stations where groups of snow-swept women watched us dumbly as we passed them by. A lad at a level crossing, with a thin head-down horse, lifted a clenched fist for a moment, then dejectedly dropped it again. Silent old men and barefooted children, like Irish peasants of the Great Hunger, lined the sides of the tracks without gesture or greeting. We were received, as we trundled towards our military camp, not as heroic deliverers, or reinforcements for victory, but rather as another train-load of faceless prisoners seen through a squint-eyed blankness of spirit.
But as we steamed at last into Albacete station, we found that someone, at least, had dredged up some sense of occasion. We fell stiffly from the train and lined up raggedly on the platform, and were faced by a small brass band like a firing-squad. In the dead morning light they pointed their instruments at our heads and blew out a succession of tubercular blasts. Then a squat mackintoshed Commander climbed on to a box and addressed us in rasping tones. Until that moment, perhaps, cold and hungry though we were, we may still have retained some small remnants of courage. The Commander took them away from us, one by one, and left us with nothing but numb dismay.
He welcomed us briefly, mentioned our next of kin (which we were doing our best to forget), said we were the flower of Europe, thanked us for presenting our lives, reminded us of the blood and sacrifice we were about to bestow on the Cause, and drew our attention to the sinister might and awesome power of International Fascism now arrayed against us. Many valiant young comrades had preceded us, he said, had willingly laid down their lives in the Struggle, and now rested in the honoured graves of heroes in the battlefields of Guadalajara, Jarama and Brunete. He knew we would be proud to follow them, he said – then shook himself like a dog, scowled up at the sky, saluted, and turned and left us. We shuffled our feet in the slush and looked at each other; we were an unwashed and tattered lot. We were young and had expected a welcome of girls and kisses, even the prospect of bloodless glory; not till the Commander had pointed it out to us, I believe, had we seriously considered that we might die.
Our group leader came striding along the platform leading a squealing Pau Guasch by the ear. He wanted to go home, he cried; he’d got arthritis and the gripe. The group leader kicked him back into line. We formed up in threes and, led by the coughing and consumptive band, marched with sad ceremony through the streets of the town. We saw dark walls, a few posters, wet flags, sodden snow. Sleet blew from a heavy sky. I had known Spain in the bright, healing light of the sun, when even its poverty seemed coloured with pride. Albacete, this morning, was like a whipped northern slum. The women, as we passed, covered their faces with shawls.
Laurie Lee was born in Stroud, Gloucestershire, in 1914. His first trip to Spain in 1935 is the subject of As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning, the second part of his autobiographical trilogy which also includes Cider with Rosie and A Moment of War. He returned to Spain in 1937 as a volunteer in the International Brigades. Lee suffered from epilepsy and was in Spain only for nine weeks. The events of this grim winter provide the material for A Moment of War, first published in 1991, from which this extract is taken. In this book, Lee captures the idealism of the ill-prepared volunteers who came ‘to make one grand, uncomplicated gesture of personal sacrifice and faith which might never occur again’. Lee’s writing on Spain is all the more powerful for its absence of ideology. It poignantly captures the fear experienced by individuals in situations over which they have no control. Laurie Lee died in 1997 in Slad, Gloucestershire, a village to which he had first moved with his parents at the age of three.
PERE CALDERS
THE TEROL MINES
translated by Peter Bush
IT’S BEEN GETTING COLDER over the last few days. In La Galiana, in the Villastar area, it’s reached eight below zero.
The full moon lights up marches and troop formations; at night, some streets in the city of Terol look unscathed. We like to stroll, eyes half closed, imagining we are in a city at peace. We walk by the ruins of the Seminary and stare at the remains hit by our front-line guns. It’s really exciting: a car headlight will switch on, or a moonbeam slant down, and our machineguns immediately sweep that fragment of landscape and the lights go out. It doesn’t seem like war. Perhaps it’s the night-time or the silence over the city; it’s hard to know what to put it down to, but this concert of lights and weaponry seems like one big game.
‘Hey, they’ll arrest us if we’re caught walking the streets.’
‘The order was for nobody to wander around the city.’
It’s all very well but we don’t like that one bit. They ordered a brigade of frontier police to enter Terol. Our brigade obeys, enters, and of the original four battalions only two remain and they’ve been decimated. And now a mobile brigade arrives, sets up in Terol and stops us police from going for a walk.
These mobile shock brigades have got a better deal. They move around, and have much more to do. When a front is under attack, they’re dispatched there; they finish the job and off they go for a rest! If I ever have another chance to be soldier, the mixed brigades won’t catch me.
Some people complain all the time, but the fact is we can’t contravene military instructions. They sent us into the city centre, at top speed and seemingly to something related to our work.
The cold has penetrated our clothes and our flesh and we’re really suffering. Our feet hurt so much we start crying and begin to feel the cold destroying our will and producing a kind of listlessness that kills off any wish to do anything. Then we realize we can’t light a fire in the command post, and that we only have one blanket and are in for a horrible night. Wars shouldn’t be fought in winter. We all agree on that, and when we all manage to agree on something, it’s always something highly sensible.
When we cross the Plaza del Torico, we see a big bonfire in the Café Salduba. Through the empty window frame we see a group of men warming themselves. How we envy them!
‘So why don’t we go in and warm ourselves up a bit?’
‘We can’t. It’s a guard post.’
‘Let’s try. If they won’t let us in, it’s their loss... ’
That makes sense. We’re carrying tins of jam from the Santa Teresa convent. If they let us in, we’ll share our jam with them.
Against all the odds the Café Salduba has preserved echoes of its past glory. The door has a good quality brass handrail, and what remains of the glass in the frame is thick and superior, the sort that costs a lot of money.
The men on guard duty let us in. They’re half asleep as if poisoned by the smoke fumes; our arrival gees them up slightly.
‘So, you’re the frontier police?’
‘You got it.’
They’re in a joking mood.
A corporal is in charge: ‘Josep, bring chairs for the gentlemen.’
They’re dynamiters from the shock troops. Very young lads, some under sixteen, who walk the world with a belt full of hand grenades. They clear a space for us around the bonfire and we warm up our hands and feet. As the cold goes, we feel like expressing our gratitude.
‘Thanks, camaradas.’
‘No, not camaradas. Acquaintances in war will do. You have to earn the right to be a camarada.’
This seems the right cue to offer them some jam. We open our cloaks and place the tins on a chair.
‘If you like, you can try some of this.’
‘You bet, comrades. We’d really like to.’
The marble tables in the Café Salduba are strewn with wine and water glasses, plates, small spoons, special tools for eating aperitifs, broken soda siphons, sets of dominoes and chess-pieces, dice and cards. The walls and ceiling are blackened by smoke; we don’t know if that’s the result of a fire caused by the war or the bonfires lit by the dynamiters. In any case, as all there is left of the building is this room in the café, no point being too fussy.
We each take a plate and a spoon, clean off the dust wit
h a handkerchief or sleeve, and share the jam out. It’s good, healthy food made by the hands of a nun.
One of the dynamiters is licking his lips and gives us a cheeky grin.
‘So you frontier police find rich pickings, I guess?’
‘Well, less than people think. A lot of flesh was given up for these tins.’
‘Which brigade are you?’
‘The eighty-seventh.’
‘Dynamiters?’
‘No.’
‘Just as well. That’s much better for you.’
He speaks with a hidden agenda. But we know what he’s referring to: from the perspective of their military know-how, these dynamiters have a bone to pick with the dynamiters of the eighty-seventh. When our people placed the first mines under the Civil Government building, it was so cold the dynamite wouldn’t light and had to be warmed up; that’s something that’s easily done, but on that occasion the fire caused a mine to explode and the charges went off before time. Several of our people died and many were injured.
We can’t allow anyone to criticize our compañeros.
‘Our people have done extremely well and deserve to be forgiven for any mistakes they might have made.’
A lad who’s speaking for the first time adopts a conciliatory tone.
‘Your people and ours are all one and we shouldn’t lose our tempers.’
Enemy artillery has been shelling our lines for some time. Their automatic cannon shoot eight times on the trot, like a giant machinegun. Some of the mortars fall on the city and smash up things that were already smashed up even more.
When we’ve seen off the jam, the dynamiters offer us a great Italian vermouth and it’s a nice touch.
‘Did you find that here?’
‘Of course, it wasn’t all soda siphons.’
We start talking about things to eat. One dynamiter describes in great detail a rice and rabbit he made in Guadalajara. He didn’t have many of the ingredients, but from what he says, it was a great paella. Our mouths water; week after week we’ve been eating bread and tinned meat, and mostly cold at that. Rice and rabbit!
‘We could get rice, but rabbit... ’
There’s a fifteen-year-old from Madrid who really guzzled the jam; he looks at us and speaks up: ‘Don’t you believe it. The other day a lad in my squad comes in and says: “Hey, bring grenades and a gun and follow me. I’ve found two fantastic rabbits. One’s grey and the other’s black and white.” I asked him where they were and he said in an abandoned house. I grabbed the stuff and went off with him. We walked down a narrow alley and when we reached the top he grabbed my arm: “See that doorway? It’s there. Open the door and you’ll see the cage with the rabbits. I’ll stay here and keep an eye out.” I left him, pushed open the door and saw there really was a cage with two rabbits. But there was also a lady sat knitting next to it. She looked me up and down and froze me cold. “Sorry,” I said, “I took the wrong turning.’”
‘You mean civilians are still living here?’
‘You bet. And more by the day. People who escaped to the mountains and villages, and, now they can, they’re coming back.’
‘And what about the rabbits?’
‘I let them be. But there’s got to be food around somewhere. If we searched the galleries we’d find lots of things.’
He’s referring to the passageways that run all under the whole of Terol. You can go from one house to the next underground; they link up streets that are separate above ground and bring together distant neighbourhoods. These galleries have played an important role in the battle of Terol and are becoming mythical.
‘I wouldn’t go down those passages for anything in the world. Last week five police and a lieutenant went down to inspect them. Four days later they found the corpses of three of the police in the vicinity of the station. There’s been no news of the lieutenant and the other two lads.’
‘Do you believe that witches exist?’
‘No, but we have proof that fascists do. A number didn’t manage to escape but didn’t fall into our hands. Where are they? You must agree that the underground tunnels are a good hiding place. Besides, whatever happened to the three assault guards who escaped?’
It was true. Three assault guards went down to explore the mines and were never seen again. We’re frightened by these underground paths; we’d prefer they didn’t exist.
The young dynamiter from Madrid reacts there and then: ‘You know, if it’s all the fault of the fascists, I’m not scared. If we’re not scared of them in broad daylight, I don’t see why they should scare us when they’re hiding a few metres underground. And if a fascist and I come eyeball to eyeball, he’ll have more reason to be worried than me.’
He’s wearing a belt with eight hand grenades and looks athletic and determined. What he says is quite right.
‘But you don’t know the layout of these galleries, and we don’t know what surprises they might have in store. An enemy who knows the terrain has a lot going in his favour.’
‘Never mind,’ we interrupted, ‘if what we’re imagining is true, we have a duty to clean out these mine shafts and catch the people hiding there. They could give us some nasty surprises. We’ve heard that some unexplored areas hide fascists who’ve got hold of dynamite charges.’
We were warming up. We soon agreed that if we didn’t go down the mines, we’d not be able to show our faces we’d be so ashamed. As the conversation ran on, everybody kept raising the stakes, suggesting slightly bolder deeds; we were only limited by what was possible. We finally came to an agreement: tomorrow night we’ll enter the mine shafts, through a point of entry in a house near the Plaza del Torico. We won’t tell anyone; we must go in alone, so the glory from the expedition won’t be spread too thinly.
The Madrid lad has brought along two long thick candles from the cathedral. With what they’ll last, we’ll have time to visit the circuit of passageways six or seven times and make a detailed examination.
Lit by a round, generous moon, the nights are still bright. We’re armed; the least armed of us carries a pistol and has a pocket full of ammunition. The dynamiters have enough to re-structure the whole subterranean network.
Apart from the noise from the front, the only sound is the hum of the dynamos lighting the military offices. We pass under the arches on the square, glued to the wall and one by one, because groups out at night are suspected of looting and the police keeps an eye out for them. We don’t know what we want to do, or why we’re doing it; we don’t know if we’re going after danger or fascists, or committing a serious act of indiscipline or a heroic feat. In fact, the only thing we are clear about is that we are doing what we do to protect our own reputation, which we prize way above our own selves.
We are seven in total. There’s no need to be alarmed; no enemy in hiding is waiting for us, and we feel powerful. When we come to the designated house, we go in warily so as not to be seen; we’ve entered a fishmonger’s, that’s been blown to pieces, destroyed in battle. One companion stumbles over the arms of scales that had been thrown to the ground and we have to catch him to stop him from falling down: the scales make a loud clatter that reaches the square and echoes beneath the arches.
The floor is covered in paper and small willow baskets. A mattress between the counter and the wall in the entrance to the back of the shop hobbles our feet and slows down our progress. Once we’re across that and are sure the light can’t be seen from the street, we light the candles; before we do that, however, I touched something dry and withered when I leant on a box to keep my balance. I now see they are mummified fish rushing from the box, their eyes popping out of their heads, as if they wanted to escape; they crack when squeezed by my fingers. They stink terribly.
The lad who’s acting as guide goes in front and we follow, on tenterhooks and holding our breath. We’d go back if our reputation wasn’t on the line. We pass through what’s left of a dining-room with a vase of faded flowers miraculously still in place on the table. Before we get t
hat far, on the left, is a grey door that’s shut; our guide gestures to us to go in but the rubble jams the door and it won’t budge. We push at it with our shoulders, making as little noise as we can.
‘If they catch us and don’t like our excuses, they’ll execute us for looting.’
‘Shut up, you idiot.’
Our voices whine, which isn’t what we’d prefer in a situation like this. But we are stubborn. We push that door as if a reward was waiting for us on the other side, and finally the hinges squeak, give and we go in.
We presumed it was safe to enter like that; it was a small wash-room, full of dirty clothes and damp that went straight to our lungs. However, we found what we were looking for: our guide crouched down and lifted up a wooden cover to reveal stairs. He scampered down to the bottom.
‘Right, you lot, in you come.’
And we go in, one after another, saying nothing. We prick up our ears and focus our eyes, on the alert for whatever, even ready to take a jump if our instincts tell us to; we go down, placing the soles of our feet firmly on each step, feeling the walls with our hands. Our senses are hyped up and if danger blows our way, we’ll smell it coming.
The flames of the candles flicker when there’s a gust of wind, but they don’t ever burn our skin. The smell of wax permeates the area and blots out any other smell. When the stairs end and we touch the ground, we feel a long way from the world above, and quite unprotected. Nobody would hear if we shouted and, if they did, and so what.
From here on in, we don’t know the way. Our guide only knew how to get into the cave. In any case, as we don’t know where we’re going, any route seems like a good one.
We walk along the shaft that had been opened up by pick-axes. A warm draught circulates, coming from a way off and linking up with other mines. Sometimes, on a bend, the draught seizes our hair and shakes it gently, like jelly fingers stroking our head. Whenever this happens, a chill hits the napes of our necks and runs down our backs.