No Pasarán!

by Pete Ayrton

  I was due to take my exams that year, 1935–1936, and in late March, we moved from no. 4 Santa Cruz de Marcenado to no. 9 Españoleto, and I doubtless gave Plácido Dornaleteche my new address, although I had never been to his house and knew only the name of the street.

  On 18 July, the offended parties on both left and right decided to improve Spain by destroying it and plunged into a civil war with horrific massacres perpetrated by both sides, and we would-be high school graduates living in Madrid were unable to continue our studies until well into 1937. We had to stand in long queues in order to satisfy our hunger with lentils, sweet potatoes and sunflower seeds and make day-long walks to vegetable gardens outside the city and to nearby villages, only to return with a loaf of bread or three lettuces, but we boys took advantage of the barricades in the streets to hurl stones at the war and, each evening, the radio bulletin about the war wafted out through the open windows, seeming to spread and thicken the blood-dark twilight.

  In 1937, our apartment filled up with evacuees: an elderly lady from my mother’s village, a couple – friends of the family – and their three daughters, two of my father’s sisters, Maria and Nazaria, along with their husbands and sons, three of whom were intermittently sent off to fight on the government fronts in Talavera, Brihuega, at the battle of Brunete and Casa de Campo in Madrid. There were only three of us, but we managed to squeeze another seventeen people into our apartment.

  It must have been one day in January 1938 when I came back from school to be informed by my father’s indolent new wife, whose usual indifference was made all the more exasperating by her inexactitudes and hesitations:

  ‘A lady came with her son; she said he was a friend of yours.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Doleteche or Dorteche or something.’

  ‘Do you mean Dornaleteche?’

  ‘Yes, that sounds about right.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘Nothing. They just came to ask if we could help them.’

  ‘Had something happened?’

  ‘I don’t know, she said a son or her husband had been killed, or both, I’m not sure.’

  ‘Why didn’t you ask?’

  ‘Well, she was speaking really softly, almost crying, and because at that point, your Aunt Maria came out into the corridor and told them: “We don’t want any fascists here!”’

  ‘And what did they say?’

  ‘What could they say? They left.’

  I kept grimly pestering both my aunt and my stepmother all afternoon and learned that Plácido – who had probably been the one who had persuaded his mother to come and ask his old schoolfriend for help and who was normally a real chatterbox – didn’t say a word; that neither of them was wearing black and that the mother, whom I had never met, had greying hair and was nothing but skin and bone. My Aunt María, who occasionally fancied herself as another La Pasionaria, claimed she had said what she said because her sons – your cousins, she screamed – were risking their lives at the front every day, but that didn’t mean – she added illogically – that she wished my friend and his mother ill, because God and the Holy Virgin knew that all she wanted was for the fascists to be crushed once and for all and for the war to end.

  The war ended a year later, and most of us adolescents, for a longer or shorter period, wore the blue shirt, which no longer meant the same as the blue shirt for which my friend’s brother and possibly his father had died. For years, Spain’s tattered skin was an altar besieged by many funerals, although beneath the black trousers and the blue shirts and the red berets there seethed fierce passions – fear, ambition, guilt, revenge – passions that you could feel incubating in the icy silence of those endless masses for the dead.

  And, when our time came, most of us students did our training for military service in the University Militias, and it was in one of those long lines of tents, when a captain was doing the roll call, that I heard the name Plácido Dornaleteche, and, as soon as I could get away, I went to look for him, hoping we would be able to reminisce about those conversations in the street after school, our school being the Instituto Calderón de la Barca, a vast house that had originally belonged to the Jesuits until the republicans cleansed it by fire and changed it into a secular institution.

  But he wasn’t there. Or, rather, Plácido was there in his tent, sitting on his kit bag, but he barely responded to my words and barely looked at me. And it was then that I felt the enormity of that day – which, at only twelve years old, I could have done nothing to avoid – when he and his mother came to my apartment asking for help. His tent was only thirty or forty metres from mine, and we saw and passed each other several times, but we never again spoke. Years before we were born, our French teacher had written a line of verse, saying that one of the two Spains would freeze our hearts.*

  Medardo Fraile was born in Madrid in 1925. He lived through the siege of Madrid during the Civil War and wrote about it in many short stories. With Francisco García Pavón and Ana María Matute (both featured in !No Pasarán!), he was central to the development of the short story in Spanish literature in the post-world-war period. He rewrote his stories many times over: ‘The word which is not the exact and perfect word is the enemy of the short story’. Fraile read widely and his favourite writers included Katherine Mansfield and Carson McCullers. His style is understated and restrained – not interested in plot, he is masterful at capturing a moment. In 1964, Fraile moved to Scotland and taught Spanish at the University of Strathclyde. He was a popular figure in Scottish literary circles and was a great enthusiast of Scottish culture. His translations into Spanish include Stevenson’s unfinished masterpiece Weir of Hermiston. Medardo Fraile died in Glasgow in 2013.

  * A famous line by the great poet Antonio Machado, who died shortly after crossing the French border, as he fled Franco’s troops, along with his mother and his brother José and family. For a few years prior to the Civil War he taught French at the school mentioned in the story.

  ESMOND ROMILLY

  AT THE END OF THE

  ALPHABET

  from Boadilla

  MY NEURALGIA WAS WORSE in the morning – it hurt to get up. Jeans told us we were all to get ready with rifles loaded. ‘It’s almost certain the attack’ll be soon,’ he said.

  It was half-past seven. After waiting ten minutes we began to eat the rations they had brought up. ‘You lie down there, quiet, boy,’ said Joe. ‘I’ll see if I can get a spot of brandy we can fill up with.’

  Food made me feel better, but I still blinked wearily – our trench seemed to have the appearance of a party the morning after. The little Austrian doctor came up to see if there were any cases for treatment. Jeans brought him along to our dug-out. The doctor gave me two aspirins which I swallowed with the brandy. Jeans asked me if I was all right, or if I wanted to go back. I was all right.

  We could hear the rumble of tanks and lorries from the enemies’ lines even more clearly than in the night. The big guns had started up on both sides, but that meant nothing much. At ten o’clock there was a nasty rush of short range rifle fire. I crept on my stomach back to our dug-out. We crouched down.

  ‘Don’t like those bullets, boy,’ said Joe. ‘You keep your head down. Did you see that one, slap into that tree there, might have got my fingers; sounds like something wrong this time of the morning.’

  Jeans was walking along the ridge behind us with Walter and the doctor.

  ‘That fellow’s a bloomin’ marvel; can’t keep his head down. They’ll get him one day.’

  We heard shouting on our right, and I peered cautiously up to see what was happening. The doctor was bending down on his knees, someone was hit. Jock had a bullet through the side of his neck. When the strafing ceased a minute, two stretcher-bearers ran up from the valley behind and took him back.

  I heard Babs say: ‘I thought Jock was shamming at first. You know he’s always up to that sort of thing, so when I saw him lying on the ground I didn’t take any notice.’

  Birch shout
ed: ‘There’s a fascist sniper on that first ridge there. They couldn’t have got Jock otherwise.’

  All of this is very clear. Jock being wounded, Jock being taken back, Birch talking about the sniper and cursing Sid. All these things belong to another existence – they happened before that orderly life of ours which I regarded as everlasting because it was so strongly present, before that finished.

  This was a big attack. We had our positions; we were well entrenched; we knew where our lines were; we knew we were on one ridge, the enemy on another; we knew all about the whole point of the fascist attack – to cut the Escorial road and encircle Madrid to the north. So it ought to have been simple – something of which you can give a thrilling dramatic description. How we withstood the shells and the bombs and the swooping aeroplanes and the fire of machine-gun and rifle, how we held our positions against bombs and hand grenades, how we fixed our bayonets as they charged our lines, withdrew and disputed the ground, inch by inch, hand to hand... But that sort of thing only happens in fiction and journalism.

  A few minutes after Jock went back, our dug-outs were crowded with Spaniards. I don’t know how they got there, probably they came up from behind, then over the top. I don’t know whether the bullets were still twanging through the branches when they arrived – I am sure we did not fire. Practically all that morning, we still had the command: ‘Don’t shoot. Patrol out.’The patrol had returned long ago, but we were good at obeying orders.

  The Spaniards talked about tanks and about their bombs being no good. They crowded the dug-outs and the shallow communication trenches – there was no room to move. Joe and I had five in our dug-out. There is only one word for their state, they were scared stiff. Perhaps if we had understood them their fear would have communicated itself to us. It didn’t. We cheered them up; we pointed out how good the trench was; we stammered slogans about camaradas; we offered them sardines. Joe and Birch were the best at this. After five minutes the men who had been forced in, quivering, at the pistol point, were pulling out red scarfs and handkerchiefs and shouting, ‘Viva la Brigada Internationala!’

  ‘What’s happening?’ I shouted to Birch.

  ‘It’s obvious,’ he shouted back, over the heads of five Spaniards (I was pleased and relieved, I knew Birch would know, would find it obvious). ‘These chaps have all been in the trenches over the ridge on our right, towards Boadilla, God knows who’s there now. Where’s Jeans? We can’t all stay here in this trench, a shell in here will blow us all out of it. Hi, Tich, you’re in command now. Couldn’t we get these chaps digging while there’s time?’

  ‘We’ll have to wait till Jeans comes back with the orders.’

  I slipped out and ran along the ridge to the left to see if the Germans in our zug and the other zugs further to the left were still there, and if there were any messages. The machine-gunners next to us were worried – there was no news. Then I saw Jeans panting up the ridge and I went back to see him.

  ‘Thaelmann Battalion forward to the right!’

  They were shuffling and scrambling along before we got the message. I shouted it back to the Germans on our left. ‘Thaelmann, everyone!’

  Joe shouted with me. Bullets were singing over the trench, but the fire was not very intense. Everyone was getting back from the dug-outs to the lower ground behind – the men in front seemed to be going along straight, parallel with the ridge. It looked like a disorganized retreat.

  ‘We’re going to advance,’ I shouted to the Spaniards. Birch could speak Spanish better, he seized one of them by the shoulder to explain. This one produced a pole with a black and red flag which he waved in the air, the rest grouped round him. The confusion was the beginning of the tragedy; some wanted to come with us in an attack, others thought we were retreating and leaving them to hold the position alone – they wanted to come with us too. As Joe and I scrambled off to catch up the rest of the English we turned back and shouted once again for the Germans to follow us. Some of the Spaniards came, but the whole of the first and second zugs on our left stayed in their trenches – they had received new orders. We ran along the edge of the ridge and I passed Aussie. He was sitting down pulling up his boots.

  ‘Come on, Aussie,’Joe shouted. ‘You’ll miss this if you don’t hurry!’

  All the English were together – we were separated from the rest. Jeans was in front with Tich and Birch close behind him, Babs was close to Sid, then Joe and I, who had decided to keep together whatever happened, and Ray Cox behind us – we were a solid mass. I had no idea where we were going or what was happening. I don’t think we went along for more than five minutes, just beyond the protection of the ridge to the right, when we had to stop and lie down on account of the hail of bullets that came over.

  ‘I don’t know where Oswald is,’ I heard Jeans saying. ‘He must be ahead of us somewhere, with a whole patrol. Where are the other zugs?’

  All this is still quite clear – I can picture it today. We sat and lay on the grass slope, or crouched behind the trees; we talked about what was happening. It might have been a Group Meeting.

  The bullets were getting unpleasant. They were coming from the ridge the Spaniards had evacuated – that must be it; if we kept behind the trees, we were safe. We returned the fire.

  Then Tich and Birch were leaning over Jeans’s body.

  ‘We can’t do anything,’ I heard someone say, and then, ‘We’ve got to get him out here, you pull his feet down, Lorrie, I’ll get hold of the head.’

  I sat up and saw Jeans’s face under a pool of blood. They were trying to get his helmet off. ‘Cut the strap, Lorrie, with your bayonet,’ I heard. It was Tich, groping over to hold up the chin of the man lying still on the grass. ‘That bullet must have come from the left, where our own trenches are; we’re under cross fire.’

  At this moment we all had to duck flat as another hurricane of lead came over.

  When I looked up and spoke to Joe I turned my head. That was just incidental – it wasn’t because he had not answered. Joe was kneeling on the grass, his gun pointed on to the ground through his hands. I could touch him with my arm. I tried not to look at his head – it was sunk forward on to his chest. I felt I was in the presence of something horrifying. I didn’t think about where we were, or the bullets – I didn’t think about Joe being dead – I just thought it was all wrong Joe’s head being like that. I picked it up. Then there were more bullets, and I lay flat again – that was instinctive. Perhaps I was there three minutes.

  Tich and Birch were still arguing about Jeans. I heard someone say, ‘He’s finished,’ but all the time I was quite calm. I kept saying to myself, ‘All right, Joe’s killed, that’s finished, absolutely settled, that’s all right, Joe’s killed, that’s the end of that,’ till the words screamed in my ears. All that is still clear. Afterwards it is not so plain.

  Tich was shouting out: ‘Get back, all of you, quick as you can,’ and Ray was sitting in front of a tree firing when he crumpled up and collapsed. These are blurred images. Then my own name being called, ‘Here, Romilly, here, quick, man, run all out,’ and I rushed through a hail of bullets to a bank where Babs was lying. After that we were together all the time. I went on saying, ‘I must find Walter and tell him Joe is dead.’ We saw men pouring across the ridge behind us. We were safe where we were; and I climbed up a tree to see over the valley – it was better than the maddening suspense of waiting. Through the branches I saw silvery gleams moving up the track. I knew they were tanks, but it wasn’t very real. And later on we ran back till we had to throw ourselves down on the grass and rest. All this is very blurred. Only Joe’s head, slumped forward, was real, and Babs shouting to me to run quickly.

  Then there were forty of us (this is only a number we thought of afterwards), Germans and Spaniards, mixed up together. We were firing all the time. I copied the others and fired in the same direction till the barrel was red-hot. And always, starting every few minutes, there was the deadly cross fire. But we were in woods now and the trees
were thicker, and we would wait behind a thick one, then dodge back quickly to the next tree behind. There are some things which stand out clearer – the sun getting hotter, and stumbling over belts and coats and ammunition discarded in the retreat, and the lack of any feeling when someone fell, only the quick rush back to the next tree.

  And then the blur was over, and everything was quiet all around, and we gathered together; and this time I counted and there were seventeen of us, and a few people were talking and arguing, but most were just resting. I didn’t think about Joe then, I wanted to sleep and forget everything.

  It was cooling and growing dark when we found the rest of our company – Aussie was there, and he told me, ‘When I’d got my boots on, you were all gone, and the Spaniards only waited a couple of minutes and they were off. There’s a lot of wounded men they left there in the trench. Next thing, I was standing down below when I saw them fellows come over the parapet – walking ever so steadily, and they were calling out, “Don’t fire, comrades.” So I hung around as I thought these were the same bunch – and I heard a lot of shooting going on, so I looked up again and I saw these fellows. I couldn’t make out any sort of uniform or what they were, but they weren’t Moors, I’ll swear that, Spaniards they must have been, they were strolling along that trench with their guns on to the ground, firing – took no notice of anything, you know, just took it all calmly, finishing them off. There was a whole cluster of us down in the valley there, some of that bunch of anarchists were still hanging about and waiting around to see what was happening and old Harry was there, so we started letting ’em have it. Took ’em by surprise all right at first. There’s one big fellow – I know I got him all right. Next moment all our bunch was gone, so I followed as quick as I could. It seemed all quiet, and someone shouted “Alto! Alto!” and I got behind a tree and saw two of these chaps calling out, so I put my gun up to fire and took a shot, but it didn’t get him, and I took another, then he said comrades. But I knew they weren’t our lot, they’d got a green uniform on and red caps like the Moors. So I took another shot and got one of ’em and the other one dashed off, and I didn’t wait any longer. Then I came up with the Germans, and Sid was in their bunch and Birch, too. Sid was on the ground with a bullet in his stomach. He was dead – right dead – when I got there, and one of the Germans told me he said to give his salutations to the English comrades. I never saw Birch after that – I called out to him and he didn’t hear, just went on you know, we were all firing, too, so it was the noise, and then I never saw him. Then Messer too. You know, when you passed me, Romilly, I was getting my boots on and I saw Messer then, he was getting a strap together on his pack, and that’s all I saw of him.’