His legs ached, his back creaked with every step he took, lead weights had somehow been attached to his arms, and his tongue had swollen up so much that it seemed to fill his entire mouth. The others were starting to show the strain, too. Cindy’s athletic strides had lost most of their bounce. Pérez no longer darted between the trees like a wary rodent. Only Jiménez seemed unaffected. He continued to lumber along behind them much as he had from the beginning.
Dawn broke, but by then they were so exhausted that even with the light to assist them, they were slowing down. They found a stream and Paco ordered a halt. They lapped up the cool mountain water, and that seemed to help a little.
‘When I get back to Madrid, I’m going to order myself the biggest steak I can find,’ Pérez said, as they squatted on the bank of the stream. ‘And when I’ve eaten that, I’m going to order another one.’
Paco put his last cigarette in his mouth, and regretfully threw the pack away. ‘We’re going to have to look for somewhere to go to ground soon,’ he told the rat-faced private.
‘Hell, there’s no need for that. There’s nobody around for miles and miles, and like I said, I want that steak.’
‘You do it my way, or you’re on your own,’ Paco said sharply.
Pérez grinned. ‘I can learn my way round a town in a couple of hours,’ he said, ‘but I’m so useless with bloody nature that I could be wandering around in it till doomsday.’
‘So what are you saying?’
‘I’m saying that you’re the boss.’
Paco took a drag on his cigarette, and painfully stood up. He had no idea how big the blisters on his feet were, but he was sure they had set some kind of record.
‘Another half an hour,’ he said. ‘Another half an hour and then we stay put until nightfall.’
*
They had only been walking for five minutes when a faint smell wafting through the air alerted Paco to the fact that something was wrong. It was an odour which blended with that of the pine needles, yet at the same time was quite distinct from it. He couldn’t pin it down at first, and by the time he had correctly identified it as freshly brewing coffee, a big Republican militiaman had already stepped out from behind the tree which was serving as his hiding place.
He was a broad man, with broken teeth and the expression of a natural bully – the sort of minor thug Paco had been used to arresting on a Saturday night when he’d been a patrolman. He had a leer on his face, and his rifle was pointing squarely at Pérez’s chest. ‘Well, just look what we’ve gone and caught ourselves here, lads,’ he said.
From the corner of his eye, Paco could see more shapes emerging from behind other trees. ‘This isn’t how it looks,’ he said. ‘I can explain everything if you’ll just give me the chance.’
‘You can explain nothing,’ the big militiaman told him, ‘because nothing needs to be explained. What we’ve bagged here, comrades, is a couple of rebel soldiers, a filthy capitalist on the run, and a woman who, I’ve no doubt, is the capitalist’s fancy piece.’
‘You’re right about that, Mauricio,’ someone else called out. ‘That’s exactly what they are.’
There were ten of the militiamen – each of them armed with a rifle. Paco’s quick gaze swept their faces, looking for an expression on one of them which might suggest the man was open to reason – but they all gazed back at him with the same hatred as he had seen in the eyes of the soldiers back at the village. They wouldn’t listen because they didn’t want to listen. But he still had to try.
‘My name’s Ruiz,’ he said. ‘I know I’m not dressed like one, but I’m a militiaman from the central district. Maybe you know some of my comrades. Ramón Valdes, who’s secretary of the local union branch? Pedro Dos Barrio—’
‘You’ll say anything to protect your worthless skin,’ Mauricio interrupted. ‘But I’m not fooled. If you’re a militiaman, why aren’t you with your comrades right now?’
‘I was captured and—’
‘And instead of shooting you, like they’ve shot so many others, the rebels decided to dress you up in a fine suit, did they?’ Mauricio scoffed – and all the men around him laughed.
‘He was a famous police detective before the war broke out,’ Pérez said, with a hint of desperation creeping into his voice. ‘Inspector Ruiz. You must have heard of him. The man who solved that murder in Atocha. That’s why the army spared him because they wanted him to investigate a crime. And that’s why they gave him the suit.’
‘Wanted him to investigate a crime,’ Mauricio repeated, slowly and thoughtfully. ‘And what crime would that be?’
‘Someone shot the general’s dog,’ Pérez said. Then he paused and shook his head, as if he’d just realized that with every word he said, he was digging them all into a deeper hole. ‘But it only started out like that,’ he pressed on valiantly. ‘There were other murders—’
‘Cats and pet rabbits, no doubt,’ the big militiaman interrupted, getting another laugh from his companions. ‘You see now what lying scum all these rebels are, comrades?’
There was a general muttering of approval at his words. ‘The woman has nothing whatever to do with all this,’ Paco said. ‘Take us prisoner if you like, but let her go.’
‘No!’ Cindy gasped. ‘I won’t leave you! Whatever happens, I won’t leave you!’
‘Please!’ Paco begged her.
‘If she’s with you, then she’s just as much our enemy as you are,’ Mauricio told him.
‘What shall we do, Mauricio?’ one of the other militiamen asked. ‘Shoot them now?’
The big man shook his head. ‘No, we’ll take them back to camp, and let the rest of the lads have a look at them. Then we’ll try them in front of a proper people’s tribunal. Tie their hands up, comrades.’
Someone standing behind Paco pulled his arms roughly backwards, and forced his hands together. Try them in front of a proper people’s tribunal, he repeated to himself, as he felt the rope start to bite into his wrists. Well, there was no doubt what its verdict would be. After all the effort he had gone to, all the risks he had taken, he had still not been able to protect Cindy – and she was about to be shot by his own side. He felt a heavy guilt settle on his shoulders, and shuddered as remorse began to eat away at his insides.
*
The camp was in a clearing not far from the spot where they’d been ambushed. There were around fifty militiamen in total, Paco calculated. Most of them were sitting on their blankets, drinking steaming coffee from enamel mugs, smoking their first cigarettes of the morning, and taking the occasional swig of anis from a bottle which was being passed among them.
Mauricio paraded his prisoners across the clearing, only bringing them to a halt when they’d reached the centre. ‘Look what I’ve brought you, comrades,’ he announced dramatically. ‘Four Fascist scum! Four we won’t have to worry about for much longer.’
A man with a huge backside had been bending over the open fire brewing more coffee, but now he turned around, and Paco could see that he had a huge belly as well – a belly which had looked more at home propped up against the zinc counter in the Cabo de Trafalgar.
‘Paco!’ Nacho the barman said. ‘What are you doing here? And why are your hands tied behind your back like that?’
‘What are you doing here?’ Paco replied.
Nacho’s big body seemed to swell further with pride. ‘I’m the official cook to this militia,’ he said. ‘They’d starve to death if it wasn’t for my tortillas and bean stews.’
‘Do you know the prisoner?’ Mauricio demanded.
‘Know him?’ Nacho repeated. ‘Hasn’t he been one of my best customers for the last ten years?’
‘And is he really on our side, as he claims?’
‘The last time I saw him, he was wearing a boiler suit and travelling out to the front with the rest of the lads. So why don’t you just cut him free, then I can give him a cup of coffee?’
The other militiamen looked to Mauricio for guidance. The big man sho
ok his head. ‘I don’t like this,’ he said. ‘I don’t like it at all. He may have been on our side once – I’ll take Nacho’s word for that – but if he isn’t a turncoat, why has he got two rebel soldiers with him?’
‘They helped us escape,’ Cindy said. ‘They wanted to desert so they could fight on the side of the Republic.’
‘Still seems more likely they’re spies to me,’ Mauricio said, reluctant to see his victorious capture of four of the enemy turn out to be nothing more than a mistake. ‘I say we hold a trial to establish their guilt or innocence.’
Several of the militiamen nodded their heads, and others muttered their agreement.
‘That’s only fair,’ one of them said.
‘I don’t really buy this story of him being saved from the firing squad just so he could investigate the death of a dog,’ another muttered.
A look of triumph spread across Mauricio’s ugly face. ‘Very well, comrades,’ he said. ‘I will act as prosecutor, and as for the defence – well, if the prisoners have one, they present it themselves.’
Nacho moved his heavy body into the centre of the circle. ‘If there’s a trial, they’ll be found guilty,’ he said.
‘How can you be so sure of that?’ Mauricio asked.
‘Because I’ve heard the way you’ve been talking before the trial’s even begun,’ Nacho answered. ‘Besides, the people you’ve tried always are found guilty, now aren’t they?’
‘The people’s justice is the only fair form of justice,’ Mauricio told him.
Nacho put his ham-like hands on his heavy hips. ‘Is it, indeed?’ he said. ‘Well, let me tell you something for nothing. If you decide to shoot these innocent people, I’m packing up my pots and pans, and going straight back to Madrid.’
‘We can’t let a cook tell us how to conduct our affairs, can we?’ Mauricio protested.
‘No,’ several of the militiamen called back. ‘Of course we can’t.’
‘Please yourselves,’ Nacho said, walking back to the fire. Slowly and deliberately, he picked up the coffee-pot and poured its contents on to the ground. ‘Yes, you must do entirely what is in the interest of justice.’
‘That was a waste of good coffee,’ one of the militiamen protested.
‘Well, you can always make yourself some more,’ Nacho told him.
‘Not as good as yours,’ the militiaman said.
‘True. Very true,’ Nacho agreed.
‘I shall start the proceedings with my opening remarks,’ Mauricio said in a loud voice. ‘The prisoners were found in the woods, earlier this morning. They could offer no satisfactory explanation for their . . . for their. . . .’
He trailed off. Most of the militiamen were not listening to him, but were watching the cook collect his pans together.
‘Nacho’s a good chap,’ one of the militiamen said. ‘He’s never given us any reason to think he’s a liar, and if he says these people are all right, I think we should believe him.’
‘And then there’s the woman,’ said the man next to him. ‘I’ve never shot one before, and I’m not about to start now.’
The grumbling increased until almost every man in the clearing was expressing a belief that a tribunal would not be necessary. Mauricio raised his arms in the air. ‘All right!’ he shouted. ‘Listen to me!’
The other militiamen turned in his direction. Mauricio took a deep breath. ‘I’ve been giving the matter some thought,’ he said. ‘And on this occasion I think we should accept Comrade Nacho’s assurance that they’re all right, and let the prisoners go free.’
Paco let out a huge sigh of relief, and then permitted himself one tiny smile of genuine amusement. A general or a mayor could not have saved them from a firing squad, because men like these no longer had any respect for generals and mayors. But a cook – especially a cook as excellent as Nacho was – did have that power. For the moment – in the topsy-turvy society which the revolution had created – the hand that stirred the paella dish could rule the world.
Chapter Twenty-Six
The old open lorry coughed and spluttered its way up the Gran Via, finally coming to a halt at the corner of the Calle Hortaleza. The driver climbed out and walked around to the back of the vehicle.
‘Is this close enough to home for you?’ he asked the four people he’d brought down from the sierra.
‘It’s fine,’ Paco said.
‘Anywhere will suit us,’ Private Pérez told him.
The driver lowered the tailboard. Paco jumped to the ground and held out his hand for Cindy. The woman shook her head. ‘I appreciate the gallantry, Ruiz,’ she said, ‘but I’m a farm girl, and I’ve been climbing in and out of trucks by myself ever since I learned to walk.’
Paco stood back and admired the grace with which the woman he loved managed even such a mundane task as getting out of a lorry. Pérez followed her – lithe and coiled – as if he expected some kind of ambush, and finally Jiménez lowered his bulky body on to the pavement.
The ex-policeman looked around him – up the Gran Via towards Plaza de Callao, down the same road towards Alcala. The hot summer streets of Madrid were as full – and as animated – as they’d been in the days before the bloody conflict broke out. True, there were fewer men to be seen around now that the militias were finally starting to get properly organized, and true, most of the men who were there wore blue boiler-suits. Yet for all that, the city had an air of pre-war normality about it.
The madrileños were still not taking this struggle for survival seriously enough, Paco thought. But they would – and very soon – because the well-trained military machine he had seen up in the mountains was not to be stopped by a group of poorly armed, poorly trained militiamen – however much those militiamen might be willing to fight and die for their cause.
Paco turned his attention to the two men standing next to him. Jiménez looked far from comfortable in a boiler suit which was a couple of sizes too small for him, but Pérez somehow managed to wear his mono with some style – almost as if it were one of the flashy suits he’d owned when he’d been working as a pimp down by the Manzanares.
‘What will you do now?’ Paco asked the wiry young man. ‘Join one of the militias?’
Pérez laughed. ‘What? Jump right out of the frying-pan straight into the fire?’ He shook his head. ‘This isn’t my war, Inspector. I’ve no intention of giving up my life for God or the Republic or any other nonsense.’
He’d been wrong to think of Pérez as a rat, Paco thought. The private was much more like an urban fox – cunning and watchful, grabbing whatever he could when the opportunity presented itself, and obeying no rules but his own.
‘Without a union or party card, it’ll be very difficult to get anything to eat,’ he warned.
Pérez shrugged. ‘I’ll get by somehow.’
‘And what about him?’ Paco asked, glancing across at the bulky Jiménez, who was studying the busy street with a mixture of what was probably wonder and incomprehension.
‘I’ll see he gets by, too.’
Yes, Paco thought, he probably would. Because for all his sneering comments, the city fox seemed to have become attached to the lumbering country bear. ‘If you need any help—’ he began.
‘Thanks, but that won’t be necessary,’ Pérez interrupted. ‘We’ve still got the jewels, and when we’ve used them up, well, we’ll soon find some other way to make a bit of cash.’
‘Be careful,’ Paco advised. ‘Most of the tricks you used to get up to in the old days now carry an automatic death penalty.’
‘They’ll have to catch me first,’ Pérez replied. ‘Anyway, we all have to die sometime.’
There really wasn’t much more to say. For a few seconds, these three men who had been through so much together, yet had absolutely nothing in common, stood in embarrassed silence. Then Paco held out his hand to Jiménez. ‘Good luck to you,’ he said.
‘Thank you, señor,’ the country boy mumbled, awkwardly taking Paco’s hand in his own huge fi
st. ‘Goodbye, señorita.’
‘Goodbye,’ Cindy said. ‘Look after yourself.’
Paco turned back to the smaller man. ‘And the best of luck to you, too, my lad.’
Pérez grinned. ‘I make my own luck,’ he said. ‘I’ll tell you what, though, Inspector. When things are back to normal, maybe I’ll let you arrest me again – just to make your record look good.’
‘Things will never be back to normal,’ Paco told him. ‘Not in our lifetimes, anyway.’
The grin disappeared from his face, and Pérez was suddenly solemn. ‘You’re right,’ he agreed, nodding his head. Then, as if solemnity were not in his nature, he brightened again. ‘What the hell!’ he said. ‘Normal was never that good for me anyway.’
Paco watched the two men walk down the street, big Jiménez dwarfing the wiry Pérez, and was reminded again of the bear and the fox. Perhaps they would survive the war, he thought, and perhaps they wouldn’t. But that was about as much as you could say for anyone.
He put his hand on Cindy’s shoulder and squeezed it softly. ‘Let’s go home,’ he said.
*
All the fires which had raged through the night had been finally doused, most of the rubble had been cleared from the streets, and any building in danger of imminent collapse had been demolished. Twelve hours after the explosions which had rocked the village of San Fernando de la Sierra, the place had been returned to something like military order.
The general paced his office fretfully. The previous evening had been a disaster. His troops had lost most of their small arms, and all of their explosives. If reinforcements hadn’t arrived from Burgos mid-morning, there would have been nothing to stop the Republicans overrunning the village. As it was, the march on Madrid would have to be delayed. And who was to take the blame for that? It would not be him, he resolved. Colonel Valera had chosen to put himself in charge of security. Very well, then, Colonel Valera would be the man who bore the responsibility for things going so badly wrong.
But where the hell was Valera? he wondered. No one had seen the colonel since the explosions, and it had been left up to Major Gómez to take charge of the situation.
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