The ex-mayor puts the shotgun over his shoulder and once again starts pacing behind the curtained door of the casino. The other men around the room watch him, feeling their own fears feeding on the nervous energy emanating from him. The casino manager looks down at the telephone behind the bar and waits. His mind is filled with dread. He knows that at any moment the clanging bells will ring out across the room and their futures will start rushing headlong towards them.
In the main room of the Civil Guard’s office the five local guards sit at a desk playing cards. The cigarette smoke hangs at chest height, creating a cloud layer across the room. In the open cells the ten Assault Guards that arrived the night before from Zaragoza are lying on the benches and sitting on the floor, some lightly sleeping while others daydream, their weapons close to hand and their families not far from their thoughts. In the office Manolo listens intently to the crackling voice barking through the receiver pressed up to his ear. He nods in silence as he listens. The cigar in the ashtray leaks a plume of smoke that dances upwards into the air. Manolo looks at his pocket watch and finally speaks, “As you order, Commander, I will send a report to the academy when it is done.”
He waits a few moments, holding the receiver to his mouth for reassurance. He places the receiver back into its cradle. A full minute passes as he sits staring blankly across the room. He feels like he is waiting for something but he is unsure what. Eventually, he stands up and walks out into the main room. As the door opens, the Civil and Assault Guards slowly look up. He looks back across the faces of the young men and fears that they would be unable to protect him if their actions were to fail. In his mind he questions whether they would follow his commands or rally to the cause of the mindless rabble outside – the same mindless rabble that his soldiers had grown up with.
The men watch him, waiting for an order. The Assault Guards start rising from their rest. They place their rifles over their shoulders and their tasselled caps on their heads. The Civil Guards at the table look back over their shoulders at the Assault Guards preparing and begin following their lead. Manolo issues his command. None of the men hear the barely audible lack of confidence in his voice. “We are to take, secure and hold the station and the telegraph, the town hall, the manor house, the bank and the factories. We are to kill anyone that resists. Once we have secured the buildings we will round up any union organisers or popular front,” he says, growing with confidence. He looks at the Assault Guards who are filing out of the cells into the main room. “You will break up into pairs where you will support my guards. You are to follow their commands. Once we have secured the main buildings we will use the CEDA and the men in the casino to round up any troublemakers.”
On cue, the Civil Guards get up as one from the table and start grouping with the Assault Guards as ordered. Manolo picks up the rifle leaning against the door and makes his way across to the men who have regimented themselves into threes. He forces a smile and says, “God is clearly with us. You are in divine threes, like the father, son and holy ghost.” The men, unflinching, just watch him and listen. He continues, “The first two groups secure the square, then the rest make your way to your objectives and secure them, I will get the men in the casino and give them their orders.” He pauses for a few moments as the men line up in their groups of three by the iron door. He looks up and down the line. “Remember, men, once and for all, we put down these conspirators. We put the rabble back in their place. And anyone that questions our will must know what it means to question the word of our king, our generals and our holy church.” The first group of men unbolt the heavy door and pull it open.
In the four seconds that it takes for the door to open fully, the lights inside the guard’s station project like a halo around the twenty-one-year-old in the doorway and throw his silhouette out onto the square in front of him. The old mayor turns back from the window in the casino, letting the curtain fall from his hand. On the opposite side of the square the barber pulls back the bolt of the thirty-five-year-old rifle. The cartridge clicks into the barrel. The barber takes aim at the Civil Guard 162 metres away in the doorway. Raul steadies himself with a hand against the wall by the crank of the factory siren. Salvador allows himself a small smile as he stands in the corner of the office watching Bernardo throwing all of the land deeds for the village onto the fire blazing in the fireplace, the flames growing ever higher with each handful of paper. In the house Pedro starts to feel the room slowing to a stop and his balance returning as he blinks open his eyes and the dull thumping pain in his thigh slowly returns. In the train carriage Marianela holds her head in her hands sobbing.
Oblivious to the danger of his situation, the Civil Guard takes his first steps into the square and unslings his rifle. Following close behind, the two Assault Guards step tentatively out of the building, staring down the barrels of their guns. Nervously, the barber exhales a deep breath and focuses his one open eye down the sights of his gun. He squeezes the trigger. The explosion of the gun powder echoes like a church bell around the ramshackle room and the stock of the gun jolts back into his shoulder. On the other side of the square the noise of the rifle is followed a split second later by metal whistling through the air and crashing into the stone wall of the guard’s office a metre from the twenty-one-year-old’s head. The young man’s mind goes blank and he instinctively throws himself to the ground. The stone wall behind him blooms into a shower of powder. The two Assault Guards behind him throw themselves against the wall and train their rifles in the direction of the shot and start firing.
In the factory Raul hears the shooting and starts winding the crank of the siren. The moaning metal builds into a screaming whine that rings out across the supposedly sleeping village. Marianela stops crying and looks towards the door of the train carriage; her mind freezes. Salvador rushes across the room and gathers up the remaining files on the desk and launches them into the fire. He pushes the shotgun into Bernardo’s chest. “It has begun,” he tells him with a mischievous smile playing at the corner of his eyes. The young man turns and hurries through the town hall and down to the square outside.
The new mayor stops for a moment to watch the blazing pile of paper. The carbon black ashes float up on the thermal currents. For that brief moment he stands in silence watching the records of all land ownership in the village disappearing up the chimney into the cloudless night sky blanketing the valley high above. Feeling completely out of control he turns and follows the young man out of the office and down the stairs to the lobby.
The bullets of the Assault and Civil Guards tear through the wooden shutter across the square as the barber throws himself behind the wall. Rotting wood splinters and rains down on his dust matted hair. In the other rooms overlooking the square the workers ready themselves, cartridges click into barrels and rags hanging down the necks of petrol bombs spark into life.
In the instant that the three guards pause to reload their bolt-action rifles and the remaining guards partially open the door to take in the scene, the workers respond as one. In almost choreographed unison the workers lift their heads above their makeshift parapets and release a volley of pent-up rage at the guards. The sound of six guns and three petrol bombs hitting mud walls and compressed earth rattles like coins in a can. From the door of the casino the men start filing out, hunched and stumbling towards the cover of sculpted hedges. The warm glow of the petrol fires springs up across the square, intermittently lit up by the muzzle flashes of the guns in the retreating dark.
The next volley of rifles and petrol bombs pins down the men from the casino and keeps the guard’s station door firmly closed. Struggling to glance through the barred window all Manolo can see is the three guards and the men from the casino prone behind makeshift cover, desperately waiting for pauses to take wildly inaccurate snapshots towards the shops. He starts barking orders at the men left in the station. Moments later two groups of three Civil and Assault Guards open the back door of the building.
One group slowly inches its way down the back of the buildings, towards the centre of the village while the others make their way around the building hugging the walls.
The second group starts firing around the wall, affording the pinned down men time to get to their knees and start aiming their shots. Quickly the square is awash with blazing fires and petrol thick smoke plumes curling into the air; gunfire crisscrosses the space and tears into glass and wood. The din is deafening as men begin falling in explosions of blood and screams. In the houses and the huts the elderly and the young cower in the corners of rooms. The noise from the square quickly reaches across the village.
Salvador and Bernardo reach the corner of the street leading to the main square. They have been joined by seventeen more workers, three armed with guns and the rest with cooking knifes, sickles and assorted lumps of wood. Salvador stops by the corner and peeks around the building; his comrades hold still behind him.
From inside the square gunfire echoes around the buildings. Salvador quickly pulls his head back behind cover and gestures to the armed men to take position to the left of him. He motions to the men that two groups of three are coming towards them. He takes one step back and flattens himself against the wall, holds the revolver straight towards the corner and waits. The seconds pass and the location of the noises coming from the square becomes easier to distinguish.
The first Assault Guard clears the corner of the building and before he has time to turn his head and see the line of men hugging the wall the hammer of the revolver strikes the back of the cartridge, and the powder ignites. The metal projectile flies at thunderous velocity down the barrel of the pistol across the three quarters of a metre between the two men and hits the capped temple of the twenty-two-year-old. The bullet travels through the frontal left lobe of the guard, pushing bone, grey matter, hair, flesh and blood in a geyser-like explosion from the front right of his forehead. The force of the shot pinwheels his arms as his head is dragged away from him, wrenching the muscles in the neck and shoulders.
Like athletes exploding from the blocks, the first two men beside Salvador leap forward and fire their shotguns down the street. They pull back behind the cover of the corner of the wall and the second two mimic their movements. Salvador steps back from the corner and out towards the road to increase his angle of vision. The first Assault Guard is lying face down on the floor holding his hands to his now half-opened head and face, his legs twitching and fitting, his bubbling breath fast and shallow.
Deafened by the rifle and shotguns beating out the steady rhythm around him, Salvador can only just hear the whimpering of the man on the floor as he steps slowly towards him. He lifts the revolver so that it is directly in front of him as he finally breaks the cover of the wall. He peers up the road in time to see the last two guards running back behind the cover of the burnt out bar. The rest lounge lazily on the floor, propped up against the wall, their guns and hands lying useless and unmoving at their sides. Blood splattered across the floor and whitewashed wall reveals itself as the gun smoke clears. The first Civil Guard in his last moments irrationally attempts to drag himself with one hand pathetically clawing at the dirt. The other hand lies limp at his side.
Salvador looks up the street. In the far corner of the square, about two hundred and fifty metres away, he can just see the guards firing from behind the wall. Ten or twenty metres beyond them he can see the huddled men taking cover behind the hedges in front of the casino. The man clawing at the ground beside him catches his attention from the corner of his eye. He looks down at the man, pauses for a moment as he stares at the thick blood pooling into a widening circular mirror of obsidian against the dirt. He points the revolver between the man’s shoulder blades and lets two shots fly. The body twitches and then falls still.
Salvador points to the guards and says, “Get the weapons.” He pauses for a moment allowing his gaze to dance across the bodies. He starts pulling the young man’s body out of the street and up against the side of the wall. He pushes two of the younger unarmed workers towards the corner. “Lay the corpses here.” He holds the second one by the shoulder to stop him from leaving too quickly and says sternly, “With respect. These are our brothers.”
Once the first set of men return with the guns and ammunition from the still-twitching bodies Salvador starts handing them out. He splits the men into two groups, one under his command and the other under Bernardo’s. Bernardo’s group make their way back to the town hall to secure it and the other square. Salvador sends a runner to take Raul to the town hall to set up their base of operations. Watching the runner go in one direction and Bernardo in the other, he stops to roll a cigarette. In the square, not more than one hundred metres from him, he can still hear the gunfire being exchanged.
Salvador looks up to the sky as he draws calmly on his cigarette. He notices his hand is shaking as he lifts the cigarette to his mouth. He tries to regulate his breathing. The homely, orange glow of the fires in the square lights up the night sky with an inviting warmth above him. Salvador waits a few moments before calmly asking the men to start circling into the square and creating crossfires against the men taking cover.
What seems like an age to those taking part actually passes in just under thirty minutes. The overwhelming numbers of workers ensure that the insurrectionists in the village are quickly forced back into the buildings they came from. Manolo, the three remaining Assault Guards, and two of the landowners from the casino barricade themselves in the guard’s station. Garcia, his mercenaries and the workers barricade themselves in the duke’s home. Nicolas, the priest, and what was left of the CEDA youth lock themselves in the church. Manolo and Garcia’s siege quickly falls silent, weighed down by the many index fingers hovering nervously over triggers outside their doors.
From the bell tower Father Nicolas can see across the village and continue his defiance. He waits patiently looking down the barrel of the gun towards the overturned carts far below for any sign of movement. As soon as one of the workers peeks over the top of the barriers he releases a single shot. His intention is to kill, but his early entry to the church means that he only annoys. With each shot a tirade of religiously themed abuse is volleyed back from below.
Within thirty minutes of the conspirators sallying forth, their tide crashes against the workers and finds itself left wanting. The stalemate that continues on through the night and late into the morning is reached very quickly. By the time the sun is once again high in the sky the workers in the village have organised the three sieges into shifts and have cut the telephone lines to the guard’s station and the duke’s estate.
There is still no word coming from outside of the village and so the main organisers of the defence of the village congregate in the council chambers of the town hall to agree their next steps. Bernardo pushes open the door to the council chamber, slings the shotgun over his shoulder and joins the workers at the table. “We have captured seven, killed eighteen and there are something in the region of fifteen or twenty left. Five or so at the duke’s, maybe the same in the guard’s office, and who knows how many in the church? It’s just the priest and his choirboys there though. Everyone else has stayed in their homes,” he says. The men and the women at the table look around at one another waiting for someone to respond.
Salvador breaks the silence. “And what of our comrades?” he asks. The doctor’s nurse steps forward from the side of the room to answer him, “We have lost four comrades and have another twenty or so injured.”
Raul leans forward to address Sal directly, “We must bring the stand-offs to a quick conclusion so that we can go house to house and flush out any fascists hiding.”
The younger man looks up from the map of the village. “I agree,” he says as he looks around the table for any other response. All he sees are acknowledging nods of heads. “Good. All those in favour, raise your hands,” he says. The assembly start raising their hands.
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sp; Clearly uncomfortable, Bernardo asks, “What are we voting on here? I don’t understand.”
Salvador picks up the revolver from the table and pushes it into his belt. He unrolls the flat cap from his belt and pulls it on. The peak casts its shadow over his eyes and nose, and the light from the shuttered windows only partially illuminates his mouth that is framed in gun grease, blood and stubble. “If the priest and the guards don’t surrender we burn them out. Then we focus everything on the duke’s; there are too many provisions and arms, and too much wealth in there to burn it down. We need that building and its stores unharmed,” he answers him. Bernardo looks around the room imploringly. It is too late, the vote has been taken and they have all agreed.
Salvador makes his way out of the town hall to find a crowd of workers gathered in the square. Sal and Raul look out across the sea of faces and their hearts swell with pride. Raul puts his arm around Sal’s shoulders and pulls him close. “Finally, we all have our chance.”
Sal nods his head and replies, “You are right, brother. But we must secure the village first. Organise our brothers and sisters into militias to guard the outskirts of the village. We need to know if any outsiders try to enter. You need to secure Pedro and his family; he will need a doctor for the gunshot. I will deal with what’s left of the siege. Best you help organise work groups.”
Without flinching at the gunshot comment, Raul pats him on the back and starts calling across the crowd to draw specific people to him. Salvador pushes his way through the crowd who are beginning to sing ‘The Internationale’. He pulls the black and red bandana Cati gave him from his pocket, takes off his cap and wipes the sweat from his face and hair. He ties it around his neck, puts the cap back on and leads several of the militia that have remained by his side over the course of the night through the crowd and out of the square.
A Most Uncivil War Page 27