The pain across his shoulder and neck reassures him that he is alive. Slowly, Raul starts to regain control of his thoughts. Adrenalin floods his system and he drags himself with one arm over onto his side and pushes himself up to his feet. The blood and sweat from his hairline run down his forehead and into his eye. He tries to lift the nearest hand to wipe away the stinging liquid but his arm refuses to move. He holds his eye tightly closed to try and stifle the pain as he looks around the square. In just under sixty seconds the pastoral view of the villagers enjoying their evenings, the children running and playing and the workers discussing their successes had been replaced by an inferno of death and pain. Strewn across the square are bodies torn to pieces. Raul finds himself focusing on a small boy kneeling at the corpse of a man a few metres away.
Raul stands in paralysed reverence as with one eye he scans the square. A flaming wasteland has replaced the bar he was standing in only a few moments before. The bodies of the people he had walked between are now blasted across the square in unrecognisable bundles of clothes and flesh. Everywhere he looks there are torsos with their rib cages caved in by adobe bricks projected like cannon balls across the square and the metal legs of chairs skewering thighs with arrow-like precision where they have been fired across the ground by the blast.
The first few survivors in the square start pulling themselves up from the ground and taking in the flame-engulfed bloodbath that fills their terrified gazes. Raul stumbles across the square, his arm swinging loosely at his side as he checks the bodies nearest to him for any sign of life. He finds none. In his peripheral vision he sees one of his comrades standing holding a limp child in his arms, his voiceless scream contorting his face in abject horror towards him. There is no sound in his ears other than the deafening whine reverberating through his head. The man’s face is frozen in silent agony as the tears roll down his face and he stares impotently at the child’s corpse. He holds it out towards Raul pleadingly. Its limbs dangle lifelessly to the ground. The man’s tears cut through the blackened ash caking his face.
Raul stands helplessly staring, pain and misery gripping him like a straitjacket. The man’s gaze draws up towards the skies and he points. Unable to understand what he is seeing, Raul just stares at the child’s limp body, its lifeless limbs hanging like a doll’s. The man points to the stars behind him and cries something out. Raul feels the adrenalin struggling to mask the pain. He turns around and looks to the skies. The seven silhouettes are turning back on their next bombing run. Blankly, Raul stares as their slow arcing turn points them once again headlong in his direction. He feels the fear wash across him like cold water. He turns and with his still-working hand grabs at the other man’s sleeve.
*
When the first bomb explodes in the main square Pedro and Juanico’s heads jerk towards the window instinctively. Pedro puts the oil lamp and cleaning cloth down on the workbench and puts his hand on his son’s shoulder. From the hallway his mother calls out, “What was that?” Before he has the chance to respond, the third and fourth explosions echo down the narrow streets. The windows and doors rattle, Soledad screams and Pedro puts his arm around his son. They rush to the entrance hall where his mother and aunt are cowering in their chairs. He rushes them all into the central courtyard where the night sky is bathed in the orange hue of the village going up in flames.
Boom after boom from every direction chases the four of them into the centre of the courtyard by the olive tree. Pedro pushes them under its bows and down to the ground where they huddle together, their arms entwined. The three of them feel the fear rooting them to the floor where they sit as they watch with terror-filled stares as Pedro starts pulling the sandbags piled high by the back door around their feet. He screams at them as he rushes back and forth, “Hold these over you until the bombing stops.” The three of them, tears rolling down their faces, drag the heavy earth-filled sandbags up against themselves. Pedro runs back into the house.
The top floor of the building next door blossoms like a spring flower of wood and brick, throwing its pollen of fire and heat high into the night sky. Soledad’s scream clambers above her grandson’s and her sister’s as she imagines the worst. Some igniting beams and melting bricks rain down into the courtyard, but most arc high over their heads. Pedro runs out of the house with blankets and throws them across his family and their makeshift den of sandbags. “What are you doing?” Juanico cries as his father drags the barrel of water across to them and tips it across the blankets and bags.
Across the village the sound of exploding gas canisters and splintering homes fills the air as the initial explosions of the bombs fall silent and the soundtrack of their effect takes over. The light of the fires sprouting up from the village turns the night into day as the three look up at the silhouette of the man standing over them. The water splashing down across the blanket and soaking through to their clothes turns the earth to mud beneath them. As soon as they are covered in bags and blankets up to their shoulders he leans down to them and with a forced calm, demands that they stay still until he returns. Unable to respond with anything other than instinctive fear, they sit frozen, staring back at him. He runs back into the house.
At the outskirts of the village Marianela is on a stool sewing an old pair of trousers by candlelight when she hears the first explosion. Not recognising what she has heard, she pauses for only a second before restarting her stitching. Almost immediately the second and third explosions begin stalking their way across the village towards where she sits. She drops the trousers and needle and thread to the floor and runs to the door fearing the worst. Too far from the square, she can hear none of the panicked tumult that is spreading from the epicentre of each explosion. She throws open the door and looks out across the fields bathed in moonlight. She can see no reason for the noises. She runs out across the mud path and jumps across the irrigation channel before turning back towards the village. The booming cacophony of the bombs is only a few hundred yards away and she sees the jets of light exploding into the air from behind the line of terraced rooftops.
The doorways along the road are opening and their inhabitants stumbling out into the street. The planes whining high above them start leaning lazily into their slow turn, dragging them in a circle around the village. Marianela sees the glow of the fires dappling across the rooftops when, from somewhere behind her, the sound of a whip cracking seems to tear through the night air. She sees one of the men pulling his braces up over his shoulder with a shotgun in one hand crumple forward on the floor a few metres from her. Immediately, twenty rifles start cracking from the fields behind her. Bullets whistle through the air all around her and crash into the people and houses in front of her like the first raindrops of a storm. She throws herself to the ground and holds her head in her hands.
From behind her she can hear the rifles and a lone soldier’s voice shouting orders, while ahead of her she can hear the screams of people being cut down by the hail of bullets as they run back into their homes for cover. In the distance she can hear the requiem dirge of exploding bombs raining down on the village. With her face pressed against the mud she looks down the road and sees the man again. He only managed to pull one of his braces over his shoulder. His one vacant eye stares back at her; the other is nothing more than a mass of torn flesh with bone and brain seeping out across the earth. Terrified, she lies paralysed as the guns from the field slowly subside.
Pedro makes his way through the streets littered with scattered rubble and desperately pleading survivors. When he reaches the corner of the street facing out onto the fields where Marianela lives he starts to hear the cries of her wounded neighbours. He peers around the building and sees the survivors trying to drag their screaming loved ones back into the illusory shelter of their homes. Scanning the scene, he quickly sees that none of the buildings have been hit by bombs, but instead the people are victims of gunfire. He allows his gaze to track across the fields for the source. On
the opposite side of the first field he can see the shadowy outlines of men running crouched along the irrigation channel, rifles in hands and packs on their backs. He knows instantly what is happening. Taking his chance while they change their positions, he runs as quickly and as low as he can along the terraced buildings.
He can see her lying on the floor and he fears the worst. He stumbles across the dirt track and dives onto the ground beside her. Seeing him slide into her field of vision, she feels relief. “Have you been hit?” he asks.
She allows herself a moment to take stock of her situation, “I don’t think so. What is happening? Where is Raul?”
The question clutches at Pedro’s heart with an icy grasp. “Don’t worry about that now. I have to get you to safety. The army is here,” he replies as he pulls her up into his arms. Still crouching, he half carries her, stumbling, to the irrigation channel. Under the relative cover of the trench he leads her back towards the village. When they reach the end of the terrace they wait. Pedro looks out across the field to try and locate the soldiers.
Marianela recognises the superficial security that she feels in his arms for what it is: worthless in light of what they are facing. She looks back along the line of houses. Looking back at her is one of her neighbours, a lady in her eighties. She is sitting on the floor with her husband lying dead in her arms and his blood soaking through her dress to her paper thin skin. Not knowing what to do, Marianela mouths the words, “I’m sorry,” over and over again.
From further down the street gunfire erupts and the soldiers on the opposite side of the field turn their attention towards it. They aim and respond with a volley of fire. Pedro takes the opportunity and drags Marianela out of the ditch, across the road and around the corner behind the terraced houses. They run as fast as they can towards his house. As they turn the corner they run into Raul and five other men running towards them.
Raul’s arm has been tied in a makeshift sling. It is hard to distinguish how injured he actually is from his bloodsoaked clothes. Marianela’s breath draws in sharply as she sees him. Blood and soot mask half of his face. She runs to him and puts her arms around him. He lets out a cry as her embrace pulls on his shoulder. He pushes his hand flat against her chest and towards Pedro, “Get her to safety; the army are upon us.” Pedro pulls her back to him.
Raul says to Marianela, “Go with him; you will be safe.” She struggles to free herself from the man’s grasp but is unable to as she watches Raul and the men running towards the gun battle. Pedro pulls her towards his house.
They find his family huddled under the olive tree where he left them. The adrenalin coursing through their systems has them shaking uncontrollably as they cling onto each other like their lives depend on it. Pedro pushes Marianela under the alcoved cover and starts pulling the sandbags away from the family to free them. He pulls his son up to his feet. “Help turn the table, we must protect ourselves until the fighting is over,” he screams at him. He pushes the two women into the corner with Marianela and starts piling the garden furniture up in front of them as a barricade. Juanico piles sandbags against the furniture defences. Pedro stops for a moment and watches his son.
As soon as he feels he can leave them for a moment Pedro runs back into the house and starts collecting food and blankets. Once his arms are full he returns to the garden. Soledad hurriedly accepts the items and places them at their feet. “Why did you risk your life for this harlot?” his mother asks him as she lays blankets across the legs.
“Shut up with that nonsense now,” he shouts back at her. She looks back at him defiantly. Juanico nestles into Marianela as she holds him in her arms. Pedro pulls his hunting knife from his belt and points it towards his mother. “Not a word, do you understand? We are in the middle of it now and it will be a miracle if we are still alive when the sun comes up. Be silent. Do you understand?” he demands. Obstinately, his mother shuts her mouth tightly, pursing her lips.
The bombing soon stops and the sound of distant gunfire struggles to be heard above the noise of people screaming in agony and buildings collapsing. Pedro makes his way through the house with the knife in his hand. In the dining room he lifts the slats of the shutter apart so he can see out onto the road. He takes a sheet of paper and a pencil from the shelf and leaning on the sill of the window starts writing, pausing every few lines to check the street. When he finishes he quickly folds the paper, writes a name across the front and places it into his trouser pocket.
He looks through the slats of the shutters. The gunfire continues in the distance for some time as he stands still, staring into the empty street. He is unaware that in the garden his mother has ignored his command and has, in fact, continued muttering under her breath, “This peasant whore witch, it is her gypsy curses that have caused all this.” Terrified, Marianela stays silent, holding her eyes shut and the young man close to her.
After thirty minutes the continuous gunfire stops and is replaced by intermittent bursts of sporadic gunfire coming from all directions. By the time the first soldier finally peers around the corner of the street the pre-dawn light is becoming visible. Pedro doesn’t immediately recognise what he is seeing. The image of the second and third soldier making their way around the corner with their rifles to their shoulders wakes him from the semi-trance like waking sleep he has been in for hours.
The soldiers make their way down the street with their rifles scanning across the windows overlooking them and the street ahead of them. Pedro can feel the knife in his shaking hand. He grips it tightly, not knowing what to do. The soldiers take up positions on the corner of the block and the second wave go from door to door. He watches to see how long it takes for them to check the first house. In his mind he estimates how long it will be before they reach his house. Five minutes; no more, he thinks.
He tiptoes back through the house, leaving the knife on the kitchen counter as he passes it. He finds his aunt and son have succumbed to their exhaustion and closed their eyes. Even in their troubled sleep, his mother and Marianela cling tightly to their wards, the tracks of their tears clearly cutting through the ashen camouflage of their cheeks. He clambers silently across the top of the barricade and lowers himself down at the end of the line. “The soldiers will be upon us any moment. No sudden movements or they will shoot. And not a word, let me do the talking,” he whispers. His aunt’s eyes flicker open. She feels her sister’s arms around her. She closes her eyes and tries to forget where she is.
The moments pass painfully slowly as they wait with a fear-filled anticipation. Eventually, they hear the rifle butt knocking against the front door, then soldiers entering the house and making their way through it. The five of them sit huddled tightly behind the barricade shivering with cold, exhaustion and fear. One of the soldiers comes through the back door and scans the garden down the barrel of the rifle. The gun stops as it reaches the barricade. “Who’s there? Show yourselves,” he shouts. Another solider comes through the door behind him and drops to one knee, his rifle aimed in the same direction.
“We surrender, we surrender,” Pedro cries out as he raises his hands above the shelter.
A third soldier comes into the garden with his rifle trained on them. All of the soldiers in the garden are now shouting, “Stand up,” “Show yourselves,” and “Hands up.” Nervously, the five pull themselves and each other up to their feet with their hands high above their heads.
The soldiers fan out around the garden with their rifles locked firmly on Pedro and his family who stand in silence with their hands in the air. An officer comes through the doorway with a revolver in one hand and a map of the village in another. The young man in his early twenties looks across the line before barking an order, “Tell me your names.” Pedro speaks first and the officer watches him carefully. He pauses for a moment before replying, “Why are you not fighting, why do you cower like dogs in the garden?”
Pedro replies, “I was shot o
n the first night of the war.”
The officer replies, “By whom?” Pedro looks down to the ground.
Before he gets a chance to respond his mother speaks, “My son was shot by the godless anarchists. He was shot defending his family and our duke’s honour.”
Filled with fear, Pedro glances at his mother and then closes his eyes. The officer looks directly at Soledad, “I have served with the man that owns these lands. Choose your words carefully as I will contact him. How was your son defending the duke’s honour exactly?”
Pedro starts to respond, “I was —”
The officer cuts him off, “I was talking to the old woman. Stay silent or I will move onto the next house and leave you to my men to be dealt with.” He pauses and looks up at the burning carcass of the next house and playfully quips, “Or perhaps the one after that.” His men laugh obediently.
With her bravado punctured Soledad nervously continues, “My family has tended the duke’s gardens for some forty years. My son has been loyal to the duke, the king and the church throughout.”
The officer continues listening as he looks over the map of the village. “And these with you?” he asks.
Pedro feels his throat go dry and he struggles to swallow. Soledad replies, “This is my grandson and my sister. This ungrateful peasant has whored herself to the anarchists.”
Marianela cries out, “That is not true, I have bled for your family, ungrateful witch.”
The officer, having heard enough, turns to leave, saying to the soldier beside him, “Tell that weasel that it is safe to enter the village and find out if the old woman is telling the truth. Make sure there are no guns in the house and then move onto the next one.”
A Most Uncivil War Page 32