by Norman Lewis
The owner was a Cuban from Havana who spoke American English which he kept trim, he said, by a daily visit to a cinema specialising in American films. This was his sixth revolution, but his first experience of the Spanish version, where, he explained with approval, they made a point of doing their best not to shoot a man in the cobblers. ‘The smart thing they do here when a man goes looking for a battle is to have a broad carry the gun. The one thing you have to hand to these guys is they never search the women.’
The day before had been a bad one. As he had left the café to go home he had been arrested and hauled off to the police station where they pushed him around a bit but then let him go.
‘What about today?’ I asked him. ‘What’s the programme for the day?’
‘Oh, I guess it’s safe enough in the morning,’ he said. ‘Put it this way, people need a break to do their shopping.’
‘How about the afternoon?’
‘Well, I guess that’s different. Maybe you heard. The Red Army has to come out some time before tonight.’
‘And will it?’
‘Christ only knows. Maybe it will, maybe it won’t. The guys at the top have to get together and stop the arguments. All depends on what comes through from Barcelona and the North.’
‘So what’s happening up there?’
‘They declared a separate state, but it’s supposed to have fizzled out already. News is that Asturias has gone Red. General López Ochoa was sent up there but they say the Reds derailed the train and cut his head off.’
‘What about the Reds in this city? Are they well armed?’
‘The usual thing. Machine-guns and hand grenades. We shan’t know much about it until later in the day. Right now they’re knocking out police stations and barracks. If they go down, the churches will go up.’
‘Why should that be?’ Eugene asked.
‘Because these guys hate the work of the Almighty Lord.’
‘That’s bad,’ Eugene told him. ‘But why?’
‘Because that’s the way they are.’
‘From what you say we ought to be moving on and looking for a quieter place.’
‘No hurry, it’s not much past ten now. You’ve got until at least two before the trouble starts. That’s when I’m shutting up. Hop into the nearest shop if anything starts. You don’t have to worry about the Assault Guards so much, unless they get really sore. It’s the untrained soldiers who can’t shoot straight that bother me. If you’re caught in some bad shooting don’t try to run for it. Just lie down in the street wherever you happen to be, and wait till it stops. Better if you can eat in a place where the waiter puts on a uniform, and when you need to shop choose one with an elevator. Best shopping as you probably know is round the Mediodía Station. You can always pop in and study the timetables if the shooting starts.’
And this, without warning, it did, and too late the shopkeepers struggled to get their shutters down as bullets demolished their windows and glass showered on the pavements. Machine-guns stamped an orderly pattern across the anarchic clamour of pistol and rifle reports. People were collapsing as they ran, doubling up and sprawling in the roadway, having fainted, stopped a bullet or collapsed from sheer terror. With tyres squealing a car lurched out of a side street. The inside back wheel bumped heavily on the kerb, and we sensed rather than saw that a machine-gun was being fired from it. An elderly man running towards us stopped suddenly, as if he had forgotten something, before turning to bolt into a shop doorway where he fell on his knees. Somehow we were able to extricate ourselves and reach the shelter of the hotel. The hubbub spreading up the side streets from the Puerta del Sol was close on our heels.
Back at the hotel we found the residents grouped on the stairs. This, through long experience, was deemed to be the safest place in such an emergency. We pushed past them and went up to our top room on the corner. From there we had an unobstructed view in three directions. At this height the racket was even more appalling; the individual reports produced by a variety of firearms amalgamated in a vast blur of sound. Assault Guards were advancing up the side streets, hugging the walls and exchanging fire with unseen adversaries on the roofs. Directly below on the opposite side of the road was a pork butcher’s shop whose owner had been too late to get the shutters up. While we looked on from our balcony the windows collapsed under a machine-gun volley. We were later to discover it had inflicted posthumous lesions on the porkers still suspended on their hooks.
Once or twice a distant scream asserted itself above the clamour. In a brief interlude of silence we heard the tapping of a blind beggar’s stick in the street below. He was lurching wildly and appeared to be hit. Two workers rushed out and took him by the arms, disappearing round one corner as an Assault Guard came into sight round the other. He pointed his rifle at our window. We slammed the shutters and stood back against the wall. No shot was fired, and as soon as it seemed safe to change our position we got out of the room and went downstairs.
A great assortment of ordinary people caught up in the street battle had taken refuge in the hotel. Left-wing strikers from the factories who had thrown their guns away when things got bad and made a dash for the nearest open door mixed with peasants who had come up, as they frankly admitted, to see the fun. The restaurant had opened at the usual evening hour but served nothing but coffee, and a doctor attended to the wounds of a guest stretched out on a table, whose screams, since no anaesthetics were available, added to the pandemonium.
Two communists introduced themselves politely and sat down at our table. They announced their political views with the pride with which in medieval days a man might have claimed membership of some knightly order. ‘Good evening, I am Manuel Maltés. This is my friend, Estebán Iriarte.’ Manuel was a mountainous Andalusian, a lawyer who had renounced collar, tie and razor as a tribute to his political views. Estebán, a cadaverous-faced Madrileño with melancholy eyes, a nostalgic expression and a gentle voice, appeared to be the intellectual disciple of the first.
The memory of that great propagandist of the English Bible, George Borrow, was still green in Spain. At this time I was the brief possessor of a beard, and the word had gone round among our Spanish acquaintances that we were engaged in the sale of bibles. These two militant atheists had apparently thought that it would be amusing to draw us into taking up the cudgels for Christ. With this misapprehension out of the way, Manuel recited poetry of the elemental kind, talking of such fundamental things as birth, life and the earth. Estebán hung on his words with the tears rolling down his face.
The varying thicknesses of wall separating us from the street had partially blanketed out the sounds of the battle. Only the constant crash of grenades exploding close to the hotel shattered the moments of silence, jarred the crockery and set the pans jangling in the kitchen. In the intervals a loudspeaker somewhere in the street brayed out messages of comfort and reassurance. ‘We are happy to be able to announce to our listeners that complete tranquillity has been restored throughout Spain.’
‘Turn it off,’ yelled a voice.
‘No, leave it alone,’ said another, ‘it won’t be long before our fellows take over the station.’
Among the more disturbing reports was one saying that the communists would that night use a plane to bomb the Gobernación—the Ministry of the Interior—which was located in an immense complex of buildings two streets away. The difficulty with this project, according to a comrade who had served in the Air Force, was that the lack of practice at such a nocturnal assault would expose a large part of the area to considerable risk.
Another factor bothering our new acquaintances was that a resident might be tempted to strike a blow for Socialism by sniping from the hotel, thus producing police reprisals of a vigorous and undiscriminating kind. While this was under discussion a man in his working clothes came in and sat down at the next table. He had been wounded in the neck, which was wrapped with a blood-soaked scarf. A basin of soup was produced in his honour, and this he drank with some diffi
culty and much coughing. The soup finished, he called over a woman and emptied two pocketfuls of bullets into her lap. This was done without attempt at concealment.
A few minutes later there was a loud report seeming to come from the direction of the skylight, which was repeated at intervals. This attracted the notice of two Assault Guards outside in a car. They shone a searchlight at the door but, possibly believing themselves to be outnumbered, drove off.
Next morning we got up and went down to the Puerta del Sol for breakfast. It was served, revolution or not, with the speed and good humour of any normal day. Everywhere the walls were flecked with bullet marks. Every shop window in sight had been punctured or devastated by direct hits or flying fragments. The Gobernación remained inviolate. It was surrounded by a large force of Assault Guards brought there in vehicles like old-fashioned brakes, with open sides and therefore offering no protection for the guards perched in rows on unprotected benches. Three trams had been derailed, but the revolutionaries had now been replaced by sightseers, and a group of Guards were no more than entertained by a lunatic who threatened them with a child’s toy gun.
CHAPTER 7
AT DAWN THE NEXT day, all was quiet. Soon after daybreak we were called to the window by the sounds of jingling harnesses and plopping hooves. A squad of steel-helmeted cavalry was defiling down the street towards the centre of town. I decided that the Spanish army was yet another military machine that hoped to acquire martial virtue by moulding itself externally on the pattern of the Reichswehr. There was even something Germanic about the shrieked word of command.
We got up and again went down to the Puerta del Sol for breakfast. Much as on the previous day, the morning vitality of Madrid had been in no way damaged by the night alarms. There were new bullet marks on the walls. Every other shop window had been punctured by direct hits or devastated by flying fragments. The Gobernación remained inviolate and was still surrounded by a large force of Assault Guards.
Outside the Gobernación a queue had been formed to buy El Debate, the clerical newspaper, which, being unpopular among the working population, was being sold under police protection. We stood in the queue until the supply was exhausted, and then wandered away.
In the Calle Alcalá an ordinary newspaper-seller was doing a brisk trade with the ABC. This was a notable and somewhat reactionary daily. Just as we came up he stuffed the remaining copies under his coat and walked away quickly. We went after him and offered him ten times the usual price for a copy. He rejected our offer, telling us that he had just been warned on pain of death to stop selling.
In the main thoroughfares round the Puerta del Sol, well-dressed youths had brought out a municipal dust-van and were clearing up the rubbish. They were attacking the work with a great show of animal spirit, taking a special delight in showering the refuse over each other’s neatly creased trousers and scintillating shoes. The yells of joy when one of them tripped on the edge of the van and fell into the muck nearly started an alarm.
More trams were running and the confusion had correspondingly increased. Casting an eye round the Puerta del Sol it was not uncommon to see two or three stranded trams which had somehow or other got on to the wrong line or had been derailed. These would be surrounded by a perplexed group of soldiers and a large crowd of discreetly jeering citizens. This factor, combined with the evidence of the bullet-shattered glass and woodwork, suggested that tram riding had become more a matter of high adventure than convenience.
In the cafés, stories were circulating of the night’s slaughters. Apart from café-visiting there was very little we dared do. It was unsafe to get out of sight of the Puerta del Sol. Above all we were anxious not to get cut off from our retreat by a machine-gun battle. So most of our time in those early days in Madrid was spent in cafés.
The first place we visited was of the variety where you paid nine pence for a cup of coffee; the charge being based on three pence for materials and sixpenny worth of atmosphere. It was frequented by substantial businessmen, one of whom was describing to his cronies at the neighbouring table adversities he had suffered the night before. He was impressed by the bitter irony of having been hounded through the streets by the police who were paid to protect his interests.
He described his experience in a billiard room over a fashionable café when the firing had started, and the police (so he said, although it sounded improbable) had mistaken the tapping of cues for some sort of muffled firearm. Anyway, to promote a submissive attitude they had thrown a hand grenade through a window and then charged in. The businessmen, probably gouty, undoubtedly short-winded, had been driven down the stairs and out into the street, while the police fired pot-shots at them from the café windows. The narrator had then made for home, a journey which, having been made for the greater part of the distance on his hands and knees, had taken him several hours to complete.
When we finally managed to buy a paper, it made small reference to recent events. The death was reported of a woman who had been shot through the heart when she had opened her bedroom window to see what was going on. Names were published of a few civilians who had been mown down in the street. Most of the space was devoted to commendations of the soldiers and police, and accounts of how by their unflagging bravery, devotion and loyalty in the hour of national need, normality was now restored.
Having no faith in the propagandist conception of normality, we began to edge, early in the afternoon, in the direction of the hotel. It was 3.30 p.m. The Puerta del Sol was as thickly populated as ever, but today a neurotic jumpiness was noticeable in the crowd. As usual we stopped at the Levante for a drink, finding that so far it had come off comparatively unscathed. It was a splendid place in which to relax and we hoped that the proprietor of this excellent café had managed to remain on good terms with the police.
We had been looking forward to another hour’s liberty before taking cover for the night, but no sooner had we given our order than we noted that the Puerta del Sol was already emptying. Two men ran past. We decided to bank on intuition and got up to go. Our uneasiness seemed contagious. Almost as one man the patrons of the Levante drained their glasses. With a perfectly synchronised scuffle, chairs were pushed back. A dozen voices bellowed for the bill and at least as many, remaining silent, decided to settle up on a more propitious occasion.
Just as we pushed through the doors the expected shot rang out: that now unpleasantly familiar sound, the harbinger of panic at whose signal the general stampede would commence. With the faultless unanimity of a well-ordered puppet show, all hands went up. The Assault Guards clenched their teeth and raised their rifles. In ten seconds the Puerta del Sol was a desert. The inevitable diminutive soldier with the large automatic herded us into a bar on the street corner. The bar was open on two sides. It would have taken about ten minutes to get the complicated shutters down. The barman, deciding that even to make the attempt would be unprofitable, contented himself by whisking down out of harm’s way the more expensive bottles of drink.
Almost as soon as we got back to the hotel there was a rapping on the door. Two detectives stood outside. Keeping their right hands significantly in their pockets, they used the left to uncover, with a gesture last seen in Wild West movies, their stars of authority. With many apologies they examined our passports, searched our baggage and looked under the bed for hidden ammunition. What was worrying them was the presence in a cheap working-class hotel of two men who carried masculine fashion to the extent of a collar and tie. We assured them we represented the English equivalent of their own proletarians, but that owing to the successes in our country of the capitalist social order our standard of living had been raised. Consequently we were in a position to ape the fashions of our betters. They were impressed, and wished that they could honestly say the same about Spain. But as we could see for ourselves there existed at the moment a regrettable lack of unanimity of opinion regarding the benefits conferred by capitalism.
With nightfall, a searchlight that had been mounted on the
highest building in Madrid—the Capitol Cinema—came into play. It swept the roofs with a double shaft of light that looked almost solid in the dark sky. In view of the non-appearance on the streets of any organised socialist forces, the Government had decided to declare war on the snipers.
Seen from a suitable eminence, the most essential characteristic of Madrid is the flatness of its roofs. Layer upon layer of roofs rise one behind the other, their continuity broken by innumerable attic windows and odd additional storeys; creepers, which in season bear red and purple flowers, twine about them. The sea of tiles, toned by the sun and mellowed by grime to a charming compromise between black and yellow, with faded touches of gold, is an altogether Spanish and most attractive sight. This characteristic roof is known as the azotea. It has played a considerable part in determining the character of warfare on Spanish soil.
The azotea is the answer to a sniper’s dream. The facilities it offers for well-sustained guerrilla warfare coupled with centuries of practice have produced a special technique of attack. It was estimated, according to one of the papers, that ten thousand snipers were operating from the azoteas during the first few nights of the revolt. Granted that in the majority of cases these snipers were boys armed with cheap Belgian revolvers, the bullets of which were almost harmless by the time they reached the street, they still constituted a nightmare for the military authorities.
The average sniper’s method of procedure involved no great risk. All that was necessary was to clamber to the roof of the house where he lived or lodged, cross over to someone else’s roof, select a nicely-sheltered position overlooking the street where he could see without being seen, and then empty his revolver at the first Assault Guard in sight. After that he could retire while things simmered down. In the days of Napoleon it took the demolition of half the city to clear out ten thousand of these partisans. But nowadays conditions had changed. The police gave orders for all access to the azoteas or terraces to be closed. The searchlight bathed the roofs of the city in a blueish white glare in imitation of daylight. The Guards and the soldiers followed its beam with their rifles. In the morning they went round collecting the bodies of those who had still believed in the triumph of the revolution.