A Broken Land

by Jack Ludlow

  ‘With what?’ Cal demanded, making the sign of a pistol.

  That got another flash of those dark eyes, attached to a look of determination. ‘If we have weapons, good; if not, we will take the ship with our bare hands.’

  Grabbing her shoulders Cal looked right into those lovely liquid pools. ‘Go back into that mob and tell them, from me: no weapons, no help.’

  ‘I have told them how brave you are!’

  ‘Tell them how stupid I’m not and also tell them all Vince and I have is a bunch of untrained amateurs, some of whom might be able to swim, others who can box, many who can run a mile in not much over four minutes and none who know how to use a gun, which they must have, just as we must show them how to employ them before they go anywhere near a fight.’

  There was a crestfallen air about Florencia as he spoke those words, as if he had gone down miles in her estimation, the rate marked by the spirit of her deflation.

  ‘Look, we are willing, but we must have weapons.’

  ‘I cannot deal with this,’ she cried, with a toss of her blonde curls. ‘I will get Juan Luis Laporta. He speaks French and so do you.’

  ‘And who is he?’

  Florencia managed to give Cal Jardine the kind of look that implied he must have spent the last ten years on the moon. ‘Juan Luis is a senior military commander of the CNT-FAI and a true and experienced revolutionary. Surely you have read about him?’

  Then she was gone.

  ‘Fancy you not knowin’ that, guv, eh?’ said Vince, dryly.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Dragging her man away from the heated discussions took time; it was clear he was important, a person whose views counted in the mass of conflicting arguments. In order that they could talk in relative peace, Cal and Vince moved to a corner window that looked out onto the wide and crowded pavement to wait. Coming towards them, edging past people in the bustling café, exchanging words with some and looks with others, allowed Cal to examine Laporta more closely.

  ‘He looks a bit useful,’ Vince said, before he got close, as a boxer, well used to observing a potential opponent.

  Broad-faced and stocky of build, clad in a worn leather coat and a battered forage cap of the same material, with a pistol worn on his hip, he looked like a fighter – and not just with a gun. The way he held his hands indicated he was prepared to use his fists too, while the hunch on the shoulders pointed to a degree of power to back those up. But most of all, the steady gaze, once he had fixed on Cal Jardine, indicated a man who was confident in his own ability.

  For all his physicality, the thing that impressed Cal most about Juan Luis Laporta, once they had started to converse in French, was his lack of excitability. Unlike many in the room he was calm and controlled, a man who could listen as well as talk, while it was obvious that, if he knew these two strangers were assessing him, he was doing the same to them.

  It is little things that tell you a man is an experienced fighter, especially if you have been round the block a few times yourself. The scars he has and where they are located are the same ones you see in the shaving mirror or when you are washing your hands; another indicator the wary way they carry themselves, as if trouble is a constant possibility.

  ‘Monsieur,’ he said, once Cal had outlined the operation they had been volunteered for, as well as his objections. ‘None of the people you see in this room have such training.’

  There was an obvious truth in that; those present were workers, but Cal was instinctively aware the man he was talking to knew his business, though his fighting was likely, given his politics, to be of the unconventional kind.

  ‘They are not only untrained, but unarmed.’

  ‘Matters are in hand to secure a supply of weapons.’

  ‘I suspected they must be.’

  The silence in such close proximity was highlighted by the surrounding noise, and it lasted for several seconds. ‘Florencia tells me you are an ex-soldier.’

  ‘As is my friend.’

  Laporta flicked a smile at Vince, before casting a long up-and-down stare at Cal, seemingly taken by his looks – the cut of his clothing, blouson aside, and his shoes, which were handmade and recognisably so in a country where people knew about footwear. They also had a patina of age that only came from being well looked after over decades.

  ‘You were an officer, I suspect.’

  ‘That, monsieur, is not a crime.’

  ‘Why are you in Barcelona?’

  ‘Has Florencia not said?’

  ‘She has,’ Laporta replied, his eyes hardening. ‘But a room in the Ritz Hotel is not the place for those who I expect to share our political beliefs, or of the class that have come here to take part in the People’s Olympiad.’

  ‘I don’t share your political beliefs, Señor Laporta, in fact I think they are foolish.’

  ‘It would be interesting to know, monsieur, what you do believe in?’

  Cal jerked his head to include Vince. ‘I think you will find that my friend and I have a certain type of adversary, one we might share with many people, and not just the Spanish. Plus, if you have not been told already, we are here representing many who are sympathetic to your cause.’

  ‘Your athletes want to fight the generals?’

  ‘I think it might be a bit broader in purpose, more they want to fight fascism, something they intended to demonstrate through their athletic prowess. They just happen to be here, now, when events are unfolding. I daresay there are young men from every represented nationality at the games who feel the same and are willing to take up arms in the cause you all share.’

  ‘Right now, monsieur, I am not sure what I would do with them.’

  ‘Is he givin’ us the elbow, guv?’ Vince asked.

  Vince had picked up the odd word and had not mistaken the tone, as well as the cynical look in the Spaniard’s eyes. His intervention caused Laporta to look at him again, but it was brief, his attention turning back to Cal.

  ‘Your athletes, if they want to be of use, need to be trained, as do many of the workers. You, as an officer at one time, are used to training soldiers, no? But are you a good officer or a bad one? There are many of those, too many, in the Spanish army.’

  And, Cal thought, you would struggle to trust them. The man was suspicious of him too, and right to be so; no offence need be taken regarding such an attitude, for if, as suspected, he had participated in insurrection before, there would be within that a memory of both betrayal and incompetence, expensive in terms of plans unsuccessfully executed and lives lost.

  ‘Maybe it would be best if I was shown what you can do.’

  The steady look had within an implication of a test, and Cal Jardine was too long in the war-fighting tooth to allow anyone to examine his ability. ‘I have no objection to being active, but I will only do what I think is both wise and achievable.’

  ‘And I, monsieur, would only ask you to do what I would also ask of my own comrades.’

  ‘You may be the kind of man who asks too much.’

  ‘I may.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘There is a small armoury at the Capitanía Marítima, the naval headquarters. We need to take the weapons and distribute them, perhaps to your athletes.’

  ‘Defended?’

  ‘Of course, by naval officers and probably cadets, though I doubt there are any sailors, since they, almost to a man, sympathise with us.’

  ‘When do you intend to attack?’

  ‘After I have eaten and after they have eaten,’ he said. ‘To disturb, perhaps, their siesta. You will eat with me and tell me things that perhaps I do not know.’

  ‘I’ve got about fifty athletes waiting to fight and even more, I suspect, wondering how to get home.’

  The Spanish was rapid, and clearly what he issued was a command, received by Florencia with a composure she had never demonstrated to anyone else, Cal Jardine included. Her chest came out and, on a very warm day, lacking a bra, while in a shirt far too big and loose for her, it gave
Laporta, judging by his dropping and reacting eyes, an obvious and entertaining eyeful.

  Cal was both amused and pleased; he hated the idea of being involved with some revolutionary zealot with no human emotions, and it was even more satisfying to observe the Spaniard’s eyes as they followed her swaying hips as she departed.

  ‘I have sent her to tell your men to wait, to say we are making plans and to eat. Come.’

  The place was crowded, but it was a testimony to Laporta’s standing that a table was quickly procured, as was a bottle of wine and oil, salt, garlic and bread, then last, a bowl of superbly ripe tomatoes, which Laporta proceeded to combine and eat, indicating that his companions should do likewise.

  ‘Vince,’ Cal said in English, to a man whose mouth was already full, careful as he did so to smile at Laporta. ‘If he speaks in Spanish to anyone, work out what he’s on about.’

  ‘So, British officer, we have a fight on our hands, how would you suggest we act?’

  ‘Not the way you are carrying on now,’ Cal replied, throwing a less than flattering glance at the continuing and seemingly irresolvable arguments Laporta had left. ‘You need a proper structure of command, preferably one leader.’

  ‘That is not the anarchist way.’

  Cal made no attempt to soften his sarcastic response; what was happening was too serious. ‘That sounds like a good way to get beaten, but if you can’t have one leader and must have several, define the areas of responsibility, defence, recruitment, training, supply. You should have a room in which only those people with responsibility have the right to speak, with maps of your dispositions and accurate intelligence on what your opponents are up to.’

  ‘We have that already.’

  Responding to obvious curiosity, Laporta gave what Cal suspected was a highly edited account of what he knew of the intention of the Spanish army. Basically it came down to their preparations to leave their various barracks, once the General Goded arrived, to take control of the city, spilling as much blood as necessary in the process. There were two cavalry regiments and a light-artillery unit, as well as a battalion of infantry in the main Parque Barracks.

  The Assault Guards were mostly already on the side of the workers, but it was interesting Laporta made no mention of the more important, as well as more numerous, Civil Guard, which indicated they were still an unknown quantity. Dipping his finger in his wine, the Spaniard made a very rough map on the table showing how the various opposition forces were presently disposed.

  ‘If they are coming from separate locations,’ Cal pointed out, ‘it would be wise to so dispose your men to stop them combining, the whole being greater than the sum of its parts. There have to be locations you feel best placed to defend, and if you direct the flow of your enemy to those, you have the advantage. The biggest problem is they are soldiers – they are trained and they have artillery.’

  ‘How little you know of the Spanish metropolitan army, monsieur,’ Laporta replied, with a sympathetic grin.

  ‘I take it you know more.’

  ‘I have made it my duty as a revolutionary to study my enemy, men whom I have already fought against many, many times.’

  ‘Very wise.’

  ‘The soldiers are badly paid and led by either fools or thieves. Their equipment is poor and their training in combat is zero. Many will have rarely fired off their rifles even once. The officers are fools and, worse, they are scum, more likely to sell their men’s rations than distribute them, that is when they are not hiring them out as labourers to anyone who will pay for their work, or using them to tend their own gardens.’

  ‘You talk of the metropolitan army, you do not mention the colonial troops.’

  ‘They are in Morocco and, if they are kept there, not a concern.’

  ‘But if they were brought to the mainland?’ The look answered the question; they would be a handful. ‘A fact, surely, known to the generals who have begun the uprising, some of whom may not be fools.’

  ‘Right now, monsieur,’ Laporta said, standing up, clearly slightly irritated by what he saw as close to an interrogation, ‘my immediate concern is Barcelona. Let Madrid worry about the Army of Africa.’

  Then he was gone, leaving Cal to explain what they had been talking about to Vince.

  ‘What do you know about anarchists?’ When Vince looked surprised at the question, Cal added, ‘I was hoping it was more than me.’

  ‘It’s the big thing here, guv.’

  ‘That I do know. I have my ear bashed by Florencia.’

  ‘Just your ear?’

  ‘Don’t tell me you’ve been idle.’

  ‘They all hate each other,’ Vince responded, not very helpfully and utterly declining to comment about what he had been up to in his leisure time.

  ‘Anarchism sounds like a recipe for chaos to me. No government, no money, just everyone contributing to the common good and taking responsibility for their own actions.’

  ‘The word you’re looking for is “bollocks”.’

  Vince, looking sideways, caught sight of Laporta coming back to the table with two rifles under his arm and used his head to indicate that to Cal. The rifles were laid on the edge of the table, the bullets to load them, plus extra rounds, extracted from the pocket of his leather coat rolled onto the table.

  Cal reached out and picked one up, a Mauser of a fairly old pattern, and here he was at home. This was a business he knew about, like the fact that the weapon was of German design, was made under licence in Spain and was standard issue for their forces. He had shipped some of these to South America.

  Quickly he worked the bolt a couple of times, then nodded. ‘Well maintained.’

  ‘They need to keep them well oiled in case they need to shoot the workers. Come.’

  Both Cal and Vince were on their feet immediately, and by the time they had pocketed the ammo, Laporta was out on the pavement shouting to a group of armed men lounging in the shade of the trees. They rose with no great haste to fall in behind him, which at least allowed the two Brits to get alongside their leader.

  ‘Any idea of numbers?’ Cal asked in French.

  Laporta just shrugged. ‘However many there are, we will kill them.’

  ‘They might surrender.’

  Another shrug and an enigmatic smile, which left Cal wondering what would happen if they gave in. If there was one thing he recalled from South America it was the Spanish propensity for violence and cruelty, an attitude not aided by the nihilism of the indigenous Amerindians. The Chaco War, in which he had first been an arms supplier and then a participant, had shown that mercy was not an Iberian quality.

  That trait was something anyone who read about the conquistadors could not fail to realise. Cal Jardine was not in any way squeamish, but shooting innocents or surrendering soldiers, which he had witnessed too many times in his life, was not an activity in which he wanted to be involved.

  The heat of the city was stifling, the breeze off the Mediterranean so hot it failed to mitigate the temperature of a relentless sun, the only relief coming from staying under the shade of the myriad trees or using the cover of the high buildings. Even in revolt, Barcelona seemed somnolent at this time of day, the hours of the mid afternoon being the time for siesta, which, as Florencia had demonstrated, was not solely for sleeping. More people were awake than normal, but they were still, and on the barricades they circumvented, even the defenders were taking turns to doze out of the sun’s rays.

  There were already worker-fighters outside the Capitanía Marítima, undisciplined and milling around, but by their presence blocking any escape from the naval HQ, and Laporta immediately went to try to get them into some sort of order while his own party took up firing positions. Cal, who was certain he was about to be asked to aid the assault, indicated silently to Vince and they began to reconnoitre a place well known to the locals, but a mystery to them.

  It was a six-storey stone building, classically fronted, not triangular but narrower at the entrance than the back, occ
upying a site on a U-shaped bend in the tree-lined road. There was a large open space to the rear, too exposed to be of any use in an assault and leading, in any case, only to heavy doorways that they had, as far as they knew, no explosives to breach; the front presented a better prospect, if not an easy one.

  The numerous trees allowed for a comprehensive reconnaissance, as well as the chance of getting close, but that only underlined that, possessing dozens of windows, and with a roof topped by a balustrade, the points of any defence were numerous and left no arc of fire uncovered, while whoever controlled the building was keeping his powder very dry. No rifles appeared from any of the windows and no shots were fired to deter the observations that Cal and Vince made as they dodged around from cover to cover.

  Like a lot of local buildings the ground floor windows were barred, and added to that were what looked like stout internal shutters. Even the classical Palladian portico was defensible, being deep and shaded at the base entrance, while above that there was a balcony with thick stone columns, wide enough to hide a shooter, backed by an array of french windows. For observation there was what looked like a high cupola on the roof, probably a water cistern, from which snipers could dominate the further approaches.

  ‘Well, Vince?’ Cal asked finally, as they got back to their start point, looking at the triple-arched front.

  ‘A mortar would be handy for that roof, guv, to keep any buggers up there honest.’

  ‘As would a bit of field artillery to blow in the front doors, which we don’t have either.’

  Looking over to where the main party had gathered, Cal could see they had been joined by a steady stream of other fighters, men and women, a few armed, most not, no doubt the locals who had joined what was already being called the counter-revolution. To both men watching it seemed they were gathering for an assault, finger-pointing mixed with much of the sort of chest-beating folk use to bolster their resolve. Certainly Laporta was haranguing them in what Cal suspected was a bout of revolutionary fervour.