Not Just a Soldier’s War

by Betty Burton

  ‘Six years ago almost half of the population was illiterate, we were starved of education.’

  ‘Si. The Republic recognized this hunger for education. We now have schools in even the poorest villages.’

  ‘Si. More schools in a year than in all the years of the monarchy. We know the value of our schools. We shall never let them take our schools. Before women were educated, we were nothing.’

  ‘Si. Nobodies. Whores without pay to our men, even our good husbands. The men, the unions, say we shall have equality. We women say, and so shall we.’

  The older women said, but not in such good English as the younger, educated women, ‘So different. When we were young, we were told everything by the Church.’

  ‘Si. The Church, the King, the big landowners. That was the old Spain.’

  Eve, with her miserly, poverty-stricken schooling wished that her own government could see the extraordinary standard of education here. In peacetime, with money and supplies, such a standard would be an achievement, but these people were doing it now, with the enemy almost at the door.

  She made up her mind that she would stay on to the very last.

  Sixteen

  Early in September, news came from Geneva that the Republican Premier had offered to withdraw the International Brigade under the supervision of League of Nations observers. Pain and relief were equal. Pain at being forced to recognize that this was not just the beginning of the end of the Republic, it was the ending of the end; relief at knowing that if there was now no hope of winning, at least no more young men of the IB would end up in a shallow or communal grave.

  Eve had heard nothing of Ken for a long time. There was little chance that, even if he was in the farewell parade, she would see him. The International Brigade was to be sent off with a great show of affection. Their numbers depleted by hundreds of thousands since its formation, the volunteers marched through the streets of Barcelona to assemble in a huge arena.

  Eve, in the company of some of the Spanish women with whom she shared a room, wanted to see Dolores Ibarruri – La Pasionaria – their great idol. Everyone hoped at some time in their lives to hear La Pasionaria in full flight of inspiration. She wondered whether David might be here. If he was, she did not see him anywhere in the crowd of journalists, photographers and newsreel men. Even so, she would send Sid Anderson her own view of the returning Brigade.

  It was only when she came to put it down on paper that she found that it was about as difficult a piece of writing as she had ever done. She was not up to capturing the mixed emotions of knowing that one is present at a great moment in history. If editors didn’t want it, never mind; she still felt compelled to mark the day.

  Goodbye My Sons

  Today I took part in a small bit of the history of the ordinary decent people of the world. I stood with an aching heart and tears running down my cheeks as these men from all corners of the world left Spain with the cheers of its people ringing in their ears. People who themselves have stood at the barricades, have joined the militia, have, in just the last few days, seen their streets and homes bombed into piles of smouldering rubble.

  This, the International Brigade, of all the armies ever assembled, was the only one ever composed of truly selfless and moral soldiers. None came to Spain for the money – a few pesetas a day worthless outside the country. Nor did they come for the blue skies and the sun – there were times when the sun was the enemy, burning the fair skin of the northern races, drying the water-courses on the battle fields so that tongues swelled and throats barked with thirst. None came for glory – which was not to be had in trench warfare, in deep snow on precipitous mountain passes.

  Many came against the laws of their own countries, others came from countries such as Germany and Italy where their own brothers may well have been conscripted and sent to fight on the side of the fascist Nationalists. They came because when the democracy and freedom of one country is threatened, then the democracy and freedom of the world is in danger.

  My tears were for them, for Spain, for its people and a little for myself, for I had come as the men who were leaving had come, to help a democratic country whose splendid ideal was attacked. It will never be possible to know how many died for the splendid ideal. The terrible truth is that even those countless thousands have not been enough to stop the onward march of the jackboot.

  My later tears sprang from a different emotion. La Pasionaria’s face is a familiar one in the newspapers all over the world. It shows her high forehead, beautiful cheekbones and long, straight nose, perhaps a typical image of a noble Spanish woman. Classical perhaps. No picture did, or ever could have, prepared me for the explosion of emotion when she spoke. Her emotion and mine.

  Hundreds of men who had fought on all the battle-fronts of the civil war stood unashamed of their tears. She said, ‘Goodbye my sons. Come back to us. You have made history. You are a legend.’

  E. V. Anders, Barcelona, October 1938

  When she had finished, she read it through. It was not good; it was too emotional. A journalist is supposed to be able to stand back and be objective. She felt that she would never be able to do so. If she wanted to become a journalist then she would have to learn to be uninvolved. How was that possible? If only she could paint or write music, those were the passionate arts. Words were inadequate, too restricting, they stood there on the page blocking the way. What she wanted was a means of saying: This is what it was like, this was what I felt, this is what I saw. She wanted to write about how important the defence of Spanish democracy had been, but she was aware of attitudes towards women journalists. Politics was for the men.

  Even so, and inadequate as they were, words were all she had. As she checked and corrected, she became aware that she was already thinking of the war in the past tense.

  She would stay on with the Friends International – in some ways the worst might be yet to come. When autumn comes, is winter far behind? Anyone who was in Spain that autumn knew that a bleak winter was now bound to come to Europe. And yet, and yet, somehow what was left of the splendid ideal of the Republic kept on going and going. Barcelona went hungry, under constant bombardment. Many of the beautiful old buildings were reduced to smoking ruins.

  * * *

  The concentration camp of St Cyprien, in which David Hatton found himself, was near Perpignan in France. It was a stretch of sandy desert surrounded by impregnable barbed wire.

  Had he not seen it for himself, he would never have believed in the callous indifference of the hundreds of armed guards towards the men, women and children refugees and soldiers who poured into France. He wished that he had not been forced to get rid of his equipment. The experiences he had undergone on the way here and now inside the camp he would never forget, but he wanted to record the appalling suffering on film and shove it in the faces of the Pontius Pilates of his own government.

  The camp at St Cyprien was the underbelly… no, it was the arse of France.

  He was weary and hungry, but this did not stop his anger from bursting out. He remonstrated with an armed guard who, with the butt of his rifle, had clouted a man who had tried to get outside to post a letter. For his interference David Hatton received a prod with a bayonet. The wound festered and swelled and throbbed, but his unwashed wound was minor compared with those of the many other unattended casualties.

  Fifteen to twenty thousand refugees were supplied with water from a single spring, and they were without food for five days. No one would explain why nurses were not allowed to tend the wounded, and they were left for six days. More and more refugees seemed to come, but none ever seemed to leave. Some must have, for from time to time there were little flurries of people gathering, forming anxious lines, stretching their necks to see what was at the head of the queue.

  Ken Wilmott had arrived in the camp a couple of days before David Hatton and, having spent two years frequently living in conditions far worse than those in St Cyprien, and being still fairly fit in spite of his time in the milit
ary prison, he walked round as much of the camp as he could, looking for familiar faces. In spite of the dire conditions, he was so glad to find himself alive, that he didn’t grouse.

  He came upon a black American from the Abraham Lincoln Brigade, Enro Peters, who had been in officer training at the same time. Like Ken, he was a poor boy who had risen from the ranks to officer class. It could happen in Spain, where ability counted for more than class or race; it could be done, and they and hundreds more had done it. They each understood the other’s pride in his success. Now they greeted one another with emotion, and set off together reconnoitring as any two hardened soldiers would.

  It was the American who saw David Hatton first. ‘Say, I know that guy. He’s English, but he ain’t no soldier. He’s the guy who done good pictures of my company in action.’ He called, ‘Hey!’

  ‘What’s up with the arm?’ Ken asked.

  David said grimly, ‘You’ve heard of war-wounds – well, this is a fucking peace-wound. I got it from a non-interventionist guard.’

  ‘Sit down and I’ll clean it up for you.’

  From a capacious pocket, Enro Peters produced a hussif-roll that contained small items intended for first aid and began cleaning the wound. He smiled, ‘Ain’t had no chance to use this till now, seemed such a shame to break it open seein’ how pretty it was and all. When I said I was going away to fight some bad folk my little niece, Selma, stitched this with her own hands, and went to the store and got stuff with her own money. See, she even stitched on a little red cross.’

  ‘It won’t be too long before you’re back there again,’ Ken said. ‘Well, yeah… I guess. That feel better? This stuff’s called Tiger Balm, never used nothing else in my family. Sure-fire cure-all.’

  ‘It feels better all ready – quite soothed.’

  The three men had hunkered down while the wound was dressed, so they stayed there, there being little point in going further now that they had made contact with each other.

  They stayed together for another two days waiting to be told something. The two brigaders exchanged information about their different battles, while David was hanging on to their stories trying to fix their words in his memory, hoping that one day he would write a book. Although over the past twenty-four hours they had all tested the water, it was Enro Peters who took the plunge: ‘Our comrades are still fighting their asses off over there, while we’re sittin’ around telling war stories. It seems a dam’ waste of two trained men who hoist theirselves up by their boot-laces to get to be trained officers.’

  ‘I just want to get out of here and see if the Spanish army will have me,’ David Hatton said.

  The other two looked at him; he was the bloke with the camera. ‘OK, maybe I won’t make much of a rifleman or whatever, but I’ve had it up to here. I say, fuck trying to tell people that if you show them what a mad dog can do, they’ll do something about putting it down. I say, fuck that and give me a rifle.’

  Enro Peters made what was, for him, a long speech. ‘I guess that’s how it’s goin’ to be back home if my people don’t get the same rights as white folk does. We got mad dogs there too, comes out hiding theirselves under bed-sheets and sets fire to homes of anybody steps out of line. But I don’t know… is gunning them down the way? Maybe I’m going opposite direction to David here, maybe I’m thinking of more peaceful ways. Don’t want to see fighting on the streets like it’s been in Spain, but if decency don’t break out in the white population back home, then…’ He paused. The other two sat silently; Enro’s experience of Them and Us was something they had never encountered.

  He went on, ‘I been out here long time. The Abr’am Lincoln Brigade, no black ’n’ white there. First time in my life I been with white men and haven’t been a nigger. It’s just ordinary respect for another human being, nothing big, just fit and proper. How it ought to be.’

  ‘It’s how it will be,’ Ken said. ‘Has to be. If nothing else comes out of this bloody war, it’s shown that, given half a chance, an ordinary bloke can do as well as a university-educated one like Dave. And as you say, a negro as well as a white man.’

  David Hatton nodded. He felt out of this. Even though he had seen what was wrong and had joined the socialists to try to change things, his experience was not theirs; he had always been at the top of the pile, but he wanted them to know that even if he was not of them, he was with them. ‘Given half a chance is what you’d never have got in the British army.’

  ‘Fat lot of good it’s doing me sitting around here scratting for the odd bit of bread, waiting for some arrogant Frog to tell me when I can go home.’

  Enro Peters smacked his palms together. ‘OK! What we go’n to do. Break out?’

  ‘Have you been back there beyond the latrines?’

  David Hatton shook his head. ‘I never felt compelled to explore.’

  ‘You should. Looked to me as if the constructors thought so too. The barbed wire just fades away in places. You can see what’s happened. Lorry drivers who had to come in and out couldn’t be bothered replacing it properly, so in places there are gaps where it must have been shoved together and it’s now sprung apart.’

  ‘Why’nt you say so before, Ken?’

  ‘Wasn’t too sure you blokes would want to risk it. I had to be sure, I don’t reckon it’s a thing to try on your own.’

  ‘OK, and then what do we do?’ the American asked. ‘It’s one-way traffic, and we’re kind of short of cash and papers.’

  ‘It’s been done plenty of times over the mountains,’ Ken said.

  ‘I’ve done it, twice,’ David said. ‘Once each way. I wanted pictures, but the enemy hold everything on the other side of the Pyrenees.’

  The two soldiers smiled. Ken Wilmott said, ‘He wanted pictures!’

  ‘You two keep straight faces or the guards are going to take an interest and want to know what’s the good news.’

  ‘So what is the good news?’

  ‘I know this part well enough. Once we’re out of the camp, if we keep clear of St Cyprien itself, we go south to Argeles – I know people there – if we can’t get a boat going to Barcelona from there, then we’ll carry on down to Banyuis, where we are certain to be able to get somebody to take us.’

  ‘Yeah, it sounds good, but can you trust these people? Those guys who stuck your arm ain’t goin’ to just kick our asses if we’re caught on the loose in France. They’re mean enough to hand us over to the Nationalists.’

  ‘My contacts in Argeles, they’re good comrades.’

  ‘But are they good enough, Dave?’

  ‘Trust me, Captain, they are better than just good enough. I’d trust them with my life.’

  ‘You sure as hell are goin’ to have to.’

  David said, ‘The difficult part is getting out of here.’

  ‘No problem,’ Ken said. ‘We join the latrine detail, trundle some buckets down there, and we’re away.’

  ‘If it’s that easy, why isn’t there a stream of people leaving?’

  Ken laughed in spite of himself. ‘Why? How many silly buggers do you think there are in twenty thousand?’

  Enro sucked his teeth, trying to mask his need to smile. ‘By my reckoning, there should be at least three.’

  * * *

  They entered Barcelona in what had once been a rather splendid yacht, but was now quite run down. David Hatton’s ‘contacts’, as he called them, kitted them out in warm clothing with money in the pockets. It had all gone as Hatton had said it would. Ken wondered how this chap had come to know his sister, but the truth was, he didn’t really want to know. He had seen enough of David Hatton by now to know that there was something reckless about him, something that went against the grain of his class and style. He had met blokes in the brigade who had been to Eton and university, and they were good blokes, really committed to the cause, but Dave Hatton? He was deeper than he made out.

  Their plan was to enrol in the Republican army, two ex-brigade officers would be welcome. David Hatton said
, ‘Gocl knows if I’ll be any use, but somebody has to dig the trenches.’

  * * *

  Eve, now part nursing aid, part kitchen-maid, and part driver, was skilled at getting food on the black market. She was seated in a roomful of little children. As always, it had taken a long time to settle them after hearing the air-raid warning. It always sent them into paroxysms of terror, and they would leap up and cling to the nearest adult. Eve had shepherded seventeen stricken children down to the basement and brought them back to the nursery where the toddlers slept and were fed. She was nursing a little girl who weighed about the same as a young baby, but who was probably about Bonnie’s age. Where her leg muscles would have been were ulcerated sores that were just beginning to heal. Margarita, a trained nurse, and Concha, a soldier’s young widow, watched as Eve spooned a vitamin mixture into the child’s mouth.

  ‘She took all the baby food, see, and now she is taking the vitamins.’ Margarita smiled warmly as she watched Eve concentrating on the baby. ‘Eve make very good wife, eh, Concha?’

  ‘Me?’ Eve laughed. ‘Not on your life, Margarita.’

  ‘Is different now. Womans is more equal with mans.’

  Eve frowned. She had seen the equality they all talked about and the women cherished, but in all her time here she had still only come across one female Spanish doctor, and no English ones at all. ‘Don’t count on catching them up, Concha. In the human race, we run with a handicap.’ Concha was puzzled. Eve looked down at the little girl. ‘You think she can be premier?’