Jack Ludlow - A Broken Land

‘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 Capitania Maritima , 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, occupying 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.