other units can get here to back us up.’
We went in two rows, marching down the pavements of the main street. Then they started shooting from a bakery window. Just two steps in front of me the English guy got hit from behind and he fell to the ground. I saw him leaning up against the wall, his chest bloody, his breath hoarse. He tried to cover the wound with his hand, maybe he was trying to block the blood getting into his throat. He didn’t make it. He died with his eyes open and we launched grenades into the bakery.When it was silent, we went in. It had been a woman shooting at us. Now she was lying dead on the ground, tattooed with shrapnel, the machine gun still in her hands. We found three pilots in the basement, Germans. We shot them there and then and resumed our advance, bullets whistling by our ears. I don’t know how we got to the other end of the town, to the cemetery. We’d lost the Andalusian, the black guy and the Galician. Luigi was wounded on his arm, not badly. It must have been ten in the morning when the planes arrived. They were sweeping the ground with machine-gun fire, like demons, they even hit their own soldiers as they ran. There were six planes, then ten, then six again. Luigi was happy. This was his specialty. He planted his weapon and began shooting. He waited until they drew near and then showered them with fire. He got two; they spiralled and exploded in mid-air.
‘There goes one, and two . . .’ he counted.
‘He knows how to count,’ Sepúlveda whispered to me as we squashed up against a wall.
At one o’clock under a deadly heat, our men took Corbera, but the battle wasn’t over for us. They gave us replacement soldiers and ammo and sent us south toward Gandesa.
‘We’re leaving immediately,’ Mariano announced.
‘Wait,’ argued Sepúlveda.
‘What’s the matter? Are you busy?’
‘I’ll be back in two minutes,’ he said, disappearing around the corner.
I knew what he was up to and so I followed him. There he was, motionless in front of the church steps, his trousers around his ankles. He was relieving himself and muttering curses like an old anarchist. But this time no priest emerged to yell at him and he seemed almost disappointed as he walked back toward me, buttoning up his trousers.
‘Sorry, Lieutenant,’ he said. ‘But I made a promise, a vow.’
We got to Gandesa too late. Our men had already occupied it just before dawn. Good. But our advance had been too quick. There were still troops behind us and those of us at the front – our unit, for example – had to wait for new orders. Exhausted, we rested up for three days in a grove. There were some bombers and a few tussles with scattered groups of Moroccans or Italians, and then one day a communications officer told us to head over to Sierra de Pandols, which Franco’s men had just taken back the day before.
We left right after dawn, at six thirty, and we walked for hours. To fight a war in those days you had to have strong legs. It was hot. Mariano had us drink a lot of water before we left, and then save water during the march. We moved slowly; we didn’t rush, the sun along the way practically made the rocks squeak.
‘What’s the point if we get there too late?’ I asked.
‘It’s better to arrive refreshed,’ answered Mariano. ‘A tired man is a dead man walking.’
‘I’ll write that down,’ I said, falling back. Lucky for me, he grinned.
We passed a battalion climbing up to the front and then we slid into a deep, walled ravine that opened onto ten caverns. It was like a ring of hell, I swear it was, with all those ambulances coming and going. The grottos were full of wounded men, and others were stuffed with corpses. They’d built a mess hall in one grotto down near the bottom. We filled up on hot soup and bread and then set off again. At the far end of the ravine, passing another clearing that was about two hundred metres long, carpeted with dead and wounded soldiers, we saw Sierra de Pandols. It was a tall, heavy-walled fortress, stippled with the scars of bombs and grenades. Up top there was a blockade where the enemy was positioned. At the base of the wall there were a couple of units, ready to attack. And another unit was hidden under the jutting cliffs about halfway up. Everywhere there was the stench of dead bodies left to rot.
It was sheer luck that the mortars didn’t get us as we crossed the plain and started climbing up the left side of the Sierra. Our orders were to get as close as we could to the top, observe the enemy and pass on instructions for the attack. But we stopped about halfway.
‘We can’t get any closer right now,’ said Mariano. ‘We’ll wait for nightfall and then go.’
It was brutal how slowly time passed under that unforgiving sun. There was nothing to drink. And the machine guns would start up in periodic angry bursts. Then our tanks arrived and there were more grenades. One by one our companies joined the formation. But it didn’t make any difference. It was a massacre. We were coming in from the front, out in the open, and they were positioned above us in the hundreds. We’d get close and they’d start shooting. They even shot at the guys trying to get the wounded off the field. Mariano sent Jimmie the Irishman up ahead. There had to be some other route to the top. In fact Jimmie came back in about an hour and told us to come and see.
It was incredible. From where we stood, even higher up, hiding in the shrubs, we could see out over the whole company. It was like an ant farm teaming with Moroccans and the Spanish Foreign Legion. Mariano looked at me and smiled.
‘We’ve got them now,’ he whispered.
I was the one who had to go back down and convince a major and a captain that we’d have to change our strategy that night. And I was right behind Mariano when at around two in the morning we launched our attack with grenades. Directly behind us, hidden, there were two units waiting for our signal. We took a nest of gunners by surprise, and Lech set up his own weapon to cover our descent into the barricade. They ran, shot, and fled in every direction. The Dutchman threw up a green flare and our men got within a few steps of the top. Poor Jan though. He still had the rest of the flare in his hand when the first bullet hit him, but he kept on shooting as if he weren’t feeling any pain, as if he’d never felt that bullet take a piece out of his lungs. He must have screamed when the second bullet got him, but his body didn’t settle down for an instant. He took the third one in the face and fell. He had red mush for a face by the time I got to him. I guess ever since then I’ve been afraid in some way, because it’s hard to erase the image of his face. But how can I explain something like that to you?
When we slowly filed down at dawn, there were only nine of us left: Mariano and me, Luigi, Alfonso, Jacque, Sepúlveda, Lech, Jimmie and the Swiss cook.
‘All things considered, it’s still going well for us,’ muttered Luigi.
‘Why don’t you ask the opinion of the other guys – the ones we left up there?’ answered Alfonso.
They were speaking Italian but Mariano and I could understand them.At least we got that sparks were about to start flying again. They calmed down instantly when a mortar shell landed just a few metres from us, reminding them we hadn’t reached safety yet.
‘Christ,’ they said almost in unison and lowered their heads.
We were heading back to the ravine but we were advancing slowly. The Fascists had figured out it was a camp and were pounding it from the air. The caverns were full of soldiers and we must have been drawing too much fire outside. Mariano ordered us into an overflowing grotto. We stood at the entrance, almost outside, when a downpour of grenades and mortar fell on us. And where do you think the shrapnel got
