Читать книгу The Angel Of History - Bruno Arpaia - Страница 11

Chapter Four

You think it was easy to tell Mariano to his face that fighting was useless, that we had to get out before it was too late? Courage was what we needed back then. But lucky for us, he gave in just a couple of days later. German planes had downed a submarine and a destroyer in the port of Musel. They’d burned our stock houses. Gijón at night was like a scene from hell and it kept burning through the day. Our company abandoned the bridge we were defending and scattered: our front line had been eliminated. There we were, the two of us, at three in the afternoon, walking down the road that ran from Pedroso to Contriz. It wasn’t as if Mariano would ever admit that I’d been right. When he saw a car approaching, he abruptly said, ‘We’ll requisition that car, get to Gijón and head out from there.’

We didn’t really want to take the car, but we had to get out. The Musel wharf was in shambles, an obstacle course of shrapnel.You couldn’t tell who was in command in that stampede. People weren’t carrying permits; no one wore their stripes on their shoulders. Everyone – gunners, drivers, police and asaltos – was fighting to be the first on board a ship. But the few ships that were still seaworthy were already crowded with women and children. And the people on board were doing everything they could to keep anyone else off – otherwise they’d sink under all that excess weight.

I didn’t even have time to say goodbye to my brothers Marcial and Libertad. We drove right to the wharf, climbed out of the car and headed for an old fishing boat that must have been held together with spit. Three armed soldiers blocked our path.

‘You have to stop here, comrades.’

The boy pointing his rifle at my chest and staring me down was younger than me. I grabbed the barrel with my left hand and planted my 9-millimetre Star sub-machine gun into his gut and screamed, ‘I’ll blow you to bits!’

But as soon as we got on board, we joined the others keeping people off. The fact is there were hundreds of us crammed onto that boat, and not even a miracle would have made room for more. I closed my eyes. I couldn’t take it. I’d been on the battleground just a few hours before. I couldn’t count how many days it had been since I’d slept . . . or eaten. I heard some people in the distance agreeing to get off the boat as if in a dream, and then someone else said something about there being no more coal left. Then I realised that the boat was actually pulling away from the dock. Mariano was snoring next to me. Lucky him. He didn’t seem to mind the sweat, the stench, all those bodies packed in like cigarettes in an unopened pack, the weeping women who’d left their children behind. The sea was calm enough, fortunately, but then just a few miles out we ran smack into the Cervera. It was dark already and the boat circled ours, shining lights at us, and then suddenly their cannons fired, falling in the water not a hundred metres away. That was when Mariano woke up. ‘What the hell?’ he said. All around us people were vomiting, trying to eat their identification papers, trying to get the captain to gun the engine, while other people were screaming for him to stop.

The Cervera came closer and a voice called out ‘Who are you?’ The guy at the command kept cool. ‘Women and children,’ he answered. Someone shone a flashlight into the stern and we flattened ourselves against the deck as best we could. The light circled and then went away.

I could hear the order. ‘Head towards El Ferrol – we’ll follow you in.’

We all started breathing again. The motor rumbled back to life, the night was dark, the wind rushed against the portholes. The Cervera kept close behind us.After two hours, they communicated that we should change our course and that another ship would take us into port. They turned and disappeared – out on the hunt for more important prey. Once they left we didn’t know what to do. We argued about it. Some people wanted to follow the orders and others wanted to head north to France. We didn’t have any food and the Cervera had sequestered our water supply to keep us from escaping.

‘How long does it take to get to France?’ I asked.

‘Three days.’

‘Is there fishing equipment aboard?’

‘Do you see any? This old tub has been retired for more years than I can remember. There’s no equipment at all left on her.’

Mariano, who hadn’t said a word up to this point, suddenly tried to stand up, his rifle in his hand, but his head crashed into the ceiling. No one laughed. He dug his fingers into his hair and stared at the commander.

‘That’s enough talk,’ he said. ‘We’ll head to Bordeaux.Anyone who has a problem with that should tell me now.’

They fell as silent as carpets, every last one of them, except for the babies who never stopped whimpering.And so we headed north, tired, stupid, racked with hunger. There wasn’t even the shadow of the other ship. It was just sea, then sea, then more sea. Night-time came, dawn, and then daylight brought the wind, lifting the foamy waves high.

‘When will we get there?’

The captain didn’t answer. He looked up at the horizon. He was almost ready to collapse from thirst and hunger just like everyone else. Even the babies had stopped screaming. The coal started running low on the fourth day and the sea grew angry, the waves mounted. One man went crazy. He grabbed a pistol and started shooting. He wounded two people before someone shot him. And do you know what we did after that? I still get shivers thinking about it.We threw him onto the fire as a substitute for coal. Rest in peace. Thanks to him, though, we saw the coast of Lorient the next day. I think we all had this idea that we’d get a hero’s welcome in France. They had a Popular Front government, right? But I already knew what we were in for – history. They treated us like enemies. As if all we were worth was the crust of bread they gave us before they loaded us onto trucks and sent us right back to Spain. Get out from under our feet. So that’s how Mariano and I found ourselves in Barcelona. It was December . . . no; it was the end of November 1937 when we stepped out onto the Ramblas.

‘All right,’ said Mariano, wiping his hands. ‘So we start over.’