The Guardian of Secrets: And Her Deathly Pact (49 page)

Pedro and his squad hesitated. Pedro looked down the line of men and into their eyes. One of them looked back at him with confusion and disbelief. Tears converged on the beads of sweat running in rivers down his cheeks, and he shook his head continuously. “God, no, no,” the young soldier kept repeating.

Pedro marched over to him and told him to get a grip of himself. Instead, the man, not much more than eighteen years old himself, laughed uncontrollably and turned his rifle around and shot himself in the throat. His blood and flesh covered Pedro’s face and chest as he stood stupidly, looking down at the dead body with its head ripped open.

Pedro wiped the soldier’s blood from his face and walked over to the Moor in charge. He was breathing heavily and felt faint with heat and shock. He shook his head, trying to clear it, and suddenly anger replaced his self-pity. He grabbed the Moor by the collar, forcing him away from the courtyard area. When they were out of sight of his soldiers and the other Moors, Pedro put the man against a wall and pointed his gun at his head.

“Understand this: I will not kill innocent children, nor will my men.”

“But I have orders. You have orders,” the Moor said without emotion.

Pedro looked into the man’s eyes and saw a mirror image of self-disgust; the Moor didn’t want this to happen any more than he did.

“What’s your name?” Pedro asked him.

“Farid Achour, sir.”

“Farid, listen to me. This is what’s going to happen. We are going to take these children to the edge of town, and we’re going to leave them there alive. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

The Moor nodded and then wiped the perspiration from his face. “I will be in big trouble, sir. I cannot disobey an order. I will go to hell.”

Pedro laughed and then leaned in closer until his mouth was on the Moor’s ear. “Not if you don’t tell. Farid, are you going to tell?”

“No, sir.”

“Then do it. God will reward you for your merciful act. Do it now.”

That night, Pedro huddled in a corner of the camp and watched the cooking fires light up the night sky. He didn’t want to speak to anyone or hear what anyone had to say. He hated them all. He hated himself. He couldn’t sleep, and his mind juggled an assortment of bloody images too strong to blot out and too deeply imprinted ever to forget. He was sure that atrocities were also being committed on the republican side, but he hadn’t seen them and they were not the aggressors; his side were. His family had told him where he’d come from and who he was, but he wasn’t sure of anything anymore; he barely knew himself. He had to choose a path now, he decided. His conscience and his destiny were his responsibility, no one else’s. He hated what he was doing and, more importantly, why he was doing it. He was a soldier in the Spanish army, not an assassin or a mercenary without a cause. He believed in the constitutional government, the rights of the lower classes, and a democratic society, not in killing innocents and babies. He didn’t belong there. He wasn’t ready to give up his beliefs just because he had to follow orders. This was not
his
army! He was in the army of the Spanish republic, and to them he would return.

Chapter 48

M
iguel was ecstatic at the news that the long-awaited civil war had actually started and that now the real fight would begin. He had been following the triumphs of Franco and Queipo De Llano in the South and the overwhelming rebel nationalist successes in the Catholic heartlands and Pamplona. Lately, he’d also been involved in small raids, assassinations mostly, from his central base in Valladolid.

On the night of 19 July, he left for Madrid. His objective was to reach the Montaña barracks before dawn to aid General Joaquín Fanjul in his bid to start the rising in the capital. He also had a message from the Phalanx high command, and he’d been told repeatedly not to give it to anyone but the general himself. He arrived just before five in the morning. The city still slept, and he had no trouble getting inside the barracks where the rebel troops had already congregated, awaiting orders.

The next morning, an unexpected onslaught began. They had been waiting for some kind of altercation or assault, but what met their eyes was completely different to what they had envisaged. Citizens of Madrid, including women, surrounded the barracks. They had barely enough arms between them: an assortment of knives and shovels, a few guns, sticks, and small rocks. Inside, Miguel and the other rebels opened fire with rifle shots and machine guns. Outside, at the corner of the plaza, assault guards loyal to the republic loaded their own rifles in the shelter of walls, trees, and park benches. A multitude of people crouched unarmed, looking up at the sky, awaiting the arrival of a loyalist plane from the nearby airfield of Cuatro Vientos, a base that had repelled the rebels the day before.

Miguel fired indiscriminately into the crowds, but he knew they were outnumbered, and for a brief moment, his arrogance was replaced by fear. He hadn’t been afraid before, had never even wondered what it would feel like. But now, crouching down and trembling uncontrollably, he wondered if he’d ever live to see his family again. He thought about his home, something he rarely did, and about the last night he’d spent there.

Miguel crouched lower beneath the window ledge on the ground floor and craned his neck to look up at the sky. He saw nothing but heard the noise of a low-flying aeroplane hovering above the building; all thoughts of home and family disappeared as quickly as they’d come. The whistling squeal of a bomb grew louder and louder, so loud that Miguel had to cover his ears. It dropped from the sky, hitting its target with perfect precision, crashing through the roof of the building and exploding on impact.

Noise, smoke, and dust filled the air, making it impossible to see anything. Miguel’s ears rang, blocking out the cheering republican masses at the walls of the garrison and the screams of injured comrades inside with him. Half of the roof had collapsed. Choking on the thick mist of dust, he gripped his rifle to his chest. He crawled on his belly towards the more sheltered area of the inner building of the barracks, and as the fog lifted, he saw the carnage for the first time. Broken and ripped bodies lay on the ground, now a deep red bloody carpet. Some of the survivors were tying white handkerchiefs to the ends of their rifles, and Miguel did the same.

“We have to surrender!” one soldier shouted.

“Restart machine gun fire!” General Fanjul shouted, running to each man in turn and repeating the order.

The general had been injured. His left ear hung comically on the side of his head, and Miguel had an overwhelming urge to laugh.

“I said reload, you bastards!” the general continued to shout.

Miguel picked his gun up and grimaced. He’d been hit too, shrapnel, he guessed. His arm spat blood from underneath his shirtsleeve, and he tied a white handkerchief around the spot that sported a gaping hole. Blood still poured from the wound, but he had no time to think about it further.

“God help us!” a Phalanx man shouted. “They’re coming!”

Many of the soldiers inside the building wanted to surrender, but the fear of being captured or killed far outweighed the notion of being shot by one of their own officers. Miguel could see the jubilant crowds storming the barracks from his position behind a broken window on the ground floor, and he fired his own weapon several times more until he had no ammunition left.

Outside, there were so many bodies of men and women on the ground that he couldn’t count them all. The assault guards and the masses still advanced on their position. Miguel looked over at a friend who’d come with him from Valladolid.

“This is it. We’re dead,” Miguel whispered matter-of-factly, and his friend nodded in agreement.

General Fanjul continued to give the order to fire until abruptly his voice was silenced and he fell lifeless to the ground. At that moment, Miguel knew that the enemy was inside.

The noise was deafening as assault guards and civilians alike shot at everything that moved. They fired their pistols at the thick brick walls, and bullets ricocheted around the room, shattering the remaining glass in the windows and hitting some of the dead men on the floor. Miguel ripped the white handkerchief off his arm and allowed the blood to flow freely. Then he crawled under the body of a fallen comrade and, between half-closed eyelids, watched as the hordes savagely slaughtered the surviving rebels and Phalanx with knives, shovels, and gun butts. The remaining officers suffered the same fate after they’d watched the others die first, and some screamed, while others gave their last fascist salute. Miguel only heard rather than saw what went on after that. His body was still covered by a dead man whose blood ran into his own hair and eyes. He lay as still as possible, knowing that should he be found alive, he’d be killed, just like the others. The victors were laughing and joking, and bodies were being lifted and unceremoniously dumped onto trucks at the entrance of the barracks. It was only a matter of time, Miguel thought, before they got to him, and he accepted his fate with resignation.

The body on top of him was lifted. Miguel remained deathly still, holding his breath, and thought that it was now or never. He let his bloodied body grow limp. He felt invisible hands grab his feet and arms; he was being lifted off the ground. The men carrying him were talking about the party they were going to have that night and didn’t seem to be paying him much attention. His newly found will to survive helped him to continue to hold his breathing in check and to relax every muscle in his body. His eyes were closed and caked in blood, but the sunlight penetrated his eyelids. He was outside. He landed with a thump on top of the mangled flesh and bones of other bodies and presumed that he was now on the truck. Another body fell on top of him… and then another. He exhaled, but it was getting darker and darker. The weight of the bodies made it almost impossible for him to start breathing normally again, but still he didn’t move a muscle. He lay awkwardly beneath the remains of what had been his friends and officers for what seemed like hours. The truck he was on bumped along uneven roads, and the heavy weight on top of him becoming unbearable. He could only manage to take short, sharp breaths.

After a while, Miguel lost all consciousness, but only for a few moments. Then, in his drowsy state, he felt himself being lifted once again. He floated on air for just a second, and then landed awkwardly on top of what he could only imagine were other bodies. He was still blind, still unable to open his eyes, but he felt once again the weight of every arm, leg, head, and torso that came after him, covering him with sickening accuracy. The pain was excruciating now, and he almost cried out. A booted foot from somewhere had broken his nose, but he couldn’t let the enemy know he was still alive. More bodies followed, landing on top of him, until his lungs almost ceased to function. He finally opened his eyes to the darkness and heard a muffled voice.

“We’ll cover them tonight. It’ll be cooler then.”

He stopped breathing, stifling wretched sobs rising from deep in his stomach. He was in a grave; he was going to die!

After the shock had worn off, Miguel began to breathe again in short, shallow gulps of air and attempted to concentrate on what to do next. Should he get up? he wondered. Should he try to get out from under the bodies? Were there still guards around? Would he suffocate? He didn’t know the answers to any of these questions. He was confused and had lost consciousness four or five times. Muffled voices that sounded far away could still be heard talking and laughing, but he decided that if he were to have any hope of survival, he would have to make a move.

Slowly and painfully, he began to dislodge body after body to worm his way to the top of the pile. Coupled with the glaring light beyond, the darkness confused his eyes, and the heat of the sun on his face made him aware that he was shivering with a coldness that comes with shock.

He was almost at the top now and could see through the broken limbs that guarded his body’s secret. He breathed deeply, drinking in the air. Then, very cautiously, he looked around him. He was in a field surrounded by trees. There were republican assault guards behind the treeline, about two hundred metres in front of his position. They were still laughing, but they were farther away than he’d first thought. He craned his neck like a goose and scanned every point on the horizon. There was a river behind him, winding its way like a snake across the countryside. To the left was a narrow dirt road; the trucks were parked there, facing north. If he could just get to the river, he thought, he might be able to swim safely to the other side and hide there until nightfall. The landscape was reasonably flat and was covered in pampas grass, which confirmed that the river close by was his best option.

He looked again at the tree-line and saw that only two or three Republican guards remained; they were the burial party. If he waited any longer, he would be waiting for death, and he wasn’t prepared to die just yet. He studied the movements of the enemy soldiers for a minute or so and then slowly began to crawl on his elbows and stomach across the top layer of bodies. The grave was shallow; and he was able to pull himself into the tall rushes that surrounded it without having to change his body’s position. He turned and looked once more into the faces of his Phalanx brothers, squeezing his eyelids closed in a quick, silent prayer.

Tears blinded him as he crawled through the rushes and cacti until he came to the edge of the embankment that sloped down to the water’s edge. He slithered into the murky water like a sea snake and swam underneath the surface until the pain in his arm became so bad that he couldn’t use it anymore. He floated on his back and stared up at the sky. The tide was with him, and he eventually reached the shore on the other side. He found a spot of ground that was covered by long grass and rocks and, without the strength to move farther, curled his body into a tight ball and let the darkness take him.

He awoke with a start just as dusk fell, and he watched the sun go down behind the distant mountains. They reminded him of Valencia. Tears fell in a jumble of strange, alien emotions. He had survived… Why? How? As he lay there, the sudden realisation hit him hard: war was not the noble or glorious adventure that he’d imagined it to be. War was not the one-sided battle where he and his kind would emerge unharmed and unaffected by death. Death was real and would come to both sides. Skin would bleed, bones would break, and enemies would suffer in equal terms. This was reality, and he was no longer a terrorist. He was a soldier fighting for his life against an enemy that now deserved respect in battle…