With the edge of the wood now ablaze and forming an impenetrable barrier, it was a peaceful withdrawal, for not even the most rabid militia fighter thought they could hold what they had taken. If their enemy did not advance as soon as the fire died down they would move to left or right to take them in flank. The real question was could they hold their original position?
What saved them was not their bravery but the arrival of what Alverson had predicted was needed. Unbeknown to those in the Casa de Campo, as they had been fighting the first troops of the International Brigades had come into the city, marching in disciplined columns up the wide boulevards to the cheers and tears of the populace. They did not stop; one brigade headed for the University area, the other straight for the Segovia Bridge and the Casa de Campo.
They heard the clumping boots first as they crept back to their start point, and that induced a frisson of fear; marching boots meant soldiers and that meant Nationalists. But the singing of the communist anthem, ‘The Internationale’, soon laid that to rest and, with a swaggering fellow at their head, in a cap with his communist red badge very evident, they passed four abreast, staring straight ahead, through the muddled crowd of anarchist fighters. They then began to deploy for battle.
The man at their head, later identified as Manfred Stern, alias General Kléber, stood to one side and began to shout orders to the militias to disperse, to go home and rest. That was when it finally came home to them that these brigades had come to their rescue, and rescue it was, because there was no doubt a Nationalist counter-attack was in preparation, and it was one they could not have withstood.
With Florencia between them in a state of near collapse, Cal Jardine and Tyler Alverson took her back to the hotel, where her lover got her up to their room, took off her filthy clothes, ran her a deep hot bath and lowered her in, then gently washed her body and hair. Having left her to soak for only a minute, he re-entered the bathroom to find her sound asleep, her blonde hair streaming out in the bathwater like the Burne-Jones painting of Ophelia.
Lifting her out was difficult, but when he had, Cal wrapped her in a towel and put her to bed.
The brigades had looked impressive, with their uniform dress and sloped arms, but it took little time to show that they were far from properly trained and nothing demonstrated that more than their losses. Knowing Florencia would sleep for an age, Cal went out to see if any of his boys were present in the other units, knowing he had not seen them at the Segovia Bridge.
He made his way to the University area, where he expected to find fierce fighting, and he found plenty. He also came, at a crawl, across Ernest Hemingway, well forward, right in the thick of a fierce firefight and too close for a non-combatant.
All he got was a nod of recognition and the American’s attention went back to the battle before him; what Cal did not find was any of the Olympiad athletes, the men fighting being Italian communists, part of what was called, he discovered from those at the rear, the Centuria Gastone after their leader.
From what he could observe, the Centuria was attacking without much tactical nous; it was all frontal and fast up against a stout and well-organised defence made up, he suspected, of the hard elements of the Spanish Foreign Legion – odd that it should be non-Spaniards on both sides. Once back out of the fighting zone he noted the number of men being fetched back either as corpses or seriously wounded, and he also ran once more into Hemingway, he likewise observing the numbers.
‘They’re brave enough,’ Hemingway said, as if he was damning with faint praise.
‘They’re taking casualties to no purpose.’
‘Happens in a shooting war, friend.’
‘The first people I would shoot are their commanders.’
That got a wry smile and a question. ‘You figure you could do better?’
‘They’re not trained to the requisite standard for such an assault, anyone can see that, and you do not send forward men like that. You form them into a defence and get them to hold ground.’
‘So how do you win a battle?’
‘Attrition and on-the-job instruction in field tactics, not that those who command them seem to know how.’
‘You a soldier, Mr Thomas?’
There was a moment when Cal wondered who he was talking to, until he recalled that was how Alverson had introduced him. ‘I was once.’
‘That does not surprise me.’
‘Why?’
‘You look like one, that’s why.’ Hemingway was staring, but not in an unfriendly way; in fact it was as if he was amused. ‘So tell me where you soldiered?’
‘Maybe over that drink,’ Cal said, stalling, for no good reason he could think of; it just seemed right, or maybe it was habit.
In streets of some fairly smart apartment blocks, obviously the homes of well-heeled madrileños, they heard the sounds of echoed commotion, this explained as a small knot of black-clad men emerged from a doorway, dragging in their midst a struggling middle-aged fellow, clearly being arrested. Something he was seeing for the first time made it remarkable, but not so much as what followed next.
Out of the same doorway came Manfred Drecker, as usual smoking one of his long Russian cigarettes in between the wrong fingers, hand held aloft and full of that arrogance and righteousness that Cal recalled so well, while it was obvious, as he glanced in their direction, he immediately recognised him – not hard, he was dressed as Drecker had seen him last – the face screwing up with what looked like rage.
Cal rated that as a bit of an overreaction but he automatically put his hand to his pistol holster and the German’s eyes followed it – Drecker would not know it was empty – a move also noticed by Hemingway.
‘Friend of yours?’
‘Bosom pal.’
The middle-aged captive had been set against the wall of the apartment block and was clearly pleading for mercy, not that it seemed to affect the men who had put him there; they merely stood back and unslung their rifles, shifting the bolts to put a bullet in the chamber.
‘What’s going on?’ Cal yelled in German, which had everyone looking at him, not just Drecker.
‘My, you are full of surprises,’ Hemingway said laconically.
‘What business is it of yours, Jardine?’ Drecker demanded.
Aware that the American’s thick black eyebrows had gone up in surprise, Cal ignored that and concentrated on what was obviously taking place in front of them, the clear prelude to an execution. Fighting to keep any anger out of his voice – Drecker was a dangerous man – he said slowly, again in German, ‘This gentleman with me is an important American journalist. I do not think it will aid our cause for him to see what it is you are planning to carry out.’
‘This man is a traitor, a class enemy and a fifth columnist.’
‘Comrade Drecker, there is no such thing, it is a figment of General Mola’s imagination.’
The use of the word ‘comrade’ caused Drecker some surprise; Cal had rarely been so polite in the past, but it was necessary to save the life of what could well be an innocent man, now sobbing and on his knees. And even if he was not innocent, the poor fellow was entitled to a trial, but it did not soften Drecker up as he had hoped.
‘Then perhaps it is time the Americans, with their soft livers, saw what the revolution does with its traitors.’
‘We are not the revolution, comrade, we are the legitimate government of Spain. Those in revolt are the people we are fighting.’