Not Just a Soldier’s War Page 3

  ‘I can’t keep it. He believes in it.’

  ‘Don’t… he must want you to have it.’

  She didn’t like the idea of the boy going off to fight without his grandmother’s charm.

  * * *

  She had reached Albacete at last.

  Albacete is an ancient garrison town where General Franco was born, and in which he had succeeded in establishing power until he was overthrown by an uprising of local people. In spite of Albacete’s fervently Republican spirit, there were still small enclaves of that other spirit in hiding, still believing in the Generalissimo as a Christian Nationalist, and not as a friend of the fascist countries. Still in the city, little pockets of his followers spread rumours and half-tmths and truths about communist atrocities, anarchist desecrations and military command from Moscow. Spying, sniping from windows, the Albacete fascists had not given up.

  Le Bon, no longer making notes, followed the street-plan. ‘Will you just look at this place. Looks as though the streets haven’t been swept for months.’

  True, the streets were a mess, and roughly painted slogans and posters seemed to cover every bit of wall space. But it was of little consequence to Eve. She had made it! From home to London to Paris to Perpignan to Barcelona and now at last Albacete. As she watched Le Bon, the last of her passengers, alight she experienced a sense of achievement. She had driven a big, heavy lorry with passengers and supplies, on roads that were strange to her, and arrived in Albacete in one piece. If she impressed no one else, she impressed herself.

  The section of the transport depot to which she was to deliver her Aid to Spain gift truck was in the charge of a woman called Mrs Alexander. In another life, she might have appeared on the inside cover of Country Life magazine wearing a white dress and gardenias. In the depot, where Eve found her, she wore brown corduroy trousers, a man’s shirt and tennis shoes. Her accent would have suited the BBC beautifully, but her drooping fag and raised oil-can were something else. Eve, with her tendency to make snap judgements, did not take to her. It was the accent which grated.

  ‘Oh, you’re the driver. Marvellous! Can we do with you.’ She went to shake hands (‘Christ, what a mess!’), and wiped her palm on her behind. ‘Helan, with an “a” not an “e”, Alexander. People call me Alex,’ she said, removing her cigarette carefully with greasy thumb and fingertips.

  ‘Eve Anders.’

  ‘OK, Anders, any problems getting here?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I gather you brought down one of our favourite doctors – François Le Bon.’

  ‘A doctor? He said he wrote for his local paper.’

  ‘Maybe he does, he’s out here with a field unit. I believe that in Canada he’s known best for the neat way he amputates. A specialist. Isn’t wasted out here.’

  All those hours spent together on the drive down yet, even in their moment of sharpness about what she did back home, he hadn’t given a clue about what he really did himself.

  ‘Beauties, aren’t they?’ Alexander patted the olive-coloured truck whose engine she had been tinkering with. ‘Straight off the production line. Best of British engineering. Ever driven a Bedford?’

  ‘No, but I wouldn’t mind the chance.’

  ‘Ha! The chaps wouldn’t care for that.’ She lovingly rubbed the headlamp glass with a clean rag.

  ‘The roads I came on were very good. I didn’t know what to expect. I would have guessed bad if anyone had asked me.’

  ‘Doesn’t do to pre-judge anything in this country. The main road and rail systems are mostly good, one of the great achievements of this government. Different in the remoter regions; mountain tracks are absolute hellers.’

  She didn’t smile much. Eve’s first impression was that she might not be an easy person to work with, probably used to giving orders.

  ‘Look inside. Hospitals on wheels. Aren’t they super? A real bloody shame about the mud and blood. Will you be all right about that?’

  ‘I shan’t know until I’m in it, and then it won’t be any use saying no. I’ll manage.’

  ‘No bloody good out here if you don’t. Sit in, see how it feels.’

  As soon as she got behind the wheel, Eve knew that she would have no trouble driving it. It was high seated and the steering wheel was large. There was a strange feeling of luxury, considering their purpose. ‘I’d be all right with one of these. They’re made for legs as long as mine.’

  ‘Made for men. Can’t take it to the local garage and have pedal blocks made. We don’t get many women drivers… a couple of Americans, they’re good, but they had to bash their way in. Their chaps got really fucked up about it. Might get you on delivering repaired vehicles.’

  ‘Do you drive them yourself?’

  ‘Mostly I push around bits of paper, essential to smooth running, of course. What I like is to just bugger about with a spanner and oil-rag. But we all have to do anything we can. Anything. I’ll come out with you in the morning, see how things go with you. Better take your things over to the Starlight Hotel, bag your place in the dorm.’

  ‘Starlight Hotel?’

  ‘You’ll see.’

  * * *

  In its more elegant days the Starlight Hotel, Eve decided, must have been a dance-hall or a cinema. The half-circle flight of marble steps and the chrome trim and push-bars to the swing doors were still in place, the foyer still echoed but now with heavier shoes and studs. The first-floor dormitories and rooms were reached by a curved stair with a brass handrail that was now kept shiny only by the many hands that skidded over its surface as young women hurried in and out.

  It was not very clean, or convenient, the alterations having been made piecemeal and not always very well. Partitions had been erected, probably to give an impression of privacy, but as eight or ten women were housed, if that was the word, within each area, Eve wondered if it might have been less chaotic without them. One thing, though, putting up in a place like the Starlight Hotel reinforced the impression that this was a very different life.

  She awakened just as the sky was growing light. Cool air carrying petrol and exhaust fumes blew across her from the open window, and although she hadn’t been kept awake, she was aware that the sound of vehicles hadn’t stopped all night. Alexander’s warning that there were snipers active in the town wasn’t an idle one; several times she was aroused briefly by the crack of a rifle.

  Four of the other beds in the makeshift dormitory were now occupied but none of the occupants stirred. Last night they had come together briefly as they stepped round one another’s gear, two Swedish administrative clerks and two English nurses, Smart and Haskell, old hands in Spain and long-time friends. None of them seemed particularly curious about the newcomer.

  On each of the spare beds was a thin, rolled-up mattress, a brown blanket and a pillow. It was the first time in her life that Eve had slept in a room with strangers. Dormitories had been the centre of the action in the girls’ school stories she had devoured as a child, but this one was dedicated to nothing but sleep and a quick wash and brushup.

  It was full daylight when Eve reached the depot for her test run. She turned the key in the ignition and the engine started at once. Alexander climbed into the passenger seat, Eve put the gears into reverse and carefully rolled the vehicle out of the line.

  ‘Want me to see you out?’ Alexander asked.

  ‘I think I’ll be all right.’

  ‘Only think? This is valuable piece of equipment.’

  Eve gave her a sharp glance, refusing to be intimidated. ‘No. I shall be all right.’ And she was, although it was heavier than the van she had brought in from France and the truck she had driven down from Barcelona. Alexander gave her terse but straightforward directions out of the compound, through more of Albacete’s unswept streets, then out of the town and on to roads which eventually became little more than unsurfaced rocky tracks.

  Eve soon realized that as well as looking in the wing-mirror and keeping an eye on the road ahead, Alexander was wa
tching her every manoeuvre. As they rounded a bend they were confronted by a mule drawing a little cart, bang in the centre of the road. She didn’t brake hard, but slowed down a few yards behind and waited to see if a driver appeared. Alexander made no comment, seeming content for Eve to follow behind slowly. It wasn’t by any means the first time that Eve had been in this situation; she had cut her driving teeth following some badly-maintained tractor, or a herd of cows, or a hay wagon along English country lanes.

  ‘Down here… turn off right at the next… that’s it.’

  Alexander kept Eve driving, reversing, tight turning in narrow lanes, for an hour. ‘OK. Turn it off. Pretty good, Anders. Hop out, stretch your legs for ten minutes. It can get you in the calf muscles until you become used to it.’

  Except for an occasional distant roll of thunder, everywhere was as quiet and peaceful as an English summer day, and the rural landscape quite as empty of people. But here there was no patchwork of fields neatly marked by hedges, here the undulations of the dry-looking, craggy land were not easily rolling like those at home. Yet it was beautiful.

  ‘Sounds like a thunder-storm brewing.’

  ‘Shelling – German big guns most likely – a good few kilometres from here. Sound carries on the dry air.’

  Helan Alexander, unconcerned, put two fingers in her mouth and whistled shrilly. Hooves pounded, and the heads of a beautiful gelding and a mule appeared, snorting, over a low hedge. She pulled a couple of crusts from a pocket and fed them to the animals as she told them in a low voice what beautiful boys they were.

  The big horse was certainly beautiful. When Eve fondled its muzzle, it quivered.

  ‘You like horses, Anders?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘The Arab belonged to the big house up there, but when the owner pushed off to Africa, he had to leave his animals to fend for themselves. Well, just one old chappie sees to them. This is the last one, it’s only a matter of time before he ends up in the pot. I’m surprised he’s lasted so long.’

  ‘He?’

  ‘Why not? Never does to remind a male of the species he’s lost his balls.’

  In spite of her upbringing in a poor area of a poor city, it wasn’t difficult to shock Eve Anders whose education had been in an Anglican Church school.

  ‘Know much about them?’

  ‘I like to ride.’

  ‘Pity there’s no saddle. I reconnoitred the stables, most of the tack has gone.’

  ‘I didn’t have a saddle when I learned to ride.’

  Alexander turned and looked, as though seeing Eve for the first time. ‘Now that, Anders, really impresses me.’ She nodded to the horse and its companion mule. ‘Why don’t you? He might be cottage pie the next time you see him.’

  ‘Are you serious? You are.’

  ‘Good protein, not a lot of it about. Go on, let’s see what you can do.’

  It seemed ages since Eve had been on a horse, but the curve of that beautiful back, even though it hadn’t seen a curry comb in months, was inviting. The mule kept a close watch as Eve mounted from the gate. Holding the unkempt mane low down its neck, she kneed the well-behaved animal forward to a slow walk, rising and falling as easily as she had done six years ago, the little mule moving in and keeping close. Eve talked encouragingly in a low, quiet voice as Bar Barney had taught her, ‘Good dobbin – good dobbin – good dobbin.’ She didn’t go far, aware of Alexander leaning over the gate watching, and the big Bedford heating up in the morning sunshine.

  ‘You do it very prettily, Anders. Where did you learn to ride like that?’

  Starting with a clean sheet, a new name and no past but confronted with a direct question, it was not easy to reply. ‘Oh, I used to spend school holidays on my aunt’s farm.’

  Now, as she made her way to the depot to eat and receive her instructions, she thought about ‘my aunt’s farm’, and wondered what Alexander had made of that. In the world of the Alexander family, a farm would mean several thousand acres, part of a large estate. But the truth about her aunt’s farm had been in there somewhere. Mrs Alexander could think what she liked.

  Three

  Eve’s first assignment was to drive the truck back to Barcelona, taking a load of vehicle spares that had been variously restored, rethreaded and reseated at the depot. She was disappointed not to have been sent on a more important mission, driving an ambulance, or a heavy-duty truck such as one of the big Bedfords. Yes, she would love to be given charge of one of those.

  This time she saw a little more of the city. Barcelona had been defended by its people in bloody street skirmishes, and had been bombed until some parts of the ancient city were destroyed. Public buildings were occupied by various military groups and churches had been put to secular use, or in some cases destroyed in an orgy of revenge against old repression. As she made her way through the thronging, bustling streets, nothing she had heard about Barcelona or seen on newsreels had prepared her for the atmosphere of a city in the full flood of revolutionary fervour. Every building was festooned with flags – communist red, anarchist red-and-black – every wall was plastered with posters whose messages were clear: Defend the Republic! Smash the Fascist Invaders! Barcelona was a city that belonged to its people.

  She delivered her boxes and was given new orders, not to return to Albacete with medical supplies as she had expected, but to report to a Dr Quemada who immediately made her responsible for the welfare of Sister Sophie Wineapple, an American nurse who was sick. Eve was to take her to a villa outside the city, stay with her for a week and then bring her back. It seemed a strange thing to be doing.

  Throughout the short journey, Sister Wineapple sat silent and withdrawn, clutching her trembling hands.

  The villa, stripped of its original contents and furnished with more functional items, was still to Eve’s eyes the most splendid house she had ever entered. The huge bedrooms contained several beds, each of which had a bunched-up mosquito net at the head. All the beds were partitioned in the style of a hospital ward, but the divisions were made from an assortment of curtains of beautiful fabric. Eve’s silent charge appeared to see none of this, for as soon as she had put her bag down, she simply collapsed with a huge sigh on to a narrow bed and fell at once into a deep sleep. Having taken off her shoes and covered her with the mosquito net, Eve returned to the ground floor where she was hailed by a woman’s voice with a Scots accent.

  ‘Are ye the one that’s brought in the poor wee Sister that worked herself to a standstill?’

  ‘Sister Wineapple? Yes. She’s on her bed, dead to the world.’

  ‘Awch, then she’ll be fine. It’s the ones who can’t sleep ye need to keep an eye on. Have you eaten yet? Awch well, neither have I, let’s see what we can find, I think I saw a packet of Kellogg’s if they’re not scoffed by now. I’m Polly Hurley. What are you called?’

  Polly Hurley ‘found’ half a packet of cornflakes which, from the way she doled them out and briefly agonized about not taking too large a portion, Eve came to realize, must be a treat. ‘Heaven,’ she said with each savoured spoonful. A piece of bread and a cup of peculiar-tasting tea with watery evaporated milk completed the snack or, as Eve was to discover, the meal.

  ‘It’s so quiet, the place seems deserted.’

  ‘Peace and quiet is the general idea. A breath of God’s good air and a few afternoon siestas and a good sleep at night is all most of them need.’

  ‘Who are they? What is this place? Look, I’ve only just arrived in Spain and I haven’t an idea what I’m supposed to be doing.’

  ‘Thrown in at the deep end like a good many of us. Don’t fret, float on your back and let the tide carry you and before you know it, you’ll be striking out on your own. You’ll soon see, the nurses and doctors work themselves to a standstill, they’re short of everything needed to do their job but it doesn’t stop them.’

  ‘Not until they drop, like the woman I brought here?’

  ‘That’s mostly it. Some get terrible diarrhoea from ba
d food, or wi’ us and some of the Colonials it’s the sudden change of diet – they say it’s all the beans we eat, but I say it’s all the oil and spices we aren’t used to. We all experience getting the runs at some time or other. The Yanks call it getting the skitters, it’s no’ a bad description. If you’re new, I’ll gi’ you your first bit of advice: get your folks to send you packets of toilet paper, and if it’s a choice between that and the old ciggies, give up smoking I say.’

  ‘Are you a nurse or what?’

  ‘No, no. Ye’ll find that a lot of the nurses are non-political… they just know they are against fascism, but I’m a life-long anarchist.’ Eve had been going to say that she had always assumed that there wasn’t much difference between anarchists and fascists, but she realized that what the Scots woman had said indicated the opposite. ‘I do therapeutic massage.’

  Eve, who had always considered herself well-informed, suddenly felt quite ignorant, and could only guess at what therapeutic massage might be.

  ‘If you want to make yourself useful while you’re here, you can help me. I’ve taught a good many the basics of how to use their hands.’

  As Eve drank the last of the strange-tasting tea, she listened with fascinated attention to Polly Hurley saying in her delightful accent what she had obviously said many times before: ‘Hands have the greatest power to heal, did ye know that? I don’t mean the laying on of hands or a thing like that… no, heal and comfort. Human beings need to be touched by other human beings, long to be touched, but in a society like ours which of us can bring ourselves to ask?’

  Eve nodded, not out of politeness, but because she agreed. Perhaps it was as much the feel of David Hatton’s hands in contact with her skin that had left her wanting more when he had withdrawn; perhaps it was that same contact between herself and Duke Barney that had urged them on in their lust for one another. Touch and be touched. Yes, that was important.

  ‘But it’s OK if it’s done by a professional like yourself.’