Bath,
England: Three days after the event, and after spending a sleepless night
at Heathrow Airport....
I have always found travel to be a real adventure; combining a trip to
Spain with an Spanish Civil War event makes it even more of an epic experience,
especially as a lone Columnista at large in Iberia.
After a couple
of days in my old haunts in Tarragona, I got the train south to make my
rendezvous with Kristian Abad of the Linea XYZ group in Valencia.
We had arranged to meet at 5pm at Bar Ari, a 20-minute walk from the centre
of Valencia. I arrived early and propped up the bar for a while. Kristian
duly arrived, along with ex-pat German, Eghardt, and the charming Pilar.
We piled into Kristian’s gear-laden Discovery and hit the road,
meeting up with more members of the group in Sagunto. The little convoy
then headed into the interior, along increasingly windy roads until we
crossed over into Aragon.
The Valencianos were unused to the chilly night air of the highlands,
but this was quickly forgotten when we headed for a bar in a village just
outside Torre de Arcas. Here we met up with the Republican contingents
from Aragon and Madrid. Juan Rey was his usual welcoming and cheerful
self. An excellent meal followed by more beer saw us ready to find our
digs in Torre de Arcas, which took the shape of some mattresses on the
floor of the sports changing rooms. Things did not quieten down until
around 4am.
International Brigade
- (left to right) Eghardt (German), Fabien (French), Kristian
(Spanish) Dave (English) and Juan (Spanish)
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Accordingly,
some rather tired Compañeros met the chilly morning breeze on Saturday
morning. We pulled ourselves together and shuffled up the hill to the
little bar in the village. At this point, I should say a few words about
Torre de Arcas. I think it’s safe to say that it is a fairly typical
Aragonese hill village. In other words, it’s murder to move around
in if you are wearing hobnailed boots. The steep roads make life more
than a little interesting at times. This contributed to me loosing around
15 hobnails over the course of the weekend!
After a breakfast of café con leche and chocolate, we headed back
to the sports area where the militaria market had been set up. After a
good look around, I grabbed the rest of my gear and went on the scrounge
for a rifle. Kristian had brought a couple of spares, but these had already
been allocated to Eghardt and Fabien from the French group La Marsellesa.
Fabien had driven over from Versailles the day before and had spent a
rather uncomfortable night asleep in his car.
As ever,
Juan Rey came to my rescue, but instead of finding me a rifle, he produced
a Valero 50mm mortar which he had borrowed from the Nationalists. So the
traditions of La Columna’s Heavy Weapons Expeditionary Force, inaugurated
at Castellón last year with a 45mm anti tank gun, were faithfully
continued.
We deployed in the hills above the village and beat off a series of Nationalist
attacks throughout the course of the afternoon. Food was ferried up to
our positions in the form of a very hearty rabbit and potato stew.
Activities
were wound up for the day after a session of rifle drill, where luckily
I was able to trade in my mortar for a rather nice Spanish Mauser dating
from the Spanish American War. We then retired to the sports area for
a few welcome beers.
Vino siesta
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As dusk came,
we filed into the village for a massive buffet. The village square was
lined with tables loaded with pizza, Serrano ham, chorizo, cheese, olives
and copious amounts of wine. Most agreeable! More beers followed and we
then crashed out for a pretty good night’s sleep.
Sunday morning saw us back in the bar for more coffee and cake. Eloy and
Nick arrived from Gandesa, just as the weather started to hot up. Sunday
was a real scorcher, reaching 30 degrees. This was to be the day of the
big push and we filed into the trenches in anticipation of the attack.
I was detailed into the Seccion Internationale, along with Fabien and
Eghardt. After a suitable haranguing by the Commissar, the whistle blew
and we went over the top. We were me with heavy fire from the Nationalist
lines and were pushed back into our trenches. A counter attack led by
the Spanish Foreign Legion forced us out of our positions and running
for the hills.
As ever though,
a reconciliation followed, as both sides greeted each other with the customary
Ay Carmela camaraderie.
We then filed back down to the sports area for an enormous communal paella,
all washed down with the obligatory beer and wine. What a way to finish
the day!
We then made our way back to Valencia, where I stayed for a couple of
days before heading back to Barcelona and the flight home.
The verdict, well the only thing I can say is, when’s the next one?
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