British Volunteers Were at the Station, Waiting to Board the Next Train Back to the Coast

1 My Heart Forgets To Beat “All bad poetry springs from genuine feeling.” - Oscar Wilde, “The Soul of Man Under Socialism” 2 Part One: April,1937 Valentian girl with boots and balls His kisses will say, “I want you, Laura” and today more than their tongues will speak. Afterwards hand-in-hand they will enter the RED STAR café and the comrades may feast their eyes. Meanwhile, Vaughan holds two cans of caviar under her nose, courtesy of Uncle Joe, Just an itsy-bitsy picnic! Look, a bunch of the sweet onions; and here, fresh bread from the company stores. Already packed is a flask of red wine drawn from the oak of La Mancha, and a tin of Ukrainian cigarettes. She gives a cry, Ah, the ones you bend in case the tobacco falls out. If that is not enough, into the knapsack he carries everywhere like a donkey go water & biscuits, billycan, notebook, fountain pen and the heavy old revolver he bought off a smuggler in Barcelona. He glances up and smiles, It's not too far into the countryside. Not too far? On foot, you should note, across fields crawling with enemies. He averts his eyes, Our own little reconnaissance sortie, my little brown dove. What a schemer! They will leave town, find trees for shade and grass for their behinds. He will 3 ply her with food, drink and when her patience is at an end, prove his manhood. Everyone knows what caviar is good for. Laura, he chides in abysmal Spanish learnt from the poems of Lorca, Drunken gendarmes are beating on the doors. But it is not the fascists we should fear, may they go to the devil. It is the spring, which has warmed the air and opened the first magnolias. He wags his finger, Beware of the soil, which is cold and damp as a riverbank at dawn. That said, he produces a Moroccan rug, borrowed for you-know-what. He winks, rolls it up and ties it under the sack with the knots you pull. What kind of man cares for such detail? Can he be the possessor of testicles? She yawns and stretches. His answer is to smile as though all is normal. But today will see them in action. She leans back against a wall and rolls her eyes, Aiee, the birds have flown. Mercifully, he shoulders rifle and binoculars and off they set, like poachers of geese. * His Laura had ridden the fast passenger service that still ran some days between Alicante and Madrid. The irony was how the rest of the British volunteers were at the station, waiting to board the next train back to the coast. They would spend their first leave since Jarama loafing on the seaside, jammy blighters. Not Comrade Vaughan! The Welshman from Liverpool had drawn the short straw. And was he put out? Burn his union card? Did he heck-as-like. As soon as the order was posted, he'd nipped smartly over to the post office, bribed the censor and got off a telegram to his girl, 4 LEAVE CANCELLED STOP YOU COME HERE STOP VT In six months, they'd met up twice, exchanged post cards and the odd crackling telephone call. They were owed, all right. After dark, Laura wired back, HAVE TWO DAY PASS ARRIVE TOMORROW TRAIN LL The whistle blew and in she rolled. He weighed up the odds. On the pro side, the moon-faced girl came when called, jumped from the carriage and possessively took his arm. On the contra, she was barely half his age. Nineteen-years of smouldering cheek and a tongue to kill. He hung his head as he spoke, crawling under the trip wires and snipers of no-man's-land. Whenever he glanced up, the whites of her eyes flashed. How the brows of her angled. Why? Because he'd suggested following the tracks to the far side of town? An hour's walk at most. The quickest way into the countryside. She didn't seem impressed by the packing, either. Weren't his treats good enough? No English chocolate. The ends of her lips forked down. She crossed her arms and leaned back, shoulder blades against the wall. Ravishing! In dun-coloured overalls and floppy black beret, she managed the look of a Paris mannequin. The pose of her, pouting at the expedition on foot. His kingdom for a motorcycle! Then again, she could have raised the roof in Spanish, or worse still, screeched at him in Valencian. Give her a smile. Keep your powder dry, 5 boyo. After all, following the railway wasn't such a bad idea; not many folk about. Slowly, slowly catch your monkey. And anyway, all was well. Before she had time to sulk again, there they were, strutting along the branch line like a pair of alley kids, holding hands and kicking up the dust. Not the route march to damnation, just a glorious walk on a fine Spring day. So, out with it, man. Say your piece, Where is this famous rain, then? That turned her head, This famous “what”? The rain in Spain? Her expression flinched, as if the words touched something peculiar, “The rain in Spain?” What means that? They say it falls in the plain. Still she gave that puzzled look. He repeated the rhyme in English, then in Spanish. She shook her head, It's just nonsense. Are you insane? Completely. He gave her hand a squeeze, I'm in love, see, with a smashing girl. Aiee! The girl would have looked smashing in an old sack, which those old overalls almost were. She had them rolled at the cuffs, the fine down of her arms rippling in the breeze. Her feet were small enough to be shod in boots more like a public schoolboy's than the general issue. A belt of black webbing drawn tightly at the waist exaggerated her hour-glass shape. Below the unbuttoned neck was a glimpse of white. She probably wore just a loose cotton slip underneath, the soap-scented boobies of her swinging from side to side. Very wanton, see. His heart 6 forgot to beat. She answered his daftness by snapping up two long stalks of grass and offering him one. He could have prattled on, but thoughts of her underwear left him chewing the cud. Dandelions and giant thistles along the path were staging their spring offensive while the hot noon air buzzed with the looting of insects. Underfoot, weeds were sprouting from the gravel, the rails of the track rusting. They were headed West, towards the front, effectively marching into danger land on a branch line no passenger trains had run in months. Ahead of them, bare telegraph poles strutted across green and yellow fields. Far in the distance, the mountains of Toledo rose purple and grey out of a thick haze. What could not be seen were the hordes of fascists and religious fanatics dug in there. Like the sudden uprising of weeds, spring was coaxing them out of the ground. Fortunately, to North, South and East - that is, from the shores of the Med to the streets of Madrid - the Republic of Spain remained solid. In government reports at least, the front line was still somewhere up there in those mountains. In reality, ambushes had been reported fifty kilometres deep into the plain of Castile La Mancha. Yessir, the insurgents were getting bolder, creeping further from their caves and foxholes as the days grew long and hot. Dragging her feet somewhat, the girl from the coast still looked irked by her trip into the countryside. It wouldn't do to guess what she was thinking. Chastened somewhat, Vaughan let go of her hand and stalked ahead. There was a water tower and a fork where a passing track began. He stopped at the levers and waved her to join him. It was odd. A watchman's hut stood behind the levers, the obvious place for a guard 7 post, yet it was deserted. Why leave it without a picket? He would report as much to Brigade. Furthermore... He a gave a puzzled cry. What was that ahead? He took the suffering girl's hand again and pulled her on. In the distance stood a lone rail car, shunted onto the passing track and basking in the full glare of the sun. First class, by its livery. Laura sighed, Is there a problem? Well, is this any way to do things? The anarchist in her spat, Huh! The rich travel in style and the poor walk in bare feet under the pitiless sun. Let us find a nice tree to shade us and rest a while. Yes, the bloody sun was always there. Never mind the privileges of rich folk, the sun was absolute monarch even in the republic. Throughout the winter months, dry as they were, the sun had reigned unchallenged. Now it was only April, look you, and his brain had cooked in its hat. Talk about mad dogs and Englishmen. How could anyone think in such heat? Whenever he fixed his eyes on an object he was always distracted; any object, that shimmering rail car for example. Immediately he spotted it, some old newsreel images flashed into his head. What were they now? A forest clearing, limousines, Field Marshals bowing stiffly, shaking hands and climbing aboard. Of course, the carriage where the Armistice was signed in 1918! He lifted his beret and smeared the sweat across his brow. Idle thoughts. This was Spain, 1937, not France in 1918.

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