The whole farce ended up with a raised fist and a huge oratorical cry of ‘Revolution!’, taken up and raised to an echoing yell. Then, once he had pointed back to the centre of the city, sending his unruly cohorts on their way, Laporta jumped down and came to rejoin his own fighters.
‘Well, Englishman?’ he said as he approached Cal, still sitting, back to a tree by a smoking Vince.
‘Escoces!’ Cal replied sharply; he was not a rabid Scot, but enough of one to want to be properly identified.
‘We had success.’
‘You had luck.’
Laporta’s face changed as soon as Cal uttered the words la chance, and the man he was addressing knew why. He was full of his own rhetoric, still in the warm mood of his victory speech, and he was talking to a realist, not a follower, and one speaking in a voice deliberately devoid of emotion.
‘The mode of your attack was not just foolish, my friend, it bordered on the stupid! The building is now yours because the ordinary sailors turned their guns on their officers and we were lucky an armoured truck happened by. Had those two events not occurred you might have lost everyone you led. If you continue to treat your enemies like that, they will beat you every time.’
Even if they could not comprehend what was said, Laporta’s men picked up the tone and it showed on their faces; they too were basking in the glow of victory. Vince had come to the same conclusion through observing those same faces, not least that of their leader, which was bordering on thunderous.
‘This might not be the moment to tell him he’s a stupid bastard, guv.’
‘I can think of no better time, Vince. We might just save a few lives, yours and mine included, if we are going to stay with this.’
‘And you would have done it without loss?’ Laporta demanded.
Reverting to French, Cal replied. ‘I will tell you now that if I was leading any men in this anti-fascist fight and you ordered that kind of assault, I would not allow them to take part.’
A shrug. ‘If they do not want to fight-’
That got a response which cut right across the Spaniard, and one which had Vince dropping the muzzle of his rifle, not threateningly, but enough to cause a few eyes to flicker towards him, given it was pointed at their leader’s heart.
‘They do want to fight, friend, but they do not want to die as uselessly as the poor souls who are still waiting to be carried away from here. There are ways to kill your enemies without dying yourself and that is called good soldiering. It is possible to admire your zeal and still be unhappy with your method. Now, tell me if you want the Olympiad volunteers or not, tell me you will listen to sense, or I will go back to the hostel and tell them they would be best going home.’
Laporta flicked a hand to indicate his men. ‘Perhaps it is you who is being foolish.’
‘Look, Laporta, you are a revolutionary, yes?’ That got a nod. ‘How many real battles have you been in?’ Cal had to hold up his hand then and speak quickly, his passion obvious. ‘I don’t mean demonstrations, I don’t mean workers’ uprisings, I mean real battle, fighting trained soldiers who know what they are doing.’
That got a dismissive wave, replicated in the tone of the voice. ‘Where are they, these soldiers?’
‘On the way, I should think. Rule number one is never underestimate your enemy. I’ve told you, if you know the metropolitan army is useless, so do the generals who began this revolt, which means they also know, if they are to have any chance of success, they must get the only proper soldiers they have across the Gibraltar Straits. That means they would not have fired the starting pistol until they were sure that was possible.’
It was Cal’s turn to flick a hand at Laporta’s men. ‘Now tell me, these fellows of yours, who are brave, certainly, and some of them are steady, can they stand up against soldiers, half of whom are not Spanish and a fair number of whom are criminals on the run or out-and-out adventurers, men who have spent years fighting Riff tribesmen in the mountains of Morocco?’
The sun was dipping in the sky, less fierce than it had been but still emitting heat, and Cal Jardine’s voice was dropping too, the passion cooling enough for him to smile.
‘That, my friend, can be changed, it has to be changed, but it will take time. As you so rightly said, in the coming days the job now is to hold on to Barcelona.’ Cal stood up and went right up to a still-irritated Juan Luis Laporta. ‘And that we will help you do, but after that, we will see. Now, I believe there is a job to do, some ship in the harbour that needs to be captured.’
The response was not warm; the man was still smarting from the lecture. ‘You take risks, my friend. For a moment I was tempted to have you killed, and if my men had understood a word you said I think one of them might have shot you.’
It was superfluous to point out he would not have survived either; he had not missed the line of Vince’s rifle and neither had Cal Jardine.
‘If I thought your men understood I would not have uttered them publicly. As for risks, they are part of war-fighting, the trick is to know which ones to take.’ The smile he used now was aimed at everyone, their eyes then drawn to the wad of pesetas he produced from his inside pocket. ‘Now, even if you are anarchists, I suggest we go back to the Cafe de Tranquilidad, where I can buy us all a drink.’
For a group that, politically, were supposed to hate the mere thought of money in any form as a means to corrupt society, the result was surprisingly convivial. Only Laporta seemed to disapprove, but that Cal put down to the wigging he had just administered.
In the end both he and Vince were shoreside observers to the taking of the explosive-carrying cargo ship, as well as an old hulk — a former cruiser being used as a prison — a target because the warders were armed. The vessel carrying the explosives was hauled into the quayside by tug and quickly unloaded, the job now to turn the raw dynamite into weapons they could use to stop the army when they debouched from their barracks.
Every hand was employed, socialist athletes from every nation had now gathered in the city centre, lashing together sticks of dynamite and attaching detonators to some for static use, and lines of fuses to others for use as makeshift grenades, these sent out with an instructor to the various barricades.
No one slept, there was too much to do; a watch had to be kept on the various military installations to prevent a surprise — including the as-yet-uncommitted Civil Guard. Every defensive location designed to canalise them when they did emerge must be supplied with ammunition, runners selected to take and deliver messages as well as locating stocks of food and water, enough so that those facing the generals’ uprising could fight all day in the heat.
Vince was engaged in basic training, showing his young athletes how to grip, aim and fire a rifle, while Cal Jardine was one of those tasked, in moonlight and aided by Florencia, to identify the best rooftop location from which rifle fire could enfilade the soldiers as they marched out to do battle with their enemies; what machine guns they had captured were kept for use on the barricades.
And there were the conferences, of which they were thankfully not a part, though what was discussed was disseminated; the officials of the Catalan government wanted to be in control, the various left factions equally determined they should not be bound by the politicians, especially the anarchists, who held as a principle the need for individual responsibility and the right to choose.
The small communist party, the PCE, backed the government on the grounds of the need for central political control of the forthcoming fight; the Trotskyists of the POUM faction opposed that motion just because the lackeys of Moscow insisted it was essential.