The besiegers were then free to turn their minds to the problem of capture, though they were required to do so from a distance and good cover, given the sporadic shots coming from the exchange. Square and massive, it had narrow alleyways to either side separating it from other buildings.
These, unfortunately, had lower roofs which were easily dominated from the higher elevation of the exchange, and that was a place with few windows, none at ground level, while it also had, as seemed to be ubiquitous in Spain, both a low parapet wall on the roof and a large open concourse to the front, dotted with trees for shade, and in this case a narrow entrance with two massive metal doors.
Briefly Laporta had suggested trying to use the alleyways to get to the rear of the building, but it was plain to Cal that the defenders had good observation from the roof as well as, very likely, a supply of grenades, either manufactured or makeshift, in the same manner as those Vince had employed earlier. In such confined space as an alleyway between high walls, such a weapon, dropped from above, would be extremely effective. It had to be a frontal assault, and even with cannon, that was going to be gory.
Patience, for all the talk of manana, is not a truly Spanish virtue and certainly not one to which the Catalans of Barcelona subscribed; argument is, however, a national pastime and, being anarchists, as usual everyone was convinced that their opinion had as much validity as any other being voiced.
For all his evident authority Laporta had a great deal of trouble in stopping a rush on the building, finding himself in the end shouted down by a series of arguments that, translated, both Cal and Vince knew to be insane. One group was particularly troublesome. Florencia explained they were ex-miners from the coal-mining region of the Asturias, pure anarchists to a man and from an occupation internationally famous for its industrial militancy.
‘They fought the army two years ago in their uprising. There is a bastard general called Franco Bahamonde they would love to cut into little pieces. He dropped bombs on them and had a cruiser shell the coastal towns from the sea. Many women and children died as well as miners.’
To the observation that Laporta was in charge, all the two Brits got was a shrug; the miners, added to their natural radicalism, came from an extreme political sect. You did not have to be around the workers’ militias for long to find out that a common agenda was missing. Purists like these mining men thought their anarcho-syndicalist allies were backsliders, that left socialists were class traitors, communists of whatever hue were not only wrong but could not be trusted, and social democrats purblind fools.
The present Popular Front government, as well as its Catalan equivalent the Generalitat, was nothing more than a corrupt compromise manned by men who could never be relied on to follow the proper course necessary to bring about a just society. Naturally, everyone else viewed these political Jesuits with equal suspicion.
Cal did not bother to point out, as Florencia explained their various travails, that their actions in 1934 had not been an uprising so much as a full-blown attempt at revolution, the aim to overthrow a democratically elected government, albeit more to the right than the present one. It was no different from the coup they were seeking to contain now.
Armed to the teeth, the miners had taken control of their region of north-west Spain, even capturing the major city of Oviedo, beating a military garrison of over a thousand men. It had taken units brought in from the Army of Africa, and every modern weapon in their armoury, naval and air included, to subdue them and, as was only to be expected, the reprisals had been horrific, given what the insurgents had done when they rebelled.
Neither side had shown an ounce of mercy; at the outbreak, if you were rich — a landowner or an unsympathetic manager, even a priest — the miners were likely to shoot you out of hand. When the army recaptured territory they took a like revenge.
Quite apart from bombing and shelling, if you were poor or had skin ingrained with coal, had served as a mayor or a provincial councillor, or had held any kind of union office, you stood a very high risk of becoming a victim of the reprisals, leaving the region soaked in blood.
Now these miners, forced with their families to come to Barcelona to find work, wanted revenge and that desire was crowding out any common sense they might have possessed. Worse was the support they were receiving from others around them, buoyed up by the successes of the day and now sure they were invincible.
Sometimes a person will do something so brave or unexpected that it will entirely colour the way you see them and even radically affect a previously held view; Juan Luis Laporta did that now. Pulling out his pistol, he walked up to the most vociferous of the ex-miners, a tall, loud-mouthed fellow called Xavier, and put the muzzle to his head.
The reaction was swift: each of the threatened fellow’s companions was armed and their weapons were levelled at Laporta, the bolts snapped to put a bullet in the chamber. It made no difference that the anarchist leader’s men responded in kind; this was a showdown he could not survive if it went wrong. Cal, with Florencia whispering in his ear, was treated to a simultaneous translation.
‘The only way you can mount an attack,’ Laporta said, with an air of remarkable calm, ‘is to kill me, comrade, but I shall see you in hell with me.’
‘Hell?’ Cal asked in a soft voice. ‘I thought you lot didn’t believe in God?’
‘Every Spaniard believes in God, querido. It is priests and the church they don’t believe in.’
‘We are here to kill fascists, brother,’ the miner replied, his eyes swivelling to try and see the muzzle of the gun, ‘not each other.’
‘The Commission of Public Order-’
That was interrupted by a low growl; the aforesaid committee, hastily set up to seek to coordinate local resistance to the coup, contained politicians of every hue, including social democrats and Catalan Nationalists, as well as the regional government — naturally it was treated with deep suspicion.
‘The committee has given me the task of taking this building, which we will do, but when and how it will be done is a decision I will make. So, friend, you obey me or we will both die.’
‘If you pray, Cal,’ Florencia said, when she had completed her translation, ‘do it now.’
Pride makes fools of us all and it was obvious Xavier was unwilling to lose face by a quick submission, so it was a tense several seconds till he allowed himself the very slightest of nods. Of course, when he spoke, he took care to include a caveat designed to protect his honour, one that barely required conversion to English.
‘Let us beat the fascists, brother,’ Florencia whispered, as Xavier spoke. ‘Then perhaps you and I may have a talk alone.’
‘Can’t beat brotherly love, can you, guv?’
Said really loudly and not understood by the majority, it still turned every eye on Vince, which gave Laporta a chance to lower his pistol and take a step backwards. Try as he might, the miner could not help but release the pent-up breath from his body.
‘Good thinking, Vince,’ Cal said softly, knowing what his friend had done to be deliberate, a way to break down the tension.
‘Any idea how many fights I’ve had to break up in my time?’
Several shots from the exchange broke what stress remained and had everyone hunching their shoulders and making sure they were behind cover again; the dispute had broken up that concern. They were not aimed at the assault group, but at a messenger dodging from doorway to doorway and heading in their direction.
His final dash brought him to Laporta, who passed on the message that the army HQ had surrendered and General Goded had been taken into custody, the radio station was firmly in Republican hands and the cannon were on the way.