That too was dismissed as unnecessary, with Cal’s impression of the man sinking as quickly as it had previously risen outside the telephone exchange; especially galling was the way he had obviously translated the concerns Cal expressed to those men who surrounded him, his senior lieutenants, seeking their approval for his negative responses, which was readily given. Never mind what was right and what was wrong; it was as if he needed to reassure himself he was popular.
‘And,’ Cal said, ‘they could be sitting up a tree watching us through binoculars. If you don’t put out guards they might come back.’
‘My men are tired,’ he snapped. ‘They will not be happy to stay up all night and they are far too weary to dig. Besides, it is not the Spanish way to fight from a hole in the ground.’
‘They will be a damned sight less happy if some of them die from a slit throat.’
Said with venom, it brought a predictable response. ‘I command here.’
‘Then I ask permission to do with my men what I deem prudent.’
That was greeted with an expressive shrug. The slow salute with which Cal responded was as much an insult as a mark of respect and was taken as the former, but by the time Laporta could react he was looking at the man’s back. It was only in walking away that Cal realised it was he who had been foolish, and it was far from pleasant to acknowledge the fact.
He had approached Laporta when men whose good opinion he craved surrounded him. As at the Capitania Maritima, he took umbrage automatically at what looked like a challenge to his authority when in their presence. Laporta alone, as they had been outside the besieged Ritz, had seemed a different fellow, and Cal was sure he had come to seek his help. He promised himself never again to make any suggestions unless they were out of both view and earshot.
‘I’ve told the boys we will sleep in the church,’ Vince said, ‘though there are a couple with Irish parents who have refused.’
‘Give them a week and they’ll sleep on the altar and drink the communion wine,’ Cal snapped, still angry with himself. ‘But we are going to have to take turns with them guarding the roads in. Our Spanish friends don’t think we need to.’
Vince looked at the cloud-covered sky. ‘There will be no moon, and they won’t fancy being stuck out in the pitch dark, so young and all.’
The implication was obvious; night guard duty with no moon was bad enough for the experienced soldier — you heard and saw things that were not there, but knew not to just shout or shoot. These keen but inexperienced boys would likely be trigger-happy and blasting off at threats more imagined than real. Being out in the open was a task for either himself or Vince, and much as he disliked the idea, Cal knew he would have to go out on his own.
‘A gunshot will do the trick.’ Cal jerked his head towards a group of Spaniards sitting outside the taberna, Florencia laughing and joking with them. ‘Even this lot will wake up to that.’
‘And shoot anything that moves,’ Vince growled. ‘So don’t you go rushing about or you’ll be their target.’
‘What I wouldn’t give for a box of flares.’
He got the eye from those worker-fighters as he went to talk to Florencia, not friendly either, with quiet ribald comments and stifled laughter. It was, he suspected, no more than a demonstration of stupid male pride, the same kind of thing he had experienced before in too many locations. It seemed the hotter the country, the more the menfolk felt the need to look and act with bravado, and that was doubled by what they had achieved so far in fighting the army.
He wanted to say to them that a healthy dose of fear and a bucketload of caution would serve them better, but he lacked both the language and the desire. At least Florencia rose and smiled at him, moving to take his arm, which did nothing to soften the looks he was getting, jealousy now thrown into the mix as, heads close, he explained his concerns.
‘We don’t want to give these poor village people any more grief, so it would be better if they moved to the centre of the village where they will be safer.’
As the last of the light was fading, Cal Jardine was out on the western edge of the village, a full water canteen over his shoulder, looking at the ground, eyeing those places where lay the kind of dead spaces into which a crawling man could move unseen, as well as the walled-off areas of planted crops, vines, olive trees and vegetable plots, which would help to cover a discreet approach. He used the remaining light to pick out a line of approach to the village, one he would use himself to get close unseen, then he selected a spot from which he could cover it.
That was a gnarled old olive tree, on a slight mound, that had probably been there since the Romans ruled. Being above ground was not comfortable — quite the reverse — but it gave him a better view if the cloud should break, and he knew from experience a crawling intruder rarely looked skywards, too intent on avoiding noise by taking care with what lay in front of him. Clambering up and lodging himself between two branches, his mood, a far from happy one, was not improved as the first heavy drops of rain began to fall.
Even with eyes well accustomed to the dark there was nothing to be seen; it was all about listening, getting accustomed to the sounds that occurred naturally — croaking frogs, barking dogs, as well as raindrops hitting leaves and the chirping insects hiding under them — making sure his thoughts, which were unavoidable, did not distract him from his purpose.
CHAPTER NINE
The looks he got when he came back in the morning were close to sneers; nothing had happened, no threat had appeared and every one of the Spaniards had enjoyed a good night’s sleep. Nor had any orders come to move on and by which route, which surprised him, given the supposed need to get to Saragossa quickly. Still, it was their fight, not his — the man in command, this Colonel Villabova, might have information not vouchsafed to Laporta; and if it was military incompetence, that was not something to which he was unaccustomed.
Years of training allowed Cal Jardine to get by on catnaps, one of which he took after a less-than-sustaining breakfast of unleavened bread and a fruit compote washed down with water; if there had been coffee, which he and his men had become accustomed to in Barcelona, the Falangists had pinched it. Then he spent twenty minutes lying dead flat on a warm stone, his hat pulled down to keep the sun out of his eyes and out to the world.
By the time he came round, Vince had drawn from the well and heated some water, insisting that the boys should wash and shave, even if some of them barely had the necessary growth; it paid to stay clean when you could because, when it came to a fight, you could spend a long time between opportunities.
He had also been at them before they went to sleep, insisting they washed their socks and inspected their feet and also showing them that a properly stuffed knapsack made a good pillow. Then he had ensured that, while their rifles were loaded, the safety catches were set to off.
Next they were lined up in singlets and shorts for exercises, which actually produced outright laughter from the anarchist contingent, but there were no complaints from the boys doing the leaps, squats and press-ups; they all took their own fitness seriously, and one, called Bernard, a marathon runner, had actually set off to do his usual long wake-up jog before breakfast, heading, as advised by Vince, due east. After exercises, given there were still no orders to move, Cal got them dressed and took them out into the open for training in fire and movement, the former in dumbshow.
‘My friends think you are a mad Englishman,’ Florencia said, as she joined Cal, with an air that half indicated she agreed with them.