His entry into the ditch was an ignominious dive, Vince using more of a slither but both were close-run affairs as the ground behind them began to spurt up great chunks of earth. All Cal could think about at first was the noise of the roaring engine, but then he was listening for the sound of brakes, praying it was one he would not hear, but he had to be prepared.
‘Everybody ready?’ he yelled, spinning upright, his pistol poised.
Vince’s shout melded into his own. ‘Keep your heads down.’
Now the bullets were ripping into the back of the ditch, uselessly in terms of hitting flesh but a first real taste for these boys of what it was like to be under sustained fire, and damned unpleasant it was; nothing ever inures you to the crack of a bullet passing close and for them this was their baptism. The breath he had been holding left Cal Jardine’s body as the truck roared on; either they did not care about the blueshirts or they saw they were beyond salvation. Added to that, their fusillade had ceased; it was time to give them a little present.
‘Squad four,’ he shouted, raising his head just enough to see the cloud of receding dust, sure in his heart that they would not stop now, his instructions backed up by his hands. ‘Truck at ten o’clock, fire at will.’
The lads scrambled up the bank, too high in truth, showing too much upper body, but they did a good job of delivery in the parting shot, steady, trying to aim as well as fire, sending enough shots in through the truck tailgate to do damage, one clever enough to take out a rear tyre. Too keen to see how they had done, one or two then raised themselves, and it took a sharp command to seek to get them to take cover again.
Vince, in giving that, was a fraction too late. The return fire might have been from the back of a moving bucking vehicle but it was concentrated and probably came from highly trained men. One of the squad took a bullet in the shoulder, judging by the way he jerked sideways, then he tumbled back to lay inert at the ditch bottom, his mates crowding round him.
‘Leave him,’ Cal yelled. ‘Reload.’
Vince was on his way to provide first aid, and just before he blocked his view, Cal saw the look of shock on those young faces at the idea that one of their comrades should be left to suffer — but this was a battle, and how serious a one was yet to be made plain. Vince must have quietly backed up that command, given they attended to their empty rifles while Cal, looking back into the town, was aware that one thing that needed to be done to create a functioning fighting unit had not been fulfilled — the selection of who would act as medics.
A trio of cars were on their way, large, black and hardtops, nose to tail, not only packed inside but with blueshirts hanging on to the door rims, their feet on the running boards. His policy remained the same: do not stop them before they reached his position, let them pass, then put a fusillade into them to speed their flight, hopefully giving them wounded with whom they would be required to deal.
His hope played out well, his notion that people already in flight and past the real centre of resistance would not stop and retrace their route to engage, so a procession of cars, a few trucks and a couple of motorcycles with sidecars were afforded the same treatment, the second of the latter taking such deadly fire that it went over on its side spilling rider, pillion passenger and the two who had crammed into the sidecar.
Cal had the pleasure then of yelling to hold fire; the next vehicle through was carrying a great black and red flag and was crowded with Laporta’s men, the driver skidding to a halt as the fighters tumbled out to make sure that anyone wounded from both the overturned car and motorcycle combination were killed off.
Only then could Cal Jardine relax enough to go and see how the wounded man was faring.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Perhaps the greatest gift in taking the town so suddenly was the restoration of the ability to communicate with Barcelona; any telephone equipment in previous locations had either been ripped out and removed by the Falangists or destroyed. Somewhere behind the Barcelona column repairs to damaged wires had been undertaken so that, albeit with difficulty, much switching and a very crackling line, Juan Luis Laporta was able to contact Colonel Villabova to find out the progress of the main body advancing on Lerida, as well as report his own successes.
Expecting praise for his rapid progress and recent victory, Laporta was infuriated by the tone of complaint in the response of the titular commander. The list of towns and villages from which the enemy had been ejected was, it seemed, not just insignificant, the whole strategy of the column was mistaken, racing ahead with no thought to their flanks or the taking and securing of territory for the Republic.
Not a witness to this exchange — he would not have understood it anyway — Cal Jardine had got his wounded boy into the home of the local doctor who, if he had fled, being no supporter of Republicanism, had at least left in his surgery the means to deal with a bullet wound.
There were many other casualties and a row of sheet-covered bodies by the bridge, evidence that taking it had extracted a high price in blood. Those of the enemy dead, and there were no wounded, were thrown into the canal to float south as a warning to other places tempted to support the generals.
Florencia, interrogating the jubilant survivors of Albatarrec — it had suffered death and torture as had everywhere else and its inhabitants were now busy feeding and feting their saviours — had found a woman who used to act as the doctor’s nurse and she was fetched into the surgery to take charge. Competent, she knew how to stem the flow of blood as well as cleanse the wound, though it was soon apparent the bullet was still lodged in the left shoulder and would need to be removed, an operation better carried out back in the city. The lad, named Stanley, would be sent to Barcelona with the anarchist wounded.
As soon as he was sure Stanley was in good hands he left to make sure that the rest of his boys were being cared for — the rearguard having been fetched in from their foxholes — that they had food and drink as well as the means to clean both themselves and their equipment, both adequately dealt with by Vince Castellano, now sorting them out a billet so they could get some much sought-after sleep. He also felt the need to give them a lecture and, of course, to praise them.
‘I couldn’t have asked for more. For men who are raw you performed splendidly.’ Though these youngsters were pleased and knew they had every right to be, the rearguard less than the others, Cal could sense a residual layer of resentment, exemplified by the looks on their faces when Broxburn Jock spoke, his face tired and pinched, his voice cracked.
‘How’s wee Stan farin’?’
‘He’s in good hands, Jock, comfortable and asleep. The wound is clean and he will be evacuated to a proper hospital for an operation to remove a bullet.’ The pause was brief, the tone Cal employed turning quite hard. ‘I know you are not chuffed with the order I gave to leave Stan when he took his wound, but we were in the middle of a fight.’
One or two nodded, others did not. Tempted, as he was, to admit he had failed to designate anyone to deal with casualties, Cal felt it would come across as false. He had to be hard of heart and that was something they needed to learn, and he glanced at Vince, who had returned from his search and was looking at him, unseen by the lads, with an amused expression on his face as if to imply he knew what was coming.
‘That’s the way it is, and you’d best get used to it. In a battle, the effectives come before everyone else, and most important, you lot forgot to reload, which should be automatic. How would that have played out if one of those trucks full of Civil Guards had decided to stop and make a fight of it and you with empty weapons? It would not just be wee Stan in the surgery. You’re all volunteers, so if you don’t like it you can ship out anytime and I won’t seek to keep you, but know this. If I’m here and Vince is here, we tell you what to do and you do it without question. It has to be that way to keep you alive.’