23 July 1938
In three hours we advance.
We are at the Ebro river. We have barges and rafts that have been brought up since dusk and they will take us across. We do not know if the enemy expects us or whether we will achieve surprise.
Our battalion has been given the target of taking Hill 421, and we have called it the Pimple. I looked across the width of the river at it this afternoon, when the sun was behind it and in my eyes, but I could see that it was well named. It is nothing: it is just a target. I cannot believe, if we take it, that the course of the war will be changed…but I have not said that, my doubt, because I no longer have friends that I would trust — to say it would be treason. Behind us are machine-guns. They will not fire at the enemy, but at us if we break and retreat, if we turn and run.
Opposite us is the Army of Africa, the Moors. Our commissars have told us that we cannot surrender to them, even if we have no ammunition left and are surrounded. The Moors — it is what the commissars say — have orders to kill any prisoners who are volunteers of the International Brigade. They will slice off our genitals and then they will slit our throats. That is the encouragement we have from the commissars: we cannot fall back and we cannot surrender. We must fight to the death, or be victorious.
So, we must take Hill 421, or it is over.
I wonder, dear Enid, if this will be the last entry in my diary.
All through this day, since we were moved forward to our start line, there has been a great quiet among our people. Are we doomed? Or damned? I believe so.
It is a clear night. When we advance to cross the Ebro river, we are promised that a mist will be over the water that will help us. This morning there was such a mist, but it was brief. The sun burned it away within two hours of dawn. When the mist has gone, the Moors will hit us with their artillery and mortars, and the German and Italian aircraft will fly against us, and the Pimple — should we have reached it — will be an easy place for them to find us.
I try to tell myself not to be afraid. I had no fear when Daniel and Ralph were with me. Without them, now, I have no friend to give me strength. I am not afraid of death, nor am I afraid of a wound, however awful. I am, however, afraid off fear. There were men at Brunete, on Mosquito Hill, and at Suicide Hill, above the Jarama valley, who froze in fear; some lay on the ground and cried, and some threw away their rifles and ran back. We have seen the consequence of that fear. It is a post, it is a cigarette, it is a blindfold, it is an order to aim and to shoot given to a squad of comrades — it is the most ignominious and shameful of deaths.
The light has gone out. None of us, I believe, has heart left in this war.
To end it against a post, with a cloth across my eyes, would be the worst.
I am thinking of Mr Rammage and his clerks at their ledgers — and of the members of my Poetry Group who will be meeting tomorrow evening — and of you, my dear Enid. Thinking of all that was secure in my life, where there is no Hill 421…Better with them and with you than here? I cannot say that.
We are all destined to face challenges. Mine, after dawn, is the Pimple.
He closed the notebook. It was his rule, however great the provocation of what he had read, never to skip forward.
Precious few pages remained, but it was the discipline of David Banks that he had not — ever — turned to the last.
Overwhelmed by what he had read, he lay half dressed on the bed and gazed up at the ceiling light.
Obsession had hooked into him — the barbs of the triple hooks slung under a copper spoon that his father had tied to the line when they had gone together to find a pike in the big pool below the weir. Always that excitement when his father had made ready the tackle, always that massive sense of disappointment and shame when a fish had been dragged to the bank and was found to have taken the hooks too deep for them to be extracted, and his father had killed it with a hammer blow to the head, and the lustre had gone from the scales, and the carcass was left for the rats or for a heron's feast.
He reflected on the twisting moods his great-uncle's war had evoked in him: hatred of Cecil Darke and admiration. Loathing and fascination. Loyalty to the man and betrayal of him. Self-examination and self-destruction…At the weekend, incarcerated, with the jurors in the barracks camp, he would read those last pages — from compulsion — and would curse again his great-uncle for what had been inflicted on him. Then he would write his letter of resignation.
In his mind was a man who was not a conscripted soldier, was a volunteer, was far from home…who had faced his enemy, yet was most afraid of fear.
Abruptly, Banks turned on his stomach, his head buried in the pillow. He sought to block out the images of Cecil Darke, who had no face to him, but all he saw was the river and beyond it a shallow hill on which howitzer shells fell, over which aircraft wheeled, into which bullets spattered, a killing ground…and he knew he would not sleep.
Another bloody day beckoned tomorrow. Another bloody day of his own worthlessness, and he thought respect was irretrievable.
Chapter 16
An hour before, Mr Justice Herbert had closed his foolscap notepad with finality, pushed it away across his desk, leaned forward, let his elbows take the weight and said, with practised earnestness, 'It is time now for us, ladies and gentlemen, to adjourn for the weekend. You will be taken back to the location where you have, so very patiently, stayed these last several nights. I am assured that recreation and outings have been arranged for you. There are many places, I imagine, that you would prefer to be but I want to put on record that your maturity and dedication have been noted, and I am confident that you will understand the necessity for the privations that you are required to suffer. We will resume at ten o'clock on Monday morning and then you will deliberate on your verdict. I wish you well for a quiet and pleasant weekend. Thank you.'
'All rise,' the clerk had shouted, in an unnecessarily full voice. Banks had stood, had seen the judge dive for his side door, had seen the impotence and anger writ large on the brothers' faces, had noted the sullen, helpless expressions creased on the jury's — all except his Principal's, had filed out of court eighteen to oversee the loading of the coach.
Wally had said, 'Quite envy you, Banksy. Me, I've a kid's birthday party to organize. Want to swap? Eighteen kids, twelve-year-olds, at Legoland. It'll be bloody chaos. You're a lucky sod, and don't forget it, tucked up with those deadbeats for, like the man said, "a quiet and pleasant weekend".'
He had stood in the yard, as the soft rain dribbled on his shoulders, and had watched the brothers led to the Be]marsh van, hemmed in with prison guards and the uniformed guns. When they had been loaded, and their convoy had pulled out through the opened gates, he had gone to round up and move his jurors.
Settled at the back of the coach, alone, he had closed his eyes, had started to think of being free.
'Mind if I sit here?'
A Protection Officer did not gripe — should not have scowled, but probably Banks did. He moved his coat off the seat beside him. He said curtly, the minimum of politeness, 'How can I be of help, Mr Wright.'
'It's just that I have a problem.'
Banks saw the smile and the shrug. His reply was brisk: 'Where we can, we try to sort them out — where's this one on the scale?'
The juror was beside him and Banks looked into his face. Wright's eyes did not meet his. The tongue skipped over the lips. He said, 'The problem's the weekend.'
'Everyone has a problem with the weekend.'