That morning Nat woke to whitewashed walls splashed with cinnabar and Van Dyke brown and fountains of burnt alizarin. Then, with a jolt, he remembered. He was looking at bullet holes and bloodstains. These were barracks that had once belonged to the Guardia Civil, Spain’s military police force. Holed-up Fascist sympathisers had refused to surrender a few months earlier. So the local militia executed them where they stood.
Albacete didn’t look any better by daylight. In fact the whole place seemed grimmer than ever. It wasn’t how he had imagined the International Brigade Headquarters, not at all. After breakfast the newcomers were herded through muddy streets into a bullring, sandy-floored. The milling men were slowly divided up.
Anyone who’d ever served in the cavalry to stand over there. Artillery over there. Motor mechanics sign up with that man. What next, Nat wondered? Electricians, then telephonists. Then what? It was hard to be sure. Orders were shouted in French, and translated into a dozen or more languages by anyone who thought they could. He wondered what they might call out that could apply to him. Printer? Lithographer? Hardly.
At last he was left with the largest group – the foot soldiers, he supposed. No . . . Infantry. That was the word. That’s what he’d tell Felix. This was good. He was fed up with being singled out for his talent for art. It may have saved him at school, and saved him from tailoring too, but it was only a part of him, after all, and he didn’t see why he had to be defined by it. He was just like all the others now. He nodded, and grinned. Shook hands. Compared notes.
Bubbles of laughter kept simmering up. This crowd was short on skills but not enthusiasm. Nat was beginning to enjoy the babble of different languages. He’d heard Lithuanian and Latvian and Polish and Russian in the East End all his life. Yiddish cut through borders of course, and it was reassuringly familiar here too, as well as useful. Quite a few Welsh voices rose and fell. And then there were strange versions of English . . . were these men Australian? Canadian? He wasn’t sure. It wasn’t quite like the films.
Nat preferred listening to talking just now. He would rather soak up the strangeness of it all than try to join in. He found himself searching the German Brigaders’ faces for marks of experience. They seemed gaunter, wiser, harder than the rest. Shadowed. The Italians too. Or was that his imagination? These were men who had already lost the battle against Fascism in their own countries. He had no idea how many soldiers Hitler and Mussolini had sent to fight in Spain, but he knew it wasn’t just one country’s civil war. Nat thought about the hatred he’d seen on the faces of Blackshirts back in England, and the memory strengthened his resolve.
Then everyone was told to line up according to their language.
Eventually he reached the front of his queue. At the table sat a pockmarked man in a long leather coat. Nat took in the pistol in his belt, and the lines on his face. He seemed fierce at first, as he put out a hand for the papers issued in Paris. He checked them, and then double-checked Nat’s age (now twenty-one – he’d managed to age another couple of years even since upping the truth in London). Nat watched his name appearing on his identity card. República Española. Brigadas Internacionales, he read upside down. Carnet militar para appellidos: Kaplan. Nombre: Nat.
‘Political affiliation . . .’
‘Young Communist League,’ he offered. The man shook his head.
‘Anti-fascista,’ he wrote firmly, then looked Nat straight in the eye. ‘Safer that way.’
Finally, the official handed him another folded card. ‘And here’s your pay book.’
‘Pay book?’ he said, amazed. ‘But I’m a volunteer!’
‘We all are, Sonny. But we’re in the Republican Army now. It’s only seven pesetas a day. Nothing to write home about. And you’ll have a job to spend it most of the time.’
‘Thank you. Sir. Comrade. Thank you very much.’
‘OK. Next please. Move along.’
Sneaking a look back at the others, Nat saw a boy he recognised. Skinny. Ginger-haired. Bit of a putz. It was the boy from the bus and he was called Tommy. He looked a lot chirpier now. Nat shot him a quick encouraging smile, which he returned. Just a wobble then.
Back at the barracks, it was off to the storerooms for uniforms. Nat expected more lining up, more papers to show, things to tick off lists, but it was like a jumble sale in there. It made Petticoat Lane market look like Harrods. Heaps of mismatched clothing lay in tumbled piles, roughly sorted into coats, trousers and footwear. Men picked through them, and held garments against themselves, trying things for size. Some were laughing; some looked stony. Others were beginning to kvetch and grumble.
Nat spotted a thick woollen suit, remembered the snow he’d seen on the peaks of the Pyrenees, and made a grab for it. But he was too late, and the man who got there first wouldn’t meet his eye. So he settled for a brown serge jacket and nearly matching trousers, the closest thing there was to a uniform. Boots seemed to be standard issue – strong enough, he hoped. Better than those rope-soled canvas things the Spaniards all seemed to wear, which didn’t seem much like shoes to him. The clothes felt cool and slightly damp to the touch; they’d caught a chill from the cold stone floor.
In another storeroom, blankets were handed out. Each man showed the next: you had to roll them up like sausages, tie the ends together and wear them like a sash. Only possible because they were so thin. Next a groundsheet cape, rubberised and clammy. Finally a leather belt and cross straps, a bayonet frog and ammunition box, and a thin tin helmet, rather battered. It looked like something from the Great War.
Moving down the corridor, Nat saw it was time to give up his civvies. He handed over his jacket and felt the swinging weight of his book in its pocket.
‘Half a mo.’ He stepped aside to let the next man past, and rescued his Jack London and his pencils too. He certainly wasn’t going to let those go. Was there time to look at the flyleaf? Just a glimpse of her face? Best not. The Spanish soldier clearly wanted his trousers too, and fast.
Nat hesitated. Goodbye, Dad.
‘Waiting for a cloakroom ticket?’ The laughing voice coming from the queue was familiar. London. Nat had spotted that open face before, right behind him in the line for identity cards. He knew his type, and he knew he meant well. ‘It’s not the Savoy, you know,’ his new comrade continued. ‘Believe me, you can kiss goodbye to them lot. Oh, I get it! It’s a looking glass you’re after!’
Nat grinned, and unbuttoned his trousers.
‘Suits you!’ The man rapped on Nat’s helmet with his knuckles. ‘Every inch a soldier! Stand up straight now. Klaider machen dem mentshen. Just don’t expect that thing to stop a bullet, please God may it not have to. And if you think this lot’s heavy, wait till you get your weapons and ammunition.’ He winked. ‘Though from what I hear, that could take some time.’
‘So what now, then?’ Nat asked. This man had a bouncy confidence about him that felt encouraging. Maybe he should stick with him.
‘Follow me.’ Just before turning, the man gave Nat another quick once over with crinkling eyes and stuck out his hand. ‘I’m Bernie. Don’t believe I’ve had the pleasure.’
Nat returned his hard squeeze.
‘Nat. Pleased to meet you.’
A few steps later he heard Bernie murmur to himself. ‘Twenty-one already? If you say so.’
Out in the sunshine, Nat blinked. Arriving? That was a joke. They were on the move again already. A crowd was forming, all newly kitted men, and a line of trucks was waiting for them, revving engines. Hadn’t they already schlepped round half of Spain?
The British Battalion started to pile in.
‘Next stop, Madrigueras,’ said Bernie. ‘Hold on tight.’