Even after night has fallen, heat rises from the dry earth with a force you can wade through. The river is cooler, almost cold. Nat feels its darkness swirl and eddy against his fingertips as he grips the side of the small boat, so low in the water that it sets his nerves jangling. He’s never learned to swim. The Ebro is deep and broad, and its currents are strong.
Never have they felt so resolute. Buoyed with new recruits, mostly Spaniards, the company is fit and lean from marching. Rehearsals have been intense, and secretive. The new offensive will catch Franco by surprise, break through at last, distract him from Valencia, and the south.
Yes, they are ready.
They cross the river in near silence, six or seven to a boat. They aim upstream, against the flow, their course at an angle. Nat sits facing two local men, watching the steady movements of their dark hands on the oars. They barely make a splash. With the slightest shift of weight, the overladen boat lurches, Nat’s stomach with it. Water tips over the gunwales and sloshes around their boots, but nobody speaks.
Nearly halfway across, the rebels’ shells begin to fall – not close, for they are firing blind – but near enough to send small tidal waves to rock and pitch the boat. The rowers never falter. Nat huddles low with the other soldiers. Water slops in the bows.
The lowest of whistles comes from the far bank. A clunk of wood on steel. The oars are shipped and the boat glides to a halt, nosing into the reed bed. Nat is the first to jump ashore, wading at first and then enjoying the firmness under his feet, as he leads the scramble up the bank.
Now they are in Franco’s territory. But they know they aren’t alone, and that knowledge is sweet. For twenty miles along the river, on pontoon bridges and boats, Republican units are advancing – the polyglot Army of the Ebro. Nat feels again the glow of brotherhood that warmed him when he first arrived in Spain. Everything feels possible again, and black and white and simple. They just have to win the war. Primero ganar la guerra.
Nat counts men, double-checks his canteen is full, and takes a compass bearing. They are to head away from the curve of the river. Their instructions are to take the road to Corbera, flushing out opposition as they move west.
‘Open order,’ the sergeant calls out softly. The men are already stringing out. As the sky lightens, they become more visible. How quietly can they march?
Surrounded by such courage and confidence, Nat smiles. But his smile quickly dies. He can’t stop brooding on what he’s left unfinished. He knows he’s failed Felix. At least, she thinks he’s failed her, and that is just as bad. The last person in the world he wanted to let down, and yet he has, in the very instant he imagined the opposite. And then again, over and over again, ever since, with his silence. He never had managed to explain. He just couldn’t bring himself to tell Felix that her friend was going to kill her. How could you put that on paper?
Just before Teruel fell to the Fascists, Nat looked hard for Felix, with no success. And then he’d tried to write. The chaos of the retreats quickly interrupted. And with it the numbness that struck them all. He’d never been any good with words, even without censors to get in the way. This wasn’t something he could draw, or paint. It was a pain he couldn’t even put a colour to. The only way to sort it out was face to face, with time, plenty of time.
After this final push, after this was over, he’d get leave then, surely. It couldn’t be too late. He would go and find her again and this time nothing would stop him. However long it took, wherever she was, he’d track her down and make her understand. In the end she would have to see why he couldn’t risk being mistaken, and surely she would forgive him. And then they would go to Valencia at last, and have time together for everything. He just had to get through this next battle. And he was lucky, wasn’t he? It didn’t make sense to think that way, he knew, though everyone did it. Bullets with your number on, steel balls bouncing on a roulette wheel. Lottery tickets. Except you couldn’t stop yourself. All he needed was a little more luck.
The river birds are awake. All around, conversations between machine guns are starting up too. At first, they take polite turns. Soon every weapon is talking at once.