Page 54 of The Gathering Storm (Morland Dynasty #36)

‘I thought I did,’ Basil said.

‘Am I right in thinking the whole thing was your idea?’ Basil demanded. ‘That you put your uncle up to it?’

‘Of course not. He was already thinking about it. I just helped him make up his mind.’

‘They’d already recruited Bob Zennor. You pretended to me that it was a new idea, that nothing had been settled.’

Miranda was unrepentant. ‘I didn’t pretend anything.

You drew your own conclusions. But what does it matter who thought of what, when?

You’ve volunteered for an exciting expedition, something that will change your whole life.

Most men your age would give their eye teeth to go.

’ She gave him a sharp look. ‘You’re not going to back out? ’

‘No,’ he said, ‘but—’

‘I knew I wasn’t mistaken in you. My hero!’ She laughed as she said the word, as though it was ironic, but he thought there was a new warmth in her look.

She had manipulated him, Basil thought. But as she smiled at him, he decided it didn’t really matter after all. He was going to Spain. It was the most exciting thing that had ever happened to him. And when he got back, she would see him in a different light. He would be a hero then.

Nothing in Barcelona surprised Basil as much as finding himself there.

It was the first time he had been abroad, and he was glad of Bob Zennor’s large, solid presence.

Zennor didn’t have any warlike qualities, as far as Basil could tell, but he seemed unflappable, and he had the inestimable value of speaking some Spanish.

‘Learned it as a nipper,’ he said, when Basil asked why.

‘Had a Spanish nanny.’ He anticipated another question and added, ‘M’ father was in mining, spent a lot of time in Bolivia.

I was actually born out there. Don’t remember it, though.

We came home when I was still a baby. But we brought the nanny with us. ’

On the long journey to Barcelona, Basil learned as many words and phrases from him as he could. He found it not dissimilar to Italian, of which he had a smattering from schooldays; he thought he’d pick it up quickly.

As the train pulled into Barcelona station, he had one of those moments of suddenly seeing himself clearly, and a wash of shock went over him.

What on earth am I doing here? I’m not a soldier.

I don’t know anything about soldiering. I don’t really care about this war – why should I?

I don’t even know what they’re fighting for.

I don’t want to get shot at. I don’t want to get killed .

Zennor was up and collecting their bags; Basil was rigid, gripping the edge of the seat. ‘This is us,’ Zennor said, seeing he hadn’t moved.

‘Aren’t you scared?’ Basil heard himself ask.

Zennor only looked mildly puzzled. ‘What of?’

Basil was comforted. He wasn’t going to be outdone by a feather mattress like Bob Zennor. He was Basil Compton, the scamp, the outlaw, the dare-devil, the scorner of rules. If anyone was going to be a hero, it had to be him.

Barcelona looked rather shabby. Boarded-up shops; some windows broken, others mended with brown paper; peeling paint, damaged stonework, missing cobbles; rubbish lying in the street.

And – the most noticeable thing to Basil, having come from London – a complete absence of well-dressed people.

Everyone looked poor, and was dressed either in coarse peasant clothes or workers’ blue overalls.

‘Bit of a dreary place,’ he commented.

Zennor said, ‘I was here five years ago with my parents, and this street was full of expensive shops and rich people. It’s called Las Ramblas, and it was the main street for strolling about and being seen. But now everything belongs to the people.’

‘Well, the flags are jolly,’ Basil said doubtfully.

All the big buildings were draped in red or red-and-black flags; red and blue posters were plastered on every surface.

There were no private motor-cars, but the trams had been painted red-and-black.

And loudspeakers along the street bellowed out songs with simple, catchy tunes.

Revolutionary songs, Zennor told him, about the brotherhood of man and the newly won freedom of the proletariat from oppression.

A man in a uniform of some kind thrust a leaflet at him, and he folded it into his pocket for future reference, remembering that he was supposed to be taking notes for his first report to the Messenger .

‘Where are we going, anyway?’ he asked Zennor.

‘The Lenin Barracks, to enlist. Don’t you remember?’

‘Why name it after him?’

‘Why not? He was the father of Communism. It all started with him.’

‘But wasn’t he a dictator? Didn’t he have thousands of people killed?’ Basil asked, from some vague memory of history lessons.

‘You can’t have a revolution without the spilling of blood,’ Zennor said simply. ‘The birth-pangs of a new civilisation.’

Basil mentally banked the phrase.

The Lenin Barracks were a block of buildings from another age, handsome and stone-built, though beginning to have the knocked-about look that Basil was already coming to recognise.

They had been a cavalry headquarters, so the buildings included stables and a riding-school, and several enormous courtyards where mounted drills had been conducted.

There was an office just inside the entrance, where an officer sat at a battered wooden table, surrounded by piles of papers, which seemed to be mostly lists, and some very frayed maps.

He looked up with a fierce frown. His face was rather impressive and hawk-like, with sharp cheekbones and a jutting nose.

He looked like Basil’s idea of a guerrilla commander.

Zennor addressed him in Spanish, and he seemed to listen impatiently until he called him ‘ senor ’.

Then he burst into indignant speech. Basil managed to catch enough of it to understand that he was saying there was no more ‘ senor ’ in Spain: everyone was equal, everyone was a comrade.

Then he looked sharply from Zennor to Basil, and said, ‘ Inglés? ’ They assented, at which the officer stood up and shook hands with them, and said, ‘We like very much English. Many English come. Maybe soon we get all English centuria . English good soldiers.’

He reverted to Spanish with apparent relief, sought out a particular list and added their names to it, spelling them laboriously letter by letter.

Then he said something else in rapid Spanish, waved a hand expansively, and called forward a shabbily dressed man who had been toiling at another desk and consigned them to his charge.

‘What did he say?’ Basil asked, as they followed the shabby little man into the yard.

‘He said we’d be going to the Front very soon, when we finish training.’

‘Surely,’ Basil said, suddenly nervous, ‘training takes weeks and weeks?’

Zennor shrugged. ‘We’ll find out. I expect they do everything differently here. Can’t expect it to be like the British Army.’

Basil knew very little about the British Army, but he was sure the Lenin Barracks would have sent any British NCO into fits.

The place was filthy, every window opaque, the stonework chipped and streaked, rubbish lying about.

Every corner seemed to be filled with broken saddles, dented brass helmets, smashed furniture, scraps of paper, rags, rotting food and human waste.

The smell of horses was strong, even though there had been none for months – they had all been commandeered for the Front.

The clerk explained that they were to be part of a new centuria – roughly equivalent, Zennor decided, to a British Army company – being formed.

It was being housed in one of the stables.

In a stall with high wooden sides, bars going up to the ceiling, and a manger across the back, Basil and Zennor were to bed down on the stone floor.

High on the wall was a wooden plaque bearing the name of the previous occupant: Tormenta.

Zennor said it meant Storm, a good name for a military horse.

Basil, however, took it gloomily as an omen.

As the days passed, the stable block filled, with more recruits arriving every day.

They were all young men, mostly around seventeen or eighteen, some as young as fifteen being brought in by their parents for the sake of the ten pesetas a day wages.

They were shy, friendly, eager, and filled with revolutionary fervour.

They spoke a dialect of Spanish that even Zennor found challenging, but goodwill and a uniformity of ignorance about what they should be doing drew them together.

Space soon ran out, and they were crammed in three and four to a stall, with others sleeping in the passageway, but Basil and Zennor were not disturbed from their regal occupancy of Tormenta’s stall.

Their Englishness was evidently a revered characteristic.

Uniforms began to be handed out from the first day, but piecemeal, as items arrived from the factories frantically rushing them out, so there was no uniformity of appearance.

Corduroy knee-breeches formed the basis, along with a grey cotton shirt, but some men were issued with puttees and some with corduroy or leather gaiters.

The quartermaster, impressed with Zennor and perhaps seeing in him officer material, issued him with long leather boots, and found another pair, with a sort of shrug, for Basil.

Jackets were of wool in various colours, or canvas, or leather, and there were no uniform caps.

Some felted forage caps were handed out, and even some wartime kepis, but most men wore a round knitted hat, pulled down low for warmth.

The one uniform element was the red-and-black scarf tied around the throat – they all had one of those, for pride.

Red and black were the colours of the Party.