Doctor Who_ History 101 - Mags L. Halliday [11]
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The car’s rear wheel crashed over a pothole, jolting the passengers’ spines and causing Durruti’s head to hit the roof again.
‘I cannot believe this,’ he yelled over the rattles of the vehicle. ‘How can my men fight without air cover?’
He had arrived the previous day, leading the four thousand street-fighters of his column to the defence of Madrid. The Castillian capital would not be taken by the Nationalists whilst Buenaventura Durruti lived and could command his men. He had reported to Miaja that he was ready to make a full frontal attack on the rebels via University City. The General had assured him that air cover would be provided, as the scrubby plains next to the modern buildings and the wide avenues did not provide them with cover. Madrid was already being bombarded from the air and without the Republican planes counterattacking his men would be decimated, at the very least.
‘Those fools! Those ignorant Communist puppets!’ He slammed his fist into the side of the car, taking satisfaction from the pain.
‘Durruti...’
‘No! Where was the cover? They let men die because of their incompetence! Their blind obeying of Stalin’s dictates. We fight for Spain, for anarchism, not for the Soviets.’
The attack had started the previous dawn. The air cover had not arrived. Durruti’s militia battalions had already seen action in cities, but that was running street battles, or barricades, and had been before the Nationalists’ treacherous allies had brought their machine guns or Junkers to the fights. In the hard cold dirt on the edge of Madrid, where the King had once hunted game, Durruti’s men were the easy prey. He had lost many to strafer fire, or from the heavy shelling on the ground. Worse, a handful of his men had been so unnerved by the screaming of bullets and shells and the wounded, so scared for their own selves, that they had broken and run from the front. The failure had cost Durruti dear, in men and power.
He had spent the morning in futile arguments with the General and the other puppets, arguing that he could still regain University City. Now he was returning to where his men had dug in. This trench warfare, this advancing over open ground, was not what they were experienced in, but he was confident that they could rout the fascists. He was already planning their new offensive.
The car swerved around a mortar crater, jolting through another pothole, and causing the passengers to clamp their teeth tight. They were almost back in position now, close enough for the driver to put on the brakes and draw to a stop behind some thin scrubby cover. His friends got out of the car first, pulling their semi-automatic rifle straps on to their shoulders. Durruti clapped the driver on the shoulder – it was not his fault the road was so pitted and the ride so rough – and stepped out. As he straightened up, he checked his pistol was in its holster and tightened the belt that held his old jacket closed.
‘We should check the supply situation,’ he told his aide, ‘I doubt Madrid can or will spare us any food.’
Jaime was nodding when Durruti felt his chest burn and tighten, like he had eaten too fast. His breathing was suddenly shallow and painful and he wanted to gasp but found he couldn’t. And he was falling, toppling backwards as if he had been shoved in the chest by a drunk. Things were muted for a moment, then his vision went black, and the sound cleared.
‘Oh my God, Durruti has been shot!’
He tried to remind Jaime that there were no gods to call to but none of his muscles would do his bidding. He closed his eyes to rest for a moment, wondering where the sniper had been hidden.
Buenaventura Durruti died of his wounds two days later in the converted Ritz Hotel in Madrid.
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– Evening –
Las Rambles is the social heart of the city. In July, the industrial city of Barcelona became a warzone. This beautiful heart of the gothic quarter, Las Rambles, was turned into barricades, the cobbles lifted from their sockets to become missiles. The street is a wide boulevard, lined with