Doctor Who_ History 101 - Mags L. Halliday [116]
Epilogue
Extracts from diary confiscated from rooms of Eric Blair at the Hotel Continental. Found in CP files, Moscow, 1993.
* * *
– 25 Jan 1937 – Evening –
Have just arrived at Monte Oscuro, joining an ILP contingent just out from Barcelona. Bob Edwards is in command and seems uncertain about me. I suspect he thinks I’m another one of those writers popping over here for a bit of colour for a book and not committed to the fight against the fascists. We’re trying to win Saragossa, which has been in Nationalist hands since August last year.
Unlike my last position, the dugouts here go horizontally into the limestone face of the hill. The fascists’ lines are maybe four hundred yards away.
* * *
– 1 Feb 1937 – Morning –
Although the lines are so close, the lack of ammo on both sides means the war is fought more with megaphones than with bullets. Edwards frequently calls out how great our food is! An abominable lie. He’s also got half the Spanish machine gunners with megaphones, shouting out lengthy political arguments about the capitalist system. Amazingly, there is a trickle of deserters from the fascist side.
I’m far more bothered by the rats. They are, I suppose, an inevitable part of trench warfare but I shudder every time one crawls over my boots in the darkness. It is hard to sleep here anyway, since one is always aware that a grenade or shell might come flying out of the night, but these rodents add a whole new nightmare to the business.
* * *
– 21 Feb 1937 – Afternoon –
Eileen returned to Barcelona today, after several days visiting here at the line. She is working as McNair’s secretary, doing all his typing and preparing the ILP newsletter for back home. The Doctor drove her out and back: he is looking tired and haggard so I can only imagine how bad I must look to him. Eileen showed me a report in one about the recent counterattack I took part in. The whole business is very much depicted as a jolly adventure: I cannot help but assume they are receiving a very different impression of this war back in London.
* * *
– 27 April 1937 – Evening –
Leave. Finally, after four months in the trenches, I have leave for Barcelona. Eileen has rooms in the Hotel Continental and I will stay with her there. I am looking into being transferred to Madrid, since the line I am on is very quiet and the battle for Madrid is essential.
We bundled on to a train heading south and one of the men produced a few bottles of anis which are making the journey – cramped and stinking – more bearable.
* * *
– 3 May 1937 – Evening –
The tension which has been building for days here has exploded into fighting. I’m still unclear about what exactly happened but I have rejoined the POUM at Hotel Falcon. The phone lines are down and I have spent many of the last few hours arguing to be issued with a rifle and ammo. Eileen, I hope, is in the Continental and should be safe there, although I hear that the fighting is fierce at the telephone exchange, which is just one block away from her.
* * *
– 10 May 1937 – Afternoon –
I am back at the front, this time close to Huesca. I have left my journals and notes of the last few weeks with E. with instructions that she should burn them, should the situation worsen. I think I filled an entire notebook during the fighting in Barcelona but I am sure I will be able to write much of it from memory, should need be. It is strange talking about those days back here, since the news which reached the front lines is often a completely different version of the events to the ones I experienced. Of course, the POUM and ILP groups regard anything the Communists say with distrust and, having read some of the accusations printed in the CP presses about the May Days, I find myself agreeing. Back in Barcelona, I had been in discussions with a friend in the CP to leave the POUM and join the International Brigades in Madrid but, after the fighting there, I found that I could not in conscience do so.
* * *
Memo attached to diaries
EB returned to Barcelona, according to confiscated