• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

‘Er, none, I’m afraid.’ The man looked down at the table as he spoke, twirling his finger through some cold spilled coffee. ‘We’re just waiting for our papers so we can go home.’

‘To England?’

‘Yes,’ Anji answered firmly, with a glare at the Doctor. This was clearly a subject on which they were disagreeing. Pia stopped herself: her brain was still in a pattern from last night, cataloguing any information she could find on the newcomers, spotting weaknesses that could be played on. She had to let go, keep a part of herself separate from the machinery of the Party. Starting with a little socialising over breakfast.

* * *

– Afternoon/Evening –

We marched, if it could be called that, up to the plaza. Until the centuria is complete, we will do this every few days. All the different militia parade their troops in the plaza. I stayed at the back, as usual. Juan told me on the way up – in our shared language of French – that in the first few months of the fighting large crowds showed daily to watch the men march off to the front lines. He was disappointed that now the streets continue as normal, the civilians just pausing to applaud.

On the way back to barracks there was a commotion off in a side street and the centuria broke and hurried towards the scene. I went with them, although my Spanish is yet to be comprehensive enough to understand the yells.

The side street was narrow and cool. The overlapping voices of the crowd echoed up the tall buildings and back, distorting so that I could no longer distinguish individual words. The chaos of noise reminded me of nights in Trafalgar Square, when an argument between two drunken dossers would escalate suddenly and irrationally until every tramp was airing his grievance with the world and it became impossible to find out what had actually started them off.

Juan emerged from the crowd, his face pallid, swaying slightly. I gripped his upper arm and held him steady, asking him what it was. He shook his head and pulled himself free, stumbling slightly on the uneven surface as he walked back out into the main street. Pushing forward slightly, I caught a glimpse of something on the ground, something slick and dirty red.

The heavy sound of booted feet running up rode up over the verbal noise. Looking around I saw the Guard arriving en masse. These policemen were pointed out to me a few nights ago: the anarchist faction object to the concept of a force of law but have conceded that they are required, at least until the war against the fascists is won. Compared to the rag-tag militia I am with, the Guard look like a true military organisation. They have been issued with smart uniforms, quality boots and, those most desired of items here, service revolvers. As they arrived, much of the crowd started to leave, clearly unwilling to be around the Guard. I stayed, curious to see what had so excited the crowd.

Someone near the centre of the thinning group was sobbing. It was the sort of guttural sound an animal would make: the breath drawn in over raw vocal cords in gulps. Others were explaining things to the Guard at what I assume was great length: certainly it was at great speed and far too fast for me to follow. Shifting, I was able to finally view the tableaux in the gutter.

There was a mass of cloth and flesh, crumpled and unnaturally posed. The limbs were barely recognisable as such, they had been so deformed. One leg stuck out at an angle, twisted at right angles halfway down the calf. I gagged then, the stench finally reaching my nose. It stank of copper and urine, like an abattoir just after a cull. I was looking at a badly mutilated human corpse. I didn’t try to speculate what had happened to it. I didn’t want to look any closer. Instead I looked at the person who was still letting out short gasping sobs and realised she was looking back at me. It was Eleana.

Eventually, after she had argued with the Guard in Catalan for some minutes, I took her to the nearest bar. The only word I had clearly made out during the scene on the street was her brother’s name. One of the Guards