Lost Cause (14 page)

The museum wasn't large, but it was packed with information. Dozens of national flags hung to one side and the walls were covered with photographs of soldiers from all around the world who had flocked to fight in Spain.

Laia translated the information boards for me. Of the 40,000 foreigners who volunteered for the International Brigades, the greatest number—10,000—were from France. The statistics confirmed that almost 1,600 Canadians fought in Spain and that about half of them died.

We spent more than two hours wandering around staring at photographs of stern-looking men and rusted equipment. I tried to imagine Grandfather in the photographs, but it was hard. I knew him when he was alive and I was coming to know him through his writing, but the displays were impersonal and cold. I didn't doubt that the men in the photographs were as passionate as Grandfather, but I didn't know them.

As we stepped out into the late afternoon sunshine, I remembered that there was something I was going to talk to Laia about. “A girl on the bus in from Barcelona airport gave me the address of someone in Corbera. She said he was the grandfather of some relative and that, as a boy, he had been saved by an International Brigader.” I reached into my pocket and pulled out the scrap of paper that Aina had given me and handed it to Laia.

“Pablo Aranda, Avinguda Catalunya, 21, 43784, Corbera d'Ebre,” she read slowly. “We shall look for him in Corbera. Perhaps he has a story to tell. In any case, you look tired. Perhaps you are not used to our scooters?”

“Not really,” I said.

Laia laughed. “Then let us go and find somewhere comfortable to read the next section of the journal, and then we can find some dinner.”

“Sounds good, but first I have to call home to let Mom know I am all right. This would be a good time to catch her.”

Laia moved away from me as I took out my phone. I had a couple of texts from DJ.
Getting up, but it's hard
, the first one read.
I never thought I could be this tired
. The second one said simply,
Hope I can make it
. That wasn't like DJ. It worried me. I texted back,
Go for it.
I wanted to say more but I was confused by DJ's uncertainty.

The phone call to Mom went well. I told her I was fine and had found out a lot about Grandfather, without going into specifics. She told me stuff that was going on at home, none of which seemed in the least bit important in the middle of my adventure.

I felt odd as I folded the phone. Toronto was dull compared to what Grandfather had gone through and even compared to what I was doing.

“Your mother is well?” Laia asked.

“Fine,” I replied.

“Let's read the next chapter then.”

JULY 26, AFTERNOON

Sitting on a hill outside Corbera watching the town being pounded by wave after wave of bombers. Most come over at high altitude—3,000 feet Hugh says. I am learning to recognize the sleek gull-winged Heinkels and the ugly three-engined Savoias.

The noise is terrifying, great successions of explosions as the sticks of bombs explode in a line. It's like rolling thunder but harsher. Between the explosions, we can make out the crash of collapsing buildings and, even across the valley, the screams of the wounded and trapped. The entire hilltop is mostly invisible behind a swirling, dirty cloud of smoke and dust. As many of the inhabitants as possible have fled into the olive groves in the surrounding fields, and we can see their tiny black shapes. Some bombs have hit the dam that held back the town's reservoir, and a wall of water cascaded down the road. I hope no one was in the way.

The Poles of the Dabrowski Battalion took the town this morning, but they have pulled back because of the bombing. The Catalans we have been following for two days are almost at Gandesa, 3 miles farther on, and we are to take over from them tomorrow in preparation for the attack on that place. Everything is going well and we have taken a lot of territory, although some units have suffered heavily and resistance appears to be solidifying. Tiny says that once Gandesa is ours, the Fascists will find it very difficult to move troops and supplies around because it is a major road junction. I wish our tanks would hurry and show up. At least our air force has put in an appearance.

This morning we were attacked by a German fighter plane. According to Hugh, who seems to know everything about the enemy equipment, it was a Messerschmitt 109, one of the most advanced fighters in the world and more than a match for anything Britain or France has. It came in low over a hill while we were marching in loose formation across open ground. The first we knew was when bullets began kicking up the dirt around us. It was a pale-gray machine with the Fascist black diagonal cross on the tail, and it made three passes, although no one was wounded. It was swinging round for a fourth pass when three of our Chatos appeared from the north and engaged it. We all leaped to our feet and cheered wildly as the shapes twisted and turned frantically above us.

The Messerschmitt was faster, but the Chatos turned tightly and one of them must have got in a lucky shot as the Fascist plane turned away toward the river, trailing a long black stream of smoke. The Chatos didn't follow, but they waggled their wings over us in greeting and we all cheered until we were hoarse. Now all we need are the tanks and there will be no stopping us.

JULY 26, EVENING

We are in Corbera, or rather what's left of it. It is built around a church on a hilltop, but mostly all that is left are the smoking shells of buildings and rubble-filled streets. There are ripped drapes, shattered furniture and smouldering bedding everywhere, and fires are still burning in some streets. There are bodies among the collapsed walls, but most of the injured have been moved to a first-aid station set up in what is left of the town winery. Those who fled the bombing are staying overnight in the surrounding olive groves in case the bombers return.

Our squad was among the first in after the bombing stopped, and we have been working steadily since to search for and rescue those trapped in the ruins. Most of those we found were dead or dying, but there was one shining moment.

We were passing a collapsed house when Bob stopped and ordered us all to be quiet. Very faintly, we could hear a child crying. Following the sound and working very slowly and carefully, we eventually located where it was coming from. When the house had collapsed, one of the roof beams had fallen and created a small space in the corner of one room. A child, a boy of about six or seven, was huddled under the beam. He was scratched and scared, but suffered nothing worse. Tiny, in an incredible feat of strength, lifted the beam high enough for Bob to reach in and pull the kid out.

We were convinced that the child's family had been killed in the house and were taking him to the first-aid station when he abruptly broke free from Bob's arms and ran across the street shouting “Mama” at the top of his voice. A young woman sitting on a pile of rubble looked up and screamed. She was the child's mother and was convinced that her son was dead. It felt good to save a life and reunite a family amid all this death and destruction.

The worst thing is how impersonal everything is. I expected to be fighting against other people, but it is like battling against a vast uncaring machine. We see the planes that drop the bombs, but not the pilots. We don't even see the artillery that lobs shells at us from over the farthest range of hills. How can we fight back against that? I want to see the enemy.

Or do I? We will attack Gandesa tomorrow or the next day, with or without the tanks. Will it succeed or fail? Will I survive? What friends will I lose?

I still feel passionate about the cause I came to fight for, it's just that there is a difference between the grand idea, which is admirable, and the way it must be achieved, which involves incalculable pain and suffering. Is it worth it? My first instinct is, yes, of course it is worth it. The Fascists must be defeated. But could I justify our battle to that mother if Bob had not heard her boy crying and he had died in that ruined house? I don't know.

All of a sudden, things seem so bleak and complicated. I'm tired. I must try and get some sleep.

THIRTEEN

The whine of falling bombs, the crash of exploding shells, planes roaring overhead, tanks rumbling past and men shouting. The sensations were overwhelming. The only thing missing was the danger.

Laia and I were standing with our eyes closed in the introductory section of the Museum of 115 Days in Corbera, trying to imagine what it must have been like for Grandfather hearing these noises.

I had woken up stiff and sore that morning, and the scooter ride from La Fatarella to Corbera hadn't improved things. But being here had completely re-energized me. Being in Corbera and hearing the sounds in the museum was as close as I could possibly get to living the things that Grandfather was talking about in his journal.

The old town on the hill that he had witnessed bombed to rubble had been preserved exactly as it was the day he was there. Rubble had been cleared from the open areas and weeds had taken over the streets and alleys, but the church, its walls pock-marked by shells and bullets, still stood, surrounded by the stark ruined stone walls of houses. Fire-blackened beams, possibly even the one that Tiny had lifted, poked up from collapsed walls. Oddly, in one house, a rusted, old-fashioned sewing machine sat alone on top of a pile of stones.

Laia and I had the place to ourselves, and we wandered round in silence, trying to imagine the horror and chaos the destroyed houses represented. I found myself staring into the corners of ruins, wondering if this was where the boy Bob saved had been trapped. I couldn't get what Grandfather had said out of my mind. I was as convinced as he had been that the cause he had fought for was just. But was even a just cause worth all the suffering? Was it even worth the life of that one boy? I wondered if Grandfather had found the answer to his questions. I certainly hadn't found the answers to mine.

Now we were in the museum in the new town at the bottom of the hill, named for the 115 days the Battle of the Ebro lasted, listening to the noises of that horror.

“It's hard to imagine what your grandfather—what all the soldiers—went through,” Laia said as we moved among display cases of old uniforms, helmets, shells, bombs and guns. “Maria talked about the fighting in the streets of Barcelona. I understood what she was saying, but I never felt it the way I have among the ruined houses here or in the trenches outside La Fatarella. Even so, I can't imagine what it was like in the middle of all the things he talks about. Why do people go to war?”

“With Grandfather,” I said slowly as I thought about each word, “and probably with Bob and the others, it was for something that they believed in. I think they were trying to make the world a better place.”

“Yes,” Laia said as we stared at a case full of evil-looking bombs and rockets, “but he had doubts about whether it was worth it.”

“I know, but we know things he didn't. Maybe if Grandfather and the others had won in Spain, if Canada and the other democracies had got their act together and beaten the Fascists in 1936, there wouldn't have been a Second World War—no Hiroshima, no Holocaust, millions of lives saved. I've always thought history was simple, but it's not. It's complicated.”

“It is,” Laia agreed. “I think we will go crazy if we try to work out answers. Nobody has in thousands of years of history, so I doubt we will. All we can do is follow your grandfather's journal and see where it leads us.”

We examined the rest of the exhibits in silence. It was late afternoon by the time we finished, and I didn't feel like going to find the address Aina had given me. Since neither of us had eaten lunch, we went in search of a meal instead, returned to the guesthouse we had signed into that morning and settled down with the journal. I had a growing feeling that Grandfather's story was building to some kind of crisis, and I was eager to continue.