The Horseman's Song Read online

  A former Guardia Civil non-com who didn’t believe in the goodness or even the value of man, he carried his forty years, proud peasant face and wrestler’s build well. Bora averted his eyes. Despite the steep climb from the brook, he was careful to keep his breathing under control because Fuentes was always alert to anything that would give away a man’s physical condition and training. “I think he was a civilian,” Bora said, tucking his army shirt in his breeches.

  Against the mountain, on the ledge where they stood talking, a stone farmhouse faced the valley due north, with the red and yellow Spanish flag hoisted high on a pole. Set against Riscal Amargo, whose name meaning “bitterly rough ascent” fit all too well, the lines of the two-storeyed caserón had a parched nobility. In his sketchbook, Bora had tried to capture its bareness and strength. There were six external windows on the upper level, but only one small opening and a doorway on the fortified ground floor. Square buttresses reinforced the caserón at the corners. The type of stronghold used since the days of El Cid, Bora had noted in his diary, probably against the Moors of Albarracín. Time-blackened rafters mark the ancient ceiling. A stable occupies its eastern wing, where the men often sleep.

  Niceto and Tomé returned from the cedar grove, yawning and stretching. Next to the lean-to where supplies were stacked, another volunteer, Josep Aixala, was keeping the last watch of the night.

  “I didn’t even know you were gone, teniente,” Fuentes told Bora, grinding his jaw. “Did anyone see you?”

  Bora registered the emphasis. “I don’t know.”

  “It isn’t as if the Reds hadn’t blown off the head of the lieutenant before you.”

  “Yes, you told me. I walk by the bloodstain every time I go down to the brook. But as long as the well is dry, I plan to go for a bath every morning.”

  Fuentes critically eyed Bora’s wet Spanish Foreign Legion uniform. Bora imagined him thinking These Germans and their obsession with washing and scrubbing. What good does it do when the heat makes men smell and sweat like horses within an hour? Still, Bora felt his clean-shaven chin with a small surge of pride for keeping up appearances even in a place like this.

  Fuentes snorted. “It’d be better if you kept me informed, teniente.” As the rusty weathervane on the house’s roof caught a wisp of wind and made a jarring, plaintive sound, he added, “I’m going to shoot it off one of these days.”

  Just then, followed by a billow of fine silt, a mounted officer rode down the steep trail winding from the heights to the army post. Fuentes nodded. “Well, mi teniente, you had better show the snapshot to Colonel Serrano. There he is.”

  Bora finished buttoning his shirt, but didn’t have time to roll down his sleeves before meeting the colonel.

  Jacinto Costa y Serrano glowered at Bora from the saddle, and Bora snapped to attention. “At ease,” Serrano said. A tall, sad-looking man, he resembled a careworn dead Christ. Stiff, inflexible and lacking in patience, his elegant Nationalist Army uniform displayed the finicky impracticality of starched shirt, tie and leather gaiters. On principle, he refused to address foreigners in his own language. Having attended army school in Potsdam thirty years earlier, Serrano spoke a heavily accented German and expected Bora to keep to his own tongue.

  “Herr Oberst,” Bora said, addressing the colonel.

  Although this was one of his hurried routine visits to the front, Serrano seemed to be making an effort to listen. “And where did you find this corpse?” he asked, dismounting. Tomé, a slim volunteer who loved horses, came to take his gelding and lead it to the shade. Even though it was only just past six, the temperature was quickly rising.

  Bora pointed out the place on a map the colonel handed him. “Here. Thirty or so yards south of the bridge, where the mule track follows the brook and a cane grove conceals it on the east bank. The man was lying on his side, and though his legs were on the road, his torso was stretched on its side over the verge.”

  “What difference does it make?” Serrano snapped irritably.

  “I think he was dumped there from a car.”

  A few feet away Tomé led the gelding to the scant shade of a small tree and squatted there. Niceto, who had been reading from a book with his back against the same tree, made a face and asked, “Did you have to tie the horse right under my nose?” And because Tomé didn’t reply – wide-eyed, he was busy taking in the sight of the officers speaking to each other – Niceto added, “What are you looking at?”

  “Nothing.”

  Following Tomé’s gaze, Niceto saw the lieutenant. All he could see from that distance was how the blonde fuzz on Bora’s arms gave his skin a sheen when the sun struck it. Next to him in the shade, screwing up his eyes in the sun, Tomé gaped. “A dark-haired rubio, that’s what he is,” he mumbled. And then he hugged his knees, breathing deeply the horse’s animal smell.

  “So?” Niceto stood up and walked away from the tree.

  Stiffly, Serrano removed his gloves by turning the leather cuffs inside out. “The Reds are renowned for their ‘night rides’, Lieutenant. You’ve been in Spain enough weeks to know. It’s clearly a Red murder. I hope you had the good sense to leave the corpse where it was. We have no need of bodies that don’t belong to us.”

  Bora took the snapshot out of his breast pocket. “I really don’t know which side he belongs to.”

  “What’s this?” Serrano asked. When Bora said, “It’s a photo of the dead man,” the colonel tucked the gloves into his belt and looked. His gaunt face drained into a pallor that made him appear grey. “Do you realize who this is?” He stared at the likeness. “Describe him to me, quickly!” he urged, unaware that he’d switched into Spanish. “Don’t you understand who the man was?” he hissed when Bora did so, as if it were the German’s fault for not knowing to begin with. “We must retrieve the body at once!” Serrano turned around to call the sergeant. “Fuentes! Take two men and ride quickly to where the teniente tells you. Bring the body back here.”

  Fuentes gestured for a couple of the men to join him. “With the colonel’s permission, we’ll chance it down the ravine. By the ridge road it’ll take us three times as long.”

  “Colonel,” Bora asked with polite inquisitiveness, “may I know who the man was?”

  Serrano spoke in a hoarse, controlled tone. “If your description is accurate and this photograph truly belongs to him, it’s best if you don’t ask. I have every reason to believe the Reds are behind it. That is all for now.”

  Bora stared at the colonel. He wasn’t surprised that Serrano was choosing not to give him more information, but because no one so far had seemed affected by a death during a war that seemed to butcher bystanders simply for the sake of butchering them. Then he recalled that when he’d knelt by the body, he’d felt like he had been at the centre of the world.

  Serrano’s agitation was in contrast to the rigidity of his shoulders. “This event is not what it appears on the surface; it transcends its immediate meaning.” He took some energetic, aimless steps around. “And to think that … well, enough. This time we must make sure, make absolutely sure, that the murder isn’t appropriated and used for political propaganda by the Reds.”

  This time? Absolutely sure? Painfully aware of the screeching weathervane, Bora watched Serrano study the snapshot, turn it over and shake his head. All there was on the back, written in a vertical, minute hand, was the dedication A MI QUERIDO AMIGO PAQUITO. “Colonel, what sort of murder would the Reds commit and then use against us?”

  Behind Serrano, the sierra rose naked, seamed, formidable. “You have much to learn about civil wars. They are intricate, loyalties are intertwined, allegiances are endlessly complex. Spain is a difficult country in peacetime; how can foreign volunteers expect to understand it in these trying days?” His pacing started and stopped, causing dust to gather on his shiny gaiters. “You’re not Spanish, you can’t begin to comprehend. Even the best of men may invite controversy. One can be praised by anarchists in Bilbao and at the same time censored by poli
tical commissars in Catalonia.” Serrano placed the snapshot in the map case at his belt. “We must retrieve the body to avoid rumours that we’re responsible for his death. And under no circumstances do I want anyone here to ask about the man’s identity.”

  Meanwhile Fuentes had chosen Alfonso, the college student, and a round-headed man called Paradís. They were scrambling down the ravine, shrubs releasing clouds of dust like gold spray. Bora didn’t understand how Serrano could be sure that the Nationalists hadn’t killed the man. “Sir,” he said at last, “the description I gave you fits many Spaniards, and the photograph is so small, it doesn’t seem enough to identify anyone.”

  “It’s more than enough, Bora.”

  The way Serrano pronounced his surname was entirely Spanish, neither a V nor a B sound, but something in between. Bora was getting used to it. In the Moroccan training camp he’d been given the battle name Douglas, but no one here called him that, even though it was his Scottish grandmother’s surname and his own middle name. His men addressed him by rank or simply as Alemán. When Serrano had first asked for his real name, Bora had told him. Now he followed the colonel in silence as he walked to the rim of the ledge.

  “Believe me, Lieutenant, it’d be easy for me to ignore that CNT claimed him as one of its own, but not everyone thinks the same way I do.”

  Bora didn’t understand how the anarchist trade union related to the matter at hand. “Will we bury him here?” he asked instead, realizing it’d be useless to inquire now.

  “While it’s imperative not to divulge the body’s identity now, later on people will want to know, so you must remember its location.”

  “What if I get killed?” Bora asked in an offhand tone, as if it were an inconvenience worthy of consideration. “Shouldn’t we tell someone else the location?”

  “You will tell me. If we’re both killed, then it’s destiny that his final resting place should remain unknown. Let’s go inside.”

  The ground floor of the army post felt comfortable compared to the outside. A chalky odour of freshly whitewashed walls filled the vaulted space. Serrano closed the door, and soon he was lighting a thin cigar by the solitary window, which afforded a view of ledge and sky. The colonel, who had a son Bora’s age being held hostage by the Reds in Madrid and a daughter pregnant by her dead officer husband living in the same city, paid too much attention to the great tragedies of his life and country: sometimes he ignored the practical things. Bora, facing a wall map of the region, wasn’t paying attention to the symbols on it. Instead, he was trying to understand why the men here, Fuentes included, accepted him, although it was difficult to say to what extent. His eyes wandered across the map, following the web of narrow mountain trails. Fuentes would obey an officer unquestioningly, while men like Josep Aixala disliked him because he was a foreigner and this was a Spanish war. As for the others … Bora didn’t know them well enough yet. He hoped that heading this mountain outpost would help him learn more about them, and Spain in general.

  In front of him, a fly was diligently tracking the course of the Alfambra River. Bora admitted to himself that he was here partly because it seemed the right place for a young politicized officer to be: a great dust-lined battlefield where rebellious Fascist officers called themselves Nationalists in order to confront a republic that referred to itself as Loyalist and Red. He chased the fly from the map. It was true, Serrano’s passion was not Bora’s own. But politics alone would have never brought him here, nor made him willing to die in the fly-spotted reticle of mountain trails. There were other reasons, like religion and the desire to prove himself, and something else which was dark and unnamed and like blood already spilled.

  Less than an hour later, Tomé came to announce that the detail was returning from the valley. Fuentes’ wide face was running with sweat when he regained the ledge. The others were still struggling up the sun-baked ravine. “Coronel,” he said slowly, so that the officers wouldn’t notice he was panting. “Teniente. The body isn’t there any more.”

  “Are you sure you went to the right spot?”

  “Yes, sir.” As he could see that Serrano was growing angry, Fuentes turned to Bora, who hadn’t visibly reacted. “We found some blood, just where the teniente said, by the cane grove. Looks like the body was taken away on foot, because we couldn’t find any traces of wheels.”

  “I bet the American did it,” Bora said. “The Reds use the mule track more than we do.”

  Serrano threw the long-spent butt of his cigar off the ledge. “It’s probably the American’s men who committed the murder in the first place, Lieutenant.”

  Bora checked the time on his watch. “Whoever did it, the body must have been removed in the past hour, and there are only so many places on the sierra where it’s possible to dig a grave. Did you search around, Fuentes?”

  “They were clever, mi teniente. They carried off the body rather than dragging it. I couldn’t even figure out the direction they took until I noticed a few drops of blood. It makes sense that it was the American and his men. From where the body was, it’s a short hike up to their camp by way of San Martín.”

  “They couldn’t bury a cat around San Martín, Fuentes. It’s all solid rock.”

  Fuentes nodded. “There are the terraces at the back of the chapel, though. There’s enough dirt there.”

  “Well, San Martín isn’t their territory any more than it is ours. If Colonel Serrano permits us, I’m all for going there now.”

  “And do what?” Serrano had been listening, growing increasingly angry, and now flared up at Bora in German. “Have a gunfight over the body, assuming that you find it, or find the Reds? It’d be tantamount to confessing we killed the man. The damage is done.”

  “Whoever he is, sir, the Reds might not have recognized him.”

  “No? Why would they rush to bury him, then? No. Someone in the American’s camp knew him, killed him, then decided to bury him and will try to blame us for it.”

  Fuentes, who understood no German, stood waiting for permission to leave. Serrano dismissed him with a snap of his fingers. Turning to Bora, he added, “I’m not through briefing you. Let’s go to your office.”

  Once in Bora’s small, well-kept room, the colonel said, “I realize I instructed you not to hold the men day and night at this post. But were they all accounted for last night?”

  “Fuentes and I were. Niceto kept watch from nine to twelve, Alfonso from twelve to three, and Aixala for the three subsequent hours. I can’t vouch for the other two or for anyone past their watch; they often go to Castellar to spend the night. They have women there.”

  Serrano’s lips stretched into a stern, unsympathetic grimace. “These are the disgusting realities of war. I understand you yourself were not without reproach after Bilbao was taken.”

  Like many fair-skinned men, Bora could not conceal the fact that he was blushing, and he knew it. The rise of blood might go unnoticed under a tan, but the darkening of his eyes – there was no hiding that. “It was the Spanish comrades who made us Germans drink and brought women in,” he replied. “Otherwise I’m not exactly used to an excess of either.”

  Serrano seemed to lose interest in the subject. “It’s really not relevant to the issue. What you must find out – and be subtle about it – is whether the men were all accounted for. After all, you are working for German intelligence these days. You can deny it all you want; I know an Abwehr operative when I see one. I’m sure you have an idea what to do next. Find out where they were, and report back to me.” Serrano lit a new cigar. “Doubts begin at home. Solutions begin at home.”

  Bora looked away. He didn’t dislike Serrano, but was uncomfortable around him in the way he grew uncomfortable in the presence of his Prussian stepfather. There were no places to hide from older men. The colonel spoke of Bilbao as if he knew what had happened in June after the Nationalists and legionnaires finally broke through and took the city from the Reds. There wasn’t much to it other than Spanish officers’ gossip. He had
been thrown into action within hours of flying into Spain, following the abstinence and gruelling months of training at Dar Riffian, grim with a death-seeking recklessness that seemed silly to him even now. Ten weeks of intense fighting had followed, during which he’d crammed in a year’s worth of Spanish lessons and hand-to-hand combat practice. In the face of it all, he’d done damn well in Bilbao. He’d been the one to whom the first Reds had surrendered. Spanish officers had congratulated him, and a pudgy Italian colonel had gone as far as kissing him on both cheeks on the steps of the church of St Nicholas.

  He remembered little of the drinking after the victory. A private house somewhere, with mud-smeared fine rugs and an endless supply of heady southern wines. The night had been rainy outside and the men around the table high on bragging and laughter. He had said – or thought – something about Greek heroes, and how the self-possessed man should act in war. Someone else spoke German, too, a Condor Legion pilot with a broken arm and a store of barracks jokes. What else? Of the women, Bora recalled that they were clean and young, officers’ women: he’d made love to the one who sang well and then to the other, who’d had slim ankles and who had been so eager that they’d ended up falling off the bed together. He remembered vaguely a third one called Inés. She must be the one with whom he’d spent the rest of the night naked and giggling, making love at the foot of the bed. In the morning, he had been very ashamed.

  Within hours, orders had come for the Germans to join other posts. Bora had spent two weeks in the hellhole around Santander, ending up in southern Aragon after a pause at the German consulate in Saragossa where a patronizing Abwehr officer had spoken to him of intelligence matters for an hour and then handed him sealed orders. Now he was being forced to serve here, where mountains ran in broken chains like high shelves rimming the south of the Aragon region, steep and bare around the Teruel plain. Teruel was Serrano’s headquarters whenever he wasn’t touring the advanced Nationalist army posts.