BUTTERFLY AND FALCON (Part 5) By KATZMAREK ------------------------------------------------- Author's note. This is a work of fiction based on fact. Opinions and interpretations of events expressed are my own and as such are entirely contestable. This remains my property and may not be used for gain without my express permission in writing. -------------------------------------------------- The light cruiser slid placidly through the calm sea of the Bay of Biscay. Far off, the crew could see the slash of grey that marked the Spanish coast. The command bridge was cluttered with officers. Admiral Gorshin preferred the relative seclusion and fresh air of the upper bridge. "What do you think, Admiral?" Rykhov said. Binoculars were glued to the faces of both men. "The 'Admiral Scheer'," he replied, "six 280mm main guns on a cruiser hull. Diesel engines, about 33 knots, although I doubt she's done that speed for some considerable time. That smaller vessel is the 'Emden,' I believe. A training cruiser nowadays." "The Britisher?" "That one to starboard of us is the 'Southhampton.' The other is French, 'Duquesnes,' or similar." "Remarkable, if I may say, that you can tell all that from this distance." "Years at sea, Rykhov. It may mean life and death. If we were at war, this ship would be heading away at great speed, let me assure you." "You would not rate our chances?" Admiral Gorshin removed his binoculars from his face with a look of alarm. He saw Rykhov grinning and smiled. He liked Rykhov, one of the few GPU agents on board his ship, the 'Tchervonaya Ukrainiya,' that had a 'human face.' Generally he resented them; resented their strutting around the cruiser in Naval uniform that, in the Admiral's opinion, they did not earn and had no right to wear. But he kept his views to himself. Years of service in the Soviet Navy had taught him to hold his tongue. "Large vessel inshore," the lookout standing on the wing of the upper bridge reported. Gorshin swung his binoculars in the direction he was pointing. "'Canareas'," he said, "Falangist cruiser out of El Ferol." "Remarkable!" said Rykhov, in wonder. "Tell me, why don't our ships have Diesels? It seems a good idea." "At first glance, Diesels do have certain advantages. The obvious one is range and the German 'Panzerschiffer' have a long range. But, any reciprocating engine vibrates, and the bigger the engine the more this becomes a problem. Vibration causes wear and the harder you run the engine the more wear is the result. Those big MAN Marine diesels shake those German ships so hard at speed that, as I understand, their rangefinders can't be used. It shakes the frames and plating, which, I imagine, will considerably shorten the life of the ship. That, Rykhov, is why Diesels are a bad idea for a fast warship... And why," he added, "they're not planning any more." "You seem well-informed about German Naval matters?" "Rykhov!" the Admiral said, exasperated, "don't try your spy bullshit with me. I read the fucking intelligence reports like any other good senior officer." "You do?" Rykhov replied, "I don't... too dense, too many pages." "And you're the intelligence officer?" Gorshin told him laughing. "So what exactly *is* your speciality?" "I'm a foreign relations expert." "Figures," said Gorshin, shaking his head. A signalman sprang up the ladder clutching a signal chit. He stood rigidly at attention waiting for the Admiral. "What is it?" Gorshin asked. "Sir, we've been ordered to Barcelona. We're to sail to Lisbon to refuel then proceed at our best possible..." "Ok, ok," the Admiral interrupted, "Barcelona, eh? I wonder what's happening there, Rykhov?" ---------------------------------------- John watched his comrades of the 1st Escuadrillo grow more and more fatigued. Their bodies were gaunt, their faces pale with eyes sunken into their sockets. They were flying 6, sometimes 7 sortes a day across the river against the Falangist lines. The front line was mobile and confused. Some Nationalist units had formed strongholds and, completely surrounded, seemed prepared to hold out to the last man. As more and more Nationalist troops were rushed to contain the bridgehead, the Republican advance slowed down. The Russian tanks were too few in number and they dispersed themselves too widely. Gradually, the battle began to wind down to another stalemate. They'd shifted airfields twice as the Nationalist air force and their German allies began to exert air superiority. The Messerschmitts had arrived and a new German fighter, the Heinkel He112, also displayed its tactical superiority over the Mosca. The I16 pilots took to hugging the ground in hit and run raids. For the first time orders were received to avoid air combat, to stem the losses of these precious little aeroplanes, the best fighter available to the Republicans. A good night's sleep was almost a forgotten memory to John. One day he woke up and found himself still strapped in his aircraft. The groundcrew had pushed it next to an old barn and spread camoflage netting over it. Above he saw a black shadow pass over. Even through the netting, he recognised the squared wings of a Messerschmitt Bf109. Sounds, then, came to him; the rattling of machine guns, the howling of revving aero-engines and the crack of an anti-aircraft gun. Some men came seeking shelter. He barely recognised them as his own ground crew. He stared at their legs as they lay prone under the wings; not more than a metre, he mused, from his port wing tank and 80 litres of aviation gasoline. He couldn't be bothered telling them, couldn't be bothered moving in fact. The enemy aircraft disappeared all of a sudden. Their whining engines receded into the distance and was replaced with people shouting, the crackle and hum of a fire burning somewhere. "Hey, Lieutenant, you hit?" came a shout from below him. John awoke as if from a dream. "Hey, Kiwi!" "Fine, I'm fine," he told the man. His voice seemed disconnected, like it was someone beside him who was answering the man. "Here, let me help," said the man, this time standing on the wing beside the cockpit. He was Spanish, John remembered, Miguel, he thought was his name. Another man appeared on the other side of him. Strong arms seized John and lifted him gently out of the cockpit. He couldn't move his limbs, had difficulty remembering where he was. "Hey!" he heard a shout, "we need help here, the Kiwi's hurt!" "No, I'm fine..." he started to protest. "Are you now? Then whose blood is that?" John Greenhaugh promptly blacked out. --------------------------------------- It was hot. The road was burnt to a brick red with powdery dust swirling up at the slightest puff of wind. Benin tied a scarf around her face, it was the red and black one she wore as a Mujeres Libres, but she didn't care anymore. She heard the asmatic rattling of of a motor amid a cloud of dust. She moved to the side of the road to allow the vehicle to pass. It was a Citroen-Kegresse half-track gun tractor towing a 75mm Howitzer. It stopped beside her with a squeal of brakes and a graunch of gears. The occupants were a smudge of khaki. She heard a voice, "Hey, hombre!" Benin turned, hands fingering her sub-machine gun. "Hey, soldier!" the voice continued, "got any bandages? Morphine?" Benin shrugged apologetically and shook her head. "You know First Aid? We have wounded here." "Some," she answered, "How bad?" "Gut! Shrapnel, and one with concussion. Fascist bomb! Please, you see him? He's a good boy." Benin nodded and threw her bed roll and gun up into the half-track. Strong hands lifted her up and over the side and sat her in a bench seat. A canvas top had been rigged over the Citroen with rolled up sides. As Benin sat down, the side flaps dropped back down plunging them into semi darkness. The gun tractor lurched and set off once again. "Captain de Castries," the man in the front seat turned and said, "is there and aid station near here?" "I don't know?" Benin told him. "Are you a girl?" he asked in mild surprise. "Si." "His name's Juan, in the back. He's only 16. Is there something you can do for him?" "I'll try." Benin climbed over the back to where a boy lay rolling on the jolting bed of the lorry. There was blood everywhere. It covered his chest and lay soaking into the floorboards. Another soldier knelt beside him with bloodied rags, trying to staunch the flow. "How long has he been like this?" Benin asked. "Half and hour," the soldier explained, "the bleeding stops then starts up again. The metal's still inside him." Benin knelt close to the boy's face. He seemed so incredibly young, his skin was pale with eyes lidded and unfocussed. "Let me see," she said to the soldier and pulled back the rags to look at the wound. It was a deep gash running the width of his stomach. Benin immediately grabbed her bed roll and rummaged through it. Finding her spare shirt she immediately set to work tearing it into bandages. ------------------------------------------- John became aware of a flight of aircraft droning somewhere far off. Instinctively, he tried to identify them by the sound. Their engines didn't clatter like radials, rather, they had the distinctive whine like that of in-lines. They lacked the peculiar whistling sound of the Messerschmitt. Instead, their exhaust had that angry bark, such as the French/Spanish Hispano- Suiza. 'Breguet 14s,' he concluded, then relaxed. He heard voices nearby, heavy Nordic accents speaking English sprinkled with Spanish words. A group passed close to him. He opened his eyes to see a committee of white-coated people staring at him from the foot of his bed. "You awake?" one asked the obvious. "Yeah, where am I?" "Sabadell, the Swedish Hospital. Are you in pain?" The male voice spoke English cleanly and deliberately with a precision not often found from those that learned the language from their Mothers. John closed his eyes for a moment as if checking through the various sensations in his body. His back ached, a dull persistant pain, and he felt bent over a bulky dressing. "What happened?" he asked through dry lips. "Bullet," one said, "through here," he demonstrated by pointing to a spot around his lower back. "We removed it. The round was spent and didn't go in very far. You were lucky!" "I was?" "Ja, it grazed the top of your hip... missed your kidney." He closed his fingers together to show John how close the bullet came to anihilating his internal organs. "You're going to make a full recovery." "How long?" "Depends on your constitution, my friend." The Doctor looked at the notes he was carrying. "You are John Greenhaugh, yes, from New Zealand? A Lieutenant in the Spanish Republican Air Force?" John nodded. "We need this for the International Red Cross, you understand. They want all the details." John nodded again. The Doctor spoke to his colleagues in Swedish before turning back once more. "Your family will be notified. Is their anyone else, in Spain? Your unit has been told of your situation." "Yes," John said, "a girl." the Doctor grinned knowingly. "She is called Benin. In Madrid, I think, or maybe she's left, I don't know." "Last name?" John shook his head. "So, you want us to find a girl called Benin, no last name, you think is in Madrid but might have left?" John shrugged. He didn't need to be told it was an impossible request. -------------------------------------- As the Howitzer crew clattered along in the gun tractor towards the front, Benin nursed the wounded boy, and one other, a concussed Sergeant. The young lad drifted in and out of consciousness, however, Benin was able to stop the bleeding. Somewhere in Teruel province, to the South of Saragossa, they at last found a French aid station. They were able to turn their wounded over to the nurses. Benin doubted, though, that the boy would make it. "We must get to the front," said Captain de Castries, with a resigned expression. "Thank you for your assistance, Benin." "I'm sorry about the boy," she told him. "Is all right, is War, he did his duty. He's a good boy, I leave him in God's hands." Benin shuffled uncomfortably. "It's not right to have babies fighting in the front line." "Si, I told him," the Captain replied, "his Mother told him, but my son, he..." "Your Son?" "Si, my Son. What could I do but have him where I could keep an eye on him? I couldn't protect him," he added with tears in his eyes, "fucking Germans!" "Where are you going?" Benin asked, thoughtful. "Gandesa, on the Ebro." "You are short-handed. Perhaps I could join you?" "A girl serving my gun?" "Why not? Who's the Fascist pig commanding there?" "De Llano, I understand, may he roast in Hell over a slow flame. Why?" "De Llano, hmmm," said Benin, "not the bastard that captured Saragossa?" "The same. May we feed his nuts to the vultures" "His Moroccans raped and killed many of my Sisters." "Did they now? You have a large family?" "Yes," Benin said defiantly, "the Mujeres Libres." "Ah, you're an Anarchist?" "Si." "No matter," the Officer replied, "you come with us and we'll send one of our shells down the pig's throat." ----------------------------------------- The 1st Escuadrillo finally shifted airfields to Tarragona, some 150 kilometres South of the Hospital at Sabadell. Some of his squadron came to visit John, smuggling bottles of wine past the staff. These they mostly drank themselves. The battle had died down, they told him, after the Republican army had been forced back to a position known as Hill 666, in the Sierra Pandols. The Falangists had then counter-attacked in the vicinity of Tortosa to the South, but their positions had held. De Llano had emplaced artillery, lots of it, around a place called Gandesa and, they say, was firing more than 10,000 shells into the Republican lines a day. "10,000?" remarked John, "I don't fancy being on the ground there." "Me neither," said 'Oz' Calaghan, "Jerry Stukas, Messerschmitts and them 'flying pencils' (Dornier 17s) are pounding the shit out of everything." "I saw some of those Eyetie trimotors (Savoia-Marchetti Sm79 'Spavieros') the other day," John explained, "one of them dropped a bomb just outside the Hospital perimeter." "Idiots!" 'Oz' said in disgust, "you can see the Red Cross from 30,000 feet up." "Don't make any difference in this war," John said, "they shoot at everything, Hospitals, Orphanages, bloody old folk's homes..." "Fuckin' right there, Shagger. The Frogs and Poms are kicking up a fuss about Guernica, but you ought to see what the Jerries did to Madrid. Don't recognise the place anymore... bombed to fuck... it's not right." "You heard anything of Benin?" he asked, hopefully. "That little piece of yours? Dunno mate... gone to Madrid last time I heard. Can I be frank, mate?" John nodded, "well... I just don't think you ought to... ah... get your hopes up... ah... about seeing her again. Um... I'm just trying to be your mate, see, and... well... not that I think she's dead, but..." "Yeah, yeah," John said, putting up his hand, "I know what you're getting at." "Yeah, well... I'll keep me ears open, ok?" He took a long swig of the wine bottle. "Want a ciggie, mate? Yank ones, Chesterfields, got them off some doughboy with the Abe Lincolns." "You knocking about with the Reds?" "Fuck, why not," he laughed, "they bleed like anyone else." ------------------------------------------ "See?" Captain de Castries explained, "that's the traverse wheel and that's the trajectory. It's graduated in 100 metre marks. It will only traverse 15 degrees, if you want more you have to get the lads to shift the trail around. Shout 'ready' when you have everything lined up, then block your ears... simple!" Benin nodded, uncertainly. She hadn't realised how complicated firing a Howitzer was. They were entrenched on a hill, actually a series of ridges, that form the foothills of the Sierra Pandols. Behind them the ground sloped away to the Ebro. In front, the Nationalists were dug in around Gandesa and along a minor tributary of the Ebro called, the Ciurana. For some days the Nationalists had been firing heavy shells from Krupp 155mm guns from along that position. Nothing the Republicans had could match the range of those big guns. As usual, the Republicans screened everything with camoflage netting. Stukas circled like hovering skuas, ready to dive down at the hint of prey. They learned to move only when necessary, and then at the crouch in short, sharp dashes. Communication trenches had been cut into the soil, a crumbling rotten rock typical of ancient seismic activity. The stone chip, however, was as deadly as shrapnel when the Nationalist shells exploded. The gun fired with a viscious snap that surprised Benin. She'd imagined more of a hollow boom. The report echoed through the hills until eventually dying out. "DOWN!" shouted the Captain, and they all hit the deck where they were. Benin heard a screaming, the like of which she'd never heard before. It rose in crescendo like that of an air raid alarm in Madrid. But, unlike the siren, it kept getting louder and louder. She sensed something flashing over her head, then the ground heaved. Searing heat washed over her followed by the roar of showering stones flung at supersonic speeds. She dared to open her eyes and saw nothing but a swirling reddish dust. Someone tapped her boot, crawled beside her. "You hurt?" he said. "Don't know... don't think so," she told him. "Stay down," he said, "they come again... always do... three four... sometimes more.... one after another." Benin turned her head and saw the face of Captain de Castries, his face caked in rusty dust. It clung to his beard making him look like a 'Guadazil,' the clown that leads parades, supposedly the devil trying to lure the little children from God. "Stay," he commanded, his face inches from her own. Benin was temporarily deaf from the concussion of the bomb. She dared to look upwards at the plunging Stukas, crooked wings, fixed wheels, looking like demons from her childhood Catholic Hell. Nearby, as the wind blew away the dust, she saw a lone soldier standing in the open. He had a machine gun aiming skywards, puffs of smoke erupting from the muzzle. She couldn't hear a sound, it was surreal. The ground leapt under her body. She was aware only of the arm thrown over her like John had done as they dozed in their hotel room only a few weeks before. The Captain pressed down on her as he tried to shield her from the screaming shrapnel and the roaring stones. Benin felt the same searing wave of heat, the same blasting wind. "Captain?" she said, "de Castries?" She turned to his face in time to witness his last rattling breath, his sightless eyes. She rolled over onto her back. The blue empty sky was distorted through her tears. "HEY!" she yelled, "HEY! Load the gun... where's my fucking crew?" --------------------------------------- The 'Tchervoniya Ukrainiya' plowed on through the Gulf of Valencia. Admiral Gorshin had given orders to be roused when they were opposite the Ebro delta. It was 7 in the morning. The Admiral had the privilege of sleeping in. When he clambered up the ladder to the bridge, he saw Rhykov had beaten him to it. He was standing with a cluster of officers on the wing of the command bridge. "Hear that?" he said to the Admiral. Gorshin listened for a moment to the rumble of artillery. "Someone's getting a pounding," he said. "Couldn't we go in and give the Fascists a little taste of Russian steel?" said an Officer. "Tempting as it is, Lieutenant, we cannot, I'm afraid." "You don't believe in this 'Non-Intervention Treaty' bullshit, do you sir?" Gorshin looked at the speaker, a senior ship's officer he'd known for years. "Of course not," he shrugged, "but like it or not, I believe in orders and our betters in Moscow have decreed that we are not to interfere unless in defence of this ship. Do you see anyone firing on us?" "That could be arranged," muttered someone under his breath. "Listen! Comrades!" he said, "do you think I like this? But if you think I'm going to take the responsibility of starting a war between the Spanish and the Soviet Union... Besides," he considered, "how are we to know who we are shooting at? Who's going to target spot for us?" "I will!" a Junior Lieutenant volunteered. "No," he pondered, "too risky!" "The range is too great," suggested the Gunnery Officer. "There!" said Gorshin, "that's settled. We proceed to Barcelona to join the blockade... as ordered!" Later, Rhykov sought him out for a private conversation. "Sir," he said, "you wouldn't have opened fire on the Falangists, would you?" "Maybe not. But the crew are restless. There are Russians fighting for the Republic. It's not easy walking away when they're in trouble. They had to know it was impractical. It makes it easier to accept orders they don't like." "You cannot take this vessel to war without orders from Moscow! They must understand that!" "Moscow, Rhykov, is a great distance away from Spain. *You* must understand *that*!" -------------------------------------- © Katzmarek