...I Listened for the Firing Squad

Radio Record, 13 May 1938, Page 9

...I Listened for the Firing Squad

A young Wellington man, the son of a well-known city doctor, added last: year to-a remarkable career as film producer, scenarist, broadcaster and one-time apprentice to the Spanish bull-ring, the experience of fighting . for Franco on the Catalan front. The Catalans* captured’ him and condemned him to _death by shooting-"a .Fascist traitor’ and "tool of the Dictatorships." But, when dawn comes on the morning of one’s execution day, the face of Death seems the same to Bolshevik and Fascist alike. For . both are men, differing only in paltry political viewpoint. In this remarkable article written exclusively for the "Record," Franco’s soldier tells what it feels like to wait for the firing squad. ..., A "Record" Special

by

PHILIP

CROSS

YE stood huddled together for warmth, listening to the movements gf assembling troops outside. It was too dark to shoot as yet. And we knew that the "Reds" were busy counter-attacking in Russian style -led by Russians against Yague and his. forces of legionares and regulares. We were prisoners, sixteen of us, captured during the afternoon’s offensive. My head ached, my teeth chattered with cold and fear-although both feelings were so intense that one almost droye out the other. I had seen men die-hud seen men executed, had

tought, hot Dlood and excitement giving me cour age-but now, at night ip piteh black, cold darkness, dazed and sore fron: a shell burst, all my eour age Was gone, leaving only a desperate fear--fear of death in the ab stract and a more living, real fear-a nearer, closer fear-of being hurt. I thought of builets; how they ripped and tore, how small the bole where they entered, wl how enormous the hole where they came out!

To be shot standing in the half-light, trying to be grave and defiant, numb with cold, and the awful fear of coming bullets. ... They did it by machine-gun burst sometimes--often the man who fired aimed.too high, then another burst would come, lower this time--waist high-then the revolver shots at Close quarters to end it. . Que passa Felipe? ROBERTO NADA! Roberto sidled closer, bis voice high and cracked with emotion; he spoke. quickly in pure Castilian--his cradle teachings at the last moment svashed | out the assumed patois of the soldier and the camp. ‘He was an aristocrat, finely bred, intelligent, sensitive. and had the cold, desperate yalour. of the Castillian. We knew-as all his forbears did-how to die. For a little while we talked, the Moors and regulares with us were silent, or spoke softly to each other. They, like us, knew what was to come, . We knew that in a little while now--at onee almostwe would be led out. and shot. In the ¢old December dawn we'd be soon grotesquely limp, bloody and torn; then, in a few days, our stinking, swollen bodies would be hauled in

large graves dug by francos men as they advanced, defeating and driving back the "Reds," clearing the dead as they came. The two sentries outside were changed ; we heard them challenge each other. In cuttural Catalan they gave instructions. We saw a faint glint of light under the door. Then nothing. Thoughts raciny

madly through my fuddled head prompted laughter -- it suddenly seemed so funny that I, who had many times alone, on the _ golden sands of the bull-rings of the -South, played with death-invited .it. each time I sighted the bull, and at the last second evaded . death with the swirling folds of the scarlet cloth. ... Now I was a coward, frightened to die. "Que. tal rino’--softly.

Jacinto GuUerfrord SPpyure. I pressed ‘his hand laid on my arm; I could see -him smiling-I knew his face so well that. in the gloom. and blackness I felt the sight rather than saw it with my eyes. Ile, too, was. an "aristo,’" a scholar-thoughtful, . ever patient (unusual in a Spaniard), one of the new Spaniards. -the aristocrats-who thought of other things than. money. and themselves. He was older. than Roberto. and . Inearly forty. Yhe time dragg red one Always IL tried to.-see it it. got lighter. Vainly T hoped for reprieve; for. someone: to. help . me-someone to Jet me go, I found myself trying. to.listen for an English voice, some Englishman, authoritative and determined, who’ would, in crisp tones, order the door opened and my release. No one came. My thogghts.m went back to the day before. [FoR four duys we had been trying to capture Boadillithe "Reds" had defended it with.an unparallelled .bray-ery-beating back.our attacks. T bad, with Jacinto: and Roberto, driven an armoured car to.a strong farm we, had captured between Boadilla und Poguelo. There; with,; a detachment of (Continued on page 41.)

Waiting For The Firing ; Squad (Continued from Page 9.)

Moros, we bad defended it for 11 hour; against a counter-attack. Then Jacinto, "teyiente’ of Moros, had said that we must evacuite it and go further dow? .the road to another house. These houses,’ vld farms, with walls six or seven feet thick, were standing like sentinels among the red trenches which honeyeombed the district. We filed on to our car--a Buick-roughly armowed, three of us and five Moros, all thet remained of the little garrison. Out on the road wmid the harrag: from our own forces We felt more secure, felt we could dodge the Shells and machine-gun fire. We had a machinegun, too, and the crew to work it. I swung the car ont of the farm on to the road and down it--the crackling whine of machine-guns louder than the roar of the hard-pressed engine in low gear, Then, for a moment, oblivionthe erash and the light from the higt explosive came often. Jacinto, who had been lying on the footboard anc front wing, dragged Roberto over to ~ | where I lay, then, with the help of the one uninjured Moros, he dragged us ta the shelter of a wall. Dazed still, we gor up and tried to run from the Reds who covered us, The hazy details of the tightmarish hour that followed were but faintly imprintef on my mind. The draggirg. weary, stumbling journey (ied by the wrists tO an ammunition Jorry} into Boadilla --the chafed. raw wrists-the wrenched shoniders, as you fell and were dragged, The curt sentenee cf death at dawn. The cold, stifling fuz of the freezing gnrage, APY thoughts came pack with a jerk an ry to the moment, door was being. opened. I -heard anc sensed the file of waiting soldiers--I stumbled out with the others, Jacinto and Robert. and I in the lead, Moros behind with the other Regulares. We formed roughly into the gap left for us by the lines of. soldiers... No cords, no dragging lorry now. I swung my arms and got warm, but in a few hundred yards we had to bolt. The barrage was deafening, day was hreaking-the fifth day of the battle of Boadilla. We heard the hum of motors, the drone of neroplanes, then all of us crouching in the shadow of the wall, prisoners and guard, we saw them, three of them, saw the first bombers drop bombs over 3oudilla de Monte. For us they spelt reprieve. For the Reds they spelt defeat. We were marched a short way to the church, finng in with the others, and left wondering what was to be our fate. IIere, locked in this prison, guarded from the outside, we stayed. Dawn lightened into dayliznt, and, with the fullness of the morning the awe-full rain of leader death censed. Only sporadic bursty of firing rent the stillness. We foreed the door-the guards had fled, and there, rising like ghosts, tall and unearthly in the morning mists, was the firsr band of Moros who entered Boadilla, climbinz wearily out of the Red trenches, which for so long had withstood the battering of artillery and machine-gun, but which, in the faint morning light. had fallen to the bayonet and Spanish "nayaja’’-the knife.