On the Tracks of a Shadow

Carlos Usín

Copyright © 2018 Carlos Usín

All rights reserved.

Intellectual Property Register: M-000559/2021

Cover design: Marta Fernández García

Translator: Philip Walker

Dedication

To my father

Prologue

History is not about big battles or great names, it is not even written by the victors. They have, at most, the opportunity to try to twist it. History is written with the sum of the experiences of the anonymous people who lived it, who suffered it and of whom one almost never hears anything. This sum of experiences is what really makes us understand what happened and how it affected ordinary people, who are the majority.

A clear example is this book by Carlos who, in an effort to understand his almost unknown father a little better, discovered surprising things not only about his life but also about the civil war that Spain suffered. And I do mean suffered, because whoever wins, a war is always a collection of sorrows for the majority of its participants.

Sometimes, I used to watch amazed at how people kept trying to find out in which mass grave their ancestor was buried or discover a detail of what happened in some remote part of Spain. I always wondered if it wouldn’t be better to let sleeping dogs lie and move on. But, in the end, I have had to banish that selfish idea held by those who do not remember having lost anything. Who am I to judge how others deal with their grief, their suffering?

There were a great many injustices on both sides, much misery and much pain. The winners, obviously, had more and better opportunities to demonstrate how far some people’s depravity can go given the chance. But, in a conflict of this scale, there are opportunities for all sorts of sadness to come to light. Not just among those who by their nature were already miserable but also those whom circumstances, in this case almost always geographical, obliged to take part, even on the side they would not have chosen had they had the choice.

This is the story of Enrique Usín, Carlos’s father, who coming from a family close to the Falange¹ with ideas on the right and being brought up with those beliefs, finds himself obliged, through the mere fact that he lives in Madrid, a Republican zone, to enlist on the opposite side to the one he would have chosen had he been able to (and wanted to) and, although dedicating himself to medicine in the army and not to active combat, has to pay, and how, those who in theory could have been his allies. At least, ideologically. Under rules that the victors adjusted continually according to their needs and which they tried to portray as legitimate to the world at large, especially within Spain, Enrique has to endure a long journey of agony, flogged over and over again by the twists of fate.

This is a clear example of how in war there are neither winners nor losers. At least among ordinary people. And that real history resides in the lives of people like Enrique who suffered it and whose story can be told thanks to the perseverance of his son Carlos.

All that remains now is to accompany Enrique through what is also our own past.

Javier Salazar, author of “Ndura: Son of the Forest”.

Chosen as best young adult fiction novel of 2014 by the Spanish newspaper “El Economista”.

Acknowledgements

My sincerest thanks to the following organisations and institutions:

The General Military Archive of Segovia

The General Military Archive of Madrid

The General Military Archive of Ávila

The Spanish Ministry of Defence

The General and Historical Defence Archive in Madrid, for allowing me access in the reading room to the files on the emergency summary trial against Enrique.

All the above, one way or another, helped me at different times by providing the information requested or, in its absence, pointing me in the direction where perhaps I should keep looking and giving me appropriate contact details.

A special mention for Dª. Ana Rocasolano Díez of the Complutense University of Madrid who, against all my expectations, surprised me by sending me Enrique’s entire academic file by e-mail, conveniently scanned. It is worth saying that the information we are talking about dates from the 1930s and the aforementioned Ana Rocasolano responded within a month of my request.

This information was crucial to being able to understand and piece together many situations and details in the puzzle of Enrique’s life.

I would also like to make a special mention of the General Military Archive of Guadalajara. The provision of the requested information was crucial to being able to know, even if it was in fragments, Enrique’s vicissitudes and his troubles.

I would also like to make a very special mention of D. José Luis Hernández Luis, senior archivist at the Documentation Centre of Historical Memory, situated at number 2, calle (Street) Gibraltar, in Salamanca.

Without his help and selfless collaboration, it would not have been possible for a layman in the field like me to be able to tackle and make progress through the morass of archives and different sources in which the information I was looking for was spread. His guidance on where I could continue my investigations was key to not coming to a dead end on more than one occasion.

Likewise, I want to include in this section a very special person who was also key when it came to disentangling many of the apparent contradictions in Enrique’s life. This person is “MENCEY”, the alias of an unknown member of the “Gran Capitán” (“Great Captain”) forum whose interventions in aid of my questions could constitute a real masterclass in history with a wealth of facts, examples, names and specific dates. Not only did they reply to my questions but it was a joy to read them for their ability to teach, summarise and explain, as well as for their deep knowledge of the Spanish Civil War.

Contents

1.      The box

2.      The challenge

3.      Mobilised

4.      Fate

5.      Promotion to lieutenant

6.      The end of the beginning

7.      The war ends. The repression begins.

8.      The summary trial

9.      The Via Crucis Begins

10.      The false happy ending

Epilogue

The box

The doorbell surprised him, as it always did. He was not expecting visitors at that time of day and he certainly did not expect to receive any parcels that he had not ordered. Marina had not mentioned anything arriving by courier either.

At first, he feared the worst. Several possibilities crossed his mind. First place was occupied by those bastards from the tax office. The next candidates were the Madrid city hall and the traffic department. All cut from the same cloth. Doomsayers, bloodsuckers at the end of the day, whom you only heard from to receive disastrous news that generally ended up with a raid on your bank account. And all of it legal, which made it hurt all the more.

When he opened the door, the courier greeted him almost like a friend and enquired, “Mr Carlos Usín, isn’t it?”

“Yes.”

“Show me your ID again and sign here please,” he said while Carlos tried to make a scrawl on the electronic device he gave him.

So surprised was he to receive the large parcel that he looked and checked the address in case it was a mistake. The courier, a kind and friendly man he recognised from his many visits to his home, asked him intrigued, “Is there a problem, sir?”

“No. It’s just that I’m surprised and I was checking the details are right.”

“There’s no doubt. It says here Mr Carlos Usín. That’s you, isn’t it?”

“Yes. What I don’t know is what is inside, nor who has sent it to me.”

“You’ll find out soon enough. As soon as you open it,” said the man with a broad smile as he said goodbye. “See you soon.”

“See you soon. Have a good day.”

The parcel was a considerable size. More than a shoe box, Carlos thought that in his day it would have been used to keep a pair of boots in. Anyway, it came thoroughly sealed up and it was quite heavy.

He began undoing the parcel – or rather, destroying it – and setting about trying to discover what was inside and who had sent it. The latter continued to be a mystery although the contents of the box themselves plunged him even further into a state of deep unease.

Photos. Photos and documents. Jumbled up, decades old, as witnessed by the faded state of some of the pictures and the dust that covered most of them, as though they had been forgotten for a century, perhaps hidden, tucked away somewhere and had emerged, as if by magic (or maybe during a house move), destined for his flat.

Black and white photos with jagged edges, some of them with writing on the back indicating dates, places and occasionally the names of the people who appeared in them. Notes made in an unmistakeably female handwriting style. He recognised his mother’s handwriting immediately, so identical to that of his two sisters - all of them dead now – that it would pose a challenge to an expert calligraphist to distinguish one from the others.

In the photos he recognised a man who seemed older because of his receding hairline but who could not have been more than about twenty, dressed in a Republican uniform with medical insignia. His father.

He remembered seeing some of these photos as a child. He recognised a young, slim, smiling woman, brunette with dark eyes. The same woman who lost all that – especially her smile – the day Carlos became an orphan and she was widowed.

He recognised his father, before and after the surgical operation that involved the removal of a tumour weighing over three kilos from the rectus femoris in his left leg resulting in the use of a prothesis. Ghosts of the past that for some strange reason had ended up in his hands.

Documents that had suffered from the passage of time and that contained information unknown to him and the confirmation of some stories Carlos had heard talk of as a child.

He recognised the people presented there. But he was also conscious that he did not know them. Yes, they were his parents, his uncles and aunts, but in reality he did not know them. He did not know how they had been affected by everything that formed part of their history. There had never been a good moment to talk about their feelings about the war, who their friends were, who became an enemy or who turned traitor. There had never been a good moment for them to tell him the story, part of which belonged to him.

It was all one big puzzle without any sort of order other than the dates on the documents, the photocopies of which – some of them – had been made half-heartedly since their content was barely visible. In other cases, the text was even more illegible because it had been written by hand by someone for whom writing was not, shall we say, their strong suit.

There, in his hands – though he did not know to whom or what he owed it – he had his parents’ lives. Or at least, partly. He had to sort out that muddle of documents, photos, handwritten notes and memories.

He also recognised in the photos a little boy who always had a ball. Playing on the esplanade in front of Madrid’s Almudena cathedral, for so many years waiting to be finished. Or in the Casa de Campo park, at a typical picnic with a Seat 600 car, some potato omelette and a checked blanket on the ground as a makeshift tablecloth. Or sat around the tablecloth, in the Boca del Asno recreational area in the mountains near Madrid, a place the family often escaped to on Sundays seeking refuge from the heat of the capital in summer. Or playing in the Vistillas gardens next to an elderly lady, his grandmother. And in Foz, at the beach, where his skills as a budding footballer brought out all the nearby holidaymakers to see him play at four or five years old, ‘partnered’ by the then coach of Lugo Football Club.

It was then that the penny dropped that, in reality, his parents were strangers to him. It was then that he became aware that he did not have the slightest idea of how, where or when they had met. What was their courtship like, or their engagement party (if indeed there was one) or their wedding ceremony? It was then that he wondered where his father had been born. Because his death, he remembered very well.

Opening the box full of memories he discovered that inside, hidden among the pieces of the puzzle, part of his own past was also hidden, spread among dozens of photos without dates on the back or the names of the places where they were taken, mostly in black and white but also some in colour, faded by the passage of time.

When he took the lid off the box he discovered there was a part of his life he had not been told about, either as a precaution, for the sake of discretion or to keep a young child away from matters that one day would hit him suddenly, as though he were knocked sideways by a tsunami.

Such was the impact on him of receiving all this that finding out who the sender was ceased to hold any interest for him. He probably shared with the anonymous courier his interest in finding out what the contents of the box were, not who had been the temporary possessor of these fragments of life.

He had a challenge ahead of him. To discover the untold story of the man who was his father. This stranger, always cheerful and cracking jokes, whom cancer – in its metastatic stage and after more than nine surgical operations in a year and a half – claimed when Carlos was eight years old.

In the absence of any other starting point, he began by trying to put the material he had received from the anonymous sender in chronological order. Later, he would see how he would manage to reconstruct the life of a human being who had passed away over fifty years previously. He would have to confirm many facts, many details. He had in front of him months, perhaps years of research, of collating information and of contrasting what he thought he knew with what reality showed him. He was facing an arduous task, harder emotionally than physically.

Each photo he looked at, each document he held in his hands, stirred up dozens of unknowns for him. Questions piled up one on top of the other in his mind in the same untidy manner the box and its contents were in when they arrived. That was how at that moment he took the decision to unpick bit by bit, without rushing, all the issues that he had stored in the depths of his memory. That was how he started to partially reconstruct his father’s life. A life so much the same and yet so different from so many others that had to suffer the same or similar hardships.

The challenge

When Marina, arriving home from work, came through the door, she found Carlos completely surrounded by papers, photos and documents, laid out on the glass table opposite the sofa, supposedly in some sort of order.

“What’s all this?” she asked, naturally intrigued by such a display.

Carlos tried to summarise briefly what had happened that morning while she had been out, working for a client. The facts were much simpler to explain than the feelings the episode had awoken in him. He was still reeling from the emotional shock, both from the surprise of receiving the parcel and, especially, from its contents. If he had been told that as a baby he had been found under a gypsy trailer and that his parents were Romanies, he would not have been more surprised.

“And who sent it to you? Were you expecting anything?” asked Marina who was also rather intrigued by the mysterious sender.

“Well, to be honest I’m not sure. I think it could be my cousin Justo, the eldest of all us cousins.”

“Why did he send it to you? Did you ask him to?”

“No. At least, not exactly. Last time we spoke, which was quite a while ago, if I remember rightly I asked him something about the war, about his father – my uncle – and my father. I don’t recall exactly what we were talking about or how the subject came up. And when he said something along the lines of ‘I think I’ve got something about that at home because my father mentioned it at some point’, to be honest I didn’t think much of it. I didn’t ask him for it but by the look of things he remembered and sent it to me. Or maybe it’s because it was taking up space in a cupboard and he wanted to get rid of it. Whatever the reason, I am grateful to him.”

“And what are you going to do with it all?” asked Marina, who was starting to worry about where Carlos intended to keep the dusty pile of papers.

“Well, first I am going to look through the entire contents and then I’ll see what I do.”

“But you’re not going to leave it all on top of that table, are you?” Carlos knew where the questioning was going.

“No my love, my darling, my treasure, my world, my sweetheart, my reason for living. Don’t worry, I’m not going to leave it there. Don’t stress. How about a beer to celebrate the fact it’s Friday?”

“Yes,” she replied, persuaded. “A beer would be perfect.”

While they were having their Friday aperitif and preparing lunch, they talked about the topic of the day. Carlos still did not know whether the papers were going straight to the junk room in the same way they had spent decades in another junk room, forgotten or hidden. What he did know was that the whole thing intrigued him.

“Do you know,” he said to Marina, “I have confirmed some facts that I heard talk of when I was a boy but I never knew, until today, whether they were rumours or actual facts. For example, my father enrolled in medical school at the age of sixteen and by twenty, if it had not been for the war, he would have been in the fourth year of his medical degree.”

“He started at sixteen?” she asked, astonished.

“Surprising, isn’t it? But I have the certificate that proves it.”

“But he wasn’t a doctor, was he?” asked Marina.

“No. I imagine the war scuppered his dreams.”

“But after the war, didn’t he carry on studying? He was still young,” ventured Marina.

“Perhaps that is one of the facts that might be hidden in this heap of documents. Or maybe it’s down to me to investigate.

“Another striking piece of information,” Carlos continued, “is that he enlisted in the army four days after turning twenty. Can you imagine how it must feel for a young lad of twenty to be forced to go to war?”

“My father was there too, but of course he was in the engineering corps. He did a degree in medicine to please his father, even though he couldn’t stand blood. What he really liked was engineering. That’s why, when he finished his medical degree, in the end he joined the army which was the only place where there was money for investment. He spent the war designing and building bridges. Afterwards, he carried on with his own inventions.”

“It must have been even more awful than we have been told. And so far all I have done is blow the dust off a few things. Let’s see what I come across.”

“You seem enthralled by the parcel.”

“Yes. It is really piquing my curiosity. I have always liked history but if it’s my father’s history as well, that’s even more interesting, of course.”

After lunch, while they were chatting over a cup of coffee, Carlos showed some of the documents to Marina who tried not to touch them too much given the amount of dust and dirt most of them had accumulated.

“Is this your father?” Marina asked, holding a photo in her hands of a young man in a Republican uniform.

“Yes.”

“You look just like him. You’ve got a real challenge ahead of you,” continued Marina.

He looked at her a little disconcerted by the suggestion.

“You have the chance to know your father better. Maybe this is destiny calling. Things happen for a reason.”

Carlos thought for a few moments, reflecting on what Marina had just proposed. He weighed up whether he would be able or have the courage to tackle an unknown task, with the risk of perhaps finding something he did not like.

“Well, that’s true. You’re right,” he said. “I will try to find out everything I can that isn’t in this box. Whether it is the work of destiny or not.”

Mobilised

That late October Saturday in Madrid was perfect for a walk around the Recoletos district or the wide Velázquez and Castellana boulevards to enjoy the warm daytime temperature. It was what Enrique, like any youngster who had just turned twenty a few days beforehand, fancied doing and it was natural. That or playing a game of football with his brothers Justo, José Luís and in goal, the youngest of them all, Rafael.

However, despite the pleasant weather, the atmosphere on the street was very different and had been especially so for a few days. A storm of biblical proportions loomed over Enrique and the worst thing is that, although he had an inkling, nobody would have been able to predict what would happen later.

For starters, he had not been able to register as he intended for the fourth year of his medical degree. In fact, the university was closed for teaching. And all because some soldiers stationed in Africa, under the command of a general whom nobody had heard of, had launched a coup d’état a few months previously.

What was later known as the civil war and until then was ‘an uprising of some military personnel’ gradually started affecting the capital. First came the bombing that took place on the city’s outskirts at the end of the previous month of August. Yet although the authorities gave the public instructions on action to take for its protection and signposted shelters for use in similar situations, it was clear that the rhythm of life in Madrid seemed not to be unduly affected. Businesses, shops, bars and cafés, even cinemas and theatres, all carried on their activity as though nothing were happening².

However, the new situation did affect - and significantly – certain aspects of daily life, some of which would be difficult to understand nowadays. For example, the style of dress. Ever since the military uprising happened and political positions had become polarised in cities like Madrid, which remained loyal to the legitimate Republican government, a more ‘proletarian’ and less ‘toffish’ style of clothing had begun to be obligatory. Ties, suits and hats – both men’s and women’s – started to disappear in an effort to portray a more working class image, while if you could complete your attire with canvas shoes or something similar, it was looked on more favourably than wearing polished shoes. Being a university student did not seem like good advice either.

Nevertheless, at the same time there was something of an air of indifference, an offhand attitude or even pure bravado with respect to what was happening. This despite the fact that almost from the beginning the supply of essential foodstuffs began to experience disruption.

Perhaps it was because of that ‘indifference’, real or feigned, or because the government did understand what was coming, that the recently appointed prime minister, Largo Caballero, took a series of measures designed to prevent the capital falling into the rebels’ hands and, as a result, the war being lost in six months. This was not for nothing as the so-called Nationalist army was, at the time, barely fifteen kilometres from Madrid and the capital city’s capitulation was taken as a given. That is why the prime minister decided to take the bull by the horns and launched a whole process of general mobilisation which affected all men between the ages of eighteen and forty-five.

Enrique was as keen on enlisting in the war as he was on shooting his own foot, something which by the way was quite common among the more cowardly who attempted with a shot – to their hand, though, not their foot – to get out of the war, though on occasions what they found was a firing squad. But Enrique did not have many options. In fact, according to the mobilisation order, he had none. The university was closed. Sooner or later, he would be called up because of his age and it was much more sensible to ‘volunteer’³ than to have them call at your house to find you.

With his characteristic positive spirit, he tried to see the benefits of joining a war: he would acquire medical knowledge on the ground that he would never otherwise have the opportunity to learn and afterwards – these were his plans – when the madness was over, his knowledge would help him to complete his studies and practise his passion: medicine.

On the other hand, for a week the atmosphere in Madrid had been tenser and this found its echo in the press. In one week, life in Madrid had gone from plain sailing to being on a war footing. The loud messages on posters, the launch of pamphlets, rallies, slogans shouted over loudspeakers and its leaders’ specific orders all encouraged – or rather, obliged - one to enlist immediately and fight. The prime minister, Largo Caballero, had entrusted this agitation task to the Fifth Regiment of Popular Militia and to its political commissioner, the recently appointed figure of Vittorio Vidali. A forceful man who expressed himself emphatically in uncompromising and rather threatening terms⁴:

“It’s about winning the war. It’s about saving Madrid. It’s about victory or defeat. Whoever opposes this, whoever makes it difficult, whoever is indifferent, whoever is pessimistic, whoever doubts, whoever hesitates, whoever engages in sabotage is a traitor and must be treated as such.

“To defend Madrid it is necessary to punish, severely and publicly, hoaxers, cowards, pessimists, those that spread panic. It is necessary to create a war mentality. To put an end to frivolity. May our joy be enthusiasm, seriousness, the spirit of sacrifice.”

This is the context that left Enrique with few options. Besides, his youth and his eternal optimism told him that this stupid war was going to end soon and everything would go back to normal. And whoever won, as he was not going to fire a single shot, nobody would be able to accuse him of anything other than saving lives. What naïveté.

Days before, on the very day of his twentieth birthday, he was talking about it with his parents during the small family celebration.

The Usín-Rodríguez family lived modestly on the mezzanine floor of a building in Madrid’s calle (Street) Velázquez. An interior flat whose windows – and not all of them – looked out onto an inner courtyard.

As was logical Justo, Enrique’s father, did not like one bit the idea of his son joining the mobilisation. Just as he did not like the idea that Spain found itself immersed in an armed conflict because of a few rebel soldiers. Although, to be honest, the violent atmosphere on both sides had been increasing for years with no end in sight. At the end of the day, the population had been mentally prepared for some time to think that war was ‘inevitable’ or almost.

Don Justo Usín Amurrio was from Casalareina in the La Rioja region of Spain, about fifty years old, not very tall and somewhat obese, which was probably the cause of the diabetes he suffered from. Of upstanding stock (he was the son of a civil guard) and a practising Catholic, he had ensured his children were educated by the Piarists. His position as Head of Advertising at the ABC newspaper, based in the capital, and his offspring’s abilities, had contributed to them receiving an education that, for the era, was almost elite. In fact Enrique, the second of his four children, started at medical school at the age of sixteen at a time when only 1% of society could boast of higher education.

Josefina Rodríguez, the mother of the family, was a slight woman with aquiline features, born in Orio in the province of Guipúzcoa. She had a typically Basque character although curiously her parents were both from Madrid. She was serious, determined and had a strong personality. Despite her small stature, she imposed discipline in the household as though she were a sergeant in the army. In the end, it was that mettle and determination that contributed in large measure to holding the family together when a year later, in 1937, she was widowed with four children, two of them in a civil war, one in Madrid (Enrique) and the eldest, Justo, posted to Valencia while the third, José Luís, had had an accident in the army workshop where he worked which almost sent him to meet his maker. For some reason, the engine he was working on exploded and he suffered burns, mainly to his legs.

It was at the table at lunchtime when Enrique and his older brother, Justo, dropped the bombshell which was no less painful for being anticipated. The occasion was anything other than the celebration of a birthday.

“Next Saturday I have to report to Recruiting Office number 2,” Enrique blurted out without preamble.

After a few seconds of heavy silence while his mother and father exchanged looks, the latter spoke, as was his duty as head of the family.

“I see you have already made your decision, son,” he said gloomily.

“It’s not exactly my decision, father. A few days ago the government issued a general mobilisation order. And it doesn’t make much sense for me to wait a year until they call me up. After all, what’s the point? Why would I wait a year? What would I do for that year if I can’t even study at the university? At least this way, hopefully I’ll be able to gain great practical experience that will be useful to me later on, when all this is over, to help me be a better doctor.”

“I have to enlist as well,” said Justo, the eldest brother, making sure the party was well and truly spoilt.

While the pride and grit of a good Basque mother prevented Doña Josefina shedding a single tear in front of her children, the father held his head in his hands, cognisant of what would take place before long. Tragedy had made its appearance, without prior warning, at what was meant to be a cheerful birthday celebration in the midst of a civil war. At least – thought the father to himself – the two brothers are on the same side, not like other cases he knew of.

At that moment the patriarch stood up, visibly affected by everything that was happening. On the point of letting himself go and breaking down in tears, he contained himself, picked up his glass and filled it with a little of the wine he was not allowed to have but that the rest were drinking and invited everyone to stand for a toast.

“I don’t give a shit who wins this wretched and stupid war. We will probably all lose it. I only ask God to return my sons and all my loved ones to me alive. May He protect you wherever fate sends you and be faithful to what I have taught you.”

“Amen,” said Enrique.

“Let’s hope so, father,” added his brother Justo.

They all drank and finished their glasses.

Little did they know that just a year later their father would not be with them as a consequence of his diabetes.

Then they all sat down again and that was when the mother could no longer contain the immense anguish inside her. The infinite fear that she felt for the immediate future. There are some things even a Basque mother is unable to bear, however strong she may be. She started to sob as never before, in total desperation. They all melted into a long and warm embrace.

Fate

Madrid’s Recruiting Office number 2, which was the one assigned to them as residents of the calle (Street) Velázquez, was located at number 2, calle Ramón y Cajal. It was there that Justo (aged 22) and Enrique (aged 20) headed on foot on Saturday 24th October 1936 to plunge headlong into a civil war that almost everyone speculated would not last long. Like all such wars.

As they progressed towards their immediate destination they were aware of a certain state of euphoria, no doubt fruit of the messages, slogans, appeals, flyers and other paraphernalia which was aimed precisely at rousing the spirits of the mobilised men.

The sort of blind fanaticism and ignorant joy they saw in others contrasted with the seriousness the two brothers felt, conscious of what was coming their way.

“Good grief!” exclaimed Justo. “Anyone would think we were going to a jamboree!”

“Are you sure it’s here, Justo?” asked Enrique, somewhat incredulous at the commotion going on around him. “Do you think these people have actually understood what they are getting into?”

“I think all this lot,” he said indicating with his head the crowds that surrounded them, “are morons who haven’t got a fucking clue. Come on and get in the queue.”

While they waited their turn for they were not quite sure what, they had time to eavesdrop on the conversations taking place around them.

“At last we’re going to give the fascists what they deserve!” exclaimed a man clearly spoiling for a fight and who, judging by his clothing, was probably a workman and judging by the way he spoke, was illiterate.

“That’s right! Let’s finish them off once and for all!” yelled another man with similar clothing and demeanour.

“Long live the Republic!” shouted someone nearby, swiftly echoed by those around him.

Enrique and Justo watched, almost speechless at the degree of stupidity human beings could reach. There were hundreds, thousands of people there, all convinced that the Republican army would quickly finish off the insurgents, settle the score with the fascists and bring peace and glory. But something in their heads – perhaps their superior academic education and their better general knowledge – caused them both to doubt it. They were there to get involved in the war and so on; it was not a game.

After a couple of hours or so, it was finally their turn. They were grouped in blocks of six people at a time to be attended to at the six tables that had been set out for such a great event. They were lucky and both went forward in the same turn, each of them going to a separate table, next to each other.

“Name,” demanded the non-commissioned officer (NCO) on the other side of the table in a military tone.

“Enrique Usín Rodríguez.”

“Can you read and write?”

“I study at the University Medical School.”

The NCO looked at him, half-surprised and half-annoyed. ‘Another toff,’ he thought to himself.

“In that case you’re enlisting in the medical corps then?”

“Yes.”

“Well, you are now a second lieutenant. A second lieutenant in the medical corps. Have you brought a photo?”

“Yes. Here you are,” said Enrique, handing over a photograph for his military identity card. “What do I have to do now?”

“You have to report to the Docks5 barracks. They will give you orders there.”

“Where are the barracks?”

“Do you know where the Daoiz and Velarde barracks are, in the calle Pacífico, Vallecas district?”

“No, but I’ll find out. When do I have to be there?”

“Tomorrow at nine o’clock in the morning.”

The next morning, they had to be up at the crack of dawn to arrive at the appointed hour. Although perhaps from that day on, sleeping would be considered a luxury. In any case, Justo and Enrique, punctual as a Swiss watch, were at the appointed place at the stipulated time. At first, they found it slightly difficult to work out where the barracks were but in the end, between the directions they were given and the tide of men all going in the same direction, they followed like sheep in a flock, hoping that where they were going was not a slaughterhouse.

As they arrived, they were put into lines and directed to an enormous building that held the thousands of people who had congregated there to await instructions. The basic procedure consisted of answering a series of elementary questions, such as whether you could read and write, date and place of birth, height, shoe size, weight, current address and other particulars.

Then they were made to undergo a sort of medical examination in which some of them pretended to have conditions that would supposedly invalidate their mobilisation. Pretending not to be able to see properly or faking some kind of lameness were the most common gambits. The soldiers stationed there were especially harsh on ‘cowards’ of this sort and often gave the ‘clever Dicks’ the most dangerous postings, probably in deference to the old saying that ‘he who does not want broth shall have a bowl and a half’.

The misnamed medical examination was limited to a quick auscultation for thirty seconds as each individual stopped in front of the supposed doctor who, perched on a tall stool, studied the men and attempted to discern which ones might have lice, tuberculosis, syphilis or any other infectious disease, which undoubtedly would be far more dangerous than sending a farm labourer or an illiterate bricklayer with no experience of battle to the front. At the front one might die, whereas more might die from infectious diseases both at the front and in the rearguard.

After this cursory medical analysis and moving to the queue for those considered ‘suitable’, the men proceeded with another questionnaire more in keeping with the individuals’ real health profiles. For this, they were left practically naked while they were asked about illnesses there had been in their families, their hygiene habits, the type of food they ate and some more or less admittable vices like, for example, whether they visited prostitutes, from which area and how often. Once the recruits had successfully passed the whole battery of tests and questionnaires they were administered several injections, some of which caused a certain allergic reaction which normally passed after a couple of days.

After receiving their shots, they went to the penultimate desk where they were handed the document confirming the posting they had to report to forty-eight hours later, to allow time for any possible reactions to the vaccines with which they had been injected to pass. At the point the said document was handed over each individual had to sign it or, if they were unable to do so, mark it with a fingerprint.

Enrique, taking the initiative, asked the non-commissioned officer, “I’m going to the medical corps and since last year I have been practising at the Madrid Provincial Hospital. Would it be possible for me to carry on in the same place?”

The soldier looked at him surprised both by the initiative, which was not the norm, and by the experience itself of practising medicine for a year and a half at the age of just twenty. He consulted the papers he was holding – the same ones that each recruit had dragged around that kind of via crucis – and confirmed the above-mentioned Enrique Usín was indeed a student of medicine and that, were it not for the war, he would have been registered for the fourth year of his medical degree.

“Wait here a moment,” he replied and headed towards his superior to seek instructions.

The officer he consulted seemed to hold the rank of major, as far as Enrique could deduce from his insignia. The man listened carefully to the NCO’s explanation of Enrique’s request. After a few brief moments the two of them returned to the place where Enrique was still waiting.

“You say you want to be assigned to the Provincial Hospital?” queried the officer.

“Yes, sir. If that is possible, of course.”

“Who do you work with?” he asked to see if it was true or a stratagem.

“Doctor Tomás Rodríguez de Mata⁶.”

The major looked at him for a few moments to see whether Enrique gave himself away by wavering.

“I know him. He’s a great doctor.