Free A Broken Land by Jack Ludlow Page A

rooftops; without both training and Spanish they were as likely to be shot by their friends as their enemies. They had carried up a sack full of dynamite, sticks that, once fused, had been kept in a cool cellar to avoid them sweating their nitroglycerine. They were being kept in the shade on the roofs for the same reason, for the sun would soon be full up and handling such unstable objects was fraught with risk.
    From such a vantage point Cal had a panoramic view of the military stupidity unfolding before him, and it was on both sides. The workers’ militias, at a rush, emerged far too quickly, attacking the marching column with neither order nor fear, bringing them to a halt certainly, before they were forced to fall back from a badly coordinated fusillade, which nevertheless left the plaza dotted with bodies, some writhing, most still.
    The infantry then began to manoeuvre, with no shortage of confusion, from column to line, fixing bayonets for an attack, every shouted order floating up in the warm air. Cal was shaking his head in disbelief. Surely, even the most dense military brain must first look to secure the integrity of the plaza.
    It was essential to observe the high surrounding buildings and assume the rooftops would have riflemen, the answer to take them first while holding off the ground assault. With the advantage gained, the soldiers would be able to enfilade the area and seriously disrupt any further attacks from the workers’ militias.
    Like most spacious plazas it had, leading off it, a number of streets, some wide and sunlit, others narrow and dark. Strong parties should have been detached to secure those and close them off to guarantee the integrity of the position before any advance, making sure the flanks were secure by sealing off all the exits except the one by which they wished to move towards the city centre! Failing that, they should have at least set up machine guns or mortars to turn every avenue and alleyway into a potential death trap for any forces concentrated there who might try to get behind them.
    ‘Not too good,’ Vince whispered in Cal’s ear as they observed the endless attempts of the Spanish NCOs to properly dress the untidy line. ‘I don’t think we’re going to see Trooping the Colour, guv.’
    ‘It’s a mess, Vince, but have a gander at the bloke in command.’
    Cal passed over the binoculars and watched as Vince focused in on the fat sod he had indicated, sat on his charger, huffing and puffing in frustration, his sword twitching as though he was dying to run through one of his own men as an example. Red-faced and with bulbous eyes, he reminded Cal Jardine of the military donkeys he had met too often in the British army, aged majors and colonels full of grub and port, erroneously too sure of their own military genius to be left in charge of a pisspot, never mind a company or regiment.
    Their sole function in life, when not making the life of their juniors a misery, seemed set on blocking any chance of promotion for anyone with half an unaddled brain. He had often said that his leaving of the army was due to such idiots and there was some truth in the level of frustration he had felt, but the final straw that had him sending in his papers had been the indiscriminate bombing of Iraqi villages and the killing of women and children under the banner of putting down an Arab insurrection.
    He had been part of an army with tanks, trucks and artillery, plus a vast advantage in firepower, facing committed insurgents with rifles, and still they could not prevail, for their enemies had possessed a willingness to die for that in which they believed. The Arabs felt betrayed by a combination of powers, French and British, who had promised them full self-determination when seeking their aid in throwing off their Turkish overlords, only to find they had a new oppressor when the Great War guns fell silent.
    The excuses to mask what was naked greed were not long in coming. The locals were no