Free The Communist's Daughter by Dennis Bock

side of the bridge. Calebras sat in the back seat, beside the packed blood. It was a cold day, bright, with few clouds in the sharp sky. The river was shallow at this point, only a foot or two at its deepest, but the bank was so broad and muddy that it would prove next to impossible to cross in our vehicle if the bridge were to suffer damage. We watched him walk upstream along the bank. I turned to my notebook and jotted down the travel time from Madrid. This information would prove critical for future operations along the front line. I hollered over to Sorensen that he should get the bridge from the west, as well. He walked downriver and another twenty-five yards beyond the bridge, took the shot, then started back, found a path and came up onto the road.

    â€œWe don’t need this, Beth,” he said. “I think you should talk to Calebras.”

    I smiled, then rapped the hood with my knuckles. “Leave it alone. Get in.”

    We drove through Alcalá de Henares, stopping to assess the condition of the bridge leading out to the Guadalajara road. On the open road we made good time, averaging sixty miles per hour. Calebras sat in the back silently watching the view, bouncing with the packed blood. The road was still in excellent shape. It was paved, very unlike the irregular Burgos road, but there were plenty of bumps he could feel back there. Kajsa looked splendid sitting between me and Sorensen. Sorensen was a very serious man at the wheel and didn’t once take his eyes off the road. The Leica sat on the dash. The flat landscape rolled by. Some stone outbuildings, not much more than shacks, could be seen now and again, but very little else on these lovely, unbroken plains. A Spanish farmer did not live on or own the land he farmed but arrived to it as a factory worker might. He worked it but received no profit from it, only subsistence, and in effect was an indentured slave. You could drive for hours through groves of olive or corn or wheat fields and see not a single farmhouse, only stone fences or outbuildings where someone kept his tools. This was a system as old as time.

    Fifty miles north, the Guadarrama range was capped by late-winter snows. Soon we came upon a slow-moving convoy of gasoline trucks, supply wagons and carts pulled by automobiles and donkeys. Sorensen was forced to drive on the shoulder of the road. Shortly after that we saw a long line of transport trucks loaded with Republican soldiers, their bayonets fixed, staring off to those same, unchanging mountains. A significant mobilization seemed to be in progress. I counted fifteen personnel transports, and each one cheered us as we sped past. Blow the horn, I told Sorensen, let them know we’re here. As we passed we heard various languages as the International Brigades called to us. Their shouts grew more enthusiastic when Kajsa leaned over my lap and out the window. I held her by the belt. When we heard German, and saw these men’s helmets, I knew they were the shock troops of the Thaelmann Battalion, Socialists, Communists and anarchists who’d escaped their own country to fight against Fascism here in Spain. The men waved and thrust their weapons in the air and hollered and blew kisses at Kajsa.

    â€œHow wonderful!” she cried, tucking her head back in the compartment, the rapturous curl in her bangs leaping in the wind. “Oh, those boys are marvellous, aren’t they? Each and every one of them. It’s impossible to lose. Say it, Calebras, your country can’t lose when all the world is here! Germans, Poles, Yugoslavs!”

    â€œEven a Swede!” I said.

    He nodded and smiled thinly at her with an evident disgust that I couldn’t understand. Minutes later there appeared a large cloud of dust on the horizon. This was the reason for the troops’ enthusiasm and confidence. As we approached from behind we saw the column, still unsure as to what it was we were witnessing, and the first of a